For years now, we've been incorrectly predicting the results for upcoming WWE WrestleManias. Last year, for instance, we infamously spent 30 minutes talking about how every single title should change hands, only to be surprised (but should we have been??) when Roman Reigns cheated (yet again) to ruin Cody Rhodes' championship dreams. Here we are, a full year later, and Roman still has his title and will be squaring off against Cody in a rematch that lit social media on fire for the past few months.
If you're not up-to-date with the current WWE product, first of all, that's a shame, and second of all, we're not going to spend much time trying to catch you up before WrestleMania Night 1 graces our TV screens tomorrow night. Suffice it to say, "pro wrestling is cool again," as "The Final Boss" Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson has been saying for the last several weeks.
Here's what we'd like to happen at WrestleMania XL:
LA Knight shines on the big stage
Ideally, we would have wanted The Megastar to have had a title opportunity, perhaps against Logan Paul for the United States championship, but WWE had other plans and simply put LA Knight up against AJ Styles in a 1-on-1 match. Not the best way to reward the hottest good guy that the company had to offer for the majority of the year, but it is what it is. Give LA Knight the win, then put him up against whoever walks away with the US title this weekend.
Randy Orton's last big run?
When Randy Orton takes on Kevin Owens and Logan Paul for the United States championship, there is a great likelihood that Logan will drop the belt after completing his service as the celebrity attraction for the year. Honestly, Logan has turned himself into a really impressive part-time talent, so good for him. Hate him, but congrats. We don't have too much of a preference between Orton and Owens (they're both great), so if those are the options we've got to choose from, why not give Randy another good title reign before he rides off into the sunset?
Karrion Cross finally gets a big win
Karrion Cross and his Final Testament need to defeat Bobby Lashley and the Street Profits in the upcoming Six-Man Tag Team Philadelphia Street Fight. Cross hasn't had a big break since rejoining the company and a victory at WrestleMania would add some credibility to his villainous faction, which hasn't legitimately struck fear into their opponents during their brief time together.
Dirty Dom initiates the downfall of the Judgment Day
The seeds of distrust have been planted amongst the Judgment Day - and we're not too sure what, exactly, is going on with Dominik's sudden friendship with Legado del Fantasma. We imagine that the uncertainty will only deepen when Dom teams up with Santos Escobar to face Rey Mysterio and Dragon Lee. We would love for this to signal the impending breakup of Judgment Day, but, whatever happens, as long as we get to see Rey put a whooping on his eternally irritating son, we're all right with it.
Jimmy and Jey Uso beat the heck out of each other
It isn't a secret that Jimmy and Jey Uso have wanted to face each other in a singles match at WrestleMania for their entire lives. We grew sick of the Usos about a year ago with all the cheating to win by the Bloodline, so we're kind of over this and don't really care what happens. Most likely, especially since this match will most likely come before The Rock and Roman take on Cody and Seth, we assume that Jimmy will beat Jey and possibly even put him out of the picture as a potential ally for Cody on Night 2. We just want the twins to punish each other.
Gunther (unfortunately) retains
The hallmark of WWE over the past three years has been giving people unprecedented title reign lengths. Gunther is one such beneficiary, now having held the Intercontinental championship longer than anyone else in the history of the company. We love Sami Zayn (most of the time), but putting Sami in the match over Chad Gable felt like a mistake and, if anybody's going to beat Gunther, maybe it doesn't have to be Sami. Also, some bad guys are going to win this weekend. When we look at all of the championships being defended this weekend, it seems most likely that Gunther be one of the wrestlers who gets to keep their belt.
Jade Cargill makes an impression
Jade Cargill was a huge name in AEW (WWE's top competitor) before she jumped ship a few months ago. It's a near absolute certainty that she, Naomi and Bianca Belair pick up the W against Damage CTRL this weekend. WWE will use Jade to draw curious eyes to the product, then make her look really good in her match. It's going to happen. All we can hope is that she ends up making AEW regret letting her walk.
R-Truth beats Damien Priest and Finn Balor and the tag titles get separated
It's probably time for the Judgment Day to let go of their tag team titles. If it were ever going to happen, this would be the time. And we heard a rumor that both sets of championships will be defended in the match - like, one team will climb the ladder and grab one set of belts, then another team will have the chance to climb up and grab the other pair. We're not 100% sure that this is really happening, but that would be so glorious. The RAW and SmackDown! tag titles were unified last year by the Usos (which was stupid), and they've inexplicably remained unified ever since. It's time to split them back up and send them back to their respective shows... and there is no better person to take the titles away from Finn and Damien than R-Truth himself. Yes, he who was repeatedly beaten by those who he mistakenly, confusedly thought were his teammates. It's got to be R-Truth and The Miz. That would be hilarious and the fans would go bananas for it.
The other titles should probably be won by Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne or even Austin Theory and Grayson Waller (if they want to keep the titles on a pair of bad guys).
Drew McIntyre wins a championship in front of actual human beings
Drew McIntyre arguably carried WWE through the ThunderDome era during COVID-19. Unfortunately for him, that meant that we won a world championship in 2020 in an empty arena. We've always felt bad for him about that. Drew has been doing great stuff as a heel lately, including some absolutely brilliant work on the microphone. ("I prayed for this... and it happened.") Seth "Freakin'" Rollins has admitted to legitimate injuries and probably should have dropped his belt a few months ago, but he's medically cleared now and will be fighting in two matches. There's a great chance that Seth could get beat up so badly against Roman and The Rock in Night 1 that he's barely able to compete on Night 2. It would be very, very surprising if Seth was still the champion, come Monday morning.
Damien Priest unsuccessfully cashes in his MITB contract
With Dom potentially screwing things up in his match against his deadbeat dad and Finn and Damien possibly losing their tag team championships in the massive ladder match, Damien could be feeling some pressure to get momentum swinging back in his favor. What a better way to do that than to try to cash in his Money in the Bank contract in the aftermath of Seth vs Drew? And what a better way to throw the Judgment Day into chaos than for Damien to cash in and lose? We'd love to see it.
Bayley gets the ultimate revenge
As the winner of the 2024 Women's Royal Rumble, Bayley got the opportunity to face the champion of her choice at WrestleMania. One of the highlights of the Road to WrestleMania was Bayley picking to face her former ally, Iyo Sky. Bayley was great as a heel - she made us actually like her as a heel - but we'd love to see the confetti rain down on Good Guy Bayley after picking up what would arguably be the biggest win of her career.
Mami defeats The Man and leaves Judgment Day
Fans can't help but love Rhea Ripley, despite her alignment with a generally disliked faction. Yes, Rhea has arguably become one of the biggest stars in wrestling today. In the other corner, we have "Box-Checker" Becky Lynch, who seems to win just about everything, from the Elimination Chamber all the way down to the NXT Women's championship, simply to say that she's done it all. There is no obvious reason for Becky to win a belt right now. Plus, having Rhea retain while the rest of Judgment Day fails around her would be a great reason for her to break away from those bozos for good.
The Final Boss sets up an epic finale in Night 2
Having Dwayne Johnson come and presumably announce that he was stealing the main event title match of WrestleMania, completely out of nowhere, was a major swing and miss by the company. Thankfully, they acknowledged (no pun intended) the mistake and allowed the #WeWantCody phenomenon to right the ship. At first, we were thrilled to think that Seth and Cody would beat Roman and The Rock on Night 1, FINALLY (no pun intended) leading to a match where Roman couldn't get bailed out by his cousins. But the more we thought about it, we realized that that's probably not going to happen. First of all, if you've got The Rock for one or two nights this weekend, why wouldn't you use him both nights? He'll be involved during Night 2 in some fashion - and it will probably end with him handing a bloody weight belt to Mama Rhodes.
The other great thing about this outcome is that Cody Rhodes will have to overcome every single obstacle in his path, literally beating his way through every member of the Bloodline, to take the title off of Roman.
Cody finishes the story
And that's what we're hoping happens during the last match of the weekend. Cody has got to finish the story. And it will be so, so sweet when he gets that three-count after potentially single-handedly taking out every member of Roman's posse.
But hey, we've been wrong before. So when Roman's music hits as the screen fades to black, we will just put our faces in our hands and cry our salty little Cody Crybaby tears and we'll plan on regrouping in another year.
Ugh.
*****
Will you be watching WrestleMania this weekend? Do you have any predictions or thoughts on what is about to come to pass? Let us know by leaving a comment below, finding us on Facebook or following us on Twitter (here and here). And don't give us any Night 2 spoilers because we're going out of town and may not be able to watch it live. Lovely.
Until next time.
