Houston, Texas is a wrestling city. CM Punk said so himself last night, invoking the ghost of Harley Race in the middle of the Toyota Center, and the crowd knew exactly what that meant. With two weeks remaining on the road to WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas, the penultimate episode of Raw before the Showcase of the Immortals had its moments, but it also had its share of problems that the red brand has been carrying throughout this entire WrestleMania build. Punk unloaded a venomous pipe bomb on Roman Reigns and Pat McAfee to open the show, Seth Rollins and Gunther went at it again, a six-man tag involving IShowSpeed was made official for WrestleMania, Finn Balor never got his match with JD McDonagh, Dominik Mysterio and McDonagh putting another beating on him instead, and the whole night closed with Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar tearing the Toyota Center apart during a contract signing that went exactly how you expected it to. Some things worked. A lot of things raised serious questions.
Here are the full results
∙ WWE World Tag Team Champion Austin Theory defeated LA Knight
∙ Finn Balor vs. JD McDonagh ended in No Contest
∙ Bayley defeated WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Lash Legend
∙ WWE Intercontinental Champion Penta, Dragon Lee, and Je’Von Evans defeated Los Americanos
∙ RHIYO defeated B-FAB and Michin
Breakdown & Reactions
The night started at its highest point and never quite reached those heights again, which sums up a lot about this WrestleMania build.
Punk’s opening promo was undeniably the best thing on the show. He sat cross-legged in the ring in Houston, invoked Paul Bosch territory, asked what Harley Race would do, and then spent several minutes surgically picking apart Roman Reigns. The nepo-baby line, the dog food reference directed at Reigns, the pivot to The Rock before immediately walking it back, the shots at Pat McAfee and TKO ticket prices — it was sharp, layered, and deliberately blurred the line between performance and shoot. The crowd gasped at The Rock line. Fans on social media immediately set the clip on fire. Bleacher Report’s coverage noted that Punk willed the Houston crowd, which started heavily pro-Reigns, into his corner by the time he dropped the mic, and called it arguably his finest night since his comeback. That much is hard to argue with.
What is worth pointing out, though, is that Punk’s Vince McMahon reference did not come out of nowhere. Ever since Stephanie McMahon made her surprise return at the MSG show the week prior, WWE has been leaning back into McMahon family references with an increasing frequency. Punk calling Reigns a nepo baby who ate dog food for a weird old man was the most direct one yet, and while the crowd popped for it, it does raise the question of whether WWE is intentionally threading Vince back into the narrative heading into WrestleMania or whether Punk simply went there because nothing is truly off the table for him on a microphone. Either way, it landed.
The criticism here is not about the execution. It is about the pattern. At the end of the day, this was still the same promo that has been cut on Roman Reigns in some form or fashion ever since he became the Tribal Chief. Part-timer, protected, manufactured, surrounded by yes-men, daddy got him into WWE. It is rinse and repeat. Punk delivered it at a higher level than most, but the content itself is not new. Reigns was not even there last night, which means the most important feud on the red brand’s WrestleMania card had no confrontation heading into the second-to-last show before the event. That is a problem.
The Theory vs. LA Knight match did what it was supposed to and nothing more. The IShowSpeed involvement is entertaining in a carnival sideshow kind of way, and the post-match announcement of a six-man tag at WrestleMania got a reaction. But stop and think about what this match actually is. The World Tag Team Championships were just won by The Vision last week, and instead of building toward a title defense at the biggest show of the year, we are getting a six-man tag involving a YouTube influencer that the majority of the wrestling audience does not care about. This is a direct consequence of Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed going down with injuries. The Vision’s entire creative direction fell off a cliff the moment those two left the picture. LA Knight’s positioning has been equally inconsistent. This entire storyline has been a trainwreck from a booking standpoint, and adding IShowSpeed to a WrestleMania match instead of defending the tag titles only makes it worse.
The Finn Balor and JD McDonagh match never happened because Dominik Mysterio hijacked the segment before the bell. It was a fine enough angle to build heat, and the chairshot beatdown with Dominik sitting on the open chair over Balor’s body while pointing to the WrestleMania sign was a strong visual. Bleacher Report credited the segment with giving Balor the emotional fuel he needed heading into Vegas. The Balor vignette that aired later in the show, where he all but confirmed The Demon’s return at WrestleMania, was effective and the right call for this story. The problem is WWE is doing this entirely through pre-taped vignettes rather than actually going all in on the Balor and Dominik program with live, in-ring moments or promos that the audience can feel in real time. This match deserves more than it has been given, and with one episode left, a pre-taped segment teasing The Demon is not a substitute for the kind of proper storytelling buildup that a WrestleMania rivalry should have.
The AJ Lee and Becky Lynch segment was genuinely good. Lynch crashing the interview, Lee refusing to back down, and Lynch’s temper tantrum on the way out all worked. Lee’s line about being her daughter’s favorite wrestler got under Lynch’s skin in exactly the right way. This is one of the better-built stories heading into WrestleMania and last night did the work it needed to.
The six-man tag featuring Penta, Dragon Lee, and Evans over Los Americanos was an entertaining gear-shift match in the middle of the show. Then Rey Mysterio walked out and inserted himself into the Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match. This is where the booking becomes genuinely confusing. How does Rey Mysterio simply walk up to Adam Pearce and talk himself into a WrestleMania ladder match? There is no story here, no earned entry, and no organic path to get him there. It feels like a late addition made because the match needed another name on the marquee, or because Rey missed last year’s WrestleMania and they wanted to course-correct. Neither of those is a creative reason to add someone to a stipulation match. The ladder match was already stacked. Rey being in it is fine in theory. The execution of how it happened is the issue.
The Asuka vignette was strong presentation, delivered in Japanese with subtitles, and it continues to tease IYO SKY vs. Asuka for WrestleMania. The only problem is that match still has not been officially announced. One episode remains. Multiple outlets have flagged this as one of the more glaring omissions from the WrestleMania card, and there is no good reason for WWE to still be dragging their feet on making it official.
RHIYO beating B-FAB and Michin was the predictable result, and Jade Cargill’s post-match attack on both Ripley and IYO SKY kept the Women’s Championship picture active. But let us be clear about something. The match last night was Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY taking on B-FAB and Michin, a SmackDown-based Women’s Championship storyline fully playing out on Raw. Jade Cargill vs. Rhea Ripley for the Women’s Championship is a SmackDown story. B-FAB and Michin are Cargill’s SmackDown allies. The brand split is essentially meaningless at this point, and WWE does not even try to explain or justify why any of this is happening on the red brand. It is what it is at this stage, but it is worth calling out.
The Rollins and Gunther pull-apart continued to be the most quietly well-handled feud on the entire show. Gunther shaking Heyman’s hand backstage and confirming things are already personal for him added an interesting wrinkle. The Rollins-Gunther dynamic was noted by multiple writers as the one WrestleMania feud that has not been a total mess in terms of the build, and that holds true.
Now, the contract signing. Triple H and Adam Pearce came to the ring, Heyman introduced Lesnar, Femi made his entrance, and they immediately brawled through the table. The segment had the intended intensity and the Houston crowd was loud for it. Lesnar throwing an office chair at Femi and Femi throwing one right back was the kind of visual that makes this feud feel legitimate. But here is the thing. Why was there a contract signing at all? The match was already announced weeks ago. There was no mystery about whether it was happening. Contract signings exist as a storytelling device to get two people in the same ring and build heat before they can actually fight. That purpose is completely undercut when the two wrestlers have already been brawling physically on camera every single week. Every week, Femi gets the better of Lesnar. Every week, Brock gets beaten up and looks worse. There is no story being told here beyond Femi being dominant, which is good for Femi but does nothing to create genuine uncertainty about the match. And then there is the presence of Triple H. Multiple fans and journalists questioned why the Chief Content Officer needs to physically insert himself into a feud between two wrestlers. Vince Russo, whatever you think of him, voiced the concern that Triple H’s presence in these Femi-Lesnar segments pulls focus from the two people who should be the story. It is a fair observation. The segment should not need Triple H standing between them to feel important. The match itself is supposed to do that.
Here is the current full match card for WrestleMania 42 (April 18-19, Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas):
∙ CM Punk (c) vs. Roman Reigns (World Heavyweight Championship)
∙ Cody Rhodes (c) vs. Randy Orton (Undisputed WWE Championship)
∙ Jade Cargill (c) vs. Rhea Ripley (WWE Women’s Championship)
∙ Stephanie Vaquer (c) vs. Liv Morgan (WWE Women’s World Championship)
∙ Seth Rollins vs. Gunther
∙ Brock Lesnar vs. Oba Femi
∙ Finn Balor vs. Dominik Mysterio
∙ Jacob Fatu vs. Drew McIntyre (Unsanctioned Match)
∙ Penta (c) vs. Je’Von Evans vs. Dragon Lee vs. JD McDonagh vs. Rusev vs. Rey Mysterio (WWE Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match)
∙ AJ Lee (c) vs. Becky Lynch (WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship)
∙ Sami Zayn (c) vs. Trick Williams (WWE United States Championship)
∙ The Irresistible Forces (c) vs. Bayley and Lyra Valkyria vs. Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss vs. The Bella Twins (WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Fatal Four-Way)
∙ The Vision (Logan Paul, Austin Theory, and IShowSpeed) vs. The Usos and LA Knight
Final Thoughts
Last night had enough good to make it worth watching but enough questions to leave you frustrated. Punk’s promo was exceptional television. The Balor Demon tease is the right call. The Femi-Lesnar chaos was visually compelling. But the structural cracks in this WrestleMania build are still visible no matter how well individual segments execute. The brand split is being ignored. The tag title picture is a mess. Rey Mysterio walked into a ladder match with no story. IYO SKY still has no official match on the card. And Brock Lesnar keeps taking losses in every build segment with no narrative tension to explain what changes at WrestleMania. One episode left. There is not much time to fix any of it.
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I’m the quiet one until the bell rings then I’ve got takes. I live for WWE NXT and TNA, I want every promotion to succeed, and I will absolutely roast the bad decisions on sight (because someone has to). Anime taught me to respect long-term storytelling; wrestling taught me that sometimes the plan is “we panicked” and called it “unpredictable.” The Miz got me into all of this, so yeah I appreciate confidence, commitment, and the art of talking like you’re already the main event. Now I bring that same energy to the page as the main writer for Late Night Crew Wrestling because if you’re not here to be must-see and tell the truth, why are you here?!