VaderBomb's pre-Rumble WrestleMania card prediction

[VaderBomb]

I get pretty excited each year before the Royal Rumble. It's always been my favorite PPV and usually a couple weeks beforehand I attempt to predict the upcoming WrestleMania card. I've found it to be interesting to attempt to predict the WM card pre-Rumble, because not only can anything happen at Mania but the same unexpectedness applies to the Rumble. So here goes it:


Rusev vs Dolph Ziggler (US and IC Championship Unification match)

Background: Ziggler is definitely winning his title back from Bad News Barrett. Hanley actually gave me this idea. Ziggler really is the perfect guy to get the extra rub from beating Rusev. It will propel him to the highest level of mid card, that early 90s Bret Hart/HBK sorta shit. Right on the cusp of main eventer.

Winner: Ziggler ends Rusev's undefeated streak and is the first US/IC Unified Champion.

Nikki Bella vs Brie Bella vs AJ Lee vs Paige (Diva's Championship)

Background: The Bellas are the most televised women in wrestling and AJ and Paige are arguably the best wrestlers this side of Nattie. Bella vs Bella would also work, but the addition of AJ and Paige would make for a better match.

Winner: Brie Bella, of course. This is Brie and Bryan's night.

The Usos vs The Ascension vs The Masters of the Universe (Cesaro & Kidd) vs Gold & Star Dust (WWE Tag Team Championships)

Background: The only four teams that matter right now. Miz and Sandow will have likely broken up by the time Mania comes around.

Winners: The Ascension rise and become The Authority's newest henchmen.

John Cena vs Dean Ambrose

Background: With a stroke of evil genius, the Authority's two biggest enemies are pitted against each other by none other than The Authority themselves. In a constant battle of one-upsmanship, Ambrose wants to prove that he's better than Cena while Cena needs to prove that he's still the man. This program will give The Authority room to breathe and control the WWE Universe even more.

Winner: Either Ambrose wins or they work to a draw. Cena should not win this match by any circumstances unless he turns heel, which he won't. Come to think of it, if The Authority were to "help" Cena (who is still face, mind you) and cost Ambrose his win, I'd be almost okay with it.

Seth Rollins vs Randy Orton

Background: Orton returns to seek vengeance on Rollins for taking him out. It will also mirror the Cena/Ambrose match considering the similarities between the careers of Orton and Cena, and Rollins and Ambrose, respectively.

Winner: Seth Rollins wins with help from The Authority.

Roman Reigns vs The Authority (Big Show, Kane, Mark Henry)

Background: The Authority want to kill Reigns so they feed him to the monsters.

Winner: Reigns runs the gauntlet on the big fat guys and proves to the world that he is the new monster in town.

The Undertaker vs Bray Wyatt (Casket Match)

Background: The only match that makes sense for Taker to have if he's not facing Sting. Wyatt is clearly the type of character that WWE love to pit against the Dead Man.

Winner: Bray Wyatt kills The Undertaker forever. (Until Mania next year )

Sting vs Triple H (w/ The Authority)

Background: Triple H hates Sting for what happened at Survivor Series. Sting despises Triple H and everything that he stands for.

Winner: Triple H wins with help from The Authority. His big win makes up for the big loss to Reigns.

Brock Lesnar vs Daniel Bryan (WWE World Heavyweight Championship)

Background: Bryan wins the Rumble, Lesnar retains. So begins the greatest David vs Goliath program of all time.

Winner: Daniel Bryan proves why he is the greatest of all time and defeats Lesnar, winning the championship.

[Messiah]

I know you aren't the biggest fan of Roman Reigns but I think this would be a very poor use of him. You and I are on the same page that it is far too soon for Reigns to be launched into the main event of WrestleMania but I still believe at WrestleMania, you must continue his momentum and the WWE would be weakening him with a feud against three stale guys like Show, Kane, and Henry (tbh I still am a Henry and Kane fan but its 2015). With that said, your card is an example of how difficult it might be to get everyone time at WrestleMania. As it stands right now, if I were to do a card, I think Ambrose would be the odd man left out of a big program. Coming off another loss to Wyatt, the WWE has killed off the momentum he built up in his feud with Rollins. There just isn't really a logical opponent for him and I don't think a feud with Cena would work well.

Obviously it won't happen now but a couple of months back, the match I would have wanted for Ambrose at WrestleMania was for him to go against Triple H. This was when he was still feuding with The Authority and when they were continually screwing him over. Think Foley/HHH when booking this feud. The Authority, not Bray Wyatt, would have cost Ambrose at Hell in a Cell against Rollins. Ambrose realizes the bigger issue is not with Rollins but with The Authority and they slowly burn a feud between Dean and The Game. Ambrose and Triple H would have an excellent Street Fight with the former going over.

The Divas Championship match is fishy. I'm hoping we get AJ vs Stephanie. There is so much they could do with that and Steph worked a better than expected match with Brie at SummerSlam, imagine what she could do with AJ.

It's a solid card and it makes sense. Rollins/Orton and Lesnar/Bryan would be awesome, you have your legends match in HHH/Sting, and Wyatt/Undertaker might be (but I wouldn't bank on it - couldn't care less about either one right now) a nice spectacle. I just think Cena, Ambrose, and Reigns would all be better off doing something else... I'm just not sure what.

Great post though! Rusev/Ziggler and that tag team match would be a lot of fun, Cesaro and Tyson Kidd at WrestleMania

[SortaCreative]

I think using Undertaker this year would be a mistake.

I mean are we going to get the opposite now, where he just loses every Wrestlemania match? Honestly he shouldn't wrestle again. The Streak was what it was and now it's broken there's no real need for Undertaker to be there. Hell in a Cell was a better ending to his Streak than Lesnar breaking it and then disappearing but it's broken now, they shouldn't keep wasting these nice book ends and potentially have an even worse situation with Taker on their hands.

[KaiserGlider]

I think Taker deserves to get a grand sendoff/official retirement match, which could be done at Survivor Series. It doesn't feel right for him to go out like he did and never appear again. Which is why I don't see him facing someone like Wyatt this year in a random feud. He'll wrestle one more time against Sting or Cena and then be done. What I'm wondering is, if he does show up in time for Mania this year, how would it make sense for him to go after someone other than Lesnar?

I think Vaderbomb puts on a good card, with the exception of the Reigns match and the winner of Sting/HHH. Sting shouldn't lose his first WWE match, and I don't think it's realistic for Reigns to run through Show, Kane, and Henry all at once. Even Lesnar would have serious trouble with that. A handicap match works better - doesn't completely bury the monsters when they lose.

The potential for Wrestlemania this year is really loaded with possibilities. You have a huge talent pool of guys who deserve to be in top matches. When it comes to fantasy booking a card like this, one must consider how realistic it would be for it to happen. WWE only does about 4-5 big matches at Wrestlemania each year. So I think we're guaranteed to get at least one battle royal or multi-man match to allow a lot of these guys to get on the card.

[prophet]

Good post, a few on there I think are likely to happen and a few I don't think have a hope in hell of happening but great card nonetheless, I'll have a crack at it!

WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Brock Lesnar (c) w/Paul Heyman vs Roman Reigns

I'm not going with the card I want because obviously I'd want Brock/Bryan but rather I'm calling what I think could/will happen and at the moment I see no other Rumble winner than Roman Reigns. He's cool and capable - albeit young and unready but they seem dead set on pushing him to the sky, defeating Lesnar will do that as will Paul Heyman so in that regard you see why they'd want to do it.

Triple H vs Sting

The leader of the Authority vs the man who opposes everything he stands for. We know that HHH is the man Sting wants to face (Taker aside) and the high-profile of this match will suit HHH just fine. This match sells itself really as we finally get to see the Icon in a WWE ring, the match itself would probably be decent enough too. Triple H is great and Sting (last I saw him compete) is more capable than people think.

Daniel Bryan vs Seth Rollins

There's a chance he'll win the Rumble, sure. Logic would dictate he won't but the crowd will not allow him to drift by the wayside, like it or now they'll have to put Bryan in a high-profile match up that folk can invest in - enter Rollins. He's easily the biggest and best heel in the company at the moment and he's the golden boy of The Authority - it would make sense that he be the one to eliminate Bryan from the Rumble (attaining that uber-heel from the crowd) and face him at Wrestlemania. It'd be Bryan vs The Authority again only with Rollins in the HHH role this year plus it's somewhat of an IWC dream-match so it could be enough to stop people shitting on everything.

John Cena w/Hulk Hogan vs Rusev w/Lana

Rusev will be undefeated still (I expect him to have dropped the US Title by then, through nefarious means so that they can still say he's never been pinned or submitted). He'll still be bashing America and gaining that cheap 80's heat until we're finally saved by the only real American hero, the Marine himself, John Cena (with Hulk Hogan in his corner because why the hell not). Cena will add another promising up-and-comer to his graveyard and that'll be that for Rusev.

Randy Orton vs Bray Wyatt

I did anticipate Orton to be the one to face Rollins at Wrestlemania (it's more probable that he still will) but I went for this instead. I still expect Orton to have his eyes on Rollins when he does make his comeback (he'll probably hit an RKO on Rollins during the triple-threat allowing Brock to pin him, saving Cena from taking another fall) but I'm not sure they have the booking ability to make Orton/Rollins relevant enough to last a full two months so I'm predicting they'll do that match at Fast Lane and when it looks like Orton is about to win.....Bray Wyatt will attack him! (They'll never explain Wyatt's motivation for attacking Orton, they never do - he'll just ramble on about demons or some shit) Bray Wyatt is the WWE's escape rope - they just use him when they need a dirty finish to protect someone. The promos would be well written/performed but ultimately meaningless, the match would be decent though.

Andre The Giant Battle Royal

Because how else am I going to fit the likes of Bad News Barrett, The Big Show, Mark Henry, Cesaro and pretty much every other talent on the card. The winner of my hypothetical match would be Dean Ambrose who I regrettably have nothing for on this card. I love Ambrose but after multiple losses to Rollins he's lost every match against Wyatt - someone made a point the other day that too many people are rising at once and sadly I think Ambrose's star isn't as high as multiple others at the moment so I can't think of anything relevant for him - I'd love him to have a singles match but I won't make one up to accommodate him so he can win this

Nikki Bella (c) vs Paige vs Brie Bella

Nikki vs Brie will be rehashed in some ludicrous manner and I'll throw Paige in there because why people like Paige and they always have a large European crowd at PPV's so she'd add some interest to a match involving the godawful twins.

US/IC Title Unification Match
Dolph Ziggler (c) vs Sheamus (c)

Part of the reason Ambrose isn't in a singles match on my card is that he isn't as high up on the priority list as others but he isn't so low down that he'd be competing for mid-card titles. Ziggler, whilst potentially on the cusp of a push (he could easily be in something higher profile the way RAW is at the moment) is still worthy of being involved in a title unification match. I'll throw him in with a returning, heel Sheamus because again, why not.

Pre-Show

The Uso's (c) vs The Ascension vs Dust Brothers vs Kidd/Cesaro

The tag match was on the pre-show last year, it'll likely be the pre-show this year too. I don't even know what tag-teams to put in this match so I'll just rip off Vaderbomb.

The Miz vs Damien Mizdow

Maybe they'll drag this out until Wrestlemania, maybe they won't. Whatever.

[VaderBomb]

^ Anybody else think the Andre the Giant Battle Royal will continue as a yearly attraction? I honestly never thought about that until now. It'd be respectful to Cesaro to discontinue the match, especially considering how they fucked up his push so bad. I'd prefer for Cesaro to be the only winner in the history books and when the years pass and he's finally the world champion, we can look bad on their crappy booking with tenderness.

[Str8Shooter]

^ Anybody else think the Andre the Giant Battle Royal will continue as a yearly attraction? I honestly never thought about that until now. It'd be respectful to Cesaro to discontinue the match, especially considering how they fucked up his push so bad. I'd prefer for Cesaro to be the only winner in the history books and when the years pass and he's finally the world champion, we can look bad on their crappy booking with tenderness.

My impression last year was that they want it to be an annual thing. They also like to get as many people as they can on the card and the Battle Royale is an easy way to do it.

I don't have a problem with it, it can be a fun and beats having some random multi man match instead.

[prophet]

^ Anybody else think the Andre the Giant Battle Royal will continue as a yearly attraction? I honestly never thought about that until now. It'd be respectful to Cesaro to discontinue the match, especially considering how they fucked up his push so bad. I'd prefer for Cesaro to be the only winner in the history books and when the years pass and he's finally the world champion, we can look bad on their crappy booking with tenderness.

I don't see how continuing the match would be at all disrespectful to Cesaro - he'll always be the inaugural winner and without this type of match on the card there's a very real possibility he won't even be competing at Wrestlemania.

*Just to update my card on a scenario that would see Daniel Bryan win the Rumble. My revised main event would be Bryan/Lesnar and I'd also do a Reigns/Rollins/Ambrose triple-threat.*

[The Legend]

1. WWE: Seth Rollins ( c ) vs Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns

BUILD: So how I see it, Lesnar retains at the Royal Rumble, but Rollins cashes in his briefcase after the Rumble or maybe after the Fast Lane Main Event. That will break the pseudo-partnership that Lesnar and Rollins have been building and give them both tension going into the match. Add in Roman winning the Royal Rumble and his history with Rollins and you’ve got a good triple threat for the show.

WINNER: Rollins retains with a pin of Lesnar.

2. TAG Titles: Uso’s ( c ) vs the Ascension

BUILD: After the Ascension gets done beating the crap out of their nobody opponents they win a #1 Contender’s match against Miz and Mizdow and set up their WrestleMania debut for the tag titles.

WINNER: The Uso’s, it’s too early for them to actually win the belts, but they can still look good in this match.

3. GRUDGE: Miz vs Damien Mizdow

BUILD: As a result of their #1 Contender’s match Miz finally snaps on Mizdow and sets up their split and grudge match. Miz and Mizdow go back and forth trying to one up each other before the match and set up an entertaining feud.

WINNER: Mizdow wins. Mizdow needs a break of things from the Miz to get his career back on track. The audience wants to like him, they just need to get substance for them to get behind.

4. IC Title: Bad News Barrett ( c ) vs Big E Langston w/ New Day

BUILD: There’s a pretty good basis for a feud just between these guys’ gimmicks. Barrett enjoys giving everyone bad news and ruining their day. Langston wants to uplift the audience and give them something to believe in with his New Day stable. Barrett interrupts New Day at some point and taunts them with bad news. New Day gets their revenge later on and in this match.

WINNER: Big E Langston.

5. US Title: Rusev ( c ) vs Dean Ambrose

BUILD: Ambrose isn’t the prototypical opponent for Rusev based on his streak so far, but that’s kind of what makes this match perfect. Ambrose is a flawed guy that Lana can talk about and change the rhetoric enough to make it interesting. Ambrose can do some different things that will challenge Rusev and push him out of his comfort zone.

WINNER: Dean Ambrose, snaps the streak, wins the US Title again and can give the belt a better profile. A US title match would normally be beneath Ambrose, but add in the fact of the streak and this can be a big match.

6. GRUDGE: HHH vs Sting

BUILD: The build for this one has already started. HHH and Sting go at each other with their usual schtick and try to one up each other.

7. DIVA: Nikki ( c ) vs Brie

BUILD: Who are we kidding, this is how this going to happen. The featured stars of Total Divas will be featured big time at WrestleMania.

WINNER: Brie Bella

8. Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royale: Everyone that’s not currently on the card.

WINNER: Bray Wyatt, this could be a decent opening to rejuvenate his character and reset it in a different direction

9. Daniel Bryan vs Cesaro w/ Tyson Kidd

BUILD: There won’t be a lot of story to this one, just a good old fashioned wrestling clinic between Cesaro and Bryan. Potentially this could be a #1 contender’s match set up by Cesaro doing some favors for the Authority.

WINNER: Daniel Bryan.

10. John Cena vs Big Show

BUILD: Not a great match and it’s been done a few times, but the stakes could be good. The match would set up re-hiring Rowan, Ryback and Ziggler. The three men would all be in Cena’s corner and this match would be heavily involved with outside interference with Luke Harper and J&J Security getting involved for Big Show.

WINNER: John Cena. The win gets secured by a returning Randy Orton.

NOTE: I’m assuming Undertaker won’t be healthy enough to appear at WrestleMania

[Messiah]

A mix of realism and hope.

WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Seth Rollins (c) vs Daniel Bryan

I'm not sure I see Brock Lesnar walking out of the Royal Rumble with the strap anymore and him almost certainly leaving for UFC means the WWE probably isn't going to want to have him in the main event. Rollins and Bryan is the most logical pairing. I could have understood Cena/Reigns but Reigns isn't ready. Bryan is the most over babyface in the company right now, still has a score to settle with The Authority, and never lost his WWE World Heavyweight Championship in a match to begin with. On the other end of the spectrum, Rollins is the best heel in the business and represents The Authority. This is what a WrestleMania main event should be - the company's top heel against the company's top face.

Also, as far as the Orton/Rollins story, I would have them face off at Fast Lane.

WWE Divas Championship
AJ Lee (c) vs Stephanie McMahon

Please give us this, WWE.

Singles match
Triple H (w/ Stephanie McMahon) vs Sting

After what happened at Survivor Series, it would be illogical for Sting to face anyone else. I personally don't care for the match but it would probably be solid.

Street Fight
Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman)

At the Royal Rumble, I would have John Cena get pinned by Seth Rollins. Lesnar wants an immediate rematch but The Authority refuses to give it to him and bringing real-life events into the story, Lesnar threatens to bolt for UFC unless they give in to his demands. Roman Reigns enters the fray, telling Lesnar to fight him instead of running off again (just in a more badass way than that). Gives you your Reigns/Lesnar match so Reigns can get the rub but also means you can still take it slow with Reigns.

WWE United States Championship
Rusev (c) (w/ Lana) vs John Cena

I'm not against this match as much as others are. I was against Cena being the one to beat Rusev and I still am. However, I think this would be a solid match and it is a logical pairing all things considered. Plus there is nobody else for Cena.

Singles match
Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton

I don't think The Undertaker is going to compete at WrestleMania 31, which puts the rumored Wyatt/Undertaker match out of the window. They are going to book Wyatt one way or another and Orton will need something to do so I would pair these two together. Wyatt the nonsensical creepy dude. Orton the reckless insane dude. It works. Wyatt costs Orton the title at Fast Lane and tries to explain why he did it.

I don't know what to do with Ziggler, Bad News Barrett and soon-to-return Sheamus. I guess Battle Royal.