There's nothing quite like the Sunday night of a WrestleMania. A year's worth of matches, backstabs, heroics, and confrontations leads to a single match that personifies the year that was in the WWE.
Hulk Hogan lifted and slammed the giant once thought to be unmovable. The King of Harts prevailed after years of diligent climbing. Shawn Michaels realized the boyhood dream. Steve Austin and The Rock captured an entire generation. John Cena ascended into superstardom as an "Animal," Batista left his mark alongside him. A deadman-turned-biker-back-to-a-deadman showed us something even grander than a world title. Daniel Bryan forced even the most cynical of adults to believe in fairytales for a single night. Roman reigned with an iron first until a golden-haired son of a plumber tore it all down.
The Sunday main event is the be-all and end-all for many wrestlers in the industry. It's the climactic scene of an Oscar-winning movie or the final drive to win the Super Bowl. If you work in the WWE, being called upon to work the Sunday finale puts you in the rarified air that only a select class can call home.
Yet, with WrestleMania expanding from a single Sunday to a two-night weekend event in 2020, the prestige of the Mania main event has been split into two. While Sunday's final bout remains the ultimate climax of WWE's overarching story that spans decades, Saturday's main event has transformed into something unique of its own.
Unlike the Sunday main event that primarily (but not always) revolves around the top world championship and often can be seen built months out, the Saturday feels almost spontaneous.
It's a spectacle.
Whereas Sunday feels like the logical endpoint to a grand adventure, Saturday's main event is there to shock you. It's the match that is supposed to leave you craving more of the story the next night as the biggest show of the year enters its second half. A fight that might have been in the middle of the card at the beginning of the process might pole vault its way right to the top of Saturday with the proper engagement, performances, and crowd reaction.
Let's take a quick rundown of the previous Saturday's finales to grasp night one main event and what we could see at 'Mania 41.
WrestleMania 36 (2020): The Undertaker vs. AJ Styles in a Boneyard Match
Maybe my favorite cinematic match was during COVID-19, when there were no fans. It was a Mania like none before (and hopefully none after), with Taker and Styles main-eventing. The two put on a show even during the most dire of times out in the real world. It was half action, half camp, and provided us with a meme of Undertaker stalking behind Styles that lives on to this day.
WrestleMania 37 (2021): Sasha Banks (c) vs. Bianca Belair for the WWE Women's Smackdown Championship
If the 36 Saturday main event was about pop and circumstance, the 37th edition was about elevating the company's future face and bringing down the house while doing so. Banks proved why she's one of the best in-ring talents in the world, and Belair not only kept up but thrived in what today is still one of my favorite 'Mania matches of all time.
WrestleMania 38 (2022): Kevin Owens vs. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in a No Holds Barred match
38's bout is what makes these Saturday finales so great. Anything can happen, and at Jerry World in Arlington, it did. No one thought we'd see Austin have another match, but he did. A talk show segment turned into an official match, and instead of doing a quick smoke and mirror show with Austin winning in a matter of seconds, the two had a legitimate barnburner. Austin and Owens actually went longer than the Sunday main event between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar in a match to unify the two world titles.
WrestleMania 39 (2023): The Usos (c) vs. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens for the Undisputed WWE Tag Championships
I'll make this quick: This is one of my favorite main events at 'Mania. I love this match and everything about it, from the entrances to the final moments where Zayn delivers the finishing blow. You would have been laughed at if you had told someone a year prior that the tag titles would be main eventing WrestleMania. These two teams took that challenge in full and put on a build for the ages heading into a match at 'Mania, with the four men leaving it all out there at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles to cap off one of the greatest nights of pure wrestling in the company's long history.
WrestleMania 40 (2024): The Rock and Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins
If the previous Saturday affair was one of the best pure main events WrestleMania had ever seen, Philadelphia's tag match was about the star power—four wrestlers who will be multiple-time inductees into the WWE Hall of Fame. The entrances, the tension, and the finish led us perfectly into Sunday's event as the entire world seemed to be falling onto the shoulders of a defeated, exasperated Cody Rhodes.
Now that we have a decent sample size of five-night one main event, we can see some similarities. A lot of these felt like they wanted to trailblaze in a way. Not every one had to elevate a new star, but there had to be something novel about the match that made it stand out amongst the pack, especially compared to its Sunday counterpart.
The Saturday main event can lead into Sunday's marquee, but it can't feel like the same type of match, just painted up in different colors.
As we're only a little over a month out before the big show, I've taken it upon myself to put myself in Paul "Triple H" Levesque's shoes and choose which match should headline night two.
Although he said in his Elimination Chamber post-presser that everything is up in the air and the feuds with the most momentum will land at the top, I'm going to make the executive decision and slot the industry's top babyface champion Cody Rhodes defending his world title against a dead-eyed heel John Cena as the Sunday main event. It broke all the records for the company's viewership when Cena broke bad in Toronto, so let's just pen that in for the traditional show-ending conclusion.
Now, the fun. Sunday is taken care of, but like years prior, Saturday hangs in the air, with various top performers vying for that special moment. At the time of this feature's writing, I feel four possible matches can close on Saturday.
They are, in no particular order:
Gunther (c) vs. Jey Uso for the World Heavyweight Championship
When Uso first shocked the world this past February in Indianapolis, all the noise around it made it seem like this was what would be going on the last one of the two nights. Although the words "main event" are constantly thrown around for who wins the Royal Rumble, we have a laundry list of victors who don't go on last. They open, they semi-main event, what have you. It can be the Rumble's ethos that surviving 29 others gets you a closing spot at the Show of the Immortals, but that's not how it always goes down.
On the surface, this match has what it takes to be the main event. It's a beautifully simple story: One man represents everything that is the sport of wrestling (Gunther), and the other represents everything that is the entertainment of wrestling (Uso). Honestly, before Uso chucked Cena off the apron to win the Rumble, I thought Cena could fit the same role against Gunther at 'Mania.
It's a story of a perfectionist who treats his job like a tactician going to war versus a man who never thought he'd reach these heights, feeding off the power of the fans who helped him get here. A mighty rally cry ("YEET!") is trying to drown and dethrone a champion whose only signatures come from moves in the squared circle. And while I've been enjoying a lot of what this feud is, it still feels like we're in first gear of what this full story can tell.
I've enjoyed Gunther's matches with the Alpha Academy and Uso's times showing his more serious side, but with a month out, I'm still waiting for this heavyweight title fight to elevate itself. We all know that if it closes Saturday and Uso wins with the entire Las Vegas crowd going "YEET!" It'll be a moment that lives on forever, but I want the road to that moment to live up to the actual crescendo.
Daniel Bryan's "YES!" chants and conquering of Evolution to win the world title at WrestleMania 30 is amazing to look back on in video packages. Still, it stands the test of time due to how well structured the build and matches were to lead to that image of him standing on the desk conducting the New Orleans faithful. I want it to happen with this feud, but it needs to ramp up a notch (or two).
Tiffany Stratton (c) vs. Charlotte Flair for the WWE's Women's Championship
If the Gunther vs. Jey Uso feud is still in gear one, casually driving down the street at 40 MPH, then Stratton vs. Flair feels like we're still stuck in park.
Before you bite my head off, let me say that I think this match has the potential to be the best on the entire card on either night. Stratton is one of the best prospects in WWE history, and she has continually knocked it out of the park with every new challenge thrown at her. Flair is one of the best money match wrestlers in the world, who has repeatedly shown up and showed out whenever asked to have a long, historic match. We saw it at WrestleMania 39 when she was in the semi-main event with Rhea Ripley on Saturday, and they put on a classic.
Regardless of how great the match will be, it's difficult to see this as the Saturday headliner at this point in the feud. It's a classic fight between the up-and-comer and the established stand-bearer, with a slight twist that the youngster is the champion, and the returning queen wants back her crown. I trust these two to begin adding more gasoline to this fight as we move closer to Vegas, but right now, this feels more like a fantastic opener to get the crowd off hot with a great match than a Saturday spectacle that closes.
Io Sky (c) vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley for the Women's World Championship
Yes, I'm adding Rhea Ripley to this match. She will somehow find herself in it, and it will set up one of the best triple threats we've seen at WrestleMania.
Sky will be coming into her second straight 'Mania as champion and looking to continue her legendary reputation as one of the best in-ring performers around the world. Belair has a main show-winning streak and wants to keep building and win her first world title in over a year. Angry and vengeful, Ripley wants to show that she can conquer her inner demons and reach the company's top as her own woman.
On top of that, the undercard blood feud between Jade Cargill and Naomi feeds into this match, as Bianca has to carry the emotional weight of that match and the two dynamic women trying to beat her in Vegas. Rhea's still tied to the Liv Morgan and Dominic Mysterio of it all, as her fallout from Judgement Day is starting to show its scars following her upset title loss to Sky.
It's a match with throughlines branching out from all three competitors, affecting dozens of different wrestlers below them, both men and women. Not only are we guaranteed a match that will almost assuredly deliver in the ring, but depending on the winner and how it goes down, there are so many different avenues these three women can take following the match.
Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins
If we're following the rule of star power and length of the story getting the nod, then it's hard to argue against this all-but-confirmed match.
Reigns and Rollins entered the WWE as Punk's hired guns over a decade ago as The Shield (with now AEW's Jon Moxley) and have been destined for greatness ever since. We've seen the duo grow, turn face, turn face, live in a sea of grey, and everything in between as CM Punk, for the most part, was gone from the industry.
We're now at a time when the unbreakable Reigns is not so unbreakable and without gold. Rollins is fury personified, and Punk, wiser but still as driven as ever, wants the only thing accolade he's never accomplished: a WrestleMania main event.
It's a triple threat that is for nothing but is for everything. No titles on the line or current stipulations exist, but this trio is forever intertwined. They've all seen the top of the mountain and experienced the loneliness only felt at the very bottom. For a match with so many years and stories, good and bad, behind it, this triple threat is less of a blood feud and more of a feud that needs to happen to finally close off wounds that still linger within each man.
In particular, when it comes to Rollins and Reigns, neither can truly move on until their story is settled. They've become messiahs and kingpins, and no matter how much their theme music changes or how many different outfits Rollins puts on until they settle what's been pestering them underneath, neither can truly evolve as characters. Punk, the arbiter that brought them in, acts as the creator of both monsters, who might have to neutralize them both to make them (and himself) move forward.
The Verdict
While everything about the men's triple threat speaks to me on a long-term storytelling angle, and with three of the biggest names in the industry, I'm going with the Sky vs. Belair vs. Ripley world title triple threat.
Both triple threats feel worthy of being that memorable night one main event, but I'm slightly giving the edge to the women in the current state of things with a month out. They have the advantage of having a world title at stake. I love the idea of this match trickling down to what's going on with Naomi vs. Jade, the Judgement Day with Dom, Liv, Finn Balor, etc., and even the likes of Bayley, who is still connected to the Damage CTRL story with Io, Dakota Kai and hopefully the soon return of Kairi Sane and Asuka.
A triple threat should be the night one main event of WrestleMania 41. By show time, we'll see which one rises to the top.
