WrestleMania 39 review: McMahon looms on wrestling’s star-studded biggest night

WrestleMania is probably the most famous event in professional wrestling history and almost serves as a State of the Union address for the company that hosts it, World Wrestling Entertainment. It shows where the company, the most prominent company in its industry in recent decades, stands and where it wants to go. And if Sunday night’s WrestleMania 39 is any indication, it wants to get much, much bigger and flashier, even if the ingredients that make it worth watching do their best for us.

From the start, the event has been dominated by Vince McMahon, WWE Executive Chairman and majority owner. In the early summer of 2022, he had pulled out of the role amid a storm of controversy and an investigation into alleged hush money payments he had made. Than, in January 2023he had put himself back in go inside the job, revealing that he had signed a contract to lock him up for the next two years. McMahon, formerly the last word in all creative decisions in the WWE, is said to have given his son-in-law and WWE chief content officer Paul Levesque (the retired grappler Triple H) the reins. But letting someone else run his baby has never been McMahon’s style, which is why rumors are circulating that he casts a big shadow in that regard as well.

Meanwhile, the WWE seems to be closing in on a potential buyer (CNBC recently reported UFC parent company Endeavor Group was close to a deal), more attention is being paid to a wider pop culture presence. This year’s theme is WrestleMania Goes Hollywood (the second time it’s using that, having previously adopted the tagline in 2005’s Show of Shows), and there’s a cavalcade of what WWE can get the closest to. star power. To name a few celebrities who dropped by in one form or another: Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Maria Menounos, Stephen A. Smith, Greg Miller, Kevin Hart, Becky G, Jimmie Allen, Bad Bunny, Snoop Dogg, Russell Crowe , George Kittle, Lil Uzi Vert and Pat McAfee. Of course, most of the attention was focused on the infamous YouTuber turned OK wrestler Logan Paul and his high-profile match (with interference from fellow YouTuber KSI).

On a side note, WWE was in full public relations mode regarding Paul, with the broadcast team barely stopping to inhale their non-stop barrage of praise for him and his accomplishments. Paul, no stranger to highly costly comments on his content, is a natural heel, but you can tell WWE pulls double duty in bringing him over as a talented villain in the family-oriented WWE universe while also not giving people the guy who filmed a suicide victim for a YouTube stunt a few years ago.

While WrestleMania has always stood out thanks to its guest stars, this year was particularly notable for WWE’s perpetual effort to be known not only as a giant wrestling company, but also as a mainstay of entertainment. Hammering on the “Goes Hollywood” aspect is pushing a wider audience to see it as more than just the biggest name in its niche (“See! Celebrities love us too. Not just a bunch of wrasslin’ fans “), even if it achieves little more than a mad camp. Of course, this hollow glitter has to coincide with the thing pro wrestling is best known for, aside from the actual wrestling: labyrinthine storylines and the culmination they often find at WrestleMania.

Fortunately for fans of the company, a few of the big matches had solid builds and were rooted in a handful of long-running storylines: Saturday and Sunday night’s main events built on the implosion of The Bloodline, a powerful stable and family of wrestlers, that’s the closest the WWE has come to a cohesive and compelling unity in nearly a decade.

Saturday’s event saw Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, old friends/rivals/enemies who (in a rare WWE event) get to build on their pre-WWE pasts, take on the Bloodline’s Usos for both top tag team- titles. And on Sunday, Bloodline leader Roman Reigns (a former member of The Shield, that last cohesive and compelling unit) defeated Cody Rhodes to retain both top WWE titles. Everyone here has history with each other, and by allowing Sami, WWE’s best modern underdog character, a heartwarming win with Owens, WWE can bask in the glowing adoration of their hardcore fans for once. It also makes us temporarily ignore the fact that, from an emotional standpoint, Zayn’s tale of bonding and betrayal with The Bloodline would have reached a much bigger conclusion if he deposed Reigns as champion.

One of WWE’s most shaky stables is the villainous Judgment Day, a group of wrestlers that the WWE isn’t sure how to deal with. The threat they pose to the wider roster seems to be changing by the minute, but again, the WWE has provided clues about results that allow for at least some semblance of emotional satisfaction. Judgment Day member Rhea “the internet wants me to step on their face” Ripley took over as Smackdown Women’s Champion from Charlotte “I’m usually the champ” Flair.

Rey Mysterio quite literally slapped his wailing son Dominik for his transgressions against their family (Dominik had been tricked by Rhea into joining The Judgment Day), while a bright Cinnamon Toast Crunch ad threatened to blind anyone watching the ring barricade. And current Judgment Day leader Finn Balor lost to WWE veteran and former Judgment Day leader Edge in a Hell in a Cell match. That last one is a pretty disappointing outcome, but on paper it was an excellent match between two guys who spent much of their careers chasing a horror/gothic aesthetic.

Look, if you’ve never seen WWE or a WrestleMania, but know some basic storytelling in fiction, this all sounds like I’m patronizing you. “Be amazed! A story that has built up…has a conclusion! Ooooh! Ahhh!” But WWE has a big habit of dropping the ball on these things, or making bizarre choices in the eleventh hour. Bobby Lashley and Brock Lesnar, both veteran MMA fighters and main event contenders, traded questionable wins for a while, but instead of an away match at Mania, Lesnar had to get an uninspiring win against the hulking Omos. (It’s hard to take Brock seriously as the “little guy” when he’s an actual former UFC champion.)

Lashley haphazardly got into a feud with Bray Wyatt, but Wyatt was abruptly taken off the card for inexplicable reasons. So Lashley stayed behind to celebrate a win he had made in an entirely different show by standing on stage as the audience applauded in mild confusion. Wrestler The Miz lost to podcast host Pat McAfee and Snoop Dogg on several nights. John Cena lost to the ambitious Austin Theory (which was expected, but kind of odd after Cena emerged with a group of Make-A-Wish kids to cheer him on from the stage).

There was some very solid wrestling on the card that didn’t have the long narrative appeal: Bianca Belair and Asuka proved why they’re some of the best female wrestlers of all time, and a three-way fight between Gunther, Drew McIntyre, and Sheamus turned their chests into raw Hamburger. But the classic WWE style meant regular viewers were constantly waiting for the backlash, with all the good stuff sandwiched in between some extremely questionable stuff. It’s a weird way to enjoy something.

Selling people on pro wrestling can be tough. If someone isn’t interested in it, it’s very hard to influence them, even with the most fervent proclamation of “No, but this match is REALLY good.” WWE seems to know this, and as such, on the cusp of a purchase that secures McMahon’s future but could mean everything to his talent, is being showered with desperate appeals to the mainstream. How much of that Vince does is unclear at this point, but it doesn’t do the wrestlers, the people who deserve the spotlight the most, any good.