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It’s time for a change.

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Following an intro by WrestleMania host Rob “Gronk” “The White Tiger” Gronkowski, the Women’s Tag Team Championship Match between Bliss Cross Applesauce and the Kabuki Warriors opened Night One of WrestleMania 36. Even after weeks of crowd-free TV at the Performance Center, it felt strange to see WrestleMania entrances with no fans to cheer. On top of that, Kairi Sane entered in a fabulous new pirate outfit, which she definitely must have commissioned thinking she’d be wearing it in Tampa Bay.

The four women still gave it their all, however. Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross had motivations that were easy to understand — they first won this Championship on Raw last August, in a Fatal Four-Way match against the Kabuki Warriors, Fire & Desire, and then-Champions the IIconics. Bliss and Cross held the Titles for 61 days before losing them to the Kabuki Warriors in October at the Hell in a Cell PPV. Since then Asuka and Kairi have become the longest-reigning Women’s Tag Team Champions to date, holding the Titles for 181 days and not even having to defend them very often.

That reign ended tonight, after a hard-fought, high-energy match in the mostly empty Performance Center. Nikki Cross hit Kairi Sane with a spinning neckbreaker, then tagged in Alexa Bliss, who hit Twisted Bliss to pin Sane. Bliss and Cross are now the first-ever two-time WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.

One of the longest-simmering feuds that was set to come to a boil at WrestleMania 36 was between Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins. The two had been running into each other on Monday Night Raw and at pay-per-views for the past three months, and it all culminated at what eventually became a no-disqualification match at the Showcase Of The Immortals.

During the bout, Rollins clocked Owens in the head with the timekeeper’s bell, which caused the referee to award the contest to Owens via disqualification. Owens, unhappy with this result, got on the mic and challenged Rollins to restart the match as a no-DQ match, a stipulation the Monday Night Messiah happily took. He would regret that decision a few minutes later, however: Owens eventually got him laid out on the announce table, then scaled the gigantic WrestleMania sign hanging inside the WWE Performance Center and catapulted himself off the top of it, putting Rollins into the ground and exploding the table in the process. See for yourself:

Shortly thereafter, Owens delivered a Stone Cold Stunner to Rollins to score the pinfall victory — his first in WrestleMania history. Rollins’ record at the Show Of Shows is now a still-impressive 6-2. Is this the end of their feud? Only time will tell.

Commissioners from a number of major American sports leagues held a conference call on Saturday with President Donald Trump as part of the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among those on the call was NBA commissioner Adam Silver, according to the president’s daily agenda, and per a report by ESPN, Silver expressed a desire for leagues to play a roll in one of Trump’s main priorities at one point or another: restarting the American economy.

The president had previously said his hope was to begin getting Americans back to work by Easter Sunday, which was eventually scrapped. But at some point in the future that we just do not know, Americans will be able to get back to work, and when they do, Silver wants leagues to be at the forefront.

Via Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN:

NBA commissioner Adam Silver told those on the call that the leagues were the first to shut down and that they would love to lead the way in starting the economy once there was an “all clear” from public health officials, sources familiar with the call told ESPN.

It is unclear exactly what Silver would mean by restarting the economy beyond putting on games, which would lead to workers for the teams/stadiums and broadcast partners getting back into the swing of things. Later in the day on Saturday, Trump held a press conference in which he said leagues “gotta get back.”

Of course, while leagues do need to get back, as Silver apparently told Trump, that has to occur with the blessing of public health officials, something that could take an awfully long time. In fact, while Trump reportedly said on the call that he believes the NFL should be good to play games by September, public health experts told the Washington Post that it’s far too early into this process to predict anything regarding when we’ll be able to see games played again.

This also does not necessarily mean that this NBA season is salvageable. Brian Windhorst of ESPN brought word that there’s mounting pessimism in talks between the league and the NBPA about being able to restart this season, with the Chinese Basketball Association’s struggles to relaunch its league and the potential that picking this campaign back up can impact 2020-21 as major factors.

Basketball fans’ desire to watch NBA players hoop during the league’s suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a whole lot of video games. The NBA 2K League held a tournament that featured NBA and WNBA players, among others, while ESPN is in the midst of a 2K tournament of its own.

What has been lacking, outside of replays of games, has been actual, live basketball. This is understandable, because that cannot happen until games can safely be played. A potential workaround, though, is reportedly being kicked around by the league and the Worldwide Leader in Sports.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski, the two sides are in discussions about a H-O-R-S-E competition that would include some of the biggest names in the league.

As Wojnarowski laid out, all of this is still being finalized, but it’s literally any sort of live basketball being played by professionals, which is much better than nothing. It also would not be the first time has leaned into the idea of a H-O-R-S-E competition, as it implemented one as an All-Star event in 2009 and 2010. Both were won by Kevin Durant, who beat Joe Johnson and O.J. Mayo during the first competition and Omri Casspi and Rajon Rondo in the second.

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Add “football” to the list of things Donald Trump wants over the advice of public health officials as the nation and world at large continue to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic. The president held a call with the commissioners of various American sports leagues on Saturday and, according to a report, insisted that the NFL should be able to start its season on time.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported on the conference on Saturday, noting that Trump urged the league to start on time and floated ideas that could help owners keep leagues profitable.

In a conference call with major league sports commissioners on Saturday, President Donald Trump said he believes the NFL season should start on time in September, sources familiar with the call told ESPN.

Trump also said he hopes to have fans back in stadiums and arenas by August and September, sources said, though it is currently unclear if medical experts find that to be a realistic timeline amid the current coronavirus pandemic.

This flies in the face of warnings public health officials are giving about when normal life can resume in a nation suffering one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks on the planet, with little hope for proper testing and vaccination coming in the near future. It also came hours after the Washington Post reported that sporting events may be on ice for a lot longer than most optimists, including Trump, hope. Speaking with public health officials, Adam Kilgore wrote that fans may need to prepare for “disappointment” regarding whether sports can come back safely in this current climate.

“Unfortunately, I think perhaps if anything, having large spectator sports open back up may even have to be delayed a little bit longer than relaxing some of the other things,” said Dean Winslow, an infectious-disease doctor at Stanford. “I hate to say that, because I’m a big sports fan.

“There’s also the scenario a lot of people worry about, including my friend Dr. Fauci, that if you relax the control measures too soon, you could potentially induce a second wave of transmission to susceptible people,” Winslow added when asked about professional and college football starting on time. “It’s a little too soon to make that prediction. I certainly don’t think it’s impossible that we’ll be able to start resuming things such as sporting events by the early fall.”

Saturday’s decree is yet another example of Trump’s disinformation that disrupts advice given by public health officials. Just Friday, for example, the Center for Disease Control urged Americans to wear non-medical facial coverings in public to help stop transmission of the disease. Trump, in announcing that recommendation, said he would not wear one. Meanwhile, other governmental officials are less certain football will happen in front of packed stadiums come fall.

It’s entirely unclear if optimism for football is warranted at this point, but based on what scientists and those at local levels of government believe, the president’s remarks to Goodell put the cart before the horse.

WWE WrestleMania 36 airs this weekend, both Saturday, April 4, and Sunday, April 5, live on tape on WWE Network and pay-per-view. For the first time, the show — advertised as Too Big For Just One Night — will be a two-night event, so we’ll have two open discussion threads, two results posts, two Best and Worst of WrestleManias, and so on.

Here’s the card as we know it, which is already very different from the one we used for predictions. No word yet on which matches will happen on which night.

WrestleMania 36 Card:
(advertised as of Saturday, April 4)

1. Universal Championship Match: Goldberg (c) vs. Braun Strowman
2. WWE Championship Match: Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Drew McIntyre
3. NXT Women’s Championship Match: Rhea Ripley (c) vs. Charlotte Flair
4. Raw Women’s Championship Match: Becky Lynch (c) vs. Shayna Baszler
5. Smackdown Women’s Championship Match: Bayley (c) vs. Sasha Banks vs. Lacey Evans vs. Naomi vs. Tamina
6. Raw Tag Team Championship Match: Street Profits (c) vs. Austin Theory and Angel Garza
7. Smackdown Tag Team Championship Ladder Match: John Morrison (c) vs. Jimmy Uso vs. Kofi Kingston
8. Women’s Tag Team Championship Match: Kabuki Warriors (c) vs. Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross
9. Intercontinental Championship Match: Sami Zayn (c) vs. Daniel Bryan
10. Elias vs. King Corbin
11. Aleister Black vs. Bobby Lashley
12. Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins
13. Last Man Standing Match: Edge vs. Randy Orton
14. Firefly Funhouse Match: Bray Wyatt vs. John Cena
15. Boneyard Match: The Undertaker vs. AJ Styles
16. Dolph Ziggler vs. Otis

– Kickoff Show Match: Natalya vs. Liv Morgan
– Kickoff Show Match: Cesaro vs. Drew Gulak

Hosted by Rob Gronkowski

Make sure to give your favorite comments from tonight’s open discussion a thumbs up, because as always we’re including ten of the best, funniest, and most insightful in tomorrow’s Best and Worst of WrestleMania 36 Night One column. Be sure to flip your comments to “newest” in the drop-down menu, and enjoy whatever the show ends up being!