WrestleMania 37 night two: Three things WWE got right

As was the case with NXT TakeOver: Stand and Deliver, the second night of WrestleMania 37 didn’t quite match the high standards set by the first night. However, you could argue that WWE put together a more consistent overall show, even if the booking exposed some long-term issues (like their lack of credible babyfaces for their many heel champions).

As such, there were a fair bit of positives to take away from this pay-per-view. On a show this solid, there are plenty to choose from, but in the interest of brevity, let’s stick with the top three.

Here are three things WWE got right on night one of WrestleMania 37

3. Rhea Ripley wins the RAW Women’s Championship

WWE had to know it couldn’t make the same mistake with Rhea Ripley that they did at WrestleMania 36. It was at that show where the company made the short-sighted decision to have Ripley lose the NXT Women’s Championship to Charlotte Flair in a lame attempt to “add star power” to the black-and-gold brand (which unintentionally told viewers that NXT had no stars).

Thankfully, history didn’t repeat itself this year. Fans witnessed Ripley and Asuka battle over the Raw Women’s Championship for 13-and-a-half minutes, and while the match didn’t reach the lofty heights of the previous night’s SmackDown Women’s Championship main event, the two produced a quality outing that ended with Ripley executing her Riptide finisher to dethrone “The Empress of Tomorrow” for the Monday night brand’s top distaff prize.

Asuka will be fine; she did an admirable job as champion for months despite her uneven booking (to put it kindly) with the belt. Pinning Ripley wouldn’t have changed how underwhelming her run with the belt was, so it was great to see WWE transfer her equity over to a new star.

2. Sheamus caps off a run of good matches with a United States Title win

For most of this year, one of the few saving graces for these generally putrid episodes of Raw has been watching Sheamus have good matches on an almost weekly basis. Over the last few weeks, it has also been fun watching “The Celtic Warrior” beat up the most annoying character on the main roster, Riddle.

Thus, it was great to see those truths culminate with Sheamus winning the United States Championship from Riddle at WrestleMania 37.

The match started off with a more deliberate pace, but once they got going, Sheamus and Riddle showed why they are two of the better workers in the company. Even when Sheamus lost his footing attempting his White Noise maneuver from the top rope, he quickly recovered, hit the standard version of the move, and then delivered a top-rope knee drop to Riddle’s chest. That’s a sign of a true pro who doesn’t get flustered over small missteps.

Hopefully, Sheamus gets a lengthy run as U.S. Champion. I would hope that Riddle gets taken off of TV following this, but I know that’s not happening.

1. Edge, Daniel Bryan, and Roman Reigns deliver in the main event.

Now, we get to night two’s match of the night. Unlike most of the other matches on WrestleMania 37’s second leg (aside from the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship match, oddly enough), Edge, Daniel Bryan, and Roman Reigns received plenty of time to tell a compelling story in the main event. While it wasn’t as good as the night one main event, these three did more than enough to make this a soft Match of the Year contender.

Bryan, Edge, and Reigns took full advantage of the triple threat format, keeping the action going at a brisk pace (for them) and substituting traditional rest holds for the “wrestler gets hit with a move and is knocked out for minutes at a time” trope that’s common in WWE three-ways, except in this match, the wrestlers were actually hit with moves that would reasonably keep a competitor down for extended periods.

Now, Roman pinning Edge and Bryan the way he did — stacking them up like logs of firewood — does bring concerns over who could realistically challenge him for the Universal Championship next, let alone beat him down the road (though that will probably be Big E), but for now, he will reign as a dominant heel champion, and that’s perfectly fine.