This weekend, it’s WrestleMania – and therefore the equivalent of Christmas for anyone who loves professional wrestling. And for the first time ever, this year’s two-night spectacular of grappling and theatricality from WWE will be available on Netflix to UK viewers. The show has never been this accessible to British fans before.
Best of all, the show is unfolding over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. So whether you’re brave enough to stay up overnight or simply willing to hit a button the following morning, you’ll have plenty of time to sit back and enjoy the show thanks to the WWE Netflix deal.
But there’s going to be an awful lot of it. Across the two main shows, it’s likely to be eight hours of wrestling and, unless you’re a dialled-in fan like me, I don’t expect you to watch all of that. So I’ve picked out five matches to look out for, in which you should find plenty of things to enjoy – even if you don’t know anything about wrestling.
Gunther vs. Jey Uso
(Credit: WWE)
If you’re on the fence about how exciting wrestling characters can be, just watch the entrances before this match. Jey Uso has spent decades as a reliable tag team wrestler, but has recently ridden a wave of popularity all the way to this clash for the World Heavyweight Championship against the imposing, dominant titleholder Gunther. When he makes his way to the ring, the entire arena erupts in a way very few wrestling characters can live up to – singing along to his theme music and performing his signature “yeet” dance.
As for the actual match, it’s wrestling stripped down to its core elements. The champion is a physically powerful villain and the challenger is the David to his Goliath, fighting the odds in an attempt to realise his dream. It might not be the most technically intricate or athletically impressive match of the show, but it will be one that fires the crowd up enormously. If this is your first wrestling match, you’ll leave with a real appreciation of what the art form is.
Rey Mysterio vs. El Grande Americano
(Credit: WWE)
If you’ve ever been into wrestling at all, you’ll know Rey Mysterio. Ever since the 1990s, the mask-wearing star has been one of the most entertaining and exciting performers in the American industry. His opponent at WrestleMania is El Grande Americano – an imposter masked wrestler very clearly played by the villainous Chad Gable.
Gable had spent months repeatedly losing to masked wrestlers before heading to Mexico to learn about “the secrets of lucha libre”. He returned as El Grande Americano and has since got one over on several prominent luchadores within WWE. Naturally, at WrestleMania, he’s taking on the ultimate luchador: Rey Mysterio. This is likely to be a more comedy-focused match, highlighting the sillier side of professional wrestling.
Iyo Sky vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley
(Credit: WWE)
WWE has the most impressive women’s division in the world, with three of those women set to fight over a championship belt at WrestleMania. Ultra-athletic Japanese star Iyo Sky is the current champion, but the main storyline going into the match has been the antagonism between her two rivals and how she, despite holding the title, has been treated as an afterthought by the others.
When the bell rings, this one is going to be a terrific spectacle. The three women in this match have very different styles, which should mesh together to produce something that shows exactly how dramatic and exciting the art of wrestling can be.
AJ Styles vs. Logan Paul
(Credit: WWE)
Logan Paul is a very curious addition to the world of professional wrestling. He rose to fame as a controversial YouTuber, but has taken to the physicality and athleticism of wrestling more easily than just about anybody who has ever tried their hand at the sport. Given how hateable his persona is, his obvious talent just makes him even more annoying. It’s like he was designed in a factory to be the perfect wrestling villain.
A match against AJ Styles will be the perfect showcase for Paul’s abilities. Styles, even at the age of 47, is an enormously athletic and physically gifted wrestler who knows the business intimately well. If anyone can get the match of a lifetime out of Logan Paul, it’s Styles.
John Cena vs. Cody Rhodes
(Credit: WWE)
This, quite simply, is the most exciting and surprising storyline in the world of pro wrestling right now. John Cena has been a wrestling hero for more than 20 years but, ahead of his final WrestleMania appearance, he brutally turned on the WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and left the all-conquering champ bloody in the centre of the ring. One of Hollywood’s most likeable actors – and the charity Make-a-Wish’s most prolific celeb – is now a villain.
Last year, Rhodes won the title in one of the most uplifting and thrilling WrestleMania matches of all time – defeating a bad guy who had a stranglehold on the title for more than three and a half years. This year, the only way to stack the odds further against him was to transform arguably the greatest WWE star of all time into a formidable bad guy and align him with another wrestling icon in The Rock, who just so happens to be on the real-world board of directors for the company. Like all of the best wrestling storylines, it blends fiction and reality.
This is going to be wrestling at its most theatrical, with character work and performance at the heart of it. When it’s done well, there isn’t an art form that creates as much drama and chaos as wrestling, which is why everyone should tune into Netflix for Sunday night’s main event.
WrestleMania airs on Netflix across two nights on 19th and 20th April. It will be available to stream after its live broadcast.
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