The non-fans’ guide to WWE WrestleMania 40

WrestleMania is quite possibly the biggest event in professional wrestling. It’s the “Showcase of the Immortals,” “The Granddaddy of Them All,” “The Super Bowl of Sports Entertainment” – you get the point.

This is a big deal for professional wrestling fans across the world, but even if you’ve never heard of WrestleMania, or watched a WWE event, this is a great time to start, as many of the programming’s biggest storylines will culminate this weekend. And during the event itself, new feuds and stories will also begin for the rest of the year ahead.

If you’ve found yourself forced by a friend or loved one to watch this weekend’s proceeding — live on Peacock for just $4.99 — below you’ll find a guide to WrestleMania 40’s 13 matches — explained so you don’t have to watch years’ worth of WWE programming to “get it.”

Yes, we know, pro wrestling is “fake,” but if you allow yourself to be immersed in the experience and art, you’ll find that can be just as good as your favorite season of Grey’s Anatomy or Succession.

What is WrestleMania?

WrestleMania is WWE’s biggest, longest-running, and most successful pay-per-view/live-streaming event since its conception by the now-ousted executive chairman Vince McMahon in 1985. Like we mentioned, it’s basically the Super Bowl for many fans and wrestlers. It’s March Madness, the Masters, the NBA Championship, and the World Series. It’s the be-all, end-all of professional wrestling. As such, WWE puts a lot of investment and spectacle into making each WrestleMania more memorable than the last.

Every year, WrestleMania’s card gets bigger and bigger, and since 2020, the biggest pro wrestling event of the year has become a two-night event.

With 13 matches split between the two nights, there’s plenty to get you emotionally invested. Below, you’ll find our greatest attempt at giving you a sense of the marquee matchups that will dominate social media in the days to come.

Read on for an idea of what’s happening, so you’re not clueless in front of your wrestling friends.

The story so far…

The Main Event: Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns

If you read last year’s non-fans guide, then rest assured, you’re not having déjà vu. For the second year in a row, the blonde-haired, good guy wrestler “American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes will face the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship “Tribal Chief” Roman Reigns, the WWE’s top heel or bad guy, once again, in the main event for the title.

This is the big one, the final match of the weekend on WrestleMania’s second night this Sunday. When these two battled it out last year, Rhodes came within reach of winning the title before interference from Reigns’ group, The Bloodline, gave Reigns the win. Rhodes has struggled throughout the year to get back to the top, earning himself a rematch for the title. He finally did so in January, when he won the WWE Royal Rumble, a 30-man event where the winner is guaranteed to the main event WrestleMania.

Rhodes and Reigns are both second-generation wrestlers and their fathers – the “American Dream” Dusty Rhodes and Sika of The Wild Samoans – are both WWE Hall of Famers. Unlike Reigns, however, Rhodes has never held the WWE title.

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For an added bit of context, Vince McMahon hired Cody’s father Dusty Rhodes in 1989 after Dusty already has a successful career and established name with WWE’s (then WWF) competitors.

Given the nickname “The American Dream,” Rhodes was outfitted in yellow polka-dot ring attire by McMahon in an attempt to humiliate a wrestler closely associated with a rival competition. While Rhodes was never given a chance to shine as a main event star in WWE, he ran with the character and became a legendary talent in the company. However, he fell short of ever holding the WWE championship. Dusty Rhodes passed away in 2015 as a WWE employee, working at their developmental league, NXT, training new talent.

At last year’s WrestleMania, Rhodes was meant to “finish the story” – a rallying cry of sorts for Rhodes and his fans that references how he will achieve the goal of his years-long journey and become the first in his family to win a World Championship in WWE. (Rhodes’ stepbrother, Dustin Rhodes, is also a wrestler and was greatest known in the WWE as Goldust. He is currently signed with WWE’s biggest competitor, AEW.)

As for Roman Reigns, he’s is multi-time champion. His current title reign has lasted since August 2020 and he has yet to be defeated for the championship or lose a single’s match since then. Reigns is the leader of a group, known in wrestling as a “stable,” called The Bloodline. The members of the group are actual family members in real life and include Reigns’ cousins Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa as well as Reigns’ manager Paul Heyman.

However, this year there’s a new factor that wasn’t in play during Rhodes and Reigns’ first battle last year: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

The Rock and Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins

The Rock is a member of the infamous Samoan wrestling family tree, making him Reigns’ cousin in real life, too.

Shortly after Rhodes won the Royal Rumble, The Rock made a dramatic return to WWE, in which he challenged Roman Reigns for his title with Cody’s blessing. In a bizarre moment scripted by the WWE, Rhodes decided to give his earned-title shot to the returning superstar.

This move created a massive unexpected backlash from fans. WWE quickly pivoted from this decision and rewrote the storyline, giving Rhodes his WrestleMania title match back. In doing so, WWE also turned The Rock from a “good guy” into a bad guy. During a scripted WrestleMania press conference, The Rock slapped Rhodes on stage in front of Reigns and WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins.

These events led to an allegiance being formed between Rhodes and Rollins. The Rock would also go on to officially join the Reigns lead group, The Bloodline.

In the storyline, Rollins and Reigns were good friends in a group called The Shield, which broke up in 2014 after Rollins attacked his former teammate. There’s also a good chance we’ll see Jey Uso, a former member of The Bloodline, and real life cousin of Reigns gets involved in this at some point during WrestleMania. Jey Uso has allied himself with Rhodes and Reigns, whereas his brother Jimmy Uso has stayed with The Bloodline.

With these two teams set, WWE is bringing us a tag team match for the main event of WrestleMania’s first night featuring The Rock and Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins. There’s an added stipulation here to spice things up, too. If Rhodes and Rollins win, the Bloodline is banned from ringside from the Rhodes and Reigns rematch for the WWE title the following night, ensuring there won’t be a repeat of interference costing Rhodes the match. However, if The Rock and Reigns win, then the Rhodes vs. Reigns match becomes a “Bloodline Rules” match, meaning anything goes and the Bloodline can help Reigns defeat Rhodes once again.

There’s some other things bubbling in the background, too. The WWE has been teasing some jealousy between The Rock and a paranoid Roman Reigns over who really leads The Bloodline. Will this family feud cost Reigns his title?

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In addition, this year’s WrestleMania marks the 25th anniversary of The Rock and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s first WrestleMania main event against each other. With the odds stacked against Cody Rhodes if he faces down the entire Bloodline, will the “American Nightmare” find some unexpected support from Austin? Rumors have been running rampant about a potential appearance from Stone Cold this year — and the WWE loves its surprise appearances at WrestleMania, so it’s surely a possibility.

Greatest of the rest of the card

Now that the big storyline of WrestleMania 40 is out of the way, what about the other matches on the card? These matches may not represent the main storyline of the year, but there’s some intense feuds and rivalries that will come to ahead in these matches.

For starters, the two WWE women’s world championship matches are grudge matches involving two of the Four Horsewomen (named because of their pivotal role for ushering in the current high-quality state of WWE’s women’s wrestling), albeit they’ll be in separate matches.

After outlasting 30 women to win the 2024 Women’s Royal Rumble, former champion Bayley will challenge her former friend and teammate WWE Women’s Champion Iyo Sky for the title. The two were members of the group Damage CTRL, which Bayley led. However, after Bayley won the chance to face Sky for the title, the latter conspired with the rest of the faction (i.e., Dakota Kai, Asuka, and Kairi Sane) to oust Bayley from the group she created.

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Bayley utilized the Damage CTRL in order to bully half the women’s roster, but is now seeking redemption. This has led Baley to allying with Naomi, Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill. Bayley’s new friends will face her former Damage CTRL teammates Dakota Kai, Asuka, and Kairi Sane in a six-woman tag match. Cargill just recently debuted in the WWE and Belair has been skeptical of the whole situation with Bayley, so it’ll be interesting to see if that plays into the matchup.

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The WWE Women’s Heavyweight Championship match will see former champion Becky Lynch challenge Rhea Ripley. This feud has been built around a battle of what it means to truly be a women’s wrestler and has gotten rather personal. Ripley has invoked Lynch’s newly born daughter and Lynch’s late father who passed in 2021. Lynch has knocked Ripley for being an unworthy role model for young WWE fans.

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Like Rhodes and Reigns, Seth Rollins will also be pulling double duty at WrestleMania, wrestling on both nights of the event. After his tag team match on night one, he will defend his WWE World Heavyweight Championship against Drew McIntyre. And this feud has been kind of weird.

Pro wrestling superstar CM Punk returned to the WWE late last year for the first time since walking out of the company (in real life, not a storyline) nine years ago. At the WWE Royal Rumble in January, Punk sustained an injury, tearing his triceps during the 30-man Royal Rumble match, which forced WWE to write him out of the WrestleMania storylines that they had planned for him.

While we don’t know what those plans are, it appears they would have involved a title match against Rollins.

WWE has seemingly rewrote the storyline with McIntyre going on to win the Elimination Chamber match at WWE’s Australia event, earning him a title match against Rollins that likely was supposed to go to Punk. McIntyre has also since taken credit for being the person who injured Punk in the Rumble match, trolling Punk for months over stealing his spot at WrestleMania.

So, Rollins has had his hands full with the previously covered Rhodes vs. Reigns feud and McIntyre has been busy mocking Punk. And the two haven’t been all that focused on each other. We’ll get a CM Punk appearance during this one, as he’ll be providing commentary during the match. But, it’s also likely Punk being there will prove to be distraction for the competitors too.

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Over the years, the WWE has been a big fan of booking “brother vs. brother” matches. This one takes it a step further. “Twin vs. twin.” Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso are real-life twins and second-generation stars, the sons of WWE legend Rikishi. At this year’s WrestleMania, they will face off for the first time.

Last year, as part of The Bloodline, Jimmy and Jey Uso lost the WWE Undisputed Tag Team championships to Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. The loss resulted in the two rebelling against Roman Reigns and leaving The Bloodline. In a subsequent title mach between Jey Uso and Reigns, Jimmy Uso rejoined The Bloodline and turned on his brother, costing him the match.

Basically, Jimmy was jealous of the success that his brother Jey had achieved immediately after leaving the Bloodline, as Jimmy himself was unable to forge his own path and had to grovel his way back to Reigns and The Bloodline.

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WrestleMania has more than just one family feud for fans. Dominik Mysterio, the son of the iconic luchador Rey Mysterio, is set to face his father yet again after months of disrespecting his father. This won’t be the first time these two battle. However, this time Rey Mysterio is teaming up with Dragon Lee, a member of the Latino World Order group. Mysterio’s son Dominik has joined up with Santos Escobar, a former Latino World Order member himself.

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It isn’t WrestleMania without a special stipulation match. And this year, the WWE has booked a “6-pack ladder match” for the WWE Undisputed Tag Team Championships. This means that 6 tag teams – a total of 12 competitors – will be involved in a match where the winning team needs to climb up a ladder and grab the championships hanging overhead above the middle of the ring. Expect some truly shocking stunts during this one.

It should be noted that Damian Priest, one-half of the current tag team champions alongside his “Judgement Day” tag team partner Finn Balor, also holds the Money in the Bank briefcase. This briefcase, which he previously won last year, grants him a title shot anytime, anywhere, and against any champion of his choosing.

Current WWE world title holder Seth Rollins is rather famous for his own WrestleMania cash-in years ago, where he used the briefcase to insert himself at the very end of a title match, defeated his tired opponents, and walked away with the championship. Time is a flat circle, or whatever the saying is, so even if Priest loses this tag team ladder match, don’t be surprised to see him later in the show walking out with a single’s title.

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Continuing on with this stacked card, two fan favorites LA Knight and AJ Styles will face each other in a grudge match. The two started feuding earlier this year during the Elimination Chamber in Australia, where Styles cost Knight a chance to be the No. 1 contender for the World Heavyweight Championship. However, Styles’ frustration with Knight stems from the former’s belief that Knight took his place in the feud against the Bloodline in the lead-up to Crown Jewel in November.

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Finally, to finish the guide, we’ve got two mid-card championships. First is the match between Sami Zayn and WWE Intercontinental Champion Gunther, “The Ring General,” who has become one of the longest-reigning title holders in the modern era. It’s looking like he will retain the title against Zayn. However, there’s a wildcard involved here: Gunter’s arch-rival, Chad Gable, who came closer than anyone before defeating Gunter.

Zayn had to defeat Gable to become the number one contender for the title. While frustrated with the loss, Gable offered to help Zayn train against Gunther. Will Gable get involved with the match, too?

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Lastly, there’s the triple-threat match as YouTuber-turned-WWE-superstar Logan Paul defends his U.S. Championship against Randy Orton and Kevin Owens. Despite catching a lot of heat from the internet for not being a wrestler until recently, Paul has fully embraced the WWE and has held the U.S. title for a surprisingly 150 long days.

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