Bianca Belair

The Austin-East grad and VFL defeated Becky Lynch at WrestleMania. Belair previously held the Smackdown! Women's Championship in 2021.

There can't be a winner without a loser, and even at WrestleMania 38 , that is true for the WWE Superstars on the card. Everyone heads into the biggest show ...

Bianca Belair and the Real Winners and Losers from WWE WrestleMania 38 Night 1Bianca Belair and the Real Winners and Losers from WWE WrestleMania 38 Night 1There can't be a winner without a loser, and even at WrestleMania 38, that is true for the WWE Superstars on the card. It will go down as one of the biggest wins of his career.Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more. A segment must have ran too long and WWE opted to nix this to make up for it.What's frustrating is that there were two hours of the Kickoff show without a single match.This feud was already problematic heading into WrestleMania and the match would have been meaningless outside of getting these guys on the card, but they weren't even able to do that.For the first time, a promo segment was the main event of WrestleMania—or, at least, it was, until Kevin Owens challenged "Stone Cold" Steve Austin to a No Holds Barred match.Not one to turn down a fight, the Hall of Famer accepted. For Austin to be healthy enough to get physical and for Owens to have the honor of wrestling one of his idols in the main event of WrestleMania is astonishing.Extra credit goes to Stone Cold for the actual victory, but Owens will still be beaming just for being involved. Their first match at Survivor Series 2018 ended in controversy with a disqualification.Their second go-around saw neither come out on top as Becky Lynch won both the Raw and SmackDown Women's Championships, and Rousey was the one who took the pin.You would think the third time would be the charm, but that wasn't the case. To get that kind of special treatment is rare, and to have your return be at WrestleMania as Vince McMahon's personal choice to defeat a multi-time world champion in Seth Rollins is stacking positives on positives.Rhodes merely showing up would have been one of the biggest stories of the night. WWE might have booked this just to swerve the audience and stretch this into WrestleMania Backlash. But The Queen was left standing tall with a win in the record books over Rowdy, who will have to lick her wounds and join the list of Royal Rumble winners who disappointed at WrestleMania.Losers: The New Day, Sheamus, Ridge Holland and ButchThe original plan for WrestleMania was for Sheamus, Ridge Holland and Butch to face all three members of The New Day. With Big E's injury, that got trimmed to a standard tag team match with Butch on the outside.Then, the match got cut entirely from the lineup.During the kickoff, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods spoke about how they would have the match, so it was still on the schedule earlier in the night. His promo on Monday's Raw will likely be insufferable, though.WWE booked Becky Lynch to effectively humiliate Bianca Belair at SummerSlam as The Man turned heel.It worked, albeit at The EST of WWE's expense and with some struggles along the way, but one core idea remained over all these months: Belair needed to get a world title back.Thankfully, after several failed attempts to regain her championship, the title is back around the waist of Belair.Had she come up short or won by count-out or disqualification, it would have been the seventh out of nine times she had failed to beat Lynch.With The EST back as champion, having beaten two of the Four Horsewomen at WrestleMania, she's breaking through that glass ceiling to be one of the biggest names in the women's division for this era.It is still unclear exactly what led to Cody Rhodes leaving the company he was instrumental in creating, but his departure from All Elite Wrestling meant the only other place for him to go be a huge deal would be WWE.Now that he's back in the fold, he's started this run with a bang and better than he was positioned six years ago with the company.This was one of the most reported stories heading into WrestleMania, despite how his arrival was kept quiet up until his actual ring entrance. Many other celebrities have tried and failed, but he held his own.Of course, he wasn't the biggest winner of this match, as that was his partner, The Miz.Not only did The A-Lister score the pinfall for his team, but he also stole the big pop afterward when he nailed Paul with a Skull Crushing Finale.Why that happened is a mystery, but it meant The Miz is flying high as the top star of this segment. Some etch their names in the history books with iconic matches that will be in video packages for decades to come, but others fall short of expectations.With the top two women's titles on the line, Seth Rollins set up for a "main event" match against Vince McMahon's handpicked mystery opponent, Logan Paul's in-ring debut and the return of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, who stood out?Let's recap the winners and losers from Night 1 of WrestleMania 38.The Usos defeated Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs by pinfall to retain the SmackDown Tag Team ChampionshipThe Miz and Logan Paul defeated Dominik Mysterio and Rey Mysterio by pinfall.Bianca Belair defeated Becky Lynch by pinfall to win the Raw Women's Championship.Charlotte Flair defeated Ronda Rousey by pinfall to retain the SmackDown Women's Championship.The Usos have held the SmackDown Tag Team Championship for well over 250 days. For years, any time he hit that move, it was the end of the match or there was a disqualification or something that would avoid someone kicking out.Corbin even told BT Sport he would rather nobody kick out of his finisher than to win the world championship.That dream is over. It was only a matter of time before the two-on-one scenario would be too much for Nakamura, and he ate a pinfall after the 1D.This wasn't the way anyone wanted 'Mania to start.

Once again, Bianca Belair is leaving WrestleMania as a champion. Here are the challengers we want her to face and the ones we don't.

And while there is no denying that story Becky & Bianca have told us has been fun to watch, the outcome has been rather predictable. You could argue that the end could be seen once Belair lost to Becky back at Summerslam that there was no way WWE could spend all the time & effort building up The EST and building up goodwill with her fans to burn it all down without an equal payoff. Unfortunately, she's been presented in a way that she can't be considered as a serious threat to dethrone Bianca Belair. Morgan's come up on the losing end of the few encounters they have had, and while we all agree that her time is yet to come, that time isn't now. As we know, she went on to face Sasha Banks. This is a match that deserves to be revisited, only this time, the shoes would be on opposite feet: Asuka challenging Bianca Belair for the Raw Women's Title. Bianca has already had her moments with the other members of The Four Horsewomen, Charlotte would be the last step to reaching the top of the Women's division. From a storyline perspective, the angle writes itself: Charlotte claims that Bianca can't claim to be The EST of anything without beating the best. That may be the case, but it shouldn't be with Bianca Belair. Coming off her Smackdown Title win at WrestleMania 37, Bayley was the EST's first challenger having faced her at both WrestleMania Backlash and Hell In A Cell in a Hell In A Cell match. She's been a Tag Team Champion as well, but it seems like WWE is stalling in bringing her to the USA or Fox networks. Rematches have been a main course menu item for the last few years, but few matches have been done to death as much as Bianca Belair vs. Their career successes have paralleled each other, so the time is right for them to have a proper program on the main roster and tear the house down. The easy choice here for one of the first challengers is Rhea Ripley. Bianca and Rhea have crossed paths several times in the past, both on NXT and Raw, each of their encounters being very closely contested. As the viewer, some women would be preferred over others, but the WWE may have plans set in stone that we might not always agree with.