WrestleMania 42 Night 2: Preview and Predictions

Night 1 of WrestleMania 42 gave us a great many things. We got title changes, special returns from old faces, and a befuddling ending I’ve watched back to really grasp what’s going on there. So before we dive into Night 2, I’ve got some thoughts about Night 1 of WrestleMania 42. Strap in and get your caffeinated beverage handy.

Night 1 Recap and Thoughts

Overall we went 5-2 for Night 1, which brings us to 17.5/28 for the year so far. The results went mostly as I expected, aside from Saraya returning to WWE as Paige to team with Brie Bella to take the tag team titles from The Irresistible Forces, and Cody Rhodes retaining in the Night 1 main event.

The Usos & LA Knight vs. the Vision and IShowSpeed: I was watching a Ninja stream some time last year and he was going to be streaming Fortnite with IShowSpeed. At one point Speed “accidentally” showed his Discord channel on stream, quite a few randoms ended up on the channel doing… stuff … and that was summarily the end of Ninja’s discord channel. Anyway, I’ll give him credit because he clearly took the time to train for the match. You can tell in some of the sequences he worked that he put the time in. Other than that, it was pretty much what you should have expected. Not an awful opener that was mostly carried by Austin Theory and the faces, and Logan Paul got put through a table, so it’s not all bad.  Not a fan of Speed generally, but credit to him for really trying here. He deserves respect.

Jacob Fatu vs. Drew McIntyre: This was everything I expected it to be, and the two of them pulled out all the stops in trying to make it seem like they were trying to kill each other. Just a very strong, physical match. I don’t have much else to say, other than you need to capitalize on Fatu’s momentum with either a title in the short term, or keep him strong until King of the Ring comes around. I’d rather the former if only because a King of the Ring win equates to a title shot, which I don’t think should be rushed. Regardless of who comes out of the IC title match, I think that’s the objective you aim for with him.

Women’s Tag Team Championship: Early yesterday I saw a rumour floating around that Saraya/Paige had been spotted on-site, but nothing really concrete worth talking about; never mind being unproven. Well, as it turned out, it was true and now she and Brie Bella are WWE Women’s Tag Team champions. I think I might be one of the few who didn’t outright hate her AEW run — at least the first part of it anyway — so as far as being a longer time fan I can appreciate the moment for her. We’ll see how it goes and hopefully her neck continues to hold up. As for the match itself, it was not bad. Once the excitement from her return came down it’s pretty much what you’d expect from a multi-team tag match, and eventually it came down to Alexa Bliss and Paige with the latter picking up the win. Who can say how long the title reign will last, but with Nikki’s injuries it probably won’t be until that point of healing. Nor should it be. I don’t think there’s much else of note here, other than this is probably it for Bliss and Charlotte after the ending sequence, but I guess we’ll see. Overall not terrible, not great. It did what it needed to do.

AJ Lee vs. Becky Lynch: Becky is the “and new” and once again women’s Intercontinental champion. This isn’t too surprising and I’d wager most people saw this coming. The questions now are where and what does Lee do next? I’d guess one of the world titles. As for Lynch, I think her willingness to work and build the IC history and lineage has to be commended. It’s otherwise a new championship that means little, and really benefits from people who hold it taking it seriously and making it important. The win makes Lynch a three time champion, and I think if you break this down into phases, where the first phase might have been simply winning it and establishing the association between herself and the title, and the second phase being anchored by the exchanges between herself and Lee, I think next we need to look at who is a fresh face that can benefit from the work that’s been put into it. That might be someone from NXT, it could be someone already on the mainline shows, but I think that’s what needs to happen next. Regardless this should be the end of their rivalry, I think it’s run its course.

Seth Rollins vs. Gunther: They did what I expected them to do and arguably had the best match of the night. With Gunther winning I think depending on how Night 2 actually shakes out you’ve got to be looking at who’s next for him, and regardless of whether CM Punk retains or Roman Reigns wins, Gunther needs to be coming for the championship. I’m going to be predicting a Reigns win. For the sake of argument, because I believe it’s time to end Punk’s reign, if not Reigns what you could do is have Punk win, and then Gunther steamroll him as payback for last year’s SummerSlam. And then you do Fatu winning King of the Ring, and then Fatu vs. Gunther at SummerSlam. Connections, friends, connections. Hand me the book. As for Rollins, it’s pretty clear he and Bron Breakker are going to be clashing for the immediate future, so it really is a matter of what’s next for Gunther. Great match, did what it needed to do, no notes. Gunther by RNC, another one bites the dust.

Stephanie Vaquer vs. Liv Morgan: One thing occurred to me as the match ended… Dominik is definitely double dead on Night 2. Judgment Day peaks this weekend with Morgan’s win. Considering how it ended I don’t think this is necessarily the end of their feud, so I’d expect them to stay connected a little longer, especially with Backlash around the corner. I think it also has to be mentioned the 7-9 minutes the match received– however long it actually was — is far too short for a world championship match. Although most of the matches were under 10 minutes, you need to give world title matches space to breathe and develop. Looking ahead I don’t think this is the best they can do together and I’d be looking forward to more matches from them. Overall I think the right person won here. That doesn’t mean Vaquer can’t reclaim it in short order, but I think Morgan deserves the run at the top of the division following Vaquer’s lengthy reign.

Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton: !^%#& #@#(&$^ *&@”~…….._|_ _ _

Oh, excuse me. I went into a blind rage there for a moment. Sorry about that.

Soooo… then what was the point of all of this? I’ve watched the match back since last night and here’s what I’ve got. *stretches*

First thing I want to point out overarchingly is the beginning of Smackdown. As a whole the McAfee spiel doesn’t make sense because:

• He said he won’t sign the contract agreement I assume is to do with the stipulation stating he’ll leave forever if Orton loses.
• Aldis says they’ll go to his office to talk over a few things
• McAfee proceeds to not bother reading the many pages he said he should read. Self-made billionaire logic. You wouldn’t understand.
• Then proceeds to sign it on camera, and not in Aldis’ office and again without reading it.

Here’s my theory, and we’ll ignore the stupidity and focus on this because I don’t think for a second McAfee is gone for good. I think they added an out clause that’s conditional on Orton attacking him, “throwing,” or not living up to his end of the partnership. I don’t think that was a throwaway line. The rest of it makes little sense, but I think that’s noteworthy. And this is all assuming it’s not a ruse.

To the match ending itself: My head canon is that the Apex Predator voice flipped its switch and Orton turned on McAfee, and if we’re looking at it, I think Orton was expecting a faster count from Pat and as a consequence for his failure he RKO’d him. Orton did have some body language post-count that indicated he wasn’t pleased with the count. I think it’s that simple. I think this was a conditional partnership, which Orton alluded to a bit on Friday and the objective that I think they are working toward was to get through WrestleMania, satisfy the condition of McAfee’s inclusion and move on to Backlash. I think the objective was to unlock the Apex, best, most vile version of Randy Orton indicated by him punting Rhodes’ head into the nosebleeds to the glee of the crowd. Overall it’s like he’s saying, “Cody, yeah you went to a dark place, fought hard, fought dirtier and cheated… but there are levels to this.” That is essentially the ending sequence and what I was able to extract from it on second watch separated from the blind WTF rage. Story-wise this is what I think is going on, but we’ll see Friday.

Where the match is concerned I think it was otherwise decently laid out and paced, although I dislike how much emphasis was placed on McAfee at the beginning. It made the opening of the match about him, not Rhodes, Orton or the championship. It was done in service of removing him from the chessboard until the referee spot, and I get that, but if you need to do it, do it faster. It dragged on. I enjoyed most of the match, but the beginning was too slow to get us as viewers to where it needed to be. Again, just my opinion, and overall I think they can do better and something more focused on just them. Will we get it? Who knows. As for now Cody Rhodes is still WWE champion, and we’ll see what’s planned for Backlash. I assume there’ll be a rematch where Orton will properly “son him.”

Alrighty, on to Night 2 of WrestleMania 42.

WrestleMania 42 Night 2 Predictions

With the second night ahead of us, you can’t help but feel this is more of an attraction-based showcase. Yes, we had the McAfee “situation” on night one, but looking at the lineup for the second night there are a number of matches that can very easily be very short blowout style matches. If not that, if you look at something like Oba Femi vs. Brock Lesnar, understand how it’s being presented on ESPN, and you have to assume their match will be less than 10 minutes and be a good old meaty big boy match. There are a couple others that I don’t think are going to be terribly long, which might make for a shorter night overall.

Let’s dive in!

Brock Lesnar vs. Oba Femi

Technical masterpiece over here. If anyone is expecting more than a raw physical spectacle then you’re in the wrong place and can miss the first 10-15 minutes of action on night 2. Otherwise you know what you’re getting here. There will be heavy-handed strikes, big, brutal physical slams, someone will be tossed around like a ragdoll and at the end of it one of these two will have a shocked look on their face. Probably Brock.

Once the destination was clear for these two, you had to assume two things with Brock Lesnar’s reemergence and his recent booking. Aside from John Cena, Lesnar has been actively putting over the roster members he’s been placed against. Or his purpose when he wins has been in service of building up someone else. For example, if you go back to 2022 when he won the WWE title at Elimination Chamber, he then dropped the title to Roman Reigns at that year’s WrestleMania to unify the WWE and Universal titles. Reigns beat him again at SummerSlam that year. Although he downed Omos, and didn’t really let Lashley go over on him, before he disappeared from WWE in 2023, he lost two of three matches to Cody Rhodes. That served to build Rhodes up on his rebuilding road toward another title shot at Roman Reigns.

Here we are now in 2026 and Oba Femi is on the rise, and he has looked good between his time in NXT, his showing at the Royal Rumble and opposite Lesnar in their segments during the leadup to WrestleMania. I’d like to think Lesnar is at a point where he knows he only has so much time left that it’s appropriate to put over the youngins, and I think that’s what we’re getting here. Oba Femi has looked really good at every opportunity he’s been showcased, and I think with them being on ESPN it’s a perfect time to show off the future of WWE as he tramples Lesnar. The only reason I can think of, if not this, is if that Lesnar-Gunther match is happening soon and they want to keep him strong. That I said, I don’t think a loss hurts Lesnar. Prediction: Oba Femi… and I wouldn’t expect more than 10 minutes in running time.

WWE IC Championship – Six Way Ladder Match: Penta (C) vs. Je’Von Evans vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Dragon Lee vs. JD McDonagh vs. Rusev

I think any one of the participants can win this match, but realistically I can’t see JD McDonagh or Rusev winning — JD because of his attachment to Judgment Day, and Rusev due to his barely being on television this year. I’m leaning toward a Penta retention if only because I don’t think Mysterio is in the running unless they want to run back Rey vs. Dom. Any one of Penta, Evans and Dragon Lee are safe bets in my view. On the one hand I think Penta deserves more time with the title, but at the same time, these matches are intended to cleanly remove titles from champions without worrying about the optics of the loss. These multi-man ladder matches are chaotic by nature. If not Penta, I think if you want to propel Evans further then now is as good a time as any to give him a short IC title run. Dragon Lee is a good third option, and someone who after watching him for years, I know he can go with mostly anyone. Barring injuries in the match, I think we’re looking at either Penta or Evans, but I think Penta retains and keeps it longer. Now, if you want a fun little fact, the IC title has been defended in a ladder match featuring 6 or more people four times at WrestleMania including this year. Of those three previous times, the champion has never retained the title. So I’ll throw away a prediction and lobby for Penta to break the trend.  Prediction: Penta

WWE Women’s Championship — Jade Cargill (C) vs. Rhea Ripley

I’m not sure what to make of this matchup, because on the one hand I think it’s past time to end Cargill’s world title reign. On the other, I’m not sure they’ll be willing to abandon her title reign just yet. I’m frankly not sure what the objective of it was, and when you look at her matches, since becoming champion in November she has only worked 7 televised matches, and has only defended the championship once if you don’t count her Live event defences.

That being said, I suspect she retains here. I think they’ve invested too much time and money into her, and I don’t think they give her a stable if the plans weren’t to keep the belt on her longer. I might not see the value in continuing it, but hey, c’est la vie. If I was booking to make Cargill look stronger, Ripley is one of the better choices on the roster given her size, pedigree, and track record at WrestleMania. She just checks the boxes of what I’d define as one version of a strong WrestleMania challenger. Moreover I think she’s a good stylistic fit because they can be equally physical with each other in what is going to be defined by displays of power and outright brawling. I think that’s what we should expect regardless of who comes out on top. I think based on her defence against Jordynne Grace, that is the kind of match we should expect here. I think in lieu of clear-cut defining matches, this is one that can put a positive stamp on Cargill. Ripley winning is a fair choice, but right now I think Cargill retains. I also think it’s less likely now with Liv Morgan winning on night 1. Prediction: Jade Cargill

WWE U.S. Championship — Sami Zayn vs. Trick Williams

As much as I love Sami Zayn, I don’t see him retaining here. I think that, although I’m not terribly high on Trick, it’s hard to deny his crowd reactions. I think WWE needs to capitalize on that where they can, and it’s not as though he wouldn’t be a good champion who can keep himself over. Williams has proven that he can. About the only way I’d wager Zayn keeps the championship is if Carmelo Hayes interferes, but I expect Zayn will put Williams over cleanly. I think they’ll have a fairly decent match overall that will deliver where it needs to. In the aftermath I think you can put Williams and Hayes together, and maybe move Zayn up the card to challenge for a world title. Prediction: Trick Williams whoops that Zayn (never again, I promise.)

“The Demon King” Finn Balor vs. Dominik Mysterio

Balor’s entrance will be longer than this match. Don’t go to the washroom. It’s over in 5-10 minutes. Murder will be the case, I just don’t see any other way this goes if Balor is adopting the demon persona. JD might show up and get flung into oblivion, which would be fine. Pure spectacle match, and hopefully it kicks off the Balor redemption tour he’s sorely needed for some time now. I’m also hoping they just narratively detach after this so Balor and Judgment Day can just move on from each other. Prediction: Finn Balor washes Dirty Dom

World Heavyweight Championship — CM Punk (C) vs. Roman Reigns

This has been the best built story of WrestleMania 42. Tell me when I’m telling lies. I mentioned this yesterday during night one predictions, but I think this is a great example of what happens when you allow two people who know what they’re doing to tell their own story.

When Reigns and Punk have been opposite each other I sense the hate, vitriol and place from which they’ve pulled their material from. It’s a place that has to at least be partially rooted in reality, and it’s been used in a way that gives their pre-match build character. That energy gets better and more deep-rooted as you peel back the layers. Their recent promo where they explained why they hate each other is a great example, and I think structurally for the match it’s going to accomplish the task of injecting raw emotion into what could become a very physically-draining match. Contrast this against the Orton-Rhodes bout and ultimately it’s a well thought out ending that highlights the two completely disparate ways to build a WrestleMania main event title match. As far as I’m concerned, the difference between them is how Punk and Reigns built up their match and arrived there organically, whereas Orton, Rhodes and McAfee simply showed up to theirs in a needlessly large pickup truck.

Looking at just the match, Punk has held the world title for 168+ days. He has held the title since November, which is frankly longer than I thought he would hold it considering it looked like Bron Breakker was being positioned to take it from him. I think given the expectations on Punk he’s done more than serve well as Raw’s champion, but I think now is the logical time to move on and Reigns is the right person to shift toward. I’m just not sure what the plan for Punk would be otherwise. He retains and then what, goes back to Gunther? Fine, but then where does Reigns go from the close of night 2? Conversely a freed up Punk can go anywhere on the card and be fine. I have a hard time seeing Reigns not holding the title at the end of the night, it feels like Punk’s reign has run its course. Prediction: Roman Reigns