4 Questions From Night 1 Of WWE WrestleMania 42

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - APRIL 18: Cody Rhodes celebrates winning against Randy Orton (not pictured) during their Undisputed WWE Championship match on night one of WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium on April 18, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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It was a long and at times bumpy road, but WWE finally arrived at WrestleMania 42, with Night 1 taking place on Saturday, April 18.

Headlined by Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton for the WWE Championship, the build was largely overshadowed by the inclusion of Pat McAfee, who served as the Viper’s mystery caller heading into the match. The big question was how the College GameDay analyst would factor into it all.

Gunther and Seth Rollins also went head-to-head in a match thrown together late in the WrestleMania build. Did they manage to turn that into something special?

WrestleMania 42 left plenty of questions coming out of Night 1. So, let’s get into what stood out and what’s worth thinking about after the first night of action.

What’s Next For Gunther And Seth Rollins?

Actual wrestling was missing from most of this card, because most of the matches weren’t given a chance to, well, wrestle. Gunther and Seth Rollins were, though, and they delivered a stellar match—two guys trying to outwrestle each other to prove who’s better.

It was a simple, effective story for a match thrown together late in the WrestleMania build, and sure enough, it ended up being the best bout of the night.

Gunther is consistent at his craft. No matter the opponent, the setting, or the time, he tends to put on something special. Pairing him with someone who people sometimes forget can go at that same level—Rollins—makes for a recipe for magic. There were no crazy theatrics, just a story told through pacing. Wrestling on a wrestling show.

Hard to imagine anyone being against seeing these two run it back, maybe with a title on the line down the road.

So where does Gunther go from here? He’s said Paul Heyman owes him a favor, and the obvious route is getting the chance to slay the beast and retire Brock Lesnar, with SummerSlam in Minneapolis looming. It’s the perfect setup, and it would add another strong piece to the résumé of someone who’s already retired Goldberg, John Cena, and AJ Styles in the past year.

As for Rollins, he’s likely heading into a summer program with Bron Breakker—something that once looked like a WrestleMania match before injuries got in the way. Better late than never, and it’s good to have them both back to give Raw a blood feud that should anchor the show.

What Can Be Made Of The Main Event’s Psychology?

For as talented as Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton are, the psychology of that main event was confusing.

Commentary immediately focused on speculation about Orton’s back, and he ended up selling for roughly half the match. He looked like the face in peril, while Rhodes methodically, and at times viciously, attacked him, targeting body parts like a heel working over a wounded babyface.

Then Orton got busted open, and while Rhodes did too later, seeing the former bleeding while getting beaten down only amplified the crowd reaction. The Las Vegas fans were already behind him, and that just pushed it further. It seemed, for a moment, that these two planted the seeds of a double turn to embrace the crowd reactions and take two of their top stars in opposite directions.

Michael Cole and Wade Barrett told a different story, however. They didn’t frame Rhodes as a heel, but as someone trying to match Orton’s recent viciousness. The problem is, it didn’t line up with what was actually happening in the ring, and none of the pieces really synced.

And then the finish: Rhodes seemingly wins clean, after Orton RKO’d McAfee, only for the Apex Predator to punt the two-time Royal Rumble winner. He stood tall with the WWE Championship as if it were the end of an episode of Raw, not WWE’s biggest show of the year.

It was all confounding. The psychology and story were all over the place, and maybe that kind of messiness was the point, but it didn’t fully land.

Was That Actually The Last Of Pat McAfee?

Per McAfee’s own stipulation, if Randy Orton lost at WrestleMania, he wouldn’t be seen again. So that should be it, right?

The speculation heading into WrestleMania was that McAfee and Orton would team up to face Cody Rhodes and Jelly Roll at Backlash. Jelly Roll taking McAfee out would suggest this isn’t over, and with Orton punting Rhodes after the match, it definitely feels like there’s more to come.

But Orton also RKO’d McAfee.

So maybe that really was the end for McAfee, an appropriate write-off for something that never quite made sense and often felt like it was just there to sell tickets.

We’ll find out soon enough on SmackDown whether McAfee sticks to his word or if this was all just a setup for a match at a smaller Premium Live Event.

Was This More About Moments Than Matches?

It’s been abundantly clear the direction WWE has been taking over the past year or so, in going for the snapshot moment over doing something coherent. Sometimes those moments fit well within the story, but WWE seems busy trying to go viral wherever it can, by any means necessary.

It started with IShowSpeed’s jump from the top turnbuckle onto Logan Paul after a seven-minute tag match. With it airing on ESPN2 and a different audience tuning in, maybe that could lure a few new people in.

Then there’s Drew McIntyre using the phone mid-match, as is WrestleMania tradition. Bron Breakker running down the ramp to spear Seth Rollins was fun. Paige returning to wrestle a WWE match for the first time in eight years was an awesome moment. And then Pat McAfee got elbow-dropped through the announce table by Jelly Roll, which might have been the lead-in to Backlash.

The moments dominated the actual matches, which had some short runtimes, some even briefer than the entrances for the main event between Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton, with McAfee getting his own full strut down the ramp.

Liv Morgan vs. Stephanie Vaquer for the Women’s World Championship went under seven minutes, for one, and four of the seven matches went under 10 minutes. For WWE’s biggest event of the year, that’s just uncharacteristic, and much of it can be attributed to the excessive commercials.

At least some of that time could’ve gone to video packages to help tell the story of why these matches were happening, but the only one that got real background was the main event. That doesn’t help the new viewers WWE is trying to attract, especially when they’re trying to understand why two talents are even fighting.

Wrestling took a backseat for most of the night, which is unfortunate, but there was still some good stuff on the card.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

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