WWE WrestleMania 42: Biggest Winners & Losers

WrestleMania 42 has come and gone. It was a massive, two-night, ad-filled affair that saw titles change hands, the retirement of Brock Lesnar, and two very slow main events. We’ve already discussed what happened on the night 1 and night 2 results pages, and there’s been plenty of loving and hating for both nights as well. Which means that all that is left to do is assign some winners and some losers.

There were plenty of losers, in fact, an entire night’s worth, but more on that later. Winners aren’t always winners. Sometimes a winner is a loser, and sometimes a loser is a winner, and sometimes things are exactly as they seem.

Enough of my bloviating, though, let’s get into the biggest winners and losers from WrestleMania 42.

Cam’ron completely destroyed WrestleMania Saturday when he dressed down Jey Uso, turning “WrestleMania Saturday” into a pejorative. It was funny before WrestleMania, but it was especially funny after WrestleMania because the crew that composed the Saturday show was downright goofy and dire. I mean, just look at that lead image. Look at the dweebs in The Vision and their streaming buddy. 

That was the general vibe to WrestleMania Saturday.

The matches were too short, the ads were too long, and pretty much everyone in Las Vegas and at home was sitting on their hands, waiting for the WrestleMania Sunday folks to put the WrestleMania Saturday folks in their place. The best the night could do was a pretty boilerplate match between Seth Rollins and Gunther, and an undercooked Becky Lynch/AJ Lee match that ended just as it was starting to get good.

The main event made no sense. The biggest moment of the night was the reveal of a baby bump. It felt like everyone involved in WrestleMania Saturday was trapped on the longest pre-show in company history.

While this year’s show-closing main event was a little slow for my liking, it’s near-universal praise from the wrestling world has to be a feather in the cap of CM Punk. Punk has been asking, begging, pleading for a chance to close WrestleMania with a proper match, and the public sentiment pretty much speaks for itself: He nailed it.

“Stand Up For WWE” accounts were linked arm-in-arm with Dave Meltzer and other wrestling luminaries, singing the praises of Punk’s match with Roman Reigns. It’s got to be a nice feeling. The match was ultimately about legacy, and Punk has assured that, should Reigns ever eclipse him in WWE all-time greats, he will still have to be in conversation as one of “The Tribal Chief’s” best opponents, much in the way Roddy Piper or Paul Orndorff were for Hulk Hogan.

I’m not sure even Punk’s biggest defenders could’ve imagined the heights he’d reach in his second WWE tenure. Sunday’s main event was a capstone moment for a legendary career.

He’s been world champion, he’s been the longest reigning Intercontinental Champion, and he’s retired three separate legends within a calendar year. There is nothing left for Gunther to achieve. He has done it all. He could win the WWE Championship, but it kinda feels like splitting hairs, as he’s been world champion.

Gunther is the B+ player that WWE likes to pretend Sami Zayn is or Bryan Danielson was. He’s a tremendous in-ring performer, and he’s got a solid enough character, but there’s something missing from Gunther. WWE has been able to fill that hole with accomplishments so far, but they’re running out of things for him to win. All that’s left now is to beat the Seth Rollinses of the world and lay down whenever they have a new star they want to make. I have no idea what WWE would need to do to make him transcend his place in the company.

After retiring so many stars, the build to his Mania match was “You know that this will be a good match,” and I worry that will be Gunther’s niche from here on out. 

Danhausen is doing pretty alright for himself. He went from barely being able to get a second of TV time in AEW to doing WrestleMania bits with John Cena and The Miz. It’s the sports entertainment equivalent of a guy like Roderick Strong going to AEW so that he could do what he does best and have a showcase match once or twice a month with a hungry talent. Danhausen is a living cartoon, and stuff like that thrives in WWE.

It also helped that the plethora of s cut down on the usual number of WrestleMania segments, meaning it was pretty much up to Danhausen and John Cena to make the non-wrestling moments feel special, and damned if the shenanigans of the Minihausens didn’t do just that.

I’ve always appreciated Danhausen’s schtick, but in WWE it really does just sing. It’s as if he’s finally found some brains backstage who are as demented as he is, and willing to throw money at t-shirt cannons and blimps.

Pat McAfee is a grating presence on a good day, but as a Vince Russo-esque Smart Mark heel, he’s just insufferable. Thankfully, it appears that his reign of terror is over, as McAfee has bid farewell to the wrestling business, after being involved in the most confusing angle of any modern WrestleMania.

McAfee has become something of a symbol for TKO’s need to meddle in the affairs of WWE creative. Cody Rhodes will go on to better storylines. Randy Orton’s legacy is basically bulletproof. I’m pretty sure Jelly Roll is going to either salvage his reputation or do something even more embarrassing in his future WWE appearances. McAfee is the only one who will be saddled with the memories of that ugly, convoluted main event on Saturday. That match is McAfee’s legacy. He started in WWE as a kind of lovable doofus who took to the wrestling part surprisingly swiftly, and he will end as an albatross around the neck of a match that should’ve been a slam dunk, considering the history and the pedigree of the actual wrestlers in the match.

Jade Cargill might not be champion anymore, but she’s come a long way from being the greenest AEW prospect anyone has ever seen.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from Cargill’s WrestleMania outing with Ripley. I figured Ripley would win, but I didn’t think that Cargill would -for lack of a better term- make me into such a believer. She’s often been compared to Lex Luger, since he was also a superathlete who spent a lot of his early days in over his head in wrestling, but like Luger, she is growing into a confident powerhouse, who is aware of her own limitations.

Strong women in WWE can be very hit or miss, but Cargill is proving that she comes from the Chyna/Jazz ass-kicker vein of powerhouse, and as her confidence grows, so to do her abilities. There were numerous times I was prepared for Cargill to get the win, and maybe someday down the road she will. She’s a perfect foil for Ripley, as many women can’t stand toe-to-toe with her the way that Cargill can, and there were glimmers in her match on Sunday that showed she could be sticking around the business a lot longer than her critics predicted.