Match Predictions and Heat Index Anticipation Levels
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.
WINNER TAKES ALL WWE CHAMPIONSHIP & UNIVERSAL CHAMPIONSHIP UNIFICATION MATCH:
Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Roman Reigns (c)
Heat Index = Hot
Prediction: Roman Reigns wins.
Thoughts: This feud has gone on for SEVEN YEARS. Back when WrestleMania 34 went down, I was already tired of complaining about it, and it continued for months again after that. While I’ve enjoyed this more recent stuff FAR more than anything from the past, it doesn’t mean I’m on board with WWE putting all their eggs in this one basket and sacrificing what could have been another good WWE Championship match in the process to just say “both belts on the line makes it more important.” This is not “the biggest WrestleMania match of all time” to me. It’s just “the thing WWE has cared the most about for the past decade.” Roman Reigns absolutely must win this, or it’s a goddamn travesty. As great as Brock Lesnar has been recently, him winning does nothing but set WWE and The Tribal Chief back. It’s counterproductive and WWE absolutely cannot be stupid enough to ignore that.
THE KO SHOW:
Kevin Owens hosts Stone Cold Steve Austin
Heat Index = Lukewarm
Prediction: Steve Austin walks out on top.
Thoughts: I feel bad for the people who are falling into WWE’s trap here, thinking Steve Austin is going to wrestle. WWE is skirting the line just to make you feel like that could happen without actually promoting it, so that they aren’t crossing into false advertisement. Hey, you’re mad he didn’t wrestle? Well, this was touted as a KO Show segment, not a match, so boo hoo. I love Owens and Austin, but I’m not exploding in enthusiasm over what I’m expecting to be the same old shit we’ve seen a million times, where KO runs his mouth, Austin talks trash, Owens wails on him a moment, Austin hits a Stunner, drinks beer and that’s the end of it. If they do something better, I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but I’m not getting my hopes up for anything more.
RAW WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH:
Becky Lynch (c) vs. Bianca Belair
Heat Index = Lukewarm
Prediction: Bianca Belair wins.
Thoughts: I see that a lot of people are questioning Belair winning now that she came out on top of their fight on Raw. Hopefully, that’s not the case just for the sake of a swerve. WWE is already pushing its luck by doing this match after having already done it several times before and is begging the audience to forget that this is a rematch of a rematch of a rematch spawning from an angle at SummerSlam that already pissed people off. You don’t do all that and then go “ha, got you!” with Lynch winning here just to shock people. Then again, this is the company that had no idea what to do for Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt other than to fight at Mania again with zero story and a shitty jack in the box finish to their match after months of dragging it out, so I wouldn’t be shocked. But this is WWE’s opportunity to offset some of that damage done to Belair and to give her her win back over Becky. Right the wrong. Put the belt back on Bianca, or you’re just fostering more bad will with the audience.
SMACKDOWN WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH:
Charlotte Flair (c) vs. Ronda Rousey
Heat Index = Freezing
Prediction: Ronda Rousey wins.
Thoughts: If I were a “good fan” who “follows the rules” and “plays along with the narrative”, then I would be going insane over this. But you know what? I legitimately couldn’t care less. I’ve not only seen Rousey and Flair fight twice before, I also think this feud has been terrible. Flair is half-assing it with her generic promos. Rousey still can’t cut one to save her life. This shouldn’t have happened, and no matter who wins, I’m still going to be eagerly anticipating them dropping the title to whoever is next. I just assume Rousey is winning because Flair has to drop it to win it again, and because Rousey’s the bigger mainstream name. It’s a shame. In another world, we’re getting Toni Storm ascending the throne or something instead.
WOMEN’S TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP FATAL 4-WAY MATCH:
Queen Zelina and Carmella (c) vs. Sasha Banks and Naomi vs. Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan vs. Natalya and Shayna Baszler
Heat Index = Temperate
Prediction: Liv Morgan and Rhea Ripley win.
Thoughts: This is one of the hardest matches to predict, as I think two teams have a chance of winning. I fully expect the belts to change hands and to go to either Sasha Banks and Naomi or Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan. My brain tells me Banks and Naomi makes more sense, as they’re overall bigger stars (if not just because of The Boss), but my gut is telling me to not overlook Livv for Brutality. They have better chemistry and are babyfaces who wouldn’t fight Belair if she wins the Raw Women’s Championship, so if they’re tag team champions, that gives them an excuse not to be in contention for that belt, whereas Rousey could easily turn heel again and fight Banks or Naomi. As far as hype goes, this is a “throw everyone in there and go for quantity over quality” clusterfuck, so I’m not gushing over it, but it could be much worse. Nattie and Shayna have no chance, by the way.
RAW TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP TRIPLE THREAT MATCH:
RK-Bro (c) vs. The Street Profits vs. Alpha Academy
Heat Index = Chilly
Prediction: RK-Bro wins.
Thoughts: WWE got cold feet on splitting up Randy Orton and Riddle. You mean to tell me this is better than a singles feud between them? Please. This is textbook Monday Night Raw filler or B-level pay-per-view lazy booking. I’m a fan of all three teams, but there isn’t any passion here. Any scenario can happen and it would feel like it’s all meaningless. RK-Bro retains and never should have dropped the belts in the first place. Alpha Academy wins it back and never should have lost it, then. The Street Profits win and then what? Unless they’re turning heel, what’s the story? I just assume since they want Riddle and Orton to stay together, they’ll keep the belts until they decide on a team to arbitrarily lose it to when WWE wants to pull the trigger on the split. I’m disappointed, as I wanted these three teams to be doing something better.
SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH:
The Usos (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs
Heat Index = Cold
Prediction: The Usos win.
Thoughts: This feels like WWE woke up one day, said “Shit! The Usos need to defend the titles against someone! Who do we have left?” and they realized Los Lotharios are heels, so the one other tag team on SmackDown was the only way to go. I like Boogs and Nakamura, don’t get me wrong, but this with a complete lack of story was the best you could come up with for WrestleMania? If that’s the case, WWE Creative needs to hire new staff or upper management needs to stop strangleholding the writers and let them actually come up with ideas. I’m sure if I had a 20 minute head start before this match was announced, I could have booked a better feud for this with ease and little to no effort.
TAG TEAM MATCH:
Rey and Dominik Mysterio vs. The Miz and Logan Paul
Heat Index = Freezing
Prediction: The Mysterios win.
Thoughts: The Miz is awesome. Rey Mysterio is great. But holy shit, is this worthless. This is as bland a feud as can be, in that if you replaced The Mysterios with anyone else, it would have the same appeal. That’s because this is only happening because Logan Paul is there for more mainstream media coverage. Guess what. I have zero interest in Logan Paul, meaning the major hook here is lost on me. Why isn’t this The Street Profits instead of The Mysterios? At least then, the promos would have been better. I would have rather seen The Mysterios in the tag title hunt just the same, as Dominik is such an outlier that this is going to be a bumpy ride. This is going to be one of those matches that doesn’t age well at all. Guaranteed. And the build to it has been trash dating back to Royal Rumble.
SINGLES MATCH:
Drew McIntyre vs. Happy Corbin
Heat Index = Freezing
Prediction: Drew McIntyre wins.
Thoughts: This didn’t need to get dragged out to WrestleMania. As a Corbin apologist who also thinks McIntyre has been robbed of being a big deal over the past year and deserves better, this is meaningless filler. Again, this is the best you could do? Even if you had a lame match like this, your entire build has been several weeks of “McIntyre goes after these two guys, who happen to get away” and nothing more? Drew wins so that he can job to Roman at Backlash and probably six more times after that, since WWE loves to copy and paste.
SINGLES MATCH:
Seth Rollins vs. TBA
Heat Index = Scorching
Prediction: TBA wins.
Thoughts: If this isn’t Cody Rhodes, holy hell is WWE in for upsetting a whole stadium’s worth of people. I don’t care if it’s Shane McMahon or another surprise. The only worthwhile alternative would be The Undertaker, but if that ends up being a two second squash, people will still be disappointed. With that being said, despite how I haven’t been fond of the storyline going into this, I’m naturally more excited to see who his opponent is than most of the rest of what WWE has to offer for WrestleMania. That’s saying a lot.
SINGLES MATCH:
The New Day vs. Ridge Holland and Sheamus
Heat Index = Freezing
Prediction: The New Day wins.
Thoughts: Obviously, this match would have been better if it were a six-man tag with The New Day reuniting to fight all three of the opposition, but that couldn’t happen with Big E’s injury. Horrible timing for a terrible injury. We all hope Big E has a speedy and thorough recovery. But in the meantime, why is this so lame? It shouldn’t even be on the card, but if it’s going to be, at least have Butch and Ridge Holland be the team Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods are fighting. That’s at least the freshest option, rather than sticking with Sheamus and Ridge that we’ve seen for months. This is skippable pre-show content if I’ve ever seen any, and not at all WrestleMania worthy, which hurts to say, as AGAIN, I’m a fan of all the performers. WWE Creative just did people dirty so much this year and is expecting the wrestlers to save the day during the matches themselves to try to justify a few months of zero effort. It’s Sasha Banks vs. Bianca Belair from last year all over again. Awful storyline with lazy “writing” because they know the fans will eat up the match since the talent is there, and then, they’ll act like it was a great 3 months instead of just a great single 15 minute match. But this tag team match won’t even be great. It’ll just be there eating up time. Give the win to the babyfaces. Things are already depressing enough as it is!
ANYTHING GOES MATCH:
Johnny Knoxville vs. Sami Zayn
Heat Index = Lukewarm
Prediction: Johnny Knoxville wins.
Thoughts: Making this Anything Goes was the best decision WWE could have made, easily. That skyrocketed this match’s value and potential to be fun. I’m excited to see what tricks they have up their sleeves, and I’m hoping we get some more of the Jackass crew to perform some other stunts, too. Since there are no stakes, Knoxville gets the win after some sort of high spot.
SINGLES MATCH:
Edge vs. AJ Styles
Heat Index = Hot
Prediction: Edge wins.
Thoughts: This is one of the only matches WWE could have gotten away with doing the complete lack of a build for and it would still be interesting, as it’s in that “dream match” territory. I’m glad Edge turned heel, as that spiced things up. Overall, I’m looking forward to seeing this match more than almost anything else on the two nights, so I hope I’m not disappointed. The way I see it, Edge winning makes more sense as his new heel persona can carry him into other feuds if he’s victorious, but if he loses, he’ll have lost some steam.
SINGLES MATCH:
Pat McAfee vs. Austin Theory
Heat Index = Lukewarm
Prediction: Pat McAfee wins.
Thoughts: Gotta love how Vince McMahon was only involved in this feud by proxy of telling McAfee that he has “a match” and everything else has been Theory just taunting McAfee for no reason, right? Lazy, but whatever, that’s the theme of this year. At least in this scenario, it’s not a match we’ve seen a bunch of times beforehand, and we know that McAfee has had some fun matches in NXT. Maybe they’ll surprise us.
SINGLES MATCH:
Bobby Lashley vs. Omos
Heat Index = Cold
Prediction: Omos wins.
Thoughts: WWE really busted its ass working on this story, didn’t they? Omos beats people and says “Who wants to fight?” Lashley goes “Me.” and knocks him down after a few attempts. That’s it. Woo? Pass. Omos should have just been in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and Lashley should have had something more prominent to do.
OVERALL PPV:
How excited am I for the event as a whole?
Heat Index = Temperate
Thoughts: Why does the biggest show of the year feel so bland? This should be monumental and something that every one of us is just bursting at the seams in anticipating to see, but I feel like this looks like a bad SummerSlam card at best. The build for nearly every match has been weak with little to no effort. It’s hard to be optimistic that this will be amazing when WWE seems more focused on harping on the word “stupendous” than following its own continuity or caring about seemingly any aspect of its own business anymore other than budget cuts. Maybe I’m wrong and there will be major surprises and all the matches will be better than expected. I hope that’s the case. But as far as hype goes, this is the least interested I’ve been in WrestleMania than ever before. If the most important event of the year has had this lazy approach to it and could end up being awful, you’d know for sure that we’re in for a rough 2022 as everything else will be even worse. I’m crossing my fingers these are two great shows and that the destination will have been worth going through this lackluster Road to WrestleMania and most of 2021.
What do you think is going to happen at WWE WrestleMania 38? Which matches are you most excited to see? Keep the discussion going in the comments below!
