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Credit: WWE.com
WrestleMania is at its best when every match on the card feels special. Unfortunately, WrestleMania 38 is shaping up to be one of those years when WWE puts a few attractions on the marquee and phones in the rest.
Logan Paul and Johnny Knoxville bring in mainstream media eyes. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns has both belts on the line. Ronda Rousey is there, period, and fighting Charlotte Flair, of all people. Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair are the two other top women, so that’s all just good enough.
WWE thinks casuals will tune in for those elements and the WrestleMania branding in itself. Fans who watch every week regardless of how uninspired and repetitive it is will also watch no matter what. Essentially, you’ll watch the Super Bowl no matter which teams are playing.
But to true fans, the rest of the card matters too. If this is the biggest and best show of the year, every part should be interesting—rather than having to sit through filler to get to the important bits.
Even if WWE won’t bother to try half this hard, let’s brainstorm some ways to spice up the midcard and other filler elements that will likely get lost in the shuffle and barely given attention leading up to WrestleMania 38.
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Given the state of the Raw roster, the best possible opponent for Damian Priest’s United States Championship defense is Finn Balor. Unfortunately, WWE made the mistake of already starting the feud between them and booking a match for the next episode of Raw.
That means either the belt is on the line with at least one other person at WrestleMania; it’s left off the card entirely; or these two will fight now and do yet another rematch in a few weeks.
Rematches are one of WWE’s biggest problems that it refuses to acknowledge and change. Doing a match a second time only works if the first was good enough and the second has a twist to it to keep things interesting.
Priest’s gimmick in recent months has been that he’s split between his good and bad side. Balor has a similar character in that sometimes his inner demon comes out to play.
Have the regular match on Monday Night Raw end in some sort of no-contest. Both men should be brawling outside the ring to a double count-out or be knocked unconscious at the same time to set up a rematch.
Over the coming weeks, both can get increasingly bitter and resentful toward one another, and their more malevolent natures can come to the forefront.
Let’s see a more vicious and edgy version of “The Damian” side of Priest at WrestleMania against The Demon King!
While it would still basically be the same match, at least the entrances and the ring attire would create a different atmosphere and the marquee would look more interesting with those graphics.
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Austin Theory’s apprenticeship under Vince McMahon has seemingly taken a bit of a back seat recently, but as long as it gets mentioned here and there, it isn’t truly dead and buried.
With much of this card still up in the air, it’s impossible to know if WWE has something in mind for Theory, or if he’s one of those Superstars the creative team is still trying to figure out. Admittedly, the writers may not even bother to do anything with him, which would be a huge mistake.
It’s been established that Mr. McMahon wants Theory to impress him. How is he going to do that at The Showcase of the Immortals?
Had things not gone sour, a match with Shane McMahon would have been an amazing opportunity. That could have revolved around McMahon’s real son feuding with his surrogate protege, in a sense.
With that likely off the table, why not tie this into “Stone Cold” Steve Austin? It’s hard to imagine The Texas Rattlesnake is actually going to wrestle, but he could easily host the show and hit a fellow Austin with a Stunner before taking a selfie and dousing him with beer.
A weaker pitch, but still one that WWE might not even bother to put the effort into, is if Theory declares himself for the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and goes on to win it all. That would give some purpose to a match that is often relatively useless a week or so later.
Theory has too much potential as a future main player to disregard. If he has nothing to do at WrestleMania, that’s a fault on WWE Creative, not him.
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Credit: WWE.com
Realistically, The Usos have nothing interesting in the works for WrestleMania, and the SmackDown Tag Team Championship scene is looking weak.
The Viking Raiders stand no chance of winning the belts, Los Lotharios can’t even keep their surnames and aren’t going to be the next champions, Sheamus and Ridge Holland have their issues and will probably split before we know it, and that doesn’t leave much to work with.
Every match with The New Day is fantastic, but even running that back again is beyond tiresome.
That is, of course, unless you add a new factor into it by making it a six-man tag and introducing a new member: Solo Sikoa.
Lapsed fans won’t know the name, but Sikoa is on NXT 2.0 and is the younger brother of Jimmy and Jey Uso. WWE strangely likes to play coy with this kind of information, just like how Bron Breakker’s father Rick Steiner and uncle Scott Steiner are constantly referenced, but not quite by name. Sikoa has referenced the “we the ones” slogan, though.
NXT has gone back to being less of a third brand and more of a developmental farm. It is meant to facilitate talent learning enough to go to Raw or SmackDown. If he’s proved himself worthy to put down Gunther, he’s ready to go to Friday nights on Fox.
Whether they keep the Solo Sikoa name or give him a traditional call-up rebranding as something like Sefa Uso, his inclusion would spark something brand new in the dynamic and give Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods someone fresh to work with while Jimmy and Jey hold down the fort.
That’s at least better than the zero-effort thing WWE tends to do, which is to put all the teams in a Fatal 5-Way and run several matches and mixed pairings between those teams for the next six weeks.
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Credit: WWE.com
Every year, the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal either revolves around one goofy element like Braun Strowman wrecking some Saturday Night Live cast members or it’s a complete afterthought.
This year, there’s a chance it is at least used to give Omos a big win—in theory. More often than not, the winner’s push disappears within a few weeks, as WWE doesn’t truly care about this trophy.
But if Omos declares himself for the match and the rest of the participants are all on the bottom tier for credibility like Akira Tozawa and Shanky, there isn’t any hook to it.
Enter: Veer Mahaan.
For whatever reason, which may well be just to mess with the audience while McMahon chuckles, Mahaan was split from Jinder Mahal, given a surname and has spent months “coming to Raw” in vignettes while wrestling on Main Event, despite having already been on the show for two months last summer.
This constant teasing of his appearance has become laughable. If he just shows up and beats down Reggie, nobody will care and it will all be for nothing. He’ll be dead on arrival.
But if Omos utterly destroys people left and right to assert his dominance as the clear favorite for the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, only for Mahaan to stand up to the big man and declare himself for the match, too, a simple stare down between the two would make fans pop.
Then, during the match itself, the inevitable clash would be one of the selling points and should arguably be the finale, unless some third party like Theory eliminated both.
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Credit: WWE.com
WWE has made it abundantly clear how little it thinks of the current roster with the massive sets of releases and the overwhelming reliance on part-timers, guest stars and returning legends to save the day.
Realistically, if that’s the case, why is Dominik Mysterio in this tag team match against Logan Paul?
The Miz and Paul makes sense as a team. Rey Mysterio is a big name, even if this current feud is about as bland as can possibly be. But Dominik’s inclusion seems like he’s just tagging along rather than being a true fourth.
Perhaps that is why WWE hasn’t bothered to put the graphic up on the website. Maybe the plan is to replace him with someone who will draw more eyes.
If so, just turn into the skid and bring someone else in to team with Rey who will balance out Paul on the celebrity front.
Bad Bunny did a great job at last year’s WrestleMania and the Royal Rumble. Reach out to him.
Better yet, there was a partnership with Cain Velasquez and The Mysterios. Give some money to AAA and open the forbidden door to bring him in. The more everyone flaunts Paul’s boxing in opposition to a 14-3 MMA record for Velasquez, the more heel heat will be created.
Since much of this feud has revolved around outside interference, Dominik can be ringside and Maryse can be in The Miz and Paul’s corner to load that marquee graphic up and bring this story to a logical conclusion.
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On this past episode of Raw, Edge laid out a challenge that is simple as possible. He wants a match at WrestleMania, and he wants someone to step up to be that opponent. The end.
Obviously, this is not going to amount to The Rated-R Superstar against Mace. He dropped the word “phenomenal” in his promo as an anchor to bring about AJ Styles as that opponent.
In the meantime, so we don’t just have Styles come out next week to put his name in the hat and spend four weeks with the two talking about how they respect each other and will put on a great show, why not play around with Edge wrestling on Raw and SmackDown to boost some ratings?
An open challenge for at least two of those weeks, where Edge is hoping to find someone worthy, could lead to some interesting matches against guys like Apollo Crews and Ricochet that we might not get otherwise.
If Edge isn’t willing or able to compete a few extra times, he can at least scout talent who are tasked to prove themselves. Let’s say Jinder Mahal claims he’s deserving and he’ll prove it by beating Drew McIntyre, only for The Scottish Warrior to wipe the floor with him and Edge to say that’s definitely not impressive enough.
Styles would still be the endgame, but the journey to get to that point would be more interesting than simply cutting straight to the finish line.
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Credit: WWE.com
To round out this list, here are a few other smaller ideas or ones that are a bit too hard to believe in:
- If Gable Steveson is able to make an appearance, he could be tied into Alpha Academy’s story to show up Chad Gable for being so pompous and arrogant.
- Belair vs. Lynch needs a stipulation. The match has happened enough times that WWE shouldn’t just cop out and sell it purely on the notion that both women won the main event of WrestleMania in the past.
- If Sami Zayn and the Intercontinental Championship is going to be wasted on Johnny Knoxville, it has to be a No Holds Barred match with lots of stunts that don’t look anywhere near as bad as the cattle prod with bad sound effects.
- If all WWE has planned for the Women’s Tag Team Championship is Sasha Banks and Naomi, rather than The Bella Twins or Trish Stratus and Lita, at least reference Team B.A.D. and make those two a legitimate tag team. Give them matching gear and a team name and properly build them for the next few weeks. It is still a rush job, but better than nothing.
- The WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal should return and be renamed the Chyna Memorial Battle Royal. As Andre the Giant was nicknamed The Eighth Wonder of the World, Chyna was The Ninth Wonder of the World. Ideally, give the win to Rhea Ripley, too, to counterbalance how she has nothing else going on right now.
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.
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