Roman Reigns and his daily battle with cancer (2024)

Cody Rhodes "finished the story."

Night 2 of the two-night WrestleMania XL in Philadelphia concluded with Rhodes defeating Roman Reigns to win the Undisputed Universal Championship Sunday evening at Lincoln Financial Field. In a "Bloodline Rules" match, where there were no rules and tons of interferences, Rhodes managed to dethrone Reigns, who was champion for 1,316 days.

The match featured a variety of well-known WWE Superstars past and present, including The Rock, The Undertaker and John Cena. Seth Rollins also was a part of the match — and he dressed up as a member of The Shield, the former faction he once teamed with Reigns.

Sunday also saw the World Heavyweight Championship change hands. Drew McIntyre defeated Seth Rollins to become the champion. Minutes later, Damian Priest cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase after attacking McIntyre, then pinned McIntyre to become the champion.

Bayley also took center stage as she defeated Iyo Sky to win the WWE Women's Championship. Logan Paul, who entered Sunday as the United States Champion, retained by beating Kevin Owens and Randy Orton in a Triple Threat Match.

Fans can read all of the content building up to WrestleMania XL by clicking here.

NIGHT 2 WRESTLEMANIA XL RESULTS

• World Heavyweight Championship: Drew McIntyre def. Seth Rollins to become new champion
• Money in the Bank cash-in: Damian Priest def. Drew McIntyre to become World Heavyweight Champion
• Philadelphia Street Fight: Bobby Lashley and The Street Profits (Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins) def. The Final Testament (Karrion Kross, Akam and Rezar)
• LA Knight def. AJ Styles
• United States Championship (Triple Threat Match): Logan Paul def. vs. Randy Orton and Kevin Owens to retain
• Women’s Championship: Bayley def. Iyo Sky to become new champion
• Undisputed WWE Universal Championship: Cody Rhodes def. Roman Reigns to become new champion

NIGHT 1 WRESTLEMANIA XL RESULTS

• Women's World Championship: Rhea Ripley def. Becky Lynch to retain
• Six-Pack Tag Team Ladder Match: A-Town Down Under (Grayson Waller and Austin Theory) win the SmackDown Tag Team Championships and Awesome Truth (The Miz and R-Truth) win the Raw Tag Team Championships
• Rey Mysterio and Andrade def. Santos Escobar and Dominik Mysterio
• Jey Uso def. Jimmy Uso
• Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill and Naomi def. Damage CTRL (Dakota Kai, Asuka and Kairi Sane)
• Intercontinental Championship: Sami Zayn def. Gunther to become new champion
• The Rock and Roman Reigns def. Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins

Roman Reigns, a leukemia survivor, said after WrestleMania Night 1 that he likely will be on oral chemotherapy for the rest of his life. Reigns (real name Joe Anoa’i) has battled leukemia since first discovering the cancer when he tried out for the NFL in 2007.

Reigns revealed the diagnosis publicly in 2018 when the cancer returned and he stepped away from WWE. He returned in 2019 when it went into remission.

"I'm still on oral chemotherapy," Reigns said Saturday. "It's a medication I'm going to have to remain on my entire life, most likely. So yeah, that's just a part of my personal battle. It doesn't affect (me), thank God; I’m still able to perform. I think anybody in my position would say health is wealth, and as long as I can continue to perform, that’s at bay.

"We're good. We're still in remission. But it is something that is still a part of my life."

WrestleMania XL has been good, but let's never forget how far the event has come.

The wrestling fans who work at The Athletic haven't forgotten. They got together to collectively watch the original show, WrestleMania I, and they put together their version of a "live blog" to have some fun. Enjoy!

Austin Theory's been on a WrestleMania roll. He retained his United States Championship by defeating John Cena last year, and this year, he teamed with Grayson Waller to win the SmackDown Tag Team Championships.

Saturday's win was enough for Waller to share a "Shoey" moment with his tag-team partner.

WrestleMania XL started strong on Saturday, as Night 1 featured some impactful moments. The ultimate underdog Sami Zayn beat the seemingly unbreakable Gunther to win the Intercontinental Championship, and The Judgment Day are no longer Undisputed Tag Team Champions (Awesome Truth now hold the Raw Tag Team Championships, and A-Town Down Under now hold the SmackDown Tag Team Championships). Additionally, the Philadelphia crowd was entertained by Eagles offensive linemen Jason Kelce and Lane Johnson, as they assisted Rey Mysterio and Andrade to a victory.

After the first night, would you rank WrestleMania XL among the great ones? Or will it need Night 2 to crack the top three, top five, top 10 of all time? Chris Vannini ranked the previous 39 WrestleMania events prior to the weekend action.

Jey Uso called Saturday's match against his twin brother Jimmy a "dream match," but it wasn't one he considered fun.

Sibling fights always come with some sort of regret. Although Jey got the win over Jimmy, he admitted that it was something he had to do versus something he wanted to do.

"I don't know how I feel about it," he said. "At the end of the day, that's still my twin brother. I still love my twin brother."

When Sami Zayn was asked about winning the Intercontinental Championship, he paused.

"It's hard to put into words," Zayn said.

Zayn entered Saturday night as a huge underdog against Gunther, who was the champion for 666 days. Zayn took a beating for the majority of the second half of the match, but he found an extra gear and pulled off one of the most shocking wins of WrestleMania XL thus far.

For weeks, Zayn has talked about winning for his family, and when his young son told him "you can do it" before the match, Zayn said it gave him that extra motivation.

"I hope I'm not being overdramatic when I say I needed this," Zayn said.

WWE fans still do not appear to be happy with the company's business relationship with Saudi Arabia. During WrestleMania Night 1, much of the Lincoln Financial Field crowd booed a commercial for the "WWE Experience" tourist attraction in Riyadh.

It's now considered commonplace for sports leagues and athletes to be involved with Saudi Arabia, including LIV Golf, Formula 1 racing and soccer stars like Cristiano Ronaldo. But WWE was one of the first big sports-adjacent properties to work with the country, beginning in 2014 and later partnering on a deal that runs from 2018 to 2027 and includes WWE running multiple major shows per year there.

The partnership has been criticized because of Saudi Arabia's human rights record. There were calls for WWE to cancel its 2018 Crown Jewel show there following the murder of The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and The Undertaker was booed by WWE fans leading up to it, but the show went on without references to its location. Multiple WWE wrestlers have refused to work the Saudi shows.

WWE has said it believes it can help create progress in the country. Women were not allowed to wrestle in the first several shows there. Now they are, albeit in full bodysuits.

The company received around $50 million per show there, meaning the hundreds of millions earned from the partnership dwarfs the money earned by tickets to all WrestleManias combined.

Last month, Bayley posted a screenshot of a text thread with Iyo Sky back in March 2022. It was the early discussions to the creation of a solid WWE faction, Damage CTRL. After a year away, Bayley returned on screen at the SummerSlam in 2022, alongside Sky and Dakota Kai.

Once upon a time, Bayley and Sky were on-screen friends. They will be bitter foes on Sunday, competing for Sky's WWE Women's Championship.

Saturday was the first WrestleMania night without Vince McMahon in charge of WWE, as McMahon left the company earlier this year amid a lawsuit accusing him of sex trafficking and abuse. There has been a notable lack of McMahon on screen since then. He’s been scrubbed from the WWE 2K24 video game, and none of his classic WrestleMania lines were included in Saturday's show.

When Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson mentioned McMahon's name during Friday night's Hall of Fame ceremony, the crowd largely booed.

After Night 1 on Saturday, I asked Johnson about the first show without McMahon, Paul "Triple H" Levesque in charge and the state of the company amid all this. He didn't bite on talking about McMahon but was effusive in his praise for Levesque and the company moving forward.

"Triple H has done a tremendous job as our chief creative officer," Johnson said. "He has a few titles and has earned every single one of them. I like ushering in new things and new times and new eras. It feels like in our world here of professional wrestling, it's a new era we're ushering in. I talked to Paul Levesque earlier as we were kicking off the show (tonight), and without giving any detail on what we talked about it, it was a special night for him. This was the beginning of something new for him. I think from a company standpoint, this is an exciting time for the company for WWE, for TKO."

The word "historic" keeps coming into play when discussing Night 2 of WrestleMania.

In pro wrestling, that word can be thrown around often. But Sunday night could truly redefine the word from a sports entertainment perspective.

Rhea Ripley opened WrestleMania XL with a win over Becky Lynch and retained her Women's World Championship. She has not lost a match on television since August 2023, when she and Dominik Mysterio lost a mixed-gender tag-team match to Lyra Valkyria and Dragon Lee at WWE NXT Heatwave.

Even more impressive, Ripley hasn't lost a singles match since May 30, 2022, when she was pinned by Liv Morgan.

What does AJ Styles, a Georgia Bulldogs fan and a follower of the SEC, think about Nick Saban's retirement from college football?

It should benefit Styles' Bulldogs. But that doesn't mean he believes it's a good thing.

"I think Nick Saban retiring is bad for NCAA football," Styles said. "He’s the best coach in college football, ever. That's not to say Kirby (Smart) isn't champing at the heels of being the best, because he can be that, but for Saban to do what he did for so many years is special. I wanted to beat Alabama while he was still there. Now it's not going to mean as much."

Styles, who also said it's a travesty Georgia didn't make last year's College Football Playoff, believed Saban just didn't like the state of college football anymore.

"He wasn't scared of the Dawgs," Styles said. "He was scared of the talent that wasn't staying around to be better for the next year. You can jump in the portal and go anywhere you want based on the fact that (you're) not starting. I think the portal is really hurting college football. I think NIL to a degree is probably hurting college football. I don't disagree with college players making money. But there could have been a cap on it.

"I wrestled in college, and it was tough because I got tired of cafeteria food. I didn't have what the players at Georgia and Alabama have, but sometimes I just wanted Blimpie or some kind of sub, and a little bit of money would have gone a long way."

After Saturday's match, The Rock has competed in 12 different WrestleManias. Saturday's win with tag-team partner Roman Reigns meant The Rock has won seven WrestleMania matches.

He's also made special appearances at two others.

Paul "Triple H" Levesque was asked about Brock Lesnar's status during his press conference.

"Right now, Brock is home being Brock," Triple H said. "We’ll see where that leads. His status is the same it was before. Brock is not gone from WWE. He's home being Brock.”

The Rock elaborated on many topics in a very interesting session with reporters after Night 1. He reaffirmed his commitment to WWE/TKO and also said he didn't want the new "Final Boss" character to be short lived.

Notably, The Rock left open the possibility of future matches ("there could be") and Night 2 surprises ("there will be"). But what struck me is how he made clear this return is tied to a shift in life he began about two years ago.

"I don’t want it to be finite," Johnson said of his Final Boss character. "I want it to continue."

After touching his new People's Championship given to him by Muhammad Ali's family at the Hall of Fame ceremony, Johnson elaborated: "This is part of building new mountain with a company that I love, that's in my blood and in DNA, WWE, and a world that I love, which is professional wrestling. But the same thing applies to Hollywood, applies to the other stuff I am lucky to do.

"I also realized a couple of years ago that I want to make sure … when I wake up in the morning that the thing I'm doing, I’m running towards it."

The Rock was more Dwayne Johnson and not in character when answering reporters' questions. He also was complimentary of Paul "Triple H" Levesque's stewardship of WWE.