Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton Flops as WrestleMania 42 Night 1 Fails to Deliver
There was a small glimmer of hope that Night 1 of WrestleMania 42 would exceed incredibly low expectations.
Those hopes disappeared in a hurry.
Saturday night's card featured four of its first six matches checking in at less than 10 minutes. What followed all of that hodgepodge of action was a letdown of a main event between Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton.
What should have been an exclamation point on a feud-capper between two guys with decades of history together instead got started with…a bit of action between Pat McAfee and Jelly Roll. Then, a stretcher spot for McAfee.
Anyway, Rhodes and Orton proceeded to have what felt like a televised Raw match with a bit of color via blood, culminating in the oddest character work and storytelling from a main event in, perhaps, ever.
It was, without exaggeration, up there as a contender for the worst WrestleMania main event of all time.
That was sort of the tone of the entire night, really. The weird TKO-Netflix'd WWE showed off plenty of shots featuring celebrities in the crowd at an event with poor ticket sales because the price of entry was so high.
There were, for some reason, multi-minute advertisement breaks. There were pretty bad-feeling camera and presentation gaffes (Paige's big return cutting away from her instantly is an odd one that sticks out).
The card itself didn't help. The opener with The Usos and LA Knight beating the likes of IShowSpeed felt like it should have been on a pre-show. Jacob Fatu beat Drew McIntyre in an "unsanctioned match" that had standard things like…sanctioned entrances.
Brie Bella and Paige winning the women's tag titles and Becky Lynch claiming the women's intercontinental belt were fun, but the two matches combined for roughly 16 minutes.
Gunther and Seth Rollins, as expected, put on a show-stealing effort, although outside interference from Bron Breakker played a role.
But back to that main event dud. Orton was supposed to be the heel, but he was the one getting busted open and hit with a low blow. He was the one getting mad at McAfee returning, and his RKO'ing the podcaster ultimately cost him the win.
Rhodes, meanwhile, acted like the heel in the match through his actions, but like always, will, for some reason, continue to be a babyface.
It somehow gets worse. After Rhodes won, he was attacked by Orton, who punted him, then…held up the title he didn't win to close the show.
Got all that? So there was sort of a double-turn during the match…and then a double-turn after the match. If that was even the intention. WWE itself might not even be sure.
Because of those happenings, Rhodes doesn't look good, not even getting to close the show standing tall as the main event winner. Orton looks like a dork for betraying McAfee, a guy there trying to help him, only for it to cost him the match. And why did McAfee slow-count as ref? Is he really gone for good? Has WWE even considered these things?
And to top it all off, it sure feels like, instead of a nice blow-off match to end the feud, almost everything about it was aimed at building up another contest at Backlash where Orton and McAfee team up against Rhodes and Jelly Roll.
Good luck figuring out who to blame. Rhodes, who doesn't want to go heel? Outside meddling from TKO, who clearly have wildly misjudged McAfee's abilities and drawing power every step of the way?
The entirety of Night 1 felt odd from the opening gun. It's only fitting that the worst-in-a-long-time night got capped with a worst-of-all-time main event contender, it seems. It wasn't just bland and felt like a Raw match; it was straight-up confusing in terms of very basic wrestling psychology.
That doesn't seem to bode well for Night 2, where Oba Femi vs. Brock Lesnar should be great. Where CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns should be a great main event.
WWE should do a lot of things. But with a serious chance to show fans it can get back on track by exceeding the lowest of expectations, the company managed to trip over the bar and faceplant on Saturday night.
The wrestling talent is there, but whatever WWE has morphed into lately is almost unrecognizable. If it bleeds into Night 2, there will be serious, justified concerns from fans about the product's long-term outlook.
