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

4. Fenix Falls In WrestleMania Debut

WWE WrestleMania 41 Night 1 Rey Fenix Vikingo
WWE

Let’s get this straight: El Grande Americano’s scheduled opponent Rey Mysterio was unable to compete due to injury, so the newest member of the roster, Rey Fenix, gets the call to step up, and he then loses his WrestleMania debut in a match where El Grande shined just as much – if not more?

Americano didn’t just hang with Fenix; he wowed fans with some dazzling offense of his own, including a 450 senton from the top and turning a Fenix slingshot into a Northern Lights suplex. In the end, El Grande picked up the win after loading up his mask with a steel plate and headbutting Fenix multiple times.

The match was decent enough, but far from a dazzling display that you might expect. It was short – eight minutes – and really didn’t break new ground beyond Americano’s 450 senton. Throw in Fenix getting slotted in to lose, and you have to question WWE’s booking here. If El Grande was winning regardless, why not stick Dragon Lee (whom they’ve had no problem jobbing out previously) or Cruz Del Toro in that spot?

It's a weird decision that felt like they should have called an audible of some kind here.

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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.