Saturday’s first night of WrestleMania 39 or shall we say “WrestleMania Goes Hollywood”, was just that!  It featured: a magnificent stage and entrance ramp, storylines that could topple many of the major storylines currently on any of your favorite soap operas, and in-ring performances that showed that the WWE Superstars have the power to transcend and connect to a live crowd, like no other. You could look no further than to the ecstatic fans, the booing fans, and those who shed tears of joy or sorrow when matches came to its conclusion.

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Since we’re in the City of Angels, the stars came out to perform, interfere, or make a key save in one of the marquis match-ups including: Snoop Dog, Lil Uzi Vert, Pat McAfee, San Francisco 49ers player George Kiddle, plus the incredible athleticism of viral superstar, Logan Paul, and Grammy award-winner, and quite the wrestler himself, Bad Bunny! More on these guys later.

Let’s take a look at the highlights of some of the top matches on the card:

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In the main event, the WWE took a solid year to build this story, and play out all of its twists and turns, betrayals, reunifications, and familial drama all leading in part to this. Would Jimmy and Jey Uso retain the Universal Tag Team Championship which they have held for a record 622-days, or would they lose to best friends duo, Sami Zayn (who going into Wrestlemania weekend had all the heat in the world on him) and Kevin Owens?

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This was the match that had the potential to move you to tears in its conclusion, and the WWE did not disappoint. After battling back and forth with high-flying moves, and selling their spots while keeping the deep animosity between both teams alive, it finally came to its end when Zayn tagged in and nailed his former ‘Bloodline’ brother, Jey Uso with three Helluva Kicks and scored the pin fall.

Not only were the fans overcome, but you could see both Owens and Zayn with tears in their eyes.  They finally achieved this kind of success, after all their years of hard work in the industry – even starting their wrestling careers in Los Angeles with the PWG promotion made this extra special and let’s not forget they main-evented WrestleMania and won the belts.

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In one of the best matches of the night, Rhea Ripley challenged 14-time champ Charlotte Flair for the WWE Women’s Smackdown Championship – and it was clear that even though Rhea is the ‘heel’, she had most of the crowd in her pocket rooting her on to defeat Flair. This was also the first match in WrestleMania history to feature all women in key positions: wrestlers (Flair and Ripley), referee (Jessika Carr) and ring announcer (Samantha Irvin).

While the match went back and forth for quite awhile and both women had frustration mounting, eventually Ripley hit the Riptide from the second rope to finally put Charlotte to bed and walk away as the new women’s champ!

You had to give this to Ripley, her momentum has been building for three years and now she becomes the first women in the WWE division to hold all the championships at one time or another. In what looked like some very real and honest emotion, you could see Charlotte in tears later in the match, and at ringside on the floor after the match, sitting by and watching Ripley enjoy her WrestleMania moment.

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In some show-stopping entrances and then in-ring prowess, Seth ‘Freakin’ Rollins and Logan Paul turned WrestleMania 39 out! Paul entered by zip-lining halfway down the ramp where he was met by his PRIME drink mascot (and now everyone knew that mascot would somehow figure into helping Paul in the match, but who was in the costume?) This was followed by a Los Angeles orchestra conductor delivering Rollins theme-music big time, before Seth came to the stage, draped in an oversized red robe with pryo going off to the left and to the right of him.

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Once in the ring, all hell broke lose as Paul and Rollins put on high-flying performances.  As the match wore on, it turned out that KSI, Paul’s friend and business partner, ended up being the PRIME suspect, err shall we say mascot. He pulled Paul out of the ring to save him from a finishing maneuver from Rollins.

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Then in an attempt at another viral moment attempt (as only he could), Paul set Rollins up on the announce table to fly off the top rope and turnbuckle post and land on Seth. However, The crafty Rollins threw KSI on the table instead; leaving Paul in mid-air splashing on his friend instead. Major BACKFIRE! In the end, Rollins delivered a Superkick followed by one of his noted stomps and pulled out the victory.

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Everyone was on the edge of their seats to see how newly inductee to the WWE Hall of Fame, Rey Mysterio Jr., would face-off with his son, Dominik Mysterio in what has now turned out to be another epic soap opera family battle within the company.  In a very clever video opening, Dominik is seen being put into a ‘correction’ facility van and being driven to SoFi Stadium. Once in front of the live crowd, he reveals he is wearing a luchador mask just like his father.  After the mask comes off, the ‘correction’ officers unlock his handcuffs as he heads to the ring.

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Not to be outdone, Rey is driven in by Snoop Dogg in a low-rider car, and odes to his late best friend, Eddie Guerrero.  Meanwhile, Bad Bunny was revealed to be chatting with the Spanish commentators.

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When the match got underway: Rey beat his son with the belt from his ring tights for a few lashes, Dominik threw a drink in his sister’s face at ringside, then got slapped by his mother!  Disguised as ring help, it was revealed that Dominik’s Judgement Day partners, Finn Balor and Damian Priest were at ringside and waisted no time interfering in the match before they were taken out by the appearance of Legado del Fantasma.

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As the match came to its conclusion, Dominik distracted the referee by taking the turnbuckle cover off and attempted to grab a chain Damian Priest left under his jacket in the ring. However, Bad Bunny ran over and grabbed the chain from Dominik!  That move allowed Rey to deliver the 619 followed by a Frog Splash to come out victorious.  It also sets up Bunny to appear at WWE’s first PPV ever in Puerto Rico ‘Backlash” which happens in May. Stay tuned.

Bad Bunny stops Dominik Mysterio from using a chain on Rey.#WWE #WrestleMania #WrestleMania39 #CodyRhodes #RomanReigns pic.twitter.com/CTgFYaG0B6

— Wresumo (@wresumo) April 2, 2023

In the opener of night one, 16-time champ, John Cena challenged current U.S. champ, Austin Theory.  For the last several years, Theory has been hailed as the new Cena, and on this night, it would be the ultimate passing of the torch for Theory defeated Cena in what was not much of a match.

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The contest opened with a nice touch giving a nod to Cena’s incredible work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, where he has granted more wishes than anyone to children with critical illnesses. In fact, several of the kids appeared with John before he made his way to the stage.

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If you watched WrestleMania 39 night one on Peacock or were in attendance, what bouts or spots do you think delivered big time? Comment below and make sure to tune-in to Peacock tonight for night two starting at 8PMEST/5PM PST.