Our community won big at WrestleMania 40, with Latines coming up on top in the World Heavyweight Championship, the Women’s Championship, and the WWE Universal Championship. Cody Rhodes, who won the WWE Universal Championship, also broke Roman Reigns’ 1316-day streak with the belt.
On night two of the two-night event, Damian Priest faced Drew McIntyre for the World Heavyweight Championship Match. He didn’t actually defeat him, McIntyre won. Then McIntyre got into a fight with CM Punk, who was in the audience. He lost. But, Damian Priest came back for his crown, and he got it back. He celebrated afterward and shouted, “Yo soy Boricua!”
Mexican-American Bayley, on the other hand, got her Women’s Championship crown in a much more normal fashion, defeating Iyo Sky to win the title. This was her first singles match at WrestleMania. Earlier this year, Bayley became the seventh winner of the Women’s Royal Rumble. Not only that, she set a record for the longest time inside the ring during a Women’s Royal Rumble match.
Then there was Cody Rhodes, who is half-Cuban, and who defeated Roman Reigns to win the WWE Universal Championship match. The match, played by “Bloodline Rules,” which let a whole lot of people – including The Rock for Reigns and John Cena for Rhodes – intervene, spilled over into the audience at times.
The WWE has always known how to create a spectacle, and the three winners from our community certainly lived up to the moment. Telenovelas have nothing on the drama that is Wrestlemania. We even got a tear-jerker moment when Rhodes celebrated with his mom and gave her the belt he’d just won.
And then again, when Rhodes was talking about his dad, the late Dusty Rhodes, at a post-win press conference, he said, “I hope I lived up to your name, and thank you for your name.”