Kat Reviews WWE PLEs

I’m taking the Rewind time machine away from NXT 2.0 for a bit (I’ll be back). I need a break from the POKER WARZ of Duke Hudson and Cameron Grimes. My original intent was to spin towards Money in the Bank 2020 after this past Monday’s Raw mentioned that MITB qualifiers for this year start next week. Then as I got into the MITB write-up, I realized there was only one other big event in this specific era before it and I might as well cover it too.

WrestleMania 36. It was going to be a grand spectacle at Raymond James Stadium on April 5, 2020. And then, well, plans changed. COVID-19 began rampaging across the world, becoming a pandemic in March 2020 with major sports organizations all cancelling or postponing their seasons and large gatherings shut down. On March 16th, WWE announced that WrestleMania would be moving (alongside their weekly programming) to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando with no crowds and only essential personnel. They also used this opportunity to declare WrestleMania “too big for one night” and make it a two-night event, something that would stick for later years.

Previously on the SmackDown Rewind: Triple H throws Shane McMahon off a stage. Multiple mysterious masked Referee Vince McMahons swarm and attack Triple H. Weeks after Stephanie marrying Triple H, Test is absolutely buried against X-Pac.

So, I’ve never seen this show. In 1999-2000, my family wasn’t ordering every show because WWF and WCW were both putting out twelve shows a year. I think we had cut back to the “Big Five” at that point. I’ve gone back and watched a lot of what I missed, but I’ve never gone back to this one. Armageddon always felt like the fluff show between Survivor Series and Royal Rumble to me. Let’s see if this one is better than my expectations. If you’d like to join me and Pat McAfee in watching the Attitude Era, you can find this one on Netflix if you’re reading this in 2026.

It turns out the hype on SmackDown has me intrigued with Survivor Series 1999, a show I’ve never watched but sounds mostly horrible. I’m not promising I’m going to do every PPV that falls on the SmackDown Rewind road, but let’s try this one.

Tonight, it’s the 2026 WWE Royal Rumble! This is the first time the mainline Rumble event has happened outside of the United States since the inaugural 1988 edition in Canada, though we did have the Greatest Royal Rumble as our first Saudi event back in 2018. This time we’re in Riyadh in an arena that was built in a month. Seems safe!

It has been a big day of wrestling already with AEW’s All Out.  If there is an AEW show, there must also be a WWE show and here we are with Wrestlepalooza.  I don’t know if you’ve heard (they’ve only mentioned it 6,048,482 times) but this is the first WWE PLE of the ESPN era.

Personally, I’m watching via Disney+ thanks to the three-service combo.  By this logic, AJ Lee is a Disney Princess.

Let’s get into this show!  For those of you who are new to reading my reviews, welcome. I do this every Monday night! I don’t do star ratings. I’ll tell you how I liked it.  It’s up to you to form your own opinions and ratings. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of star ratings from others.  Maybe some letter grades!

Tonight, it’s WWE Evolution!  For the first time since 2018, the women get their own show in WWE.