Hiya!

Well, I talked about the first day of Wrestlemania 37 a few days back but I just couldn’t get around to posting a comprehensive review of Day 2 until now. For some strange reason, Day 1 really drained me and I just couldn’t jump into the next day’s Wrestlemania. I just needed some time to recover… and I did!

So, let’s go review Wrestlemania 37’s Day 2 already! There’s a lot to cover again!

The first match of the night was The Fiend vs. Bray Wyatt. This was supposed to be the glorious return of The Fiend after being burned alive by Randy Orton at TLC earlier this year. This wasn’t the glorious return we expected nor deserved. Basically, Alexa Bliss came out to ringside and opened up a gigantic jack-in-the-box to reveal The Fiend. The Fiend then brutalized Randy Orton and no-sold The Viper’s attacks for the majority of the match. So far, so good.

It was all good until the finish, anyway.

The finish had Alexa Bliss appear on the top of the same jack-in-the-box The Fiend popped out of. She started squirting blood from her forehead which, for some unknown reason, gave The Fiend pause. Randy Orton then nailed an RKO on The Fiend to get the 3-count. Alexa Bliss and The Fiend stared at each other until all the lights went out. When the lights came back on, the ring was empty. What the heck did I just watch?

I wasn’t expecting some textbook match on technical wrestling but I did expect a little more wrestling than what we got. It’s also dumb to have The Fiend simply get pinned by a singular RKO after no-selling the multiple draping DDTs. What’s the most baffling is the “interference” done by Alexa Bliss. It comes out of nowhere and, frankly speaking, I’m not even sure if you can call this interference anyways! The abrupt ending also makes this suck even harder. Thanks, I hate it.

The next match had Shayna Bazler and Nia Jax defending their Women’s Tag Team Championships against Natayla and Tamina, the team who won the Tag Team Turmoil at Day 1. I went into this match feeling underwhelmed regarding who was participating. No offense to Natalya and Tamina but they aren’t the most charismatic women’s wrestlers. They are, however, the most experience so I was generally expecting a fairly good match. None of the spots were particularly mind-blowing but I did like how they were hinting that Tamina was itching to bodyslam Nia Jax, which did make it somewhat satisfying when she eventually did… kinda. I mean, she almost wasn’t able to as it was more like a half slam as Tamina couldn’t get the Irresistible Force all that high up.

The finish came after Natalya got the hot tag from Tamina. Jax got Natalya in position for a samoan drop and, unbeknownst to the daughter of Jim Neidhart, Bazler tagged herself in. Natalya knocked Bazler off the apron and tried locked the Sharpshooter on Jax after a low dropkick. The Queen of Spades took this opportunity to lock the Kirifuda Clutch on Natalya, leading to her foe falling unconscious. This means Shayna Bazler and Nia Jax retain their Women’s Tag Team Championships.

This was not a bad match. It was technically sound actually. The flow was good overall, in fact. However, as there was no build up, it was hard for me to feel anything. The only real highlight was Tamina slamming the larger Nia Jax but even that was sloppily executed. Not a bad match but I don’t think anyone will be remembering it anytime soon.

The next match had Sami Zayn take on Kevin Owens with Logan Paul as Zayn’s special guest at ringside. As these two are supposed to be best friends, I knew this was going to be a really good match. I was right. There was a lot of really good spots and both men gave it their all. Zayn hitting the Michinoku Driver and a fallaway suplex on the ring apron was really cool looking. Owens retaliated with a pump handle shoulder breaker as well as a fisherman suplex from the second turnbuckle.

The finish came after Zayn connected with his Helluva Kick finisher but didn’t pin Owens immediately and instead went for another Helluva Kick. This allowed Owens to counter with a couple of superkicks. He punctuated it with a Stunner to get the 3-count and win the match. After the match, Logan Paul decided to suck up to Owens and turn his back on the man who invited him. While Logan Paul was raising Owens hand in victory, KO had enough of his preening and connected with a Stunner on Logan to the cheers of the WWE live audience.

This, by all indications, was a really good match. However, something just seems missing as it was rather short. The match seemed to just started to get really good and then it just ended. That’s not a bad thing but you just know it could have been much better if the WWE allowed Owens and Zayn to extend the match just a couple of minutes longer to build up more anticipation for the finish. It’s still a great match but just short of awesome.

The next match had Riddle defending his United States Championship against Sheamus. For some strange reason, I wasn’t expecting this to be a good match as I just couldn’t picture the two competitors having any chemistry in the ring. Thankfully, I was wrong. They both played to their strengths, with Sheamus just using raw power and clubbing blows and Riddle using very creative moves as well as showing off his strength. This led to some really creative moves. There was a minor botch when it looked like Sheamus was going for an avalanche White Noise but slipped. It’s a good thing The Celtic Warrior adjusted quickly and just went for regular White Noise and added a leaping knee drop from the top to add some more flair.

The finish came after the aforementioned flying knee drop. Sheamus signaled for the Brough Kick but The Original Bro ducked underneath and attempted a knee strike but was blocked. Riddle ducked under a clothesline and went for a springboard moonsault but was met with a Brough Kick from out of nowhere! 3 seconds later, Sheamus is your NEW United States Champion! This was a really good match and much better than I expected. I really do hope Riddle comes back to try to take the United States Championship from Sheamus in the next RAW or soon. We can have another high caliber match like this down the line if they do make this a feud.

The next bout had Big E defending the Intercontinental Championship against Apollo Crews in an Nigerian Drum Match. What’s a Nigerian Drum Match, you might ask? It’s just a No Holds Barred match but with Nigerian Drums and other stuff strewn around ringside. How is this supposed to be an ancient traditional battle from Nigeria when there are things like kendo sticks, folding tables, steel steps and an obviously Chinese prop gong that can be used as weaponry? That’s because wrestling, so stop asking questions, WWE Universe!

The finish came after Big E avoided a frog splash from Apollo Crews, sending the newly minted Nigerian through a table. Big E then hit the Big Ending but, before he could make the pin, some massive guy ran into the ring assaulted him. The massive guy then hit Big E with a chokeslam and dragged Crews over Big E to get the pinfall, making Apollo Crews your NEW Intercontinental Champion!

This was just okay. Calling it a Nigerian Drum Match did make the fight feel stupid as this was just a No Holds Barred match. They didn’t even use any of the Nigerian drums which were placed around ringside. There wasn’t much actual wrestling but the action involving the weapons were fun. I don’t like screwjob endings, especially at pay-per-view events such as Wrestlemania, so I didn’t like the finish here. I guess this was the best way to introduce whoever that was but The Showcase of the Immortals deserve much more creative ways to close a match than just a run-in.

The penultimate match of Wrestlemania 37 Day 2 pitted Asuka against Rhea Ripley with Asuka’s RAW Women’s Championship on the line. Now, let me say this up front and state I do not like Rhea Ripley. I know the fans adore her but I don’t. There’s just this feeling of inauthenticity with her overall gimmick which prevents me from taking a ride on the bandwagon. It just feels like Roman Reigns all over again. That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a good match with her but a lot of my impressions will be clouded by how I feel for her. This seems to be the case this time around as she battled Asuka for the RAW Women’s Championship. There were some really hard hitting moves which did look cool, I will give them that.

It didn’t help that the finish came out of nowhere. Asuka managed to lock her Asuka Lock after a pinning predicament but Ripley rolled through to turn in into a pin, forging the Empress of Tomorrow to break the hold. Asuka started kicking Ripley across the chest but Ripley started taunting her opponent. Asuka bounced off the ropes to try to kick Ripley again but The Nightmare ducked underneath it and connected with her Riptide pumphandle slam to get the pinfall victory and become the NEW RAW Women’s Champion.

The finish was bad for a couple of reasons. One, there was no drama to it. It was just Ripley hitting her finisher from out of nowhere and there wasn’t any special gimmick to it. This did let the air out of the finish quite a bit. It also had the secondary effect of making Asuka look weak as all it took was one big move, granted it was a finisher but still just one move, for her to get pinned. The match itself was good but the finish left much to be desired.

We finally get to Wrestlemania 37 Day 2’s main event, which was a Triple Threat match for the WWE Universal Championship. This pitted the reigning champion Roman Reigns against Edge and Daniel Bryan. This was expected to be a showstopper of a match thanks to the caliber of the WWE Superstars in the ring. Having Edge and Roman Reigns would’ve been enough but adding Daniel Bryan to the mix did add a lot of satisfying spice to the main course, so to speak. As this was a Triple Threat match, this also meant there was no disqualification, which all 3 performers put to good use to really heat things up right from the opening bell.

The match did generally follow the standard Triple Threat flow as there would usually be one wrestler taken out of the ring so the remaining two can do their stuff before one of them is replaced by the one who was outside. That doesn’t mean things things can’t get really intense! There were a lot of really neat and unique spots, such as Edge and Reigns both going for spears at the same time, some really good improv by Edge as he used one of the damaged chair legs to intensify the crossface he applied to Reigns and the double crossface and Yes Lock by Edge and Daniel Bryan respectively on Reigns looked ridiculous but just plain unique.

The finish came after Bryan dragged the referee to the outside to stop Edge’s pin on Reigns after a spear. The Rated R Superstar went ballistic and mercilessly walloped both his opponents with a steel chair. Edge took out Bryan with a solo con-chair-to and turned his attention to Reigns but Jey Uso ran in and assaulted The Ultimate Opportunist before he could do so. Edge managed to retaliate with a spear and several chair shots to Uso’s back. This, however, allowed Reigns enough time to recover and connect with a spear to Edge. Reigns does a con-chair-to of his own to Edge. The Head of the Table then stacks Edge and Bryan on top of each other to pin both of them at the same time to get the pinfall win and retain his WWE Universal Championship.

This was a really great, high-octane match. Even if this was a screwjob finish, something I normally detest, I can give this a pass as it does fit Roman Reigns’ character of having to cheat in order to squeak by. I do think it would’ve been better if the finish was a clean win by Reigns, either by spearing Edge after The Rated R Superstar clocked Bryan with the con-chair-to and stealing the pin. Still, it’s hard to argue with how good this match was overall. By the way, props to WWE for actually letting a heel win to close out Wrestlemania. I haven’t seen that in a while.

Both Wrestlemania 37 nights were really, really good. The live audience did add a lot of excitement but it was the matches that were the real highlight. Day 2 did open the night with a stinker featuring The Fiend and Randy Orton but the rest of the matches were more than decent. Overall, this year’s Wrestlemania was something to behold.

Byee!

Have you seen Wrestlemania 37’s Day 2? What did you think of it? Was is better than Day 1? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!