4 Ups & 5 Downs For WWE Wrestlepalooza 2025 (Results & Review)
Women steal the spotlight in ESPN debut, while Lesnar/Cena disappoints, and mixed tag entertains.
Just eight months after launching the Netflix Era (and 17 months after kicking off the Paul Levesque Era at WrestleMania 40), WWE rolled out the red carpet for the ESPN Era on Saturday night with Wrestlepalooza, a show that totally was in the works for the longest time and certainly wasn’t thrown onto the calendar to counter-program AEW’s All Out on the same night.
Wrestlepalooza kicked off a new relationship between the giant sports network and the sports entertainment juggernaut, and they threw some of their biggest stars at the wall, even if some of what they served up didn’t work at all (see Lesnar, Brock) or didn’t quite reach the greatness we’ve seen regularly (see Rhodes, Cody).
The show served to indirectly lavish praise on Paul “Triple H” Levesque, with the COO narrating the opening video and appearing center-ring, just as he did for the Netflix debut in January. Whether it’s deserved is moot: there’s a clear pattern of Hunter putting himself front-and-center for these announcements like he’s the star of the show, not the wrestlers who toil away in the ring.
Action-wise, Iyo Sky and Stephanie Vaquer owned the night with a stellar Women’s World Championship match, while the mixed tag between the two married couples used a lot of shortcuts, but in the best possible way. Those two matches alone make this a worthwhile show, with two others falling into the positive column. Only Lesnar/John Cena could be classified as a massive disappointment.
Still, there’s the usual foolishness from WWE, as they can’t find a way to avoid perfectly avoidable missteps.
Let’s get to it…