WrestleMania 42: What's working and what isn't for this year's 4 title builds

To Morgan specifically, it’s the moment she’s been working for all along. “WrestleMania is everything that we all work for all year, every year,” she said.

“To have a featured singles match for the world title, headlining WrestleMania — there's literally nothing better than that. There's nothing better than that, and I'm happy that it took as long as it did, because it's so much sweeter. It's so much sweeter now that we're finally here.”

Rhea Ripley (left) challenges Jade Cargill for the WWE Women's Championship on Night 2 of WrestleMania 42.

(WWE via Getty Images)

WWE Women’s Championship Match: Jade Cargill (c) vs. Rhea Ripley

Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair have been the two biggest names in the women’s division for the better part of the past decade — two imposing, athletic and easy-to-root-for stars who just seem to do everything right. Whether it be injury or storyline (or Iyo Sky being an otherworldly talent), we still haven’t had that one-on-one WrestleMania match between the two of them, and with Belair still sidelined by the injury she suffered last year at WrestleMania 41, we’ll have to wait until at least 2027 to see that materialize.

WWE, to its credit, found ways to keep both of them hot while not competing for one of the two top titles; with Belair, it was with The Big Three, and with Ripley, her begrudging respect turned to soldierly sisterhood with Sky. But after The Big Three’s dissolution and Naomi’s departure for her pregnancy, Cargill was thrust into the spotlight as a singles star, capturing the WWE Women’s Championship from Tiffany Stratton in November. So who better to challenge her than the top active act in the division?

As far as the story these two are telling, I’m not a big fan. It doesn’t benefit anyone in a feud to work any form of a “you can’t wrestle” angle, so to lead off with Ripley saying Cargill is chasing an aesthetic as opposed to working toward what she’d need to be more successful in the ring undermines Cargill being the top champion. A lot of the back and forth between the two, both on television and across social media, doesn’t make me want to see the match more, because I don’t believe either would do something to genuinely make the other look bad in front of an audience of millions.

In 2024, I asked Ripley about the progression of women’s wrestling, not just from a match-by-match standpoint, but the attention placed on it. “I just hope that it transcends, and it just takes that next step in the business where we do start getting more TV time,” she told me.

“I feel like a lot of the time, you see three-minute tag matches, and I really want to see the women get the opportunities to really shine and get that time on live television to show everyone how charismatic they are, how clean they are in the ring, all these different things. So that's what I really want to see in the near future. And it's been really cool to see so many different — I'm going to say the word ‘characters,’ but just personas. It fits every single mold for the WWE universe to watch and connect with.”

Fast forward to 2026 and there’s an ecosystem with not only a Ripley and a Cargill, but a Lash Legend, a Lyra Valkyria — so many different people doing different things in different ways. To cut a unique, top champion off at the legs as a pretender seems counterintuitive, so hopefully these two have the type of brawl planned out to solidify why Cargill’s in the position she’s in.

The inclusion of B-Fab and Michin as a tougher, go-hard iteration of Cargill’s AEW Baddies has also really made the champ look like the no-nonsense bruiser she operates best as, so here’s hoping that carries over to a knockdown, drag-out highlight of the night.

Undisputed WWE Championship Match: Cody Rhodes (c) vs. Randy Orton

Aside from his OWV classmate John Cena, no one’s troubled and terrorized — in a good way — WWE’s main-event scene for as long and as hard as Randy Orton.

Since his first world title win in 2004, Orton’s always been in contention, or at least hovered around the very top of the card. And for those few moments where he may have been doing something else, the reaction to his appearance, his finisher, or his “Voices” entrance was always still among the loudest. He’s one the very few grandfathered in superstars from that era. The fans look at him as a perennial title contender and a threat to absolutely anyone at any time. So what’s an easier layup than a consistent top guy challenging his on-screen pupil who worked his way to superstardom?

In 2024, I asked Cody Rhodes about the fraternity of second- and third-generation stars, particularly Orton and his WrestleMania 40/41 foe, The Rock, and how they approach wrestling based on their experiences. “Well, I think for second and third generations particularly, even if we don't like one another, we like [sharing that distinction],” he said.

“Even if we're not the best of friends, even if we're completely at odds, even if we're wrestling against each other, even if we're making each other bleed all over the ring, whatever it may be, it's not easy to follow in anyone's footsteps. Randy is a different situation for me because he's one of my heroes. You could tell me till I'm blue in the face, ‘Oh, I'm on his level.’ I wouldn't believe you. I just wouldn't. He's one of my heroes.”

Rhodes has the most gargantuan good-guy streak since Cena, and Orton has an appetite for evil he never seems to quite satiate. Orton beating the peroxide out of Rhodes in March, post-Elimination Chamber, was that exclamation point to let us know that respect was out the window for this build, and that retribution — even if it was only one of those Jordan-eqsue motivation tools in Orton’s head — was firmly on the table.

So the idea that THIS MATCH needed a bunch of outside forces, celebrity sightings and muddled mouthpieces is just silly, through and through.

Pat McAfee and Jelly Roll have played a central role in the Rhodes vs. Orton story, for better or worse.

(WWE via Getty Images)

With Jelly Roll, it’s fairly harmless, but I don’t know what he adds to any of this. The guy shows up and works hard, but that’s what you say about the team manager that gets in at the end of a blowout on senior night, not the match for the company’s most prestigious prize.

But Pat McAfee’s inclusion and direction? They both confuse me.

The maximized, all-American dudebro that’s dominated new media as “the guy everyone wants to have a beer with” all of a sudden missed the wrestling of yesteryear when everyone was built like Hall, talked like Austin and sung their stick like Sandman, out of nowhere? I do not know who this is supposed to attract. I don’t even know who it’s supposed to galvanize into rooting against Orton, who people NEVER want to root against.

The lone saving grace here is that two of WWE’s best main-event performers know what they’re doing, so all the bells and whistles shouldn’t ring so loud that the sermon this Saturday doesn’t service the congregation.

World Heavyweight Championship: CM Punk (c) vs. Roman Reigns

After Roman Reigns defeated Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins and an overzealous fan on Night 1 of WrestleMania 40, I asked him what changed for him, mentally and creatively, to push both the Tribal Chief and The Bloodline to new heights during WWE’s Thunderdome months. “When I’m watching [WWE TV] ... they’re wrestling the same [as they did pre-pandemic],” he said at the time. “I had the advantage of being on the sideline for that time, but I knew exactly what I needed to do. It was time to change the game. It was time to use this silence and allow your voice to be boosted. Allow yourself to take it into different dialogue.

“You don't have to just be sitting in the middle of the ring, shouting over a bunch of people chanting. Now we can tell stories, now we can get into deeper dialogue, where you better pay attention.”

Ultimately with Reigns during that era, you saw an island rise from the sea and battle off wave after wave of challengers until Rhodes was able to topple it. Along the way, Reigns won over his doubters, helped WWE hit impossible metrics, and created new stars like Jey Uso and Jacob Fatu. But the man who was built during that record-breaking stretch never forgot where he came from, nor who might have tried to keep him there.

Roman Reigns and World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk close out Night 2 of WrestleMania 42.

(WWE via Getty Images)

So it’s highly unlikely he’ll ever forget Thanksgiving Day 2014, the date of the infamous Colt Cabana Podcast where CM Punk aired his grievances about his former employer. Whether there was actual bad blood at that stage or not, there’s no question that Punk’s reiterations of the “make Roman look good” mandate was interpreted as an insult by the masses, making Reigns’ path to the top a bit more steep.

Fast-forward a little more than a decade and Punk is back in the fold, having found his passion for wrestling once more through a tumultuous but rewarding run with AEW. He’s the World Heavyweight Champion, and as shown through his recent feud with Finn Balor, he still has the goods when it’s time to go. But what’s worked for him has also worked against him, and is also what Reigns hates (and avoids) about himself — the accountability of what you left in your wake. Maybe what’s missing from this build has been that third party to say just how similar they’ve been in how they’ve treated people to get what they want? Still, these two have brought the physicality this feud needed, and, incredibly, they both did something you almost never see: You had two successful men explain that part of their misery comes from coveting something the other has.

For Punk, it’s jealously over how much he had to do on his own, without the support system of Reigns’ Bloodline, both past and present. For Reign, it’s the love from the crowd he had to develop over years and years, which Punk seemed to have upon arrival.

If Punk’s at the level he’s been the past few months, I expect this to be a nasty, hard-fought close to a show that, after two long nights, will need an exclamation point at the end. I just hope all of the talk of ticket sales and relevancy give way to a story almost 15 years in the making — a story that needs to end with one man out cold, and one man a decisive victor.