7 Match Star Ratings For WWE WrestleMania 38 Night 1
1. Kevin Owens Vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin: No Holds Barred Match
This was a genius bit of promotion.
Steve Austin was so emphatically over and performed so admirably that, even if WWE were to have promoted this in advance as his actual return match, it probably would have passed. The level of expectation might just as easily have rendered it something of a disappointment. As it happens, the unexpected bonus element elevated this as a jubilant over-delivery. Steve Austin returned at WrestleMania 38, and so too did the very best version of the Attitude Era's trademark swerve.
You can slot Austin back into WWE, but it's still WWE in 2022. The camera cuts during his turnbuckle stomp spot were appalling, but that was really the only flaw in a spellbinding smoke-and-mirrors presentation. Kevin Owens was phenomenal in his commitment to and execution of preserving the old Stone Cold magic. He blasted himself through various tables and sold the beating he took so well that Austin felt less like just another part-timer and more like an old gunslinger.
Austin didn't just have the perfect opponent to work with; he took a suplex on exposed concrete to layer the spectacle with a genuine sense of back-and-forth drama. In a quintessentially special WWE moment, the match transcended itself as an elongated nostalgic brawl when Austin jumped on the back of the ATV that Owens had commandeered. Owens sold fear brilliantly without looking like some geek, somehow, leading to a reckoning of a pair of suplexes on the stage.
The atmosphere was remarkable, the plunder worked as plunder should, and the work and the plotting was so inexplicably well done that the finishing sequence of traded Stunners felt like a big match, and not an uncanny emulation of one.
At its core, this was an indictment of WWE's very approach to the 21st century - but they did such a good job of revisiting the 20th that it resonated as a triumph in spite of itself.
Star Rating: ★★★★