WWE Wrestlepalooza: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s review of WWE Wrestlepalooza, the first of its name, highlighted by Cody Rhodes defending his Universal WWE Championship against Drew McIntyre. And just like the AEW All Out show that preceded it, the WINC staff have nothing whatsoever to say about the main event! Sorry again! It was a long day!

But you didn't think we'd leave you without any of our opinions at all, did you? About WWE's first PLE on ESPN? No, we had far too many thoughts to not share them here, despite the fact that Cody's name won't be coming up. We're talking about everything else though, from Brock Lesnar's victory over John Cena to The Vision taking down The Usos to Stephanie Vaquer's crowning achievement to AJ Lee's decade-in-the-making in-ring return. If you missed anything you can get caught up via our Wrestlepalooza results page, and you're going to want to keep an eye out for Winners and Losers, as well as Where Do We Go From Here, both coming soon! For now though, let's get into the WINC crew's strongest feelings about everything that went down in Indianapolis — here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the first-ever WWE Wrestlepalooza!

I am going to preface this opinion with the larger point of contention when it comes to Brock Lesnar in the year of 2025. Yes, he was named in Janel Grant's sex trafficking lawsuit. He is not a plaintiff, he is not a defendant, he is not an active part of any litigation as it pertains to Janel Grant and WWE. 

Now where lines are drawn in terms of morality, like much of this world's affairs, it is naturally and healthily a conversation that should be had; but for the sake of getting this out of the way so, heaven forbid, I can get into why I hated Lesnar's extended squashing of John Cena at Wrestlepalooza strictly based on wrestling, I obviously do not feel like Lesnar is a man to be flaunted around in front of children in the crowd and participating in the show for a litany of reasons not just pertaining to his naming in the suit – and what he is accused of being a participant in. With that out of the way, let's get into the less morally prudent reasons why this was an abysmal way of going about an already abysmal booking. 

Cena is now just a few appearances away – based on what he said previously – from retiring from WWE, and in playing his greatest hits (ignoring the heel turn like WWE has since) against a litany of his opponents of yore – and Logan Paul for more incomprehensible reasons – it felt like the Lesnar match would be much more than it was. Logically, if you were to strip back the fact that this is scripted, of course Lesnar would be the victor, but then he also wouldn't be fighting because that would require testing and... UFC 200 was a thing, after all. 

All of that is to say, it was a decision to have Lesnar come back for presumably his first and last show for a little while, annihilate Cena from start-to-finish on potentially his penultimate or at the very least third-to-last match. The thing is, the main argument to any reservations over Lesnar being brought back has been, "He's Brock Lesnar, he's a draw, he's a legitimate bada**..." and all of the rest of the superlatives. 

So again, Lesnar really didn't have to go over. There was nothing to be gained by putting him over, it doesn't make him more or less Brock Lesnar. He just is. And to have it done in such a gutless, repurposed SummerSlam 2014 style, only added to the feeling that this just didn't need to happen. Lesnar is capable of great matches, that has never ever been the doubt. But this was a sloppy waste of time with zero feeling. You might say it was "good heat," but it's Brock Lesnar. He is more than capable of drawing heat by existing. Don't hurt yourself trying to explain that this was anything but a hollow copy/paste of their previous work, devoid of any of the originality of before, and if you're going to use him just use him better.

Written by Max Everett

When it was announced on the pre-show, I wasn't entirely thrilled about LA Knight getting added as the special guest referee into the tag team match that saw the recently-reunited Usos take on the Vision's Bronson Reed and Bron Breakker. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how effective I thought the addition of Knight really was when the match really got started. 

It made quite a bit of sense overall, as Knight has been feuding with the Vision and recently has been getting into it with former World Heavyweight Champion Jey Uso, to the point many are wondering if Uso is actually going to turn heel soon or not. It made a lot of sense there, especially being announced early, to give the match some more intrigue. Would Knight interfere and take out Uso, after "WWE Raw" ended on Monday with him hitting the "YEET Man" with the BFT?

I was really surprised that Knight also didn't make any part of the match about himself, even the ending. What I did like about this all, however, was the fact Knight allowed weapons like chairs to be introduced throughout the match without disqualifying either team. The match needed a little more "oomph" behind it, if you will, and that was really helpful. Initially, it wasn't one of the most exciting matches on the Wrestlepalooza card, but with that added intrigue, it actually ended up being pretty good. The weapons in the ring even led to Jey Uso being split open, and while I hope he's okay, the addition of blood to the match, intended or not, added a little bit extra.

Even though Knight didn't get involved, the ending of the match, with Reed hitting a big Tsunami on Jey Uso for the victory, and Knight refusing to raise the heels' hands, makes things interesting going in to "Raw" on Monday. This match could very easily have been a Monday night main event, but the inclusion of a special guest referee just made it a little more exciting, which it really needed. The crowd also always loves and appreciates Knight, so getting him on a premium live event card will never hurt.

Written by Daisy Ruth

I know I can hate the Stephanie McMahon Hall of Fame announcement segment on principle alone. I know that her announcement spot could have been taken and used to develop some of WWE's underappreciated titles (Tiffany Stratton's WWE Women's Championship comes to mind — especially considering she was at Wrestlepalooza tonight — but both men and women's tag or midcard titles could be here too). I know it's also way too early to even be talking about Hall of Fame inductees (it's like Christmas; don't talk to me about end-of-year stuff until after Halloween, at least). I could really hate the McMahon Hall of Fame announcement segment on principle alone, and to an extent, I do. I also hate Mrs. Stephanie's Hall of Fame announcement segment because of the sheer ick it gave me.

When Mark Callaway (formerly known as The Undertaker) rode to ringside in a surprise appearance at Wrestlepalooza, McMahon looked professional enough, but you can see in her body language and her gaze that she was unaware of what was going on. The energy was cordial, but the creeped-out look that McMahon had was growing worse by the minute. Callaway began speaking to her in a way that sounded more like a personal conversation than an on-screen announcement. You could literally see McMahon pulling herself away. Her laughing was tense, and her smile grew more uncomfortable as the jokes kept stumbling upon landing. When Callaway finally broke the news that she was going to be inducted into WWE's 2026 Hall of Fame class, she sat there, stiff and rigid, as if she was struggling to process what just happened.

I'll be transparent: I feel bad for her. No matter how you feel about McMahon, this was a very uncomfortable moment. Best case scenario, she didn't know that she was being inducted into the Hall of Fame, and what we're seeing is a genuine reaction of shock. While that's our "best case scenario," I still don't think that it's a good one: while I don't want to speculate on why she took a break from WWE, I can't imagine that she appreciated having that vulnerable response broadcasted to the millions that had their eyes on this highly-publicized event. Worst case scenario, as my colleagues have speculated, is that she doesn't want to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Again, I don't want to speculate out of respect for her privacy, but I can see this being the case.

There's also the confusing element about Callaway being the one to break the news and not, you know, her husband. I just think this was a very intimate moment that should not have been done in front of, again, millions. It just created for a very off-putting segment that ground the entire show to a halt.

Written by Angeline Phu

One of the problems with Wrestlepalooza overall is that it didn't seem like it had very high stakes to me. There were only two titles matches — one where we were getting a new champion no matter what, and another where there was no way in hell we were getting a new champion — and none of the other three matches had anything tangible on the line. Speaking personally, the thing I was probably most invested in on this card was the mixed tag match, because I wanted to see how AJ Lee performed in her first match in a decade. I think a lot of people felt that way, and I think WWE knew it, because they were smart enough to drag out AJ's inevitable hot tag as long as humanly possible.

When that tag hit though — well, consider me shown. Interestingly, AJ didn't start off all that strong from a moves standpoint, initially restraining herself mostly to Lou Thesz presses and punching. But as the match went on, it became increasingly clear that not only was AJ in perfectly serviceable ring form, she was potentially better than she'd ever been before. For all that fans love AJ, we often forget that she never really got to experience the benefits of the "women's revolution," the most visible of those being expanded movesets and longer matches. As a result, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that her first match in the wrestling world of the 2020s was immediately one of her best, but she also looked pretty comfortable the entire time, even when she was busting out maneuvers we'd never seen her use before. The match reminded me of her first promo after her return, on "Raw," where she instantly sounded more natural on the mic than half the roster. In the ring, she just looked like she belonged — like her 10 years away from wrestling had just never happened.

The match was structured around AJ, which I think it had to be, but the other reason it worked was because WWE continues to loosen the purse strings on intergender wrestling — at least under the right conditions. We'd already seen it a little bit with Rhea Ripley and the Judgment Day-verse, but now we're seeing it with other characters in other contexts, and it's just very cool and fresh, and almost never seen in AEW. The early Becky Lynch vs. CM Punk stuff was fun, the announce table spot was wild, and in a match that involved a lot of finisher trading, there was no better pay-off than AJ getting Rollins in the Black Widow and hitting him with his own Stomp to break up a crucial pinfall. Then she tapped out Lynch and presumably earned herself an IC title match, meaning this new version of AJ isn't immediately going away.

Yes, it's slightly ridiculous that she's already kicking out of finishers, but that's wrestling in 2025. As it turns out, AJ Lee fits right in.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Hear me out: I really, really enjoyed the mixed tag team match tonight, including the inter-gender action between the teams, but the pacing of this match was pretty awful, in my opinion. I thought Wrestlepalooza overall was a pretty inoffensive, solid show (opening match included, only because that was exactly what I expected to happen and had braced myself), so I don't have too much to complain about, outside of how this otherwise awesome bout was terribly paced.

While I understand keeping AJ Lee out of the match for awhile to build to the crescendo where CM Punk got the hot tag for her to go face-to-face with Becky Lynch, I thought that part of the match took forever to get to. While I liked Lynch initially tagging herself in, then running around the ring like a chickens*** heel, it took too long to get to the point where Lee was in the match. I noticed the crowd didn't seem to be chanting for her too much, until the pop when Punk actually tagged her in, of course.

After she did get tagged into the match, it was interesting that the referee no longer seemed to care who was legal. That was all well and good and made for an interesting match, but it was definitely something that stuck out as weird to me. It wouldn't have been that noticeable until at one point, Punk had Rollins covered, then Lee immediately covered Lynch (or whichever way it went), and the ref counted both of those as attempted pins.

After Lee got into the action and everything broke down when it came to rules, the match also seemed to go on for too long. I thought the action could have been condensed a little bit, again, with me liking the entire match still in mind, and it would have been a little more effective. I thought it could have been tightened up a lot. The end also irked me just a little bit. Lynch sent Lee crashing through the announce desk along with both of the men and got her back into the ring to hit her with a Manhandle Slam to put her down, but Lee still had enough energy after crashing through the table, despite not experiencing something like that for 10 years, and easily countered into the Black Widow.

It was effective for Lynch to tap out, and now Lee has a good claim to challenge for the Women's Intercontinental Championship, but it was still something I didn't particularly like. If the match had been condensed just slightly, it could have been paced better for the end to make a bit more sense. This was a great match overall, but on a premium live event I didn't find much fault with, a few things just stood out that could have easily been improved upon.

Written by Daisy Ruth

There was no way this match was going to be bad. I'm just so thrilled it rocked the way it did.

Stephanie Vaquer and IYO SKY took to the ring at Saturday's Wrestlepalooza event to contest the vacant WWE Women's World Championship, and while I would have been happy with this match no matter what happened, I'm so impressed with the match these women wrestled. Vaquer and SKY absolutely schooled all of us on what it means to wrestle, and for a feud that has not had a ton of story-fueled animosity between the two competitors, these two were the perfect people to have this exhibition of pure wrestling talent.

I could watch Vaquer and SKY grapple for hours. I can see how, for some, their grappling sequence in the beginning might have gone on for a little too long, but I was thrilled to analyze their in-ring movements, to note how seamless and fast Vaquer and SKY were with their grapple counters. Vaquer and SKY proved why they are WWE's strongest female in-ring technicians (and, in the case of the latter, strongest in-ring technician, period).

Their grappling work soon gave way to a pin combo, and while I enjoyed their limb tango, I was glad to see Vaquer get a slam on SKY to really start the bump-heavy part of the match. Their running offense sequence — and the rest of the match, really — was just so incredible. Both women are fluid movers, which creates for a seamless visual experience that is easy for the eyes to digest and for the soul to appreciate. There was no clunkiness or slowness. They moved together like the tides of a rushing river — elegant, and not overbearing.

It could've been so easy for SKY to dominate this match. Everyone knows that she's one of the best in the world, across all categories, but I appreciate how much she was willing to put Vaquer over. She allowed for Vaquer to block her Sunset Flip Powerbomb and Over the Moonsault attempts. The respect that SKY has for Vaquer is palpable, and vice versa. Even though Vaquer dominated the match, never once did she undersell SKY's brief in-ring comebacks. You can feel how much chemistry and respect they have. If you're still a nonbeliever, just look at how they bowed and embraced each other post-match. I love girls supporting girls. I adore wrestling girls supporting wrestling girls, especially in an industry that pits us against each other, in and out of the ring.

While I'm kind of bummed that Asuka didn't show up — this match needed outside interference — the bout was comparable to AEW's Continental matches, where the focus is solely on the wrestling. Vaquer and SKY are the best that WWE has to offer, and they proved it, without a shadow of a doubt.

Written by Angeline Phu