WWE WrestleMania 42 Under Fire For Too Many Commercials, Not Enough Wrestling

Cody Rhodes defeated Randy Orton at WrestleMania 42. WWE WrestleMania 42 Night 1 | Key Points Fans bash WrestleMania 42 Night 1 for being a four-and-a-half-hour show where none of the seven matches went over 22 minutes. The wrestling of WrestleMania lasted for less than 90 minutes despite airing from 3 pm to 7:30 pm.

Fans are continue to blame TKO for having an adverse effect on WWE. WWE WrestleMania 42 Night 1 is in the books, and some fans are calling out WWE and TKO’s budding corporate romance for hurting the show, a sentiment expressed by WWE fans during the buildup. Not only was Pat McAfee scripted to diss WrestleMania’s lower ticket sales in its return to Vegas (which still eclipsed 50,000 as WrestleMania flirts with a live gate record), but WrestleMania host John Cena hinted at chaos surrounding the attendance number.

That chaos is part-and-parcel to the IWC outrage directed at TKO’s corporate meddling in WWE’s wrestling product. WrestleMania’s main event was a very good. I found it highly entertaining with Bret Hart-Stone Cold vibes from WrestleMania 13 given the constant teasing of a double-turn.

But the apparent retconning of Pat McAfee, who vowed to never appear in WWE again if Randy Orton lost, mixed with Cody Rhodes playing the heel and winning only for Orton to punt Cody like a heel led to confusion among viewers. “Punting Cody after you lose the match and you stand tall even though you ain’t the champion WWE in 2026 boys,” tweeted one user. Though internet wrestling fans are the most miserable human beings on earth, this doesn’t mean that there is no validity to their opinions.