9 Ups & 11 Downs For WWE In 2025
10. WrestleMania 41
The main event of WrestleMania isn't necessarily always the most thrilling match the company puts forth on any given year, but the WrestleMania 39 and 40 ones were notable for a) heavily involving Cody Rhodes or the story directly attached to him and b) dominating headlines and discussion in the weeks and months afterwards.
Both these things were true in 2025, but the tone of the conversation had drastically changed thanks to the catastrophic circumstances emanating from John Cena's aforementioned heel turn, the detritus left behind by The Rock (more on him elsewhere), and Travis Scott's infamous cameo appearances along the way. Excessive, bloated and simply not entertaining, Rhodes Vs Cena on 'The Grandest Stage' was for many the worst kind of confirmation of a worrying trend that had revealed itself during the Netflix debut.
It left a sour taste on a two-nighter that was considered by consensus to be the worst edition of the show since the pandemic. The Vegas aesthetic was amazing (though tempered somewhat by an awkwardly-announced immediate return in 2026), and Iyo Sky, Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley assembled the match of the year from the embers of a piss poor storyline, but neither of these major positives were part of the wider conversation by the time the shows concluded. Cena's turn and WWE's hubris were suffocating everything, and everything was about to get even more preposterous...