10 Exclusive Photos From WWE WrestleMania Weekend - Day Two

AEW leaves a footprint on WrestleMania weekend, SmackDown looks stunning and Hulk Hogan goes over?!

WrestleMania SmackDown
WWE

Though Thursday served as the unofficial kick-off to WrestleMania week festivities in Dallas, Friday’s line-up was the first real opportunity for wrestling itself to start stealing the show.

WWE presented the WrestleMania go-home edition of SmackDown - remarkably the first one with a full crowd since the show made the billion dollar move to Fox in 2019 - and unusually slotted the Hall Of Fame in immediately afterwards. This was no small Hall, either. The Undertaker’s headline induction meant much to many, Vader’s overdue acknowledgement piqued a lot of interest, Queen Sharmell brought with her a certain amount of sentiment and one of The f*cking Steiner Brothers once called Stephanie McMahon a c*nt!

There was meat on the bone here, and it wasn’t even the only game in town.

Shows from WrestleCon, Impact and GCW were generating buzz, as was the first Ring Of Honor to be stewarded by new owner Tony Khan. How exactly would the All Elite Wrestling chief begin reshaping ROH in his own image? Would AEW talent feature to bolster an already loaded crowd? Could FTR and The Briscoes take match-of-the-weekend honours before a WrestleMania bell had even rang?

Across various venues in Texas, some of these big questions were about to be answered...

10. The Road To WrestleMania

WrestleMania SmackDown
WhatCulture

WrestleMania iconography's been decorating Dallas this week, including on the local transport!

Stone Cold Steve Austin and others have been printed across various busses driving through the city, just in case those in town didn't know what was happening in Arlington.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett