Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: recaps, Wrestlemania, wrestling, wwe

Steve Austin, Cody Rhodes, Bianca Belair Redeem WrestleMania Night 1

WWE has billed this year's WrestleMania as the most stupendous two-night WrestleMania in history, but without the help of the most popular wrestler in the history of the business returning for one more unbelievable match, the first night of the show might have gone down as a longer and only slightly more eventful episode of WWE Raw. Packed with even more replays of the same video packages we've been watching for days in order to give Peacock more time to throw in adds for people not paying for the premium tier of the streaming service, few of the matches booked for WrestleMania Night 1 had a compelling story. Luckily, the return of Stone Cold Steve Austin for a solid main event match against Kevin Owens, the debut of Cody Rhodes with everything about his AEW presentation kept except the rejection and booing by the crowd, followed by a very good match between Rhodes and Seth Rollins, and a vindicating championship win by Bianca Belair over Becky Lynch in what would be the clear winner for match of the night if not for the inherently unbeatable return of Stone Cold.

But filler content on top of filler matches plagued the rest of the snooze-worthy card. The Usos retained their Smackdown Tag Team Championships in an opening match against Rick Boogs and Shinsuke Nakamura that would have been forgettable even if Boogs didn't blow out his knee a few minutes in and forced Nakamura and the Usos to improvise the rest of the match. Drew McIntyre defeated Baron Corbin in a match that I literally remember exactly nothing about other than McIntyre slicing through the ring ropes with his sword at the end (forcing WWE to air even more filler video packages while they repaired it). Logan Paul showed he could kinda a wrestle (which does not make him more likable) as he and The Miz defeated The Mysterios, with Miz turning on Paul afterward. If Logan Paul had anything other than go-away heat, that probably would have worked well. Sheamus and Ridge Holland, along with The New Day… well, they didn't do anything because their match got cut, which, to be honest, was probably for the best, since no one wants to watch Holland wrestler after he broke Big E's neck.

In the train wreck of the night, Charlotte Flair successfully defended her Smackdown Women's Championship against Ronda Rousey in a sloppy match filled with lots of nearly botched moves that begged the question: is it incompetence, unprofessionalism, or both? Rousey, who has already been super butthurt about the fans rejecting her as a babyface (as WWE continues with the John Cena/Roman Reigns babyface push anyway), was reportedly even more butthurt this weekend when she learned Stone Cold Steve Austin would main event the show, not her. Most of the drama in the match surrounded whether one of these two would injure the other, but admittedly, Charlotte retaining was a surprising (and correct) outcome.

But all of that can be forgiven because WWE did a few things right, because those things they did right were the most important thing to get right, and because, let's face it, at this point, everybody's expectations were already so low that even the smallest triumph is an incredibly welcome surprise. After all the teasing, Cody Rhodes did debut to face Seth Rollins. He had his AEW entrance, including rising from the floor, and his AEW/indies music, and his American Nightmare gimmick, and even though I was actually hoping he'd be back in the Stardust costume just so I could laugh about it for decades, this was absolutely the right and necessary thing to do. He and Rollins put on a great match that culminated in an extended sequence of both men trying to one-up themselves after traditional methods of winning matches failed. Rhodes won in front of the more than 70,000 fans in attendance in what must have felt like a huge vindication for everything he's gone through over the last seven years. It's WWE, so Cody is going to be in a boring storyline with no heat within the next 90 days, but I hope he finds what he's looking for here. Cody is a talented performer who has worked hard and deserves success, even if how he defines it isn't the same way I would.

Last year at SummerSlam, WWE killed the momentum of Bianca Belair by having Becky Lynch return and beat her in a squash to win the championship, seemingly setting back all the progress Belair had made in her career by winning the belt in the first place. But in a rare accomplishment for WWE, they stuck with the long term storytelling and had Belair redeem herself and overcome Lynch at WrestleMania, and when all was said and done, both women are in a better place now than they were at SummerSlam. Furthermore, unlike Ronda Rousey, who rumors say threw a tantrum when she learned she wouldn't be in the main event, Lynch and Belair instead set out to prove why they should have been the main event by putting on a match that outshone every one on the card. Except one.

Because there was no competing with the return of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the biggest star in WWE history, for his first official match in nineteen years. Even when everyone expected Stone Cold to show up, call Kevin Owens a jackass, give him the Stone Cold Stunner, and drink some beers, I was okay with that being the main event of WrestleMania Night 1. I also expected (correctly) for it to be the most entertaining part of the show. But as soon as Kevin Owens used the M-word (not "mutant," Havok; "match"), this became something entirely different. Austin accepted and then proceeded to put on a classic brawl-style match with Owens that wasn't out of step with his career decades earlier. Austin didn't look old or broken down as he took suplexes on the exposed concrete and brawled around the arena with Owens. He chugged beer the entire match, did a spot where he trapped Owens on his four-wheeler and drove it up the ramp, sold generously for Owens, and ultimately won with the Stone Cold Stunner before celebrating for a good ten minutes with the crowd (and giving another Stunner to Owens and one to Byron Saxton).

Was it pure nostalgia injected directly into our veins? Yes. Does Kevin Owens deserve a ton of credit for making Austin look close to the Rattlesnake of two decades ago? Hell yeah! But Stone Cold's career ended prematurely nineteen years ago, and though everyone has come to accept that in the years since, it was still a loss, and being able to get that one more match all these years later was a gift, not only to fans, but I'd wager to both Kevin Owens and Steve Austin as well. And for that, I'm willing to forget about a lot of things, including filler matches and extra commercials.

In a week or two, WWE will be back to boring and annoying the crap out of me, probably, but for at least one night, the company delivered on the promise of what WrestleMania is supposed to be: the biggest, most exciting, most important wrestling event of the year. Now let's see what they can do with Night 2.

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