Wrestlemania 41: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

After fast forwarding through large chunks of Wrestlemania 41—I have decided I probably won’t be watching or reviewing the WWE anymore. If anything interesting happens over there, you’ll hear my thoughts on “The Pipe Bomb,” but yea, I’m unplugging from a company that doesn’t want me there.

This new, TKO-owned, Netflix-streamed WWE slop is for the incurious.

Wrestlemania 41 sold almost 60,000 tickets (each night) in Las Vegas and not a single fan in that building cared about what was happening in front of them.

Sure, they sang their little entrance songs they’ve been conditioned to sing and they’ll yell “YEA” when LA Knight instructs them to, but after rewatching Stone Cold vs. The Rock at Wrestlemania 17—the vibes are dead these days.

I don’t care how much viewership records they break or how much merch they sell, these shows have priced out real fans, turning WWE live events into corporate, sterile, soulless Instagram picture venues. The building was silent for most of the match. No chants, no “This Is Awesome”, nothing. It’s a program where you just sit on your hands and wait for the next attraction to come out. The crowd goes crazy during entrances, exclusively.

Yo, I could not believe how many ads were pasted on the ring mat. There’s nothing wrong with a company making money but it didn’t even feel like I was watching a wrestling show.

I like professional wrestling for the actual wrestling—the athletic competition—regardless of the predetermined results. Professional wrestling has some of the most unique and unbelievable athletes on this planet, and the WWE treats the in-ring action as its last opportunity to sell Slim Jims and Logan Paul’s coconut water

It is impossible to disconnect this company from its politics. especially as you watch them balloon into an unrecognizable product.

I understand most of the things I like are run, operated and controlled by wealthy people who, at the very least, donated to Donald Trump’s campaign—the same Donald Trump who has dedicated his entire adult life to making the lives of everyone else in the world worse.

And Donald Trump has surrounded himself with self-serving, racist, sexist, power-hungry, low-IQ scammers who are working overtime to turn America into the hell they feel inside themselves.

So yea, when I see Linda McMahon becoming the Secretary of Education—a woman who is in no way qualified to determine the education standards of the entire country—having poseesion of a meaningless Bachelor’s degree in French, 60 fucking years ago.

College kids are being sent to the gulags for protesting. This is not good.

Linda has this position because the McMahons paid Trump $21 million in campaign contributions. This is the return of an IOU. For a party sooooooooo concerned about DEI handing out the best jobs to unqualified brown people, they sure seem to not care about the United States’s education system being run by a woman who hasn’t been near a school since they were segregated.

Last week, Linda McMahon spoke at an Arizona summit about innovation in education and she thought “AI” was pronounced “A1”, like the steak sauce.

Linda is pushing artificial intelligence into classrooms, AND SHE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS.

What would it say about my principles if I let this family of carnies—who have cozied up to the most transparently corrupt regime in modern American history—continue to have any of my time or attention?

It’s impossible to detach WWE from a growing MAGA movement of anti-intellectualism and conspiracies and racism cloaked under “America first” nonsense.

It’s a movement taking advantage of the less-informed—tricking them into believing they’re gaining real, tangible and material help to improve their lives when in reality—they have signed a contract allowing the wealthiest Americans to exploit them even further, and in exchange, they get to say slurs online.

V cool.

Shit, the entire week of Wrestlemania felt like WWE was making me walk the plank.

From Triple H telling people to stop being “critics” and just be “fans” to Roman Reigns revealing he’s also a Trump supporter to Tony Heathcliff hosting a roast where no cameras or microphones allowed because—like Triple H telling us just to be fans—we should all shut up and mindlessly consume their content without critical thinking.

Linda McMahon was hired to run a department of education that Trump is actively trying to dismantle.

The whole enterprise is to make us mindless and to just go with the flow—even if the flow is against our best interests and we no longer have an FDA to prevent our children from eating lead cereal.

Enjoy your poison and shut up.

And honestly, like I said earlier, I’ve consumed content produced by evil people.

But that’s the problem with WrestleMania 41.

You have to make good content for me to ignore Beelzebub eating popcorn in the front row.

What the fuck is The New Day vs. The War Raiders doing on this show?

Okay, well, I guess I accidentally already covered The Ugly part of Wrestlemania 41 so let’s get into the bad and hopefully I can find some good at the end. I doubt it.

The Bad

I love Chad Gable, but I cannot support this El Grande Americano character mocking Mexican luchadors and then receiving one of the biggest entraces of Wrestlemania 41 weekend with pyro and a full ass mariachi band and the change in the camera filter.

El Grande Americano makes his #WrestleMania debut right now! pic.twitter.com/pjyFhZ30qW

— WWE (@WWE) April 20, 2025

And RIGHT before the Wrestlemania debut of one of the best modern luchadors, Rey Fenix.

Which is then used to break the news about WWE acquiring AAA—a Mexican wrestling promotion they will either rebrand to NXT or dissolve entirely—thus taking food off the plates of hundreds, if not thousands, of employees, trainers, staff and wrestlers.

WWE is not so subtly attempting to monopolize the business.

Their new WWE ID program which, according to their press release “will identify top independent wrestling prospects with an official WWE ID “prospect” designation and support their developmental journey by providing financial opportunity and assisting with training, mentorship and development, including access to world-class facilities, best-in-class ring training, athletic trainers and more…”—exists to burn indie wrestling to the ground and rebuild it as WWE’s G-League.

If you’re glass half full and really enjoyed The Bloodline, you can consider this a great way to get notoriously underpaid indie wrestlers a chance to make a more livable wage. WWE ID can provid guidance to performers who typically struggle with finances or behaviors on the road that could potentially ruin their lives.

Sure.

But realistically, WWE doesn’t give a shit if some 26-year old indie wrestler is a broke cokehead.

WWE ID exists to control the market and eventually kill any other North American wrestling promotion not funded by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

WWE ID wrestlers are a problem for indies. They’re more expensive. They come with creative hurdles, like not being booked to lose.

Indie promotions are already operating on razor-thin margins.

Now they have to pay mid-card guys like main eventers because they have WWE ID email addresses. Companies have to work with one arm tied behind their backs as more and more indie wrestlers join ID.

But uh, yea, congrats to AAA. Funerals can be expensive, so it’s generous of WWE to foot the bill.

WWE also acquired TNA—the company that, post-WCW, came closest to competing with WWE. TNA now serves as a location in which WWE can send its development wrestlers to get some quick wins.

WWE stole their biggest star, Jordynne Grace. And now, they bring in TNA’s world champion to lose to Randy Orton in 2 minutes.

We should be more thankful AEW exists.

Especially if you’re Bayley—who spent weeks building a Wrestlemania-worthy feud with Roxanne Perez until Roxanne disappeared back to NXT, unexplained. Then she was given another Wrestlemania opportunity—winning a tournament to qualify as the no. 1 contender to the Women’s Tag Team Titles—only to be scratched last minute with a fake injury so WWE could shove Becky Lynch in her spot.

And it’s not as if WWE at least had the respect for Bayley to have a mysterious attacker take her out, later to be revealed as her long-term rival. Nope. Just a last-minute, random fake injury when they realized Becky Lynch agreed to do something they probably thought she’d turn down because it was beneath her (even though they had no problem giving that same story to Bayley).

Anyway, when AEW finally decides to make Women’s Tag Belts, Mercedes and Bayley are going to have a crazy run.

The Good

I know most of my observations have nothing to do with the matches but I think I’m showing as much attention to the matches as WWE does.

I liked Charlotte Flair vs. Tiffany Stratton, I think.

Charlotte is a hooper, at the end of the day—who now has back-to-back good Wrestlemania losses against Rhea and now Stratton.

The match was kind of sloppy but they can get away with it because the entire build to this match was sloppy.

Charlotte’s ability to consistently string together good matches as the voice in her head is shouting, demanding her to sabotage everything—is what makes her must-see TV.

A Charlotte Flair crash-out is coming.

She is going to strangle a girl, for real, one day.

She is one 3rd failed marriage joke away from doing a Chris Benoit.

I won’t be watching this Crash Holly Jey Uso title run. John Cena wasn’t good at wrestling when he was young. Old Man Cena won’t be on my TV. Jacob Fatu reaches for his knee every single time I see him, like, that brother is wrestling on borrowed time.

But I will keep an eye on the inevitable Charlotte Flair self-sabotage that will give us the greatest Tessa Blanchard vs. Charlotte Flair blood feud, changing the trajectory of both their careers.

Fuck WWE. Wrestlemania 41 was dogshit.

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