WWE WrestleMania 42 Under Fire For Too Many Commercials, Not Enough Wrestling

Cody Rhodes defeated Randy Orton at WrestleMania 42.

WWE

WrestleMania 42 Night 1 | Key Points

• Fans bash WrestleMania 42 Night 1 for being a four-and-a-half-hour show where none of the seven matches went over 22 minutes.
• The wrestling of WrestleMania lasted for less than 90 minutes despite airing from 3 pm to 7:30 pm.
• Fans are continue to blame TKO for having an adverse effect on WWE.

WWE WrestleMania 42 Night 1 is in the books, and some fans are calling out WWE and TKO’s budding corporate romance for hurting the show, a sentiment expressed by WWE fans during the buildup. Not only was Pat McAfee scripted to diss WrestleMania’s lower ticket sales in its return to Vegas (which still eclipsed 50,000 as WrestleMania flirts with a live gate record), but WrestleMania host John Cena hinted at chaos surrounding the attendance number. That chaos is part-and-parcel to the IWC outrage directed at TKO’s corporate meddling in WWE’s wrestling product.

WrestleMania’s main event was a very good. I found it highly entertaining with Bret Hart-Stone Cold vibes from WrestleMania 13 given the constant teasing of a double-turn. But the apparent retconning of Pat McAfee, who vowed to never appear in WWE again if Randy Orton lost, mixed with Cody Rhodes playing the heel and winning only for Orton to punt Cody like a heel led to confusion among viewers.

“Punting Cody after you lose the match and you stand tall even though you ain’t the champion WWE in 2026 boys,” tweeted one user.

Though internet wrestling fans are the most miserable human beings on earth, this doesn’t mean that there is no validity to their opinions. In fact, that same love for pro wrestling that drove them to insanity is what makes select opinions valid to begin with. By the time WrestleMania 42 Night 1 wrapped, some of WWE’s more impassioned fans were furious with what they felt was a disjointed main event that ended a show filled with more commercials and corporate branding than wrestling on the card itself.

Many Twitter accounts listed match times, and the results are quite shocking considering the four-and-a-half hour length of this PLE:

Cody Rhodes defeated Randy Orton at WrestleMania 42.

WWE

WrestleMania 42 Night 1 Match Times

• Usos & LA vs. Vision—7 minutes
• Jacob vs. Drew—14 minutes
• Women’s Fatal 4-Way—9 minutes
• Becky Lynch vs. AJ Lee—8 minutes
• Gunther vs. Seth Rollins—15 minutes
• Liv Morgan vs. Stephanie Vaquer—7 minutes
• Randy Orton vs. Cody—23 minutes

Three of the seven Night 1 matches eclipsed double-digit minutes in match time, and with the exception of the 23-minute main event, none of them went over 15 minutes.

“This WrestleMania has been hilariously produced so far. We got Hulk Hogan ads, Singers lip syncing their own song, cameramen tripping while their angle is active, Michael Cole getting cut off on commentary before the commercial break. Kinda sums up WWE in 2026 huh,” tweeted one account.

Twitter accounts such as Wrestle Features and FADE asked fans to grade WrestleMania 42 Night 1 on a scale of one to 10, with some fans (incorrectly) calling it the worst WrestleMania of all time. Others felt it was a solid WrestleMania bogged down with too many commercials.

Still, not everyone was down on WrestleMania’s Night 1 showcase, with WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair calling the heated main event between Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton of the greatest matches he’s seen in the past few years.

Once the lineups were announced, WrestleMania Night 2 was projected to be the more anticipated night. With fan reaction to WrestleMania 42 Night 1 polarizing at best, WWE will need to deliver an all-time classic for a show that was just as dramatic for reasons outside of WWE’s control as it was for the card itself.

Key matches of WrestleMania 42 Night 2 include an apparent coronation of Oba Femi, a showdown between Jade Cargill and Rhea Ripley, a six-man Ladder match and a heavily anticipated main event between Roman Reigns and CM Punk.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com