It’s that time of year again. The biggest week of the yearly wrestling calendar is here as WWE host WrestleMania 42. Emanating again from the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, as is tradition now, the 13 match card (note: this is being written before the go-home Smackdown so a 14th match could in theory be added) is set to take place over two nights. In my previous article, we covered Night One, so now it’s time to discuss the 6 remaining matches set to take place over night two.
As with the first night, the first hour of night two will be broadcasted on ESPN2 for no additional cost, so people will be treated to two matches as a preview/tease of what to expect for the show to come. One of these is the match, that for many is the most hyped match on the card which will see Brock Lesnar square off with Oba Femi. The Ruler has had a meteoric rise on the Main Roster since he moved up at the Royal Rumble. In only 2 and a half months, Oba Femi has already become a fan favourite with crowds always quick to imitate his already iconic strut to the ring, and serenade him to the ring with loud chants which completes the vibe that whoever is unfortunate enough to be in the ring watching him approach is about to suffer. Even Brock Lesnar, who if you know WWE you know how much of a dominating threat Brock Lesnar has been for a long time, after all it was him who ended the WrestleMania streak of The Undertaker. Yet surprisingly, Brock has more often than not in the lead up been evenly matched with, if not outclassed by Oba Femi. So if he can topple the Beast Incarnate on the Biggest Stage just 3 months into his career, the sky is the limit for Oba Femi.
The other match that will be aired in the first hour is a 6 Man Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Championship. Where Penta will be defending his title against Rusev, JD McDonough, Dragon Lee, Rey Mysterio & Je’Von Evans. Who, a fun fact to demonstrate the passage of time, when Rey Mysterio competed in his first WrestleMania, challenging Matt Hardy for the Cruiserweight Championship at WrestleMania 19, Je’Von Evans wasn’t even born yet. Of course prior to it getting it’s own event, the Money in the Bank Ladder match happened at WrestleMania, and multi-man matches have often been seen as a sort of unofficial tradition at WrestleMania, and a multi-man ladder match is always some chaotic fun, so especially to try and grasp an audience to get their wallets out for the remainder of the night, A multi-man ladder match with so many great talents is a solid choice to go with.
Also on the card, Jade Cargill will be defending her Women’s Championship against Rhea Ripley. I’m sure I don’t need to go into too much detail to share just how much of a dominant force Rhea Ripley has been in the main roster for over 5 years now. And even just a month ago you’d have thought she’d be defending the Women’s Tag Titles at WrestleMania alongside Iyo Sky. However as things have worked out she has a collision course set with Jade Cargill, who in recent times has been a menace to the Smackdown Roster, especially now having recruited Michin & B-Fab to her side. When it was first announced that Cargill had walked through the Forbidden Door and jumped from AEW to WWE, an inevitable match with Rhea Ripley was one of many dream matches people were fantasy booking so it’s a pleasure to finally get to see these two dominant forces clash.
For the US Championship, Sami Zayn will be defending the title he only a few weeks ago won from Carmelo Hayes against Trick Williams. Similar to Oba Femi, Trick has had his own meteoric rise in the main roster since he debuted on Smackdown at the start of the year. In some ways he has had an ever better debut than Oba Femi, as not even one month into his main roster career, he was already part of a Fatal Four Way match to earn a shot at the WWE Championship (which was won by Sami Zayn). Sami’s gone through some struggles lately with his own morality and grappling with the fact that prior to becoming US Champion, he would have not made it to WrestleMania. And it does seem to be getting to Sami as he recently took advantage of an injured Carmelo Hayes to retain the US title and he’s actively addressed criticism of him yet seems slightly delusional as he has no idea why people are critical of some of his recent decisions.
Dominik Mysterio is also in action, and in a very precarious position at that. The Judgement Day has been on the brink of falling apart for what feels like years. In recent time a lot of the strongest tension has been coming from Finn Balor. And recently that proved too much as Dominik Mysterio assaulted Balor and formally ejected him from the group. Doing this has awoken something in Finn Balor that we have not seen in years. As he has alluded to the fact that he will let ‘The Demon’ out to get revenge on Dominik at WrestleMania. The last time we saw The Demon was funnily enough also related to the Judgement Day where at WrestleMania 39 The Demon was defeated by Edge.
And in the main event, CM Punk will be defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Roman Reigns. Two icons of the industry, Roman’s been haunted by Punk’s name for a long time. In the mid 2010’s often when people would see things happening they did not like, crowds would serenade arenas with CM Punk on repeat. A big victim of this of course was Roman Reigns who many really were not on board with the idea of being the Face of the Company. Though in recent years, The Tribal Chief has become far more popular, and these days is on a similar level of idolisation as The Voice of the Voiceless. Punk has spent the build up trying and at some stages seemingly succeeding at breaking through the calm aura of Roman. With Roman expressing shared hatred for Punk. But this match, with the two biggest names in the industry is definitely a suitable main event. Most importantly as Punk & Roman played the Zebros in Zootropolis 2, and the Zebros exploding is cealrly on par with The Mega Powers, New Day and any other iconic teams who have split up.
