4 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 41 - Night 1 (Results & Review)

3. Fatu Captures Gold

WWE WrestleMania 41 Night 1 Jacob Fatu
WWE

LA Knight versus Jacob Fatu probably was in the lower tier of anticipated matches on Saturday’s card, but they succeeded in delivering a pretty decent United States Championship match that produced a couple of highlight reel moments.

Fatu captured singles gold for the first time in WWE, dethroning Knight after hitting an avalanche Samoan Drop and two springboard moonsaults. But a few really great spots stood out during the bout. Knight went for Blunt Force Trauma early and seemed to nail it, but Fatu blocked it, ala Mustafa Ali and the RKO.

In the closing moments, Jacob came back with a flurry, countering a BFT with a superkick, three hip attacks, and a swanton. When that failed to put Knight down, Fatu attempted a moonsault, but the Megastar countered that by hitting a BFT out of nowhere. Fatu survived by grabbing the bottom rope and then rose like a horror movie villain before finishing off Knight.

This was a perfectly serviceable midcard title match, and it had the right result, elevating Fatu to the next level as a singles star.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.