6 Match Star Ratings From WWE WrestleMania 40 Night 2

Cody Rhodes finished the story, but the story finished in a way that was popular if unnecessary - if you happen to be a bit of a misery.

Before the bizarre cameo-stuffed schmozz, Cody and Roman replicated their exquisite in-ring chemistry. The best way of describing is to picture the sort of match WWE mandates as an institution - slow-burn pacing, make 'em come up, make the spaces between the big moves count - only really, really, really good. They're just so assured. What they do in there is everything Triple H and Randy Orton thought they were doing a decade and a half ago. In a great early moment, Cody withdrew a table from under the ring. In the ultimate heel move one can pull in 2024, Roman shoved it back. With the fans in a total chokehold, as loud as the stadium was across the 24 hours, Roman, toying with his opponent, executed a Cross Rhodes.   

While the finisher theft trope has been done for years and indeed to death, it meant something here. Roman tried to big league Cody, saying that his moves were trash. This was Roman's company.

Cody gave Roman a receipt by dropping him with a spear. Cody then initiated his closing match-winning play before Jimmy Uso interfered. In a spot 1000x times better than anything in their diabolical match on Saturday, Jey speared him off the ramp and through a table. Solo Sikoa then interfered, but the resulting spike/spear double team didn't land as a near-fall because fans sensed the Marvel "cinema" incoming. John Cena fought Solo off. This brought out the Rock, who hit Cena with the Rock Bottom. In a sequence no other top star would dream of agreeing to, Seth Rollins entered the scene in Shield garb and got nothing in before he was immediately laid out and took a chair to the back when he made it up. Cute callback, but he looked so much like a geek - after so much build with a mid-match special entrance - that it scanned as a cruel, well-timed joke. And what does the Undertaker have to do with anything?! 

He turned up, gave the Rock a chokeslam, and after Seth became a two-time bitch, Cody hit the Cross Rhodes three times and that was that. The stadium loved it. Daft as it was, those three mega-pops elicited the epic feeling WWE sought. Was it necessary? Is it miserable to state that Cody and Roman are so great that they hardly needed the help of this fun but deeply contrived scene? 

Either way, Cody celebrating with Mama Rhodes was beautiful, and the scene was unforgettable.

Star Rating: ★★★★½