Temperature Scale = Scorching > Hot > Lukewarm > Temperate > Chilly > Cold > Freezing
Heat Index is my assessment of how interesting the segment is, including how excited I am for the match and how intriguing the feud has been. The hotter, the better. Scorching translates to not being able to wait to see it, while Freezing means I couldn’t possibly care less and think it will be awful.
Heat Index = Scorching
Prediction: Edge wins.
Thoughts: Daniel Bryan is great. Edge is great. Roman Reigns is great. So yeah, I’m into this match and I think it will be great. Simple as that. I fully expect Bryan’s in there to up the quality and take the pin of whoever wins. I’ll give the advantage to Edge so the crowd pops and Reigns can say he didn’t take the pin. Then, Reigns can win it back at another event down the line.
Heat Index = Hot
Prediction: Drew McIntyre wins.
Thoughts: I still maintain WWE went about this feud entirely wrong and are underestimating how many people will cheer for Bobby Lashley. While the idea of Drew McIntyre getting the belt back makes sense, I don’t think he’ll get the massive pop they’re expecting and they’ll blame it on him, rather than poor booking. The match probably won’t be amazing, but I’m hoping it’ll be a slugfest and prove me wrong.
Heat Index = Hot
Prediction: Rhea Ripley wins.
Thoughts: I’m extremely surprised Charlotte Flair wasn’t added to this match. It’s a shame WWE screwed Ripley last year and had no foresight about how to follow that up. For an entire year, she’s been lingering and losing momentum. The answer to that wasn’t to wait until 3 weeks before WrestleMania so she can just randomly challenge Asuka. That doesn’t do The Empress of Tomorrow justice, either, for the shitty job they did with her title reign. I’m worried whoever wins this is just going to drop the belt to Flair. As much as I don’t like the idea of Asuka losing, as I think she deserved better, I think Ripley NEEDS to win this to offset at least a portion of last year’s loss to Flair (not all, mind you, because they can’t fully undo the damage and she still has to beat Flair more than once and in a decisive fashion to START to make up for that).
Heat Index = Scorching
Prediction: Bianca Belair wins.
Thoughts: I’m getting strong Shinsuke Nakamura vibes here, and that’s not a good thing. This feud/storyline has been ATROCIOUS and I’m really starting to think WWE is going to stick with Banks as champion just to swerve everyone. While the road to get here has been awful, I think these two have a chance to put on a great match and I’m just worried WWE is going to screw it all up with bad booking. That “Scorching” is entirely based on Banks and Belair from prior to this whole storyline. It’s just their good will. None of that anticipation goes to the writing team responsible for this awful feud, as if I was judging based off that, it would be Freezing.
Heat Index = Hot
Prediction: AJ Styles and Omos win.
Thoughts: I adore The New Day and AJ Styles. Omos is honestly someone I’m intrigued about, too. That’s a recipe for intrigue and it’s something I’m up for checking out, for sure. I don’t think it’ll be the best match of the night, but I’m curious and I’ll be happy with either result. That’s all I can ask for, so long as they have a good match.
Heat Index = Temperate
Prediction: Big E wins.
Thoughts: These guys have had SIX matches already this year. Up until April 2nd, it didn’t even have a stipulation. Even then, despite the name, it seems like it’s just a generic No DQ match, so it’s the absolute bare minimum WWE could have done. They didn’t even do anything to hype it. Crews just said “I challenge you to this thing” and they went to the next segment. Such low effort. Overkill. This should have been their second or third match at most and it should have happened months ago. I’m curious and interested in what that stipulation means, but that’s not good enough.
Heat Index = Temperate
Prediction: Riddle wins.
Thoughts: Take one ingredient of “I just saw this match” with them doing it on March 29th. Add one ingredient of “the setup for one of the main titles on the biggest show of the year was Sheamus randomly bumping into Riddle and then lashing out at him with his scooter”. Stir it up with “it’s a shame Keith Lee isn’t on the card and couldn’t turn this into a triple threat to make it better” and you’ve got a recipe for “meh.” The match should be fine and utterly forgettable.
Heat Index = Temperate
Prediction: Bad Bunny and Damian Priest win.
Thoughts: I’ve written a whole article about how I don’t think Bad Bunny should wrestle at WrestleMania. This was a Cold when it was just a singles match. Now that Damian Priest is back in the fold, at least that’s a much better upgrade. I get the need for media coverage, but that doesn’t mean I’m going gaga over it, particularly since I just don’t care about Bad Bunny (as in, he’s just some guy to me and not someone I’m a big fan of). We all understand why commercials are on the air, but we don’t get hyped for them either, right? I’ll give Bad Bunny credit for the amount of appearances he’s put in, though. He’s appeared on Raw more often in 2021 than Brock Lesnar did in the last five years, probably. So this averages out to the middle of the road.
Heat Index = Temperate
Prediction: Braun Strowman wins.
Thoughts: This feud has revolved around Braun Strowman saying “this sucks” and Shane McMahon saying “you’re stupid.” It’s like someone booked a feud between two six-year-olds. This is awful. But if they would have wailed on each other in a No DQ environment, this could have been a fun mess. However, WWE made the decision to fundamentally go in the opposite direction of this. For two people who are better outside of the ring with weapons, including one guy who literally runs AROUND the ring, they put them in a steel cage that forces them to STAY in the ring?!!! What?! Did anyone think this thing through? The only way this works is if they fight for a long while before actually getting into the cage, which defeats the whole purpose. This is the type of illogical nonsense I can’t help but to get frustrated about. Hire me and I’ll idiot-proof things for you, since that’s clearly a job that is needed with this current regime.
Heat Index = Freezing
Prediction: The Fiend wins.
Thoughts: Stop stretching out feuds from November through WrestleMania by just not doing the match. I’m all for a slow burn if it’s an interesting path. You can do long term storytelling if the story is good. This is just like Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins from last year, where WWE set up a match and then said “wait for it” for five months. That’s not the same thing. Plus, they already fought at WrestleMania before. They also fought at TLC, too. On top of that, neither makes sense to be a babyface, so I’m entirely down on this and I’m sure that would baffle WWE, as they likely think this is the best thing in the world. I don’t think the match will be good whether it’s cinematic or not, as I’ve hated the cinematic matches, I disliked their last Mania match with the special effects and I don’t think a regular match will be great, either. This is a complete dud as far as I’m concerned and I never would have entertained the idea of going in this direction even in November, let alone dragging it out that long just for this to be the end result.
Heat Index = Hot
Prediction: Cesaro wins.
Thoughts: Yes. Give me a passionate Cesaro and his buddy Seth Rollins going out there with the hope to steal the show. A straight-up match between these two sounds like it isn’t WrestleMania, on paper, but I’ve got a feeling this will be something special. I’m totally down.
Heat Index = Lukewarm
Prediction: Kevin Owens wins.
Thoughts: I’m not as into this as I am Cesaro/Rollins, but some of the similar discussion applies. These two are close friends. They’ve fought a million times and the setup for this match isn’t great, but maybe they have something up their sleeves. I trust that they’ll both have a great match, even if it’s nothing super duper memorable in the grand scheme of things. Logan Paul’s involvement does less than nothing for me. I couldn’t care less about him.
Heat Index = Freezing
Prediction: The Riott Squad or maybe Kay and Carmella wins.
Thoughts: As I mentioned in the “superstars missing” section, I fully maintain the argument WWE should have and could have easily made this a battle royal, if not also put the tag titles on the line in that match, to get more people on the card. Instead, they wanted to prioritize doing the whole “one night affects the other night” thing, but chose the worst possible match to do that with. Nobody will care about this and it’s just going to split the difference even more. Now, instead of 1 match barely anyone will enjoy, we’ll have 2 matches that will be even worse. And we’ll get some people going nuts in happiness all because Liv Morgan and Ruby Riott will win and that’s the only thing they’ll care about, even ignoring how bad it is, how awful their past year has been and how little this matters.
Heat Index = Freezing
Prediction: The Riott Squad wins.
Thoughts: This is the best they could do? I refuse to believe that. What I do believe, though, is that this is the best they felt they needed to put the littlest amount of effort and work into, to be “good enough, because no one cares” in a way. I can’t imagine a whole team of writers was like “Wow. We did such a great job with the women’s tag team division this past year building up this match. This was a rousing success.” If so, they’re just wrong and deluded.
Heat Index = Lukewarm
Thoughts: It’s WrestleMania, so it’s hard to give it anything less than Lukewarm. However, I can’t give it Hot or Scorching because there are so many matches that just underwhelm. Maybe they’ll be great, but the builds have been somewhere on the range from atrocious to mediocre. Since this is about hype, I’m sadly more interested to see how the crowd reacts than anything else specifically on the card, which isn’t good.
What do you think is going to happen at WWE WrestleMania? Which matches are you most excited to see? Keep the discussion going in the comments below!