Nights For Two WWE WrestleMania 42 Matches Seemingly Confirmed

Published: Mar 8, 2026 by Liam | Last Updated: Mar 8, 2026 by Liam

Liam has been reporting & analyzing wrestling news for over eight years, and is currently the Managing Editor at WrestleTalk.com. Immersed in wrestling for 18 years, he has over 11,000 published articles in addition to leading and overseeing WrestleTalk.com's coverage.

WWE

The nights for two top matches at the upcoming WWE WrestleMania 42 premium live event are now seemingly locked in.

On last night’s episode of SmackDown, Cody Rhodes defeated Drew McIntyre to win the Undisputed WWE Championship.

That means the WWE Title match at WrestleMania will now see Rhodes defend against Elimination Chamber winner Randy Orton.

As for the World Heavyweight Championship, CM Punk will defend that title against Royal Rumble winner Roman Reigns.

Punk vs Reigns was widely expected to be the night two main event ever since it was announced, and WWE has referred to it as the main event of this year’s WrestleMania.

However, WWE had not explicitly committed to specifying that the match would be on night two – likely as a strategy to sell tickets to both nights instead of people only buying tickets for one night to see that specific match.

WWE also historically refers to several matches as “main events,” even the ones that aren’t the literal main events of each night, meaning the match that is last on the card.

Now, the official WWE website events page specifically has Rhodes vs Orton as the poster for WrestleMania Saturday on April 18, and Punk vs Reigns as the poster for WrestleMania Sunday on April 19, seemingly confirming these as the nights those matches will take place.

Previously, WWE had been using the Punk vs Reigns poster as the main image for both nights of Mania, so the Rhodes vs Orton poster has specifically been added to the Saturday since it was confirmed last night.

We’ll keep you posted if any further updates emerge.