6 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 36 (Part 2)

Second night has its moments, but doesn't keep pace with first night.

And just like that, WrestleMania 36 is in the books.

Night two of WWE’s signature event followed what was widely considered a modest success with Saturday night’s event. However, Sunday’s effort fell short of matching the first half of the PPV.

Sunday’s program featured time-filler matches that would have been better served on Raw or SmackDown, while one of its signature matches – the Last Man Standing contest between Edge and Randy Orton – was a long, dull, plodding affair that was nowhere near as vicious and aggressive as it should have been.

New champions were crowned Sunday night, and we’re leaving WrestleMania with two new world champions, saying farewell to our part-time standard-bearers. It’s understandable that we weren’t going to get classics out of either of them given the circumstances, but both matches underwhelmed.

A huge highlight Sunday night was the NXT Women’s Championship match, which opened the show and set the bar really high – and was never eclipsed. And of course, we got our second cinematic “match” of the PPV Sunday night, with John Cena facing the Fiend in a Firefly Funhouse match. Expect opinions on that one to be divided.

With that said, let’s break down the second part of WrestleMania 36. Let’s get to it…

Advertisement
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.