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Deadseriousness Wrestlemania 39 Review: Lol at Cody Rhodes

wrestlemania 39

I was going to do the typical “5 takeaways” or “grading every match” type of review for Wrestlemania 39 but doing the same generic nonsense that every other media company does is why my bank account is overdrawn right now so let’s just do it the Deadseriousness way.

Let’s go match-by-match and talk about the biggest night of the wrestling calendar.

 

United States Championship: John Cena vs. Austin Theory

In 2017, I went to go see Kong Skull Island in theatres. Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, John Goodman, the other guy in step brothers, the guy who plays Loki. A loaded cast and of course, King Kong.

When I left that movie, I instantly forgot everything I just witnessed. It was as if I hadn’t seen the movie at all. It was the least memorable experience of my life.

I know Austin Theory won this match because I looked it up and it says so but I won’t pretend to remember any of the details outside of John Cena’s scalp winking at me every few minutes. Just a perfect reminder of why I didn’t enjoy Cena being the top guy and why I can’t imagine liking Austin Theory going forward.

 

Braun Strowman & Ricochet vs. The Street Profits vs. Alpha Academy vs. The Viking Raiders (Men’s Showcase)

I reckon these showcases were necessary for getting more people a Wrestlemania paycheck. It’s not as cool when you see Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens win the tag team titles at the end of the night and remember that none of these teams are anywhere near popular enough to take the tag titles off of those two so this whole match kind of just existed in a vacuum.

Montez Ford is my guy and I’m glad he and Dawkins picked up the win. It would be insane to go from stealing the show at Elimination Chamber to losing to the Viking Raiders or whatever at Wrestlemania. Now it’s time to strap the rocket on him. Tez vs. Austin Theory asap.

Also that thing Braun Strowman does where he runs around the ring shoulder blocking everyone is pretty lame but that may have more to do with how I feel about Strowman and less about the actual spot.

And quick shout out to the Viking Raiders. I cannot imagine that became wrestlers with the hopes of being nameless Vikings who exist exclusively to lose to guys who actually have names and personalities.

 

Seth Rollins vs. Logan Paul

You could look at this match in two ways: 1. WWE trusts Seth Rollins so much that they gave him the big celebrity match like they did with Sami Zayn and Johnny Knoxville last year. It’s a sign of respect to let a guy work with the famous dude.

OR

2. WWE has no idea what to do with Seth Rollins who has somehow spent an entire year losing every single match yet continues to grow in popularity so they sent Rollins out there against Logan Paul because Seth needed a mania match and well, shrug.

I’m leaning more towards the latter. They have no idea if Seth Rollins is a face or a heel and there’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll just throw him to Cody Rhodes in a month to lose more and make Rhodes look like a champ again.

As far as the Logan Paul side of things, we already know he’s good at wrestling. That match against Roman Reigns at Crown Jewel was phenomenal. This match seemed a bit too much about Logan and KSI and other Youtubers whose entire rise to popularity escaped my pop culture radar and now I have to pretend to know who these guys are or care when KSI is revealed to be the mascot for the nasty energy drink Logan Paul is shoving down teenagers’ throats.

I’m doing a lot of complaining. I promise you I liked these matches. Well, not the next one…

Becky Lynch, Lita & Trish Stratus vs. Damage CTRL (Bayley, Dakota Kai and Iyo Sky):

Now, before I whine about this I want to make it very clear that it’s cool Lita and Trish are back at Wrestlemania and it’s wild how long it’s been since they’ve been at this event.

THAT BEING SAID, I cannot fathom the decision to give these not-quite-young women almost 20 minutes of wrestling time considering they didn’t wrestle for longer than 5 minutes back when they were in their physical primes.

I’m also over Damage Control. They should’ve been an NWO-style faction dominating the women’s division until Becky Lynch heroically recruiting Trish and Lita saved the WWE from Damage Control’s reign of terror.

Instead, these 3 women have displayed zero chemistry with one another and lose week after week after week.

WWE has no idea how to tell a compelling women’s story and they have no idea how to display women as dominant unless they look like Chyna. They only know how to make heel women act ‘crazy’ because a couple of the writers watched Margot Robbie play Harley Quinn and now that’s the standard for any women’s behavior outside of the norm.

 

Rey Mysterio vs. Dominik Mysterio

Okay, rants are over. The Mysterio family brought me back to sanity. Dominik leaning into going to jail for like, 8 hours and coming out handcuffed with a police escort was genius. Rey Mysterio paying tribute to Eddie Guerrero was perfect and both entrances reminded you you were watching Wrestlemania and not some random episode of Raw.

I’m not entirely sure why Rey Mysterio was able to use his belt against Dominik directly in front of the ref and Dominik got in trouble for bringing out the steel chain but I won’t pretend to be hung up on the logistics of this match.

I thought Dominik was the lamest wrestler on the roster before joining Judgement Day and turning heel. Everything he’s done since being draped in purple and black has been exceptional. He will never be as good of a wrestler as his father but he doesn’t have to be. Rey Mysterio is 1 of 1. But Dominik has carved his own lane as a weasel heel with daddy issues and great comedic timing.

Love that Rey got the win over his son at Mania because he is 1000% getting slutted out at Backlash in front of Bad Bunny.

 

SmackDown Women’s Championship: Charlotte Flair (c) vs. Rhea Ripley

This was the match of the night for me and it isn’t particularly close. These two women were pissed they didn’t get the main event slot and put on an instant classic to prove their point. I’ve already written glowingly about their performance so I won’t go into crazy detail here.

I would like to add that there was a secret sauce to this match. Both women have mastered the intangibles. Yes, they can wrestle their asses off but both women carry themselves in such unique ways. In ways that someone like, say, Dakota Kai, simply does not.

Charlotte Flair has always done an amazing job at presenting herself as if she is superior to everyone and she’s almost doing the world a favor by showing up. This mania match played with that perfectly as she seemed overly emotional to the point of literally tearing up during the match. It was almost as if she finally let her guard down and was vulnerable out there. Charlotte Flair was human this weekend.

Rhea Ripley’s gift is always knowing where the cameras are and giving little glances. Plenty of wrestlers play to the cameras but it’s often corny and lame like people sticking their tongues out or pretending to be crazy or whatever it is Demon Finn Bailor is supposed to be doing.

But Rhea’s glances into the camera are confident. It’s like she’s looking right at you and saying “I know you fuck with me. Watch this”. It’s why her entrance is so cool. When she looks into the camera, she’s letting the audience in on a secret: you know I’m badass and I know it too.

Thank god Charlotte didn’t win this.

Pat McAfee vs. The Miz

I have absolutely no relationship with the guy who used to punt for the most boring organization in professional sports. Pat McAfee got popular in sports media because he spent years gobbling on Dave Portnoy’s balls at Barstool Sports and now he has his own Youtube show that seems to exist exclusively for Aaron Rodgers to come on once a week and tell us all the garbage shit he learned from listening to Joe Rogan that morning.

Nick Khan went on ESPN’s First Take and told fans to expect surprises. That surprise was…the guy who did commentary for a couple years. Hollywood, baybeeeeee.

Undisputed tag team championships: The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) (c) vs. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens

Man, what an incredible match this would be on Smackdown next week. I never understood why people wanted this match. After how incredible this Bloodline story has been between Roman Reigns, Jey Uso and Sami Zayn, it never made sense for it to end with a tag team match involving Kevin Owens who was shoehorned into the drama for no reason.

Perhaps this is my own personal disinterest in tag team matches as they are all predictable as hell but this seems like a fued between Sami and Jey. A big 1-on-1 street fight to close night 1 of Wrestlemania would’ve been FIRE. And again, they could do this tag team match literally whenever the fuck.

Also, super kicks are cool because they always seem out of nowhere and look powerful as hell. But when you do like, 6 straight super kicks it’s impossible to ignore how bad they look. Super kicks have diminishing returns and the Usos doing a bajillion on Sami didn’t look the way I think they thought it looked.

Good for Kevin Steen and El Generico though.

Brock Lesnar vs. Omos

My only thoughts while watching this match were amazement at Brock Lesnar’s ability to make his entire head turn purple. Brock’s job was to make Omos look powerful and he tried his darndest to do so.

Omos put Brock in several bear hugs that we all knew Brock was never going to tap out from but Brock elected to damn near make himself pass out just so those bear hugs looked like they were killing him.

When we look back at Wrestlemania history, this match will say more about Brock than it will Omos who will almost certainly never be a champion and probably won’t be at Wrestlemania next season. He’s like The Great Khali without any of the fans irrational hate of Muslims (even though I’m pretty sure Khali was Indian).

Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez vs. Natalya and Shotzi vs. Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler vs. Chelsea Green and Sonya Deville

This match would begin a string of some weird ass injuries as Rounda Rousey and Shayna Baszler spent most of the match on the outside watching or pretending to be knocked out because neither woman was healthy enough to actually compete at Wrestlemania BUT they’re the two most famous ones so they had to be there.

As much as I was prepared to hate-watch this, the match had dope spots and you can tell it was important to everyone involved, especially Natalya who is getting up there in years and at this point of her career, she will never be given a championship but that double sharpshooter was incredible.

Chelsea Green also had some great comedic moments and I know she was working with Carmella but I hope she and Sonya Deville get a real tag team title shot and if it’s against Lita, I hope that match is 90 seconds long.

Congrats to Ronda Rousey for once again collecting the biggest check and doing the fucking least. It’s a good gig, if you can get it.

Intercontinental championship: Gunther (c) vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus

I think we all went into this match with a decent understanding of what we were about to see and they still managed to exceed expectations. WWE isn’t great at false finishes or I should say, they aren’t as good as other companies but I truly believed Drew and Sheamus were both going to win the IC title like, 9 different times during this match.

Gunther is the best wrestler WWE has which is why it’s so shocking that they’re rewarding him with a year-long title reign and a big victory over two main eventers in his first-ever Wrestlemania appearance.

Raw women’s championship: Bianca Belair (c) vs. Asuka

Asuka is my favorite wrestler in the world so I won’t bore anyone with my praise for one of the greatest female wrestlers going out there and making Biance look like a million bucks and continuing to elevate the entire women’s division while receiving none of the praise that Charlotte Flair or Becky Lynch receives.

Bianca should go her entire career undefeated at Wrestlemania like The Undertaker. She should also never wear that top again because her tits were popping out like a Heather Graham movie.

Snoop Dogg vs. The Miz

I was prepared to be angry about the son Vince McMahon exiled into oblivion getting more Wrestlemania screen time than guys like Bobby Lashley or LA Knight but after rewatching that Snoop Dogg segment and the combination of everyone bouncing back so quickly with Shane McMahon having one of the many embarrassing moments of his life, I have no choice but to applaud what happened.

I’ve watched enough episodes of Succession to understand why Shane O’Mac was out there skipping around and melting all of his knee cartilage into liquid marrow. WWE was just sold to Endeavor and to make the sale final, Vince McMahon had to make it seem like his family business was being run by a happy family which meant Shane had to come back but since Shane is one of the biggest fail sons in the history of nepotism, naturally, Shane turned a 5-minute guest spot into an overnight hospital visit.

Edge vs. “The Demon” Finn Balor (Hell in a Cell)

There are so many WWE fans who hate the amount of blood they see in AEW. Well, I’d rather see too much blood than have the heel in a HELL IN A CELL match need to quickly crawl to the edge of the mat so doctors can quickly staple his head to avoid any and all blood in what is supposed to be a brutal death match between long time personal foes.

If WWE wants to keep doubling and tripling down on being PG and targeting a young audience—despite most of the faces you see in the Wrestlemania crowd being grown-ass adults—then they need to stop having cage matches or any sort of no-DQ match.

Good for Finn Balor who got to job to a 50-year-old that threw a fucking ladder at his skull.

Undisputed WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns (c) vs. Cody Rhodes

Either people were going to complain about a mid-carder quitting to go create a company where he booked himself into being a main eventer coming back to WWE and stealing the Undisputed Championship from the most dominant champion of our generation or people were going to complain about Reigns being forced down our throats and WWE embarrassing Cody and wasting everyone’s time.

That conversation is boring to me.

I want to talk about how much of a sicko Cody is. I’ve written about Cody being a sicko in the past but he took it to another level at Wrestlemania 39. Cody had a huge entrance. He kissed his child. Embraced his wife. Gave his weight belt to the son of his deceased friend. He looked like he was about to win the Undisputed title.

And that makes him one of the biggest sickos in the business. I don’t know how long Cody knew he was going to lose that main event but he 1000% knew when he was out there kissing his kid and making everyone in that arena think he was about to slay the giant.

I have no idea who will take the titles off Roman Reigns but it won’t be Goldust’s brother. Triple H spent the year building Cody into a superstar only to embarrass him at Wrestlemania and send him back to the mid-card.

Or maybe Shane McMahon will return from ACL surgery to take the belts from Reigns when Vince wants to sell his stock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Written by thelesterlee

Creator of Deadseriousness. Diehard Knicks, Yankees and Giants fan who wants to create a sports and pop culture space that isn't the same copy and pasted AI content you see everywhere else.

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