6 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 42 - Sunday (Results & Review)

DOWNS…

3. Meh Women’s Championship Match

WWE WrestleMania 42 Rhea Ripley Jade Cargill
WWE

On paper, Jade Cargill versus Rhea Ripley was a huge attraction that could main event a B-level PLE.

In practice, the WWE Women’s Championship match was… a match that happened. It wasn’t bad, but considering the star power of Jade and Rhea, this should have been an epic confrontation between two megastars. Instead, it was a 10-minute, back-and-forth match that basically amounted to a move exchange, with both women countering each other’s finisher.

There was no true struggle or real heat to the match until Michin and B-Fab ran interference, and Iyo Sky got her WrestleMania moment as Ripley’s sidekick. That artificial heat bumped up the volume a bit and fed into the best part of the match: a swanky finishing sequence.

Jade hit a subpar One-Winged Angel for two just before Iyo took out the Baddies. Rhea went for a Riptide, but Cargill escaped and nailed a pump kick. She went for Jaded, but Ripley smoothly rolled through while clutching Jade’s left hand and seamlessly transitioned to a Riptide to win the title.

While this wasn’t a bad match and had a banger of a finish, this is WrestleMania, and the biggest show of the year should require a bit more than what we got.

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Contributor
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.