Ranking my interest in each of the announced Mania matches from lowest to highest one week before the big show…
The two battle royals – I have to lump these two matches together at the bottom of my interest. The WWE has barely acknowledged the existence of the women’s battle royal and the men’s battle royal is just an excuse to get some celebrity involvement with Braun Strowman. The winners get a trophy and nothing else, certainly no storyline push to follow if history of these matches continues.
Cruiserweight Championship: Buddy Murphy vs Tony Nese – I hear lots of places that Murphy has done an excellent job as champion and Nese is doing strong work. They also have a backstory as friends turned rivals. All of that is nice, but I can’t get excited for a match that has transpired entirely on the Network. I simply don’t have time in my week to watch all of WWE’s network programming, so this one loses out a bit for me.
Retirement Match: Kurt Angle vs Baron Corbin – Why? Let me repeat that: WHY? How could WWE think that Baron Corbin was the right opponent for Kurt Angle in his retirement match? I mean yes they have history from about six months ago that went largely unresolved, but nobody in the audience was clamoring for a conclusion to that story that has cooled down incredibly. When you look at the loosely formed heel stable, Corbin is the bottom of the barrel of that stable. I think they could have booked nearly anybody else on the roster for Angle’s final match and I think it would have been a better choice and for heaven’s sake don’t make Angle job to Corbin in his last match.
Women’s Tag Championship: Boss N Hug Connection vs The IIconics vs Phoenix and Natalya vs Jax and Tamina – I was actually really excited for the women’s tag championships to get introduced. Then the WWE went and booked the belts horribly from the very beginning. Bayley and Sasha shouldn’t have been first champions, they should be chasing the belts into this match at Mania. Jax and Tamina are terrible first rivals for Bayley and Sasha as the two teams are just too different and it’s hard to sell Bayley and Sasha being able to beat them. Nobody was clamoring for a Beth Phoenix return and the IIconics are more of a dogdays of Summer challenger when little is going on. Make matters worse and one of the top teams is being broken up in Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville. This match does so little to excite me.
No Holds Barred: HHH vs Batista – Batista’s assault on Ric Flair was great, unfortunately everything since in this feud has been cartoonishly over the top and cringeworthy. This one will be what it is, which is a brawl between two old guys that can’t go anymore and will have plenty of rest points. That said, it should have some good violent spots as well.
United States Championship: Samoa Joe vs Rey Mysterio – Joe has finally been given the ball in terms of a title belt and he is running away with it. He’s done a great job as champion taking on all challengers and looking strong. Mysterio is a great foil for him at Mania and they’ve built a nice rivalry built entirely on their in-ring competition and the match should be strong as well.
Intercontinental Championship: Bobby Lashley vs Finn Balor – I’ll give Balor, Lashley and Lio Rush credit, they’ve done a really nice job of telling a simple and almost boring story interesting. They played hot potato with the IC belt to do it, but I don’t mind short bursts of hot potato with a belt on occasion to sell a story and make a belt seem more hotly contested over. Certainly not the top of my list, but a good enough job nonetheless.
Universal Championship: Brock Lesnar vs Seth Rollins – There’s nothing to this story, just like any other Brock Lesnar match. I am excited that we may finally have reached the end of the Brock Lesnar reign of terror, but that’s about it. Rollins will turn in another fantastic performance.
A.J. Styles vs Randy Orton – Credit to WWE they’ve taken what could very easily be a throw away match between two guys that the company had nothing better for them to do at Mania and built a nice story around it. Orton has taken offense to Styles calling SmackDown the house that AJ Styles built since Orton has worked SmackDown far longer than Styles. The two veterans have traded jabs in one-upmanship and they are also building this as a bit of Indy vs WWE and a legacy guy in WWE vs a guy that had to get there the hard way. I’ll be interested to see how this one plays out, hopefully Styles gets the win, but it should be solid work either way.
Roman Reigns vs Drew McIntyre – Reigns has come back and is riding waves of good emotions from the crowd and there’s been better booking of the Big Dawg since his return as well. Drew McIntyre is right at the top of the best heels in the company right now and this feud has been built beautifully as a brutal rivalry. McIntyre has worked his way through the Shield starting with Ambrose and now dealing with Reigns, Rollins as champion might just be next.
Falls Count Anywhere: Shane McMahon vs The Miz – No story in WWE outside of Kofi vs Bryan has as good of emotion as this one. Miz is playing the best face as his career, he’s sympathetic and easy to get behind. Shane is playing the classic McMahon character perfectly against the Miz from humble beginnings and this one should be a fantastic brawl.
Women’s RAW Championship: Ronda Rousey vs Becky Lynch vs Charlotte – This story is full of pitfalls and flaws, what they’ve done to Becky is terrible, shoehorning Charlotte into this match instead of having her face Asuka in a WrestleMania re-match is stupid. The way they’ve booked Ronda is the least imaginative way to have turned her heel. All that said, this match is historic and should be filled with great action, which is why it is still very high on my list of most anticipated matches.
WWE Championship: Daniel Bryan vs Kofi Kingston – This story proves the WWE creative, Vince and HHH still have it in them. They can book a great story that is naturally developing and progresses in a logical way. Simply put, this story has been basically perfectly written and is easily the story I’m most looking forward to, it’s had a fantastic face story with a decent heel story that’s good foil for the face.