Tag: Wrestlemania

Every Wrestlemania of the 2010s Ranked

The end of the decade brings great opportunities to us all. It’s a time to reflect on who we used to be, and who we want to become, and to take a long hard look at how we’ve changed over the past ten years.

It’s a great opportunity for people to rank things that happened in that decade online.

Perhaps no other sports industry changes quicker or more often than the pro-wrestling industry. In 2010, there was no serious competition for WWE in sight, women’s wrestling was still considered a joke and WWE weren’t involved in shady political dealings with a problematic country.

Perhaps the best way to gauge the situation WWE was in during any given year is that year’s Wrestlemania. It’s the culmination of all the biggest and best storylines of the year that preceded it and for the most part, people’s opinion of a Wrestlemania is very similar to people’s opinion of WWE as a whole during that time frame. So with that in mind, I’ve gone back and rewatched every Wrestlemania from this decade (I know) and I’ve compiled them into these scientific rankings, let’s take a look at them, shall we?

10 – Wrestlemania 27 (2011)

Best Match: The Undertaker vs Triple H (No Holds Barred)
Worst Match: Michael Cole vs Jerry Lawler

While in 2019 the thought of The Miz as world champion and main eventing Wrestlemania might sound quite appealing to many people (myself included), in 2011 it was a very different story. Miz was yet to find a promo and in-ring style that really clicked with the audience as either a face or heel, and many people weren’t enthused by his WWE Championship run in the slightest, meaning his main event match with John Cena really felt underwhelming for the main event of the biggest show of the year.

People’s low expectations for the match would not only be met, but somehow underwhelmed when a bog-standard match between Cena and Miz ended in a Double Countout of all things. Oh, but we’re not done. The match was quickly restarted by that year’s host The Rock, so we could at least get a satisfying finish, but in the immortal words of that one Dean Ambrose gif: Nope. The match would have a dirty finish a second time when The Rock came down and hit the Rock Bottom on John Cena, allowing The Miz to retain and setting up the main event for next years Wrestlemania.

The undercard was also wildly crap for the most part with Nexus rejects The Corre being squashed in under two minutes and “Snooki”, whoever the fuck that is, going over Dolph Ziggler and LayCool. That wasn’t the worst of it though, because we had to sit through 20 pissing minutes of Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler rolling around in the ring. The match only lasted 13 minutes, but everything surrounding it made it so much worse. For one thing, it’s a match between a non-wrestler and a former wrestler who is FAR past his prime. Then add to that a number of minutes at the start being dedicated to trying to get Cole in the ring and a screwjob finish where The Anonymous Raw General Manager reversed the decision, giving Cole the win. No amount of Stunners from special guest referee Stone Cold could save this one.

Admittedly it wasn’t all bad, Edge vs Alberto Del Rio and Randy Orton vs CM Punk were fun matches to watch and Triple H vs The Undertaker was a balls to the walls epic clash between two men who wanted to destroy each other. It told a great story and had marvellous action, but it just isn’t enough to save this show from the absolute donkey turds that surround it. When you’re using the main event of your biggest show of the year simply as set up for next year’s show, you know you’ve done something horribly wrong.

9 – Wrestlemania 32 (2016)

Best Match: Charlotte Flair vs Becky Lynch vs Sasha Banks (Women’s Championship)
Worst Match: Brock Lesnar vs Dean Ambrose (Street Fight)

Oh, Roman Reigns…I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

By all rights, 32 should’ve been a lot better show than it ended up being, almost every match on the show had potential to be great and several of the undercard matches were very entertaining but unfortunately, the biggest matches really let this showdown.

First up we had a returning Shane McMahon facing The Undertaker inside Hell in a Cell, which is a sentence that still sounds mental even 3 years after the fact. The story going into it was also so weird, with Shane making a shock return to the company after a 6-year absence just to vaguely threaten his dad about a lockbox that we’ve never heard about again. Shane demanded control of Raw or else he would open said lockbox, so Vince responded by saying he could have it if he beat The Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match at Wrestlemania… Now, admittedly I’m not an expert on the subject, but I’m pretty certain that’s not how being blackmailed works.

What Vince did is like if you had a gun to someone’s head demanding they pay you £100,000 and they responded by saying you could have the money, but only if you won the Grand National first. The match itself sucked outside of Shane jumping off of the Cell and even weirder, Vince came out the next night and handed Shane control of Raw despite the fact he lost, so it was all a pointless exercise.

Next up, there’s Dean Ambrose vs Brock Lesnar in a Street Fight, which sounds brilliant and in the build-up to the match, it absolutely was. Dean would get in Brock’s face and wouldn’t care that a muscle covered God was staring back at him and multiple hardcore legends like Mick Foley and Terry Funk showed up to give Dean their signature weapons to use the match. According to Dean himself, he has planned out tonnes of cool spots and loads of great ideas to make the match what all the fans were hoping for, but a lazy Brock Lesnar ended up shooting them all down, making for a match that was quite simply boring.

It wasn’t all bad though, the opening ladder match was a great iteration of the multi-man ladder match formula and had a genuinely surprising, yet heartwarming winner in Zack Ryder; Chris Jericho and AJ Styles put on a damn good match even if the wrong man won and Baron Corbin made his mark by winning the ARMBAR and has arguably done better for himself than any of the other winners have since winning their trophy.

Not to mention the women’s revolution in WWE made one of it’s biggest steps forward by abolishing the awful looking Divas Championship and replaced it with the much more dignified Women’s Championship which remains to this day. Flair, Banks and Lynch would continue to make their mark by putting on the best match of the show competing for the new title as well in what would just be a taste in all the fantastic women’s wrestling we would get to see in the coming years.

Finally, though, we come to the main event. I’ve been a defender of Roman Reigns for a long time, I think he’s a good wrestler who can put on exceptional matches when given the right story and opponent, but this was awful. We can debate whether or not Reigns or Ambrose should’ve been the one to face Triple H all day, but the fact of the matter is that the match we got was a half-hour long snoozefest that plodded to an inevitable and boring conclusion.

Much like 27, there were plenty of good to great matches that took place on this show, but unfortunately, it was the biggest matches that were the biggest failures, and that has a big impact on the show overall.

8 – Wrestlemania 29 (2013)

Best Match: The Undertaker vs CM Punk
Worst Match: Mark Henry vs Ryback

Luckily, 27 & 32 are the only two shows on this list that I can honestly say I hate, though don’t expect that to mean I’m done complaining.

Mania 29 holds a special place in my heart, as it was actually the first wrestling show I watched the whole way through, with The Undertaker vs CM Punk being the first match I ever saw (not counting video games), and while I probably do hold it in higher regard than many others for that reason, it’s by no means perfect.

This show contained several boring matches, with a world title match between Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger having all of its momentum killed by people who viewed the angle as racist not understanding how wrestling tells it’s stories. Pile on top of that a match between Mark Henry and Ryback that made me feel no emotions at all the whole way through until the ending which made Ryback look like a total chump. Then to top it all off you’ve got a rematch of last year’s main event in Rock vs Cena which was far inferior to their match the previous year thanks to The Rock getting injured part of the way through.

Thankfully, that’s all the negativity out of the way because I liked pretty much everything else on the show. The Shield’s Wrestlemania debut match was admittedly nothing special but it was a huge moment for the trio and began to properly establish them as the giant of a faction they would soon become. The tag team goodness would keep rolling thanks to Team Hell No defending their titles against Dolph Ziggler and Big E Langston in a fun match, and while I know it wouldn’t amount to anything, Fandango’s shocking win over Chris Jericho was an excellent move for the time.

You then had two big marque matches which for the most part delivered. Triple H vs Brock Lesnar is admittedly nowhere near the best match either man has had, but I thought it was a really fun one to watch, where the pace was slow enough to feel impactful, without being so slow as to be boring. Then you had The Undertaker vs CM Punk, which as I mentioned was the first match I ever saw, but even without that nostalgia, it’s still an absolutely brilliant contest that stands head and shoulders above any other match on the show.

Overall, Wrestlemania 29 has a lot of good, but given that there’s only really one match that I’d classify as truly great and a handful of matches that were downright crap, it falls a few more spots than my nostalgic heart would like it to.

7 – Wrestlemania 33 (2017)

Best Match: Seth Rollins vs Triple H (Unsanctioned)
Worst Match: Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton (WWE Championship)

At the time, I thought I liked this show a lot more, but looking back on it now it had a fair whack of stuff that really doesn’t hold up.

Thankfully, there weren’t many matches at Mania 33 that were outright bad. The only two matches I’d really give that distinction to are the Smackdown Women’s Championship 6 Way, which was unfortunately given the pre-main event death slot and there was really nothing memorable about it. The biggest failure of the show, however, was in it’s WWE Championship match between Orton and Wyatt, where the hell and face roles were arguably the wrong way round, the only memorable thing that happened was Wyatt projecting images of bugs onto the canvas and arguably the wrong man won.

That said, there were also only a couple of matches I’d say were actually good. Lesnar vs Goldberg was an adrenaline-fueled car crash of a match that was far better than it had any right to be; Styles vs Shane McMahon was the most surprisingly good match I’ve seen in a long time with a lot of really fun action in it, and Rollins vs Triple H was pretty much everything I hoped for from that match and more.

The main problem of the show comes from all the other matches on the show, which were perfectly fine, but nothing all that special or memorable. The Tag Team Ladder Match had some memorable moments and the Hardy’s return was great, but I honestly can’t say the match as a whole was any good; similarly the Women’s 4 Way had some good stuff to it, but nothing worth howling about and the hottest match going into the show in Owens vs Jericho just didn’t come together in a satisfying way. Even the main event – though emotional the post-match stuff was – really wasn’t brilliant thanks to Undertaker’s age and Roman’s relative inexperience (only compared to Taker of course).

As a whole, 33 had a lot less stuff that was downright bad than 29, but still, when I think back to this show, all I really think of is a disappointment that some of the most anticipated matches left me with.

6 – Wrestlemania 28 (2012)

Best Match: The Undertaker vs Triple H (Hell in a Cell)
Worst Match: Kane vs Randy Orton

28 is one of those shows that’s generally only remembered for one match, but there’s actually a decent amount of stuff on this show to like.

You had Punk vs Jericho which is an underrated match if you ask me and really deserves more attention, these two clicked so well in the ring and it probably should’ve been the main event. Also, there was the actual main event of Rock vs Cena 1, which, although it wasn’t up to the standards of a truly great match, was certainly a lot better than I think most people remember it being, and far outshines the match they would have a year later.

Then, of course, you have The Undertaker vs Triple H in the “End of an Era” match. Even though the tagline ended up meaning nothing, it’s still one of the best in-ring stories I’ve ever seen told in WWE. All the moving parts of Taker’s streak, Shawn Michaels as the referee and Triple H’s desperation to prove he can beat The Undertaker came together so beautifully in this match to create some of the most memorable moments in Wrestlemania history and perhaps the most exciting kick out I’ve ever seen, when Taker kicked out of a combo Sweet Chin Music and Pedigree.

The main problem that this show suffers from is being filled with a whole lot of mediocrity. Two great matches and one pretty good one aren’t going to save a card where the entire first hour is just plain boring, with an 18 second match that annoyed everyone, a 10 minute match that was even worse and then a whole bunch of short matches that ultimately meant nothing, and that includes the Intercontinental Championship match.

Pretty much the only reason it sits above 33, is because 28’s best matches were better than 33’s best matches, everything outside of that is just a sea of snoozefests on both shows.

5 – Wrestlemania 35 (2019)

Best Match: Daniel Bryan vs Kofi Kingston (WWE Championship)
Worst Match: Triple H vs Batista (No Holds Barred)

The most recent Wrestlemania on this list, 35 definitely gets some bonus points for how feel-good it was throughout the whole show.

I don’t know if someone slipped something into Vince’s drink or what, but this show was filled with loads of fun, crowd-pleasing moments from start to finish. We kicked off with Seth Rollins slaying Brock Lesnar in about 3 minutes in one hell of an exciting moment, then there was a really exciting 4 Way Tag title match won by The Usos in exciting fashion, followed quickly by The IIconics picking up the Women’s Tag Team titles in what was admittedly meant to be a heel win, but felt great thanks to their innate charm.

The good times kept on rolling, when Kofi Kingston overcame Daniel Bryan in the best match, and most emotional moment of the show, with a 20+ minute pure wrestling match between the best wrestler in the world and the biggest babyface in WWE that will most certainly be in the conversation when December rolls around and we discuss Match of the Year. There were then a couple of less high-key feel-good wins, like Roman Reigns winning his first singles PPV match since recovering from Leukaemia, and The Demon Balor winning back his IC title from Lashley.

Then, of course, there was the first-ever women’s match in the main event of Wrestlemania, with Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch showing their stuff in a match that admittedly, didn’t live up to expectations, but I still thought was great regardless; and of course Becky Lynch came away with the victory, ending the show holding both Women’s titles aloft.

My main problem with this show is everything that took place after the WWE Championship match (which was about halfway through the show) because every match that wasn’t the main event was either boring or crap. Joe vs Mysterio was a shocking moment, but I can’t help but feel it would’ve been more entertaining if they’d had a proper match; Reigns vs Drew – though the victory for Reigns was a nice moment – the match was so boring to watch, Drew just worked a slow pace where he “wore Reigns down” for like ten minutes before Roman mounted his comeback.

While I’ve defended the choice in Corbin beating Angle, and I maintain it was the right decision, the match was really nothing worth watching. Corbin can put on decent matches when he’s with a good opponent, but Angle’s age and wear and tear on his body meant he just wasn’t up to the task on this one. Then you have Triple H vs Batista which was so damn boring (and the longest match on the show) that I actually went and cleaned the hobs on my oven partway through.

Ultimately, Mania 35 will be remembered for its great emotional moments more than it will its boring ones, and perhaps if I did this list in another 10 years I’d rank it higher, but since it’s still so fresh in all of our minds, I can’t ignore the bad stuff.

4 – Wrestlemania 34 (2018)

Best Match: Kurt Angle & Ronda Rousey vs Triple H & Stephanie McMahon
Worst Match: Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns (Universal Championship)

Although immediately after the show I had a much more negative opinion of 34 than I did 35, with the power of hindsight, I’ve realised there was actually a lot to like on this show, even if some of the bigger moments were crap.

Throughout the show, there were plenty of great matches, the opening triple threat for the Intercontinental Championship was one of the best openers I’ve seen for a Wrestlemania with plenty of fast-paced action to get us all hyped up, then there was Charlotte vs Asuka, which had its faults, but despite it not getting enough time and arguably the wrong woman winning, it was still a great marquee singles match that helped grow the already very prestigious women’s division in WWE even more.

The good times didn’t stop there either, Ronda Rousey’s debut match absolutely blew everyone away with how great it was, with the pace keeping quick the whole time, some brief intergender spots, which we don’t see very often and Kurt Angle wrestled a match where his age wasn’t immediately obvious. One of the most unique storylines in recent memory concluded as The Undertaker finally appeared and dispatched John Cena in less than 3 minutes, a 10-Year-old won the Raw Tag Team Championships in a move that really divides opinion, but I thought it was great, the in-ring return of Daniel Bryan and Styles & Nakamura put on a fantastic match for the WWE Championship, even if it didn’t live up to the (arguably unreachable) expectations fans had for it.

That said, scattered throughout were some pretty big low-lights, which is probably what’s responsible for most fans looking back on this show negatively. The 4 way for the US title wasn’t a bad match by stretch, but it certainly wasn’t all that entertaining, especially not compared to the IC title match that preceded it, The Bludgeon Brothers, unfortunately, dragged down what could’ve been a really exciting match against The Usos and The New Day with their slow and hard-hitting offence that unfortunately rules most of this very short match.

Alexa Bliss vs Nia Jax wasn’t anything especially awful but it certainly failed to capture anyone’s attention for very long. Jax & Alexa both have great in-ring moments (Alexa especially), but I’ve never felt these two really clicked in the ring and it was painfully obvious in this match. Then there was the main event, which was just a prime snoozefest, the action was slow and boring, pretty much the opposite of their great match from three years earlier and things just never really picked up. The longer it went on, the more ridiculous it got, with Reigns kicking out of a stupid number of F5’s which was quite simply laughable in how over the top it was, and it ended with a giant middle finger in Brock retaining, presumably just so WWE could coax him into signing a new contract.

If you look at this Mania trying to find things to be upset about, you aren’t going to be short of things to find, but on balance, I think this show as a whole was actually a pretty enjoyable one.

3 – Wrestlemania 26 (2010)

Best Match: The Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels
Worst Match: Bret Hart vs Mr McMahon

Ther earliest Wrestlemania on this list, and looking at the card it really does feel worlds away from where we are now.

This is one of those Wrestlemanias that only has one or two really great matches on it, but it also only has one or two bad matches as well, so overall it gets a pretty good wrap and running through the card, I tend to agree with that sentiment.

The only matches I’d actually classify as bad are the 10 Diva tag team match that only went 3 minutes and was won by the heels, but sadly this kind of match just comes with the time period, and the way too long Street Fight between the then 62-year-old Vince Mcmahon and 50-year-old Bret Hart, who wasn’t allowed to take a bump. It was ten boring minutes of the various members of the Hart family beating up a 62-year-old bastard that served no purpose whatsoever other than to give the lamest of payoffs to the Montreal Screwjob, which over a decade ago by this point.

Everything else on the show, however, is ok-amazing, you’ve got the last Money in the Bank ladder match to take place at a Wrestlemania, and while this wasn’t the best incarnation of the match, a multi-man ladder match is never boring to watch. There was also the triple threat match between all three members of legacy, which Orton probably shouldn’t have won, but it told a good story and was a solid watch, then there was Triple H vs Sheamus which was way better than it had any right to be, with brutal-looking offence and what felt like genuine animosity between the two men.

Rey Mysterio vs CM Punk was as good a match as that sounds, with some great story stuff in there too, as Punk was still in his “straight edge saviour” phase during this show. Chris Jericho vs Edge was also as good as you’d think that match would be and was actually quite surprising with its result as Jericho retained his world title. John Cena vs Batista was a match that didn’t quite live up to the rest of this show’s great matches but was a decent enough match.

Then, of course, there’s the main event of The Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels, with Taker’s undefeated streak against HBK’s career in a perfect sequel to their match the year prior. I could gush for hours about this match because it was just brilliant, the back and forth action was superb, the high spots were memorable without being over the top and the character work was brilliant. Undertaker standing over Shawn, almost pleading with him to stay down, only for Shawn to slap Taker right across the face in defiance is a moment that still sends chills down my spine when I watch it. A perfect send-off for one of the greatest to ever step in the ring.

Much like 34, there’s plenty there if you’re the type of person who goes into it looking for the negatives, but I think that this is a show where all of the good stuff far outweighs any of the bad, and most of the lasting images from this show, are positive moments.

2 – Wrestlemania 31 (2015)

Best Match: Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns (vs Seth Rollins) (WWE Championship)
Worst Match: The Bella Twins vs AJ Lee & Paige

31 is one of those rare gems of a show, where I can honestly say I have nothing to complain about. I’ve always thought of this show as one of my all-time favourites, every match has something to like about it, the main event far exceeded expectations and ended in what is genuinely my favourite moment to ever happen in pro-wrestling, and upon watching it back for the first time in a while, I stand by those thoughts.

The opener is a chaotic ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship and everyone got a chance to shine in this one, people were flying all over the place and the ladder spots all felt so brutal and weren’t overdone or too gimmicky like we can often see in matches like this. It also got the show off to a great foot as Daniel Bryan won the title, even if he got reinjured and had to vacate it soon after. Following that match, Rollins put proof to the statement that he can have a brilliant match with anybody, putting on a very entertaining bout with Randy Orton, featuring the single greatest RKO to ever happen in the history of the universe.

Triple H vs Sting came up next and this match didn’t make a lick of sense, but man was it fun to watch. Triple H hadn’t slowed down too much by this point and Sting was still as good as he always was, pour on top of that DX vs nWo shenanigans (even if it made no sense for the nWo to side with Sting) and you’ve got your self a nostalgia-fest that you just can’t look away from. You could argue all night and day whether or not Triple H should’ve won (he shouldn’t have) but what’s important is that the match was great. There was AJ Lee & Paige vs The Bella Twins after this, which wasn’t anything special, but also wasn’t anything bad, just a bit short and forgettable.

After this, we got to see Rusev peak in WWE as he rode into Wrestlemania on a freaking tank and then lost to John Cena in unsurprising fashion. The match, however, was great and was one of the earliest glimpses of Cena becoming the guy who just put on great matches with everybody, not mention this title win for Cena started off the “US Open Challenge” era of the title which is arguably the best in its history. After that, we had our “Waste time so the sun can set” portion of the night, which featured The Rock and a debuting Ronda Rousey taking out Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, in a really cool moment that only seems better now knowing what would become of Ronda in WWE.

The Undertaker was up next facing Bray Wyatt in Taker’s first match since The Streak was shattered. The match was ok but suffered a little from Bray reportedly getting a minor ankle injury in rehearsals earlier that day, but it was still fun to watch these two characters interact in the ring. Finally, we came to the main event where I think it’s fair to say that expectations were quite low. Roman was coming off of his disaster of a Royal Rumble win and fan disdain for him was at an all-time high, meanwhile, Lesnar was getting a lot of heat for being an absentee champion (if only they knew…) so people weren’t going to be happy with either result here.

Then the match got underway and surprised everyone by being really good. It had a real sense of brutality that was missing from a lot of their later encounters, and you really got the feeling that these two men were out to destroy each other. All this was great, but it didn’t take away from the fact that the fans were set to boo both men out of the building if they won. Enter Seth Rollins. In what I honestly consider to be the greatest wrestling moment ever, both Reigns and Lesner were down and seemingly out following an F-5, when Seth Rollins’ music hit and the Money in the Bank contract holder came sprinting down the ramp. Little more than a minute later, Rollins stomped Reigns’ head into the canvas and won his first World Championship in what has rightly been labelled as the heist of the century.

Mania 31 is a show that just fills me with joy whenever I take the time to go back and watch, and while it’s not quite the best Wrestlemania of this decade, I think it is most certainly is my personal favourite.

1 – Wrestlemania 30 (2014)

Best Match: Daniel Bryan vs Triple H
Worst Match: Vickie Guerrero Invitational (Divas Championship)

Mania 30 is one of the best examples of how great modern WWE can be when they really nail a storyline, even if it was mostly by accident. This show only had 7 matches on the main show – the lowest since Wrestlemania 12 (1996) only had 6 matches – it’s somewhat of an oddity when compared to the rest of the Wrestlemania’s from this decade, which are known for being far too long for their own good; however I think the lower number of matches helped the show in the long run.

The only match on this show that I’d say was totally bad is the 14 woman match for the Diva’s Championship, which got the single biggest death slot in wrestling history, since it had to follow the ending of The Undertaker’s Wrestlemania winning streak. I couldn’t tell you anything about the match since it only lasted 6 minutes, and everyone watching was a bit pre-occupied with being devastated at the time, I imagine Natalya put a Double Sharpshooter on a couple of ladies and Michael Cole lost his mind over it and AJ Lee probably won in some heelish way.

Now onto the good, because there’s a lot to cover on this show. Even though the wrong man won, Cena vs Wyatt was a great match and helped grow Wyatt’s star power even in defeat; although a loss in a Last Man Standing match two months later would kinda mess things up. The Shield showed up to spend 3 minutes murdering some old dudes in what I maintain is one of the coolest Shield moments ever and Cesaro blew us all away by picking up The Big Show like he was nothing and dumping him to the outside in what was a great moment for the guy, even if nothing came of it in the end.

Then there’s one of two moments on this show that will go down in history as Brock Lesnar ended the 23 years & 21 matches long Wrestlemania undefeated streak of The Undertaker. This, for my money, is the single most shocking moment in wrestling history, in a way that makes it one of the weirdest and one of the best. It was so weird because it was something we genuinely never thought would happen, I remember at the time it filled me with such a strange series of emotions and all you had to do was look at social media when it happened and you could see there were people all over the stages of grief. Nothing in wrestling has ever gotten that kind of reaction before or since, it didn’t matter that the match preceding it sucked, in 50 years time no-one’s going to remember that, but for one shining moment, wrestling honestly felt like it was real and I’m not sure that feeling could ever be replicated.

Finally, we had the brilliant and uplifting conclusion to the story of Daniel Bryan. After watching him suffer for over 6 months, and finding out that he wasn’t even planned to be in the Wrestlemania main event until the fans forced WWE’s hand, this was the perfect payoff to all of it. It started off at the opening of the show, with one of the finest pure wrestling matches I’ve ever seen with Daniel Bryan vs Triple H, only to take us all the way to the main event where Bryan would overcome Randy Orton and Batista in one hell of an exciting match to claim the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. It’s the other moment from this show that will go down in history but for vastly different reasons.

Even if it wasn’t WWE’s original intentions, all that mattered is what we got in the end, and what we got is a euphoric ending to cap off one of the best all-round Wrestlemanias of all time and most certainly the best to take place in the past decade.

That’s all folks! Thank you very much for taking the time to read, please let me know what you think in the comments below, or on Twitter @10ryawoo!
Importantly, make sure to come back on Monday, where I’ll be doing something special for my birthday!

WWE Wrestlemania 35: Every Match Ranked

Well! That sure was something. It did get exhausting at points, but I really enjoyed this Wrestlemania, it didn’t have any of those deflating losses that draw down a lot of other Manias of late and I think it was structured in just the right way to make it very hard to get bored.

Not everything was great of course, but coming away from the show I feel that the bad was heavily outweighed by the good, and this was certainly the best Wrestlemania we’ve had since 31 as far as I’m concerned.

“But Ryan”, I hear you ask, “Where can we find an arbitrary and subjective ranking of all sixteen matches on the card?” What an oddly specific question, however, you’re in luck, as that’s exactly what I have for you right here, let’s get into it, shall we?

16 – Triple H def. Batista
(No Holds Barred)

I don’t think this is going to surprise anyone, is it?

I’ve said it so many times before, so I’m not going into detail on it again, but a slow-paced weapons based match with nothing but high spot after high spot is my least favourite kind of match, and that’s exactly what this match was.

There were a couple of cool looking spots, like Triple H pulling out Batista’s nose ring with some tweezers and a good old fashioned table break, but there was a whole lot of nothing between all of it. Batista ended up getting in very little offence, and the one time he did get close to win, there was absolutely no drama in it because there was no chance Triple H was losing this one.

I don’t think anyone was expecting anything that great from this match, which is good because we didn’t get it, (aside from a ridiculously over the top Triple H entrance of course). By the same token though, nothing stupid or nonsensical happened during the match, so I guess that’s a good thing that this is a bad as it got.

15 – Baron Corbin def. Kurt Angle
(Kurt Angle’s Final Match)

I told you so.

This match was fairly similar to Triple H vs Batista in that it was fairly slow and boring, except I enjoyed this just a little bit more, since there was actually some decent back and forth between the two men, and they aren’t just ambling about trying to set up a spot that ends up not looking all that impressive.

I know people are going to be pissed off about it, but like I said in my predictions I think Corbin winning was the right choice. No-one would’ve benefitted in any way from Angle winning, and while I doubt anything big is on the horizon for Corbin, at least he’s going to be on Raw every Monday for the next while and stands a chance of getting something out of winning.

Not to mention, it’s not like this has sullied Angle’s legacy. For one thing, if anything had done that is was the awful matches he’s been having on Raw and Smackdown for the past month, and for another, when people think back on Angle’s career, they’re not going to be thinking about this match. They’ll be thinking about all the awesome stuff he did from ’99 through ’06, and losing to a dude in a dress shirt isn’t going to spoil that.

…much.

14 – Braun Strowman wins the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal
(Kickoff Show)

Thank God for that.

While I’m happy about the result, this may have been the most boring ARMBAR to date, and that includes the one where the final two were Jinder and Mojo. Several people were eliminated within seconds of the bell ringing, no-one really got much of a chance to show off their stuff aside from Braun and the comedy stuff wasn’t all that funny.

Andrade eliminating himself has got to be one of the worst eliminations in the history of the ARMBAR and doesn’t protect him, it makes him look like a total idiot. I’ll admit I laughed when one of the SNL guys (don’t know his name, don’t care enough to look it up) brought out his “therapist”, but everything after that was super predictable, and I never really found myself actually enjoying what I was watching.

13 – Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins def. The Revival(c)
(Raw Tag Team Championships)
(Kickoff Show)

Oh for fu-

I’m trying not to hold the result against this match too hard, but seriously? If WWE are still trying to convince The Revival to stay they’re doing an awful job of it, having them lose to a guy who’s the whole gimmick is that he always loses is the kind of pit I never thought I’d see The Revival in, but here we are. Even if they win the titles back on Raw, it doesn’t matter, the damage is done.

The match was fine but didn’t really have much excitement to it, The Revival very much wrestled like they knew they were going to lose and decided they didn’t give a shit anymore. It was still solid but lacked the polish that we’ve come to expect from The Revival, and even Ryder seemed like he was phoning it in a little bit.

The finish was fine (and honestly, the only finish this match ever could’ve had), but it didn’t really surprise me, it just caused me to sigh. It wasn’t anything awful but was exactly the kind of match you think of when you think “pre-show tag match”, so it wasn’t anything great either.

12 – Samoa Joe(c) def. Rey Mysterio
(United States Championship)

Finally.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the result of this match, but given that it went under a minute, it’s hard to put it any higher up.

Samoa Joe winning was absolutely the right result, the United States Championship needs a dominant champion like Joe to pull it out of the ditch it’s been in for the past year, and this was the perfect start. If you ask me, have him squash guys while defending the title week in and week out on Smackdown, while having slightly longer matches on PPVs, and that US title will have it’s prestige back in no time.

As for the match itself, it’s understandable that it went this short, since the number of matches required at least one or two to be squashes, and Rey’s recent injury may have made it a necessity, but I hope we get a full-length match later down the line, because I think it could be really good.

11 – Roman Reigns def. Drew Mcintyre

WWE just doesn’t seem to understand Drew’s strengths.

Drew is the kind of guy that is best when he’s running around murdering dudes and a breakneck pace, this match should’ve been somewhat in the style of Lesnar vs Goldberg from a couple of years ago, where it’s about 10 minutes of them going back and forth hitting each other with big hard-hitting moves until one of them couldn’t stand anymore.

Instead, we had Drew holding Reigns to the mat and “wearing him down” for the whole thing until it was time for Reigns to make his comeback. It had just enough to keep me somewhat engaged, with some tense spots on the ropes and some well-timed kick outs which Reigns is great at, but I feel it could’ve been so much more.

I was somewhat surprised that Reigns got a pretty mixed reaction on his entrance after how he’s been in recent months. Maybe it was just casual fans who don’t know what’s been going on and still think booing Reigns is the default, but really I think it’s time that we just cheer the guy. I get you’d rather see other guys get the spots he does, but he’s a pretty good wrestler these days and by all accounts, he’s an amazing person in real life, so let’s just stop relentlessly booing him for no reason now, yeah?

I’m sure my words have fallen on deaf ears, but I tried.

10 – The IIconics def. Sasha Banks & Bayley(c), Nia Jax & Tamina, Natalya & Beth Phoenix
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

IIIIIIIIIIIIIICONIC!

Have your Kofimanias and Becky chants all you want, this is the win that made me the happiest all night.  The IIconics are just so entertaining at what they do and are up there with the best in terms of wrestling ability so I’m over the moon to see them get these spots, hopefully, this reign lasts more than 2 days.

That said, the match itself was fairly underwhelming, maybe it was because we’d already had a very good 4 way tag match on the show, or maybe it’s hard to make an exciting match when 75% of the participants aren’t known for high spots or taking risks, but something about this just didn’t click for me. It thought everything was fairly standard and vanilla, with the match moving at a fairly predictable pace, and attempts at bigger spots leading more to confusion than anything else.

The only thing I really enjoyed about it was the way in which The IIconics one, taking advantage of being the right place at the right time and nothing more. Granted, 4 ways tend to have a base level of excitement that they will always be (hence why this match is as high as it is), but it really didn’t do much to go beyond it.

The IIconics won though, so who cares how good the match was?

9 – Finn Balor def. Bobby Lashley(c)
(Intercontinental Championship)

Demon Finn needs more Wrestlemania entrances because that looked cool as fuck.

This match was just a glorified squash, so I can’t put it too high, but I think it was much more entertaining than the US title squash earlier in the night. This had a small about of back and forth to keep the momentum of the match going for the full 4 minutes, and it also had some pretty impressive spots to boot.

Lashley’s apron spear looked brutal, and I wish more of his offence was in that style because he could be a really entertaining wrestler if he did that more often. On the flip side, we saw a rare display of power from Finn Balor because that Powerbomb to Lashley was such a good feat of strength. Things like that are what you need to give The Demon more mystique because that really made it feel like Finn is stronger when he’s the Demon.

Once again though, I really don’t want to see this match anymore. This is clearly as good as it’s ever going to get, now it’s time to let Finn run and have great matches with everyone on whichever show he lands on post-shakeup.

8 – Tony Nese def. Buddy Murphey(c)
(Cruiserweight Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

So not only are they forced onto the kickoff show, they’re forced to open the kickoff show when there’s all of about 26 in the arena, great.

Ultimately, I think the middle of the list is the best place for this match, because while it didn’t have anything amazing in it, it was an extremely solid match, with several enjoyable moments throughout. Nese’s baseball slide to the outside, where he took Murphey’s legs out from under him at the same time was a very satisfying thing to watch, and generally the chemistry the two of them had made for a match that I had no problems sitting through.

Nese winning was actually quite the surprise to me, mostly it’s my own fault for not knowing what Nese’s finisher looked like, but also I didn’t really expect him to win, I always got the feeling that WWE loves Buddy Murphy (because he’s great) and that this thing was gonna last a little while longer, however I can’t argue with the decision and I do now wanna watch 205 Live this week to see where this all goes next; so it’s mission accomplished really.

7 – Carmella won the Women’s Wrestlemania Battle Royal

Well, this was a surprise.

Not so much the result, but the fact that the match was actually pretty damn enjoyable, it really seemed like everything was working against it. It has Asuka being dumped in it after losing her title, Lacey Evans not even being in the thing, and all of 16 competitors it really seemed like this thing was doomed to suck.

It wasn’t anything special to start off with, but once the field cleared a bit and we were down to a few competitors, things got pretty fun. There were many of the battle royal spots we’ve come to expect, and I really liked that they gave both Sonya Deville and Sarah Logan some time to shine because I think they’re both wonderful people, and damn good wrestlers to boot.

Surprisingly, because of the way it went down, I don’t actually have a problem with Asuka not winning. I’d rather it was Sarah Logan than Carmella sure and it seemed they’d already forgotten about that win by the time she showed up later on in the night, but the match itself was a nice little bit of fun on the pre-show, which is really what the pre-show matches should be for.

6 – AJ Styles def. Randy Orton

Well, that was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be.

I don’t have any complaints about this match, it wasn’t anything super exciting, but everything was perfectly solid the whole way through. It was slow enough to cool down the crowd after the excitement of the opening, but not so slow as to be boring, and it was just a really well-rounded match with 15 minutes of perfectly enjoyable wrestling. We even got an RKO kick out, which hasn’t happened in what feels like years.

I think its place on the card has got a lot to do with it. If this match had happened in 6th or 7th hour, then I imagine I would’ve crapped all over it for being boring but as it is, it got a really good spot on the card and made the most of it, so I really don’t have anything to complain about.

I think AJ was the right choice in winner too, granted I don’t think either man is going to be doing anything major right after Mania – they’ll probably both be in Money in the Bank but I doubt either of them will win it –  but AJ has been losing a lot since losing the WWE Championship to Daniel Bryan, so this was the best way I can think of for AJ to re-establish himself to hopefully have a solid mini-feud with whoever gets called up on Tuesday evening, which should be fun.

5 – Shane Mcmahon def. The Miz
(Falls Count Anywhere)

How does Shane keep doing this?

Seriously, I don’t understand it, by all rights a singles match involving a 49-year-old Shane Mcmahon at Wrestlemania should be awful, but with the exception of his Undertaker match, they’ve all been rather good year in and year out. This year’s match relied a little more on spectacle than the past couple, but I think that was more to the matches benefit than anything else. It started out a bit plodding, but once business started to pick up, I found myself enjoying it quite a lot.

George Mizanin will forever be a meme that will go down in wrestling history, alongside that little girl who hates The Miz and anytime Brock Lesnar pulls a roided out face. Once that was out of the way though, I actually quite liked the slower, more hard-hitting pace that this match had; it had the same style as Triple H vs Batista, but it felt to me like everything flowed better and the match was never at a standstill while we were waiting for a spot to be set up. On top of that, the actual spots themselves looked much more impressive, the finish is the obvious one, but the spot where Miz smashed Shane in the face and he went sailing over the railing onto the floor below looked so painful and was really satisfying to watch.

Normally I’d be furious that Shane won, but the way the finish played out in this match meant it made total sense. Total, random luck is the only way Shane should ever win a match where he’s not being helped and the fact that Miz did what he did instead of playing it safe is both a brilliant illustration of how this face turn has changed his character (as heel Miz would often tout the merits of how safe his wrestling style was) and added an extra layer of intensity to the feud, since it really felt like Miz was putting hurting Shane in front of winning the match.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but after watching this match, I really hope this feud isn’t over, I want to see more out of this.

4 – The Usos(c) def. Aleister Black & Ricochet, The Bar, Rusev & Shinsuke Nakamura
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

The flipside of the 4 way tag matches on this show,  we got a much better one when the men went at it.

Generally, I think this match was structured a lot better than the women’s one, with a feeling out process at the start before we jumped it all descended into total chaos, it gave the match a natural progression, instead of immediately becoming a clusterfuck.

Once things did start to breakdown though, the action was generally just much more entertaining to watch, with everyone getting a chance to shine as chaos reigned. The Bar continues to be one of the best tag teams out there, as they went absolutely mental spinning Ricochet exactly 42 trillion times and Sheamus turning Black’s ribcage to dust. Black & Ricochet got a whole bunch of stuff scattered through the whole match, as one of them was the legal man for very nearly the whole thing, and when everyone was hitting their finishers at the end I was having an absolute blast.

I wouldn’t have chosen The Usos to retain if I were making the decisions, but it’s definitely not a bad choice, The Usos have lowkey been the best tag team in the world for a couple of years now, and letting them have brilliant matches for the titles month after month will be a great way to showcase that fact, so bring it on I say.

3 – Seth Rollins def. Brock Lesnar(c)
(Universal Championship)

You have no idea how happy I am that I get to type that header because I was so worried.

Despite making Seth my prediction, the closer and closer it got to the show the more convinced I was that Brock was going to retain, so when Heyman came out and declared that Seth vs Brock would be opening show, it was music to my ears.

It was exactly what it needed to be too, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure an extended match would’ve been great, but this got me twice as excited in a quarter the time and I loved it. Everything from the post-match beatdown to the low blow, to the triple Curb Stomp, was booked to absolute perfection, and the only reason it’s not number 1 is because it only lasted 2 minutes.

I would’ve been annoyed that Seth won because of a low blow, but A) It’s Brock Lesnar, he’s taken a low blow in almost every match for the past few years and won anyway, and B) Brock took the first cheap shot by attacking Seth before the bell, so the low blow felt more like karmic justice than Seth cheating.

Hopefully, Brock shows up on Raw, F-5’s everything that moves and then disappears off to get destroyed by Daniel Cormier while Seth puts on match of the year candidates with absolutely everyone while defending that title.

I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to open the show if I tried, and Seth Rollins once again manages to create one my all-time favourite wrestling moments, A freaking plus.

2 – Becky Lynch def. Ronda Rousey(c), Charlotte Flair(c)
(Raw Women’s Championship)
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Well, that sure was eventful.

People around the internet seem to be having pretty mixed reactions to this match, some say it was a massive disappointment that is the result of awful booking, while others say that it was an enjoyable match that was dragged down by everyone watching being exhausted and a slightly botched finish. I fall into the second camp.

Sure, this match wasn’t quite what it was hyped up to be, but it was still a great match that I had plenty of fun watching. It is worth mentioning the length of the show though, as much as it doesn’t bother me I am admittedly in the minority there as it was clear that the crowd were just too exhausted by hour 7 that there was no way they were ever going to be able to give this the reaction it deserved.

That said, WWE didn’t exactly help them to get excited. If the match had gotten an extra five minutes or so, they could’ve spent some time building up to a big climactic finish, and the crowd would’ve sensed that and reacted to it. Instead, we got a sudden roll-up win that was ever so slightly botched by Rousey making it look like it wasn’t the planned finished (the current report from Meltzer is that it was the planned finish, but Rousey lifted her shoulders when she wasn’t supposed to).

However, focusing on the positives, there was a lot to like in this match. For one thing, it really did have that big fight feel and spectacle that you’d expect from the main event of Wrestlemania, and when they were staring each other down at the start I really could feel the excitement in the air. There was also plenty of great psychology throughout the whole thing, with Becky and Ronda constantly going for the arms of their opponents while Charlotte spent an extended period of time working over Ronda’s leg which was great.

The table spot looked quite brutal if you ask me, and was in fact enhanced by the fact that the table didn’t break as it gave it what felt like a harder impact. Becky and Ronda staring down before the final exchange was a great moment too, and it did genuinely feel like the climax to this almost year-long story.

Would’ve I have liked it to be a bit different? Absolutely, that’s mainly why I’ve dropped it to second, but am I upset by what we got? Not in the slightest, I thought that this was a really good end to one of the better Wrestlemanias of the modern era, that said, it wasn’t the pinnacle of the night…

1 – Kofi Kingston def. Daniel Bryan(c)
(WWE Championship)

Come on, was it ever going to be anything else?

You take a competitor as hungry for success as Kofi, a story that was built organically by the fan’s love for Kofi, a heel champion as hated as Daniel Bryan, and a WWE Champion that does everything he can in the ring to make his opponent look amazing and also happens to be one of the best wrestlers in the world, and this match is exactly what you’d expect the result to look like.

This match took the fundamentals of a WWE world championship match and performed them to perfection. There was a constant back and forth between the two men, and they were constantly speeding up and slowing down the pace of the match as it was necessary for that moment in the story, because the story is exactly what this match was all about.

The idea of Kofi’s struggle was central to this entire performance, with Bryan constantly there to beat Kofi down time and time again just like he had been week after week since Elimination Chamber. That moment when Bryan was stomping on Kofi’s face only for Kofi to do the same thing to Bryan minutes later is perhaps the best way to illustrate this. Every single move in the match seemed to feed back into the story, building the emotional weight constantly until it was all able to come out at the finish.

Speaking of the finish, man what an emotional moment, after watching Kofi overcome every struggle that was thrown his way for his whole life in order to finally reach the pinnacle of his career and watching Big E and Woods be able to celebrate with him was just magical. I’m stealing this quote from many many people online, but this is why we put up with all the shit in WWE because when a story like this comes together in just the right way, it’s something truly unrivalled in terms of emotion and entertainment.

Even if Kofi loses the title on Tuesday it wouldn’t matter, because this is a moment that will forever stand in the history of Wrestlemania, and that’s something very few people will ever achieve.

So that was Wrestlemania 35! Overall I think it was a really enjoyable show, probably my favourite since 31, so I’m feeling very satisfied with all the wrestling over this past weekend indeed. As always thank you very much for taking the time to read an article as long as this one and please share it around on social media if you enjoyed. Follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo for live thoughts of wrestling and check back here every week for new opinions on both gaming and wrestling. I’ll see you soon.

WWE Wrestlemania 35 Predictions & Analysis

It’s finally time, the road this year seems to have felt longer than ever, but we’re just 48 short hours away from Wrestlemania 35. Much like last year, this card, on paper, has the potential to be one of the best Wrestlemanias of all time, although we all know how that turned out last year…

Almost every single match has the potential to be fun and memorable, and there will almost certainly be moments on this show that get played in the highlight packages for years to come.

However, tradition must still hold, and it is that time once again, to break down all 16 (SIXTEEN!) matches that are scheduled to take place on Sunday, and predict a winner for each one. So here goes, starting with…

Women’s Wrestlemania Battle Royal

I’m sure this one will be well thought out and planned considering it was announced a whopping 9 days before the show and on Twitter, not TV.

WWE seemed to skip the idea that this battle royal would actually mean something last year, handing the win to Naomi and proceeding to do precisely nothing with her for the whole year, so I’m sure we can expect just as important things from this winner’s.

If you’re trying to pick a winner, I think just picking a woman based off of a random number generator might be more effective than trying to break down and analyse it. The most obvious pick seems to be Asuka since, until Tuesday morning, she was meant to be defending her Smackdown Women’s championship on the show. That being said, I could quite easily see them bringing someone up from NXT and use this as a platform for them, Shayna Baszler, Kairi Sane or even Bianca Belair could be good candidates for that.

It’s hard to pick any of the NXT women though since we won’t know if they’re even participating in the match until it starts, so I’m going to go with the safe pick here and say Asuka will win.

Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

Oh, who cares?

I know the ARMBAR hasn’t exactly been the most prestigious match over the past few years, but this year it seems especially pointless. Partly because until the go-home Raw, Braun and the SNL hosts are the only men who have declared their entry, but also because it means that literally only one of those two can possibly win.

If anything someone completely out of left field winning here would be the worst thing that could possibly happen, because it means you’ve sacrificed your only story of consequence in the match for, I dunno, Shelton Benjamin or someone.

I don’t think I’m going to surprise anyone by picking Braun Strowman here, hopefully, he’ll just toss all 30 men out at once and we can not waste too much time with this crap.

Buddy Murphy(c) vs Tony Nese
(Cruiserweight Championship)
(Kickoff Match)

Please put this on the main show.

Bump the IC title to the pre-show for all I care, I don’t really give a crap about that match, just find a way to get this match onto your 6+ hour main show, please. Buddy Murphy is one of the best damn wrestlers in the company, and whenever he’s been given the chance to shine on a big stage (such as Super Show Down or Survivor Series) he’s blown it away.

While admittedly Nese isn’t on the level of Ali for Murphy’s opponent, the story is definitely there, and he’s certainly a top-level performer on 205 Live. That said, I don’t think he’s going to win the championship. Murphy’s one of those champions where he’s at the point now where I always feel like he’s going to retain, whether the story needs it or not, I can see him holding that Cruiserweight title for a long time, and a big win in a great match here will arguably solidify him as the best cruiserweight champion to date.

This is another one where I’m not particularly confident because I can kinda feel the face win here, but I’m sticking to my guns and picking Buddy Murphy to walk out victorious in this one.

The Revival(c) vs Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

No. Please WWE. Don’t do it.

The Revival have been putting on some of their best matches since coming to main roster since winning those tag titles (even if they are a mere shadow of their NXT performances) and I swear to the lord on high, if you have them lose Curt Hawkins, whose whole gimmick is that he’s literally never won a match, I will…write a very angry paragraph in my review…ok maybe that’s not the best threat in the world, but the point still stands.

This match is either going to be used as fodder for the pre-show or something for the piss-break in between the two main events, either way, it’s probably going to be short and underwhelming. WWE seems pretty keen on making sure The Revival stick around long enough to sign a new contract, so I imagine they’re going to be keeping the belts until a little bit after that, so I’m expecting them to retain in this one in pretty short order.

The Usos(c) vs Aleister Black & Ricochet vs The Bar vs Rusev & Shinsuke Nakamura
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

It’s annoying how the last-minute matches are always the hardest to predict.

After spending a couple of weeks teasing an Usos vs Hardys match, the Smackdown Tag Title scene went quiet for a few weeks and I’d honestly assumed it had just been cut for time, but all of a sudden on Smackdown we just get this clusterfuck of a match announced.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this got bumped to the pre-show at some point before the show starts since we’ve already got a bigger 4 Way Tag match on the card later on, which puts predicting this match in quite an odd position. The story for weeks now has been that Vince has brought Black & Ricochet up in an attempt to make new stars, so surely having them lose here after losing to War Raiders on Friday (presumably) would be awful for them. Then, at the same time, The Usos retaining here just feels like a really easy pick to make.

No idea why The Bar and Rusev & Nakamura have been let into this match either seeing as both teams have done nothing but lose since January, but hey-ho. I think I’m gonna go with the more risky pick here and say Aleister Black & Ricochet will pick up the titles, because quite frankly if they can’t win any titles after five attempts, then why should anyone care about them ever again?

Bobby Lashley(c) vs Finn Balor
(Intercontinental Championship)

This has been such a weird way of executing this story.

I get that you wanted to tell a story where Lashley loses the title due to circumstances of his own making, but having him almost instantly win the title back, and then have him lose again in a 2 on 1 handicap match to get Balor in here seems like such a weird choice to me. It doesn’t really do Balor many favours, since Balor’s lost to Lashley one on one several times now over the past 6 months or so, and even if he wins here I’m not sure it’s going to do Finn many favours.

That said, what would do Finn a big favour is having a run with the IC title similar to Rollins’ run with the belt last year. Granted, they might not want things to seem repetitive and I doubt the reign will last as long as Seth’s did, but it would certainly help him out a lot more than anything in this feud has done so far.

I wasn’t entirely sure about this one for most of the build, I had a hunch Balor was going to win, but once it got confirmed that Finn would be appearing as The Demon at Wrestlemania (finally), that’s pretty much confirmed that Finn Balor is getting the IC title back on Sunday.

Samoa Joe(c) vs Rey Mysterio
(United States Championship)

And now we’re at the point where I’m more excited for the US title match than I am for the IC title, what a big difference a month can make.

I don’t know how much time this is realistically going to get, but I think it’s going to be pretty great either way. Mysterio’s spent his whole career wrestling giants, and Joe can do so many things that guys like Khali and Big Show could never even dream of. I really think this is going to be a fast-paced and brutal fight, which will be a tonne of fun to watch.

This could also be the opportunity the US title has been waiting for to regain some of the prestige that has been absolutely shattered since Jeff Hardy lost the title last summer and it just stopped appearing on shows. In order for that prestige to be rebuilt though, two things need to happen.

First, it needs to be on the main card. This shouldn’t be too much of a worry as I doubt WWE would dare to put Rey Mysterio on the pre-show, so I think we’re good. Secondly, Joe needs to retain, clean. One of the main reasons the US title has gone so far south in recent months (aside from never being on TV) is that it’s being tossed about like a hot potato so much. If you want the US title to start meaning something then you need a champion worth a damn who can hold onto it for more than a week, and Samoa Joe is the perfect candidate to hold it for at least a couple more months.

Sasha Banks & Bayley(c) vs Beth Phoenix & Natalya vs The IIconics vs Nia Jax & Tamina
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

I would forgive every other mistake this show makes if The IIconics won this match.

As much as it’s awful that the Smackdown Live women’s division has been completely shafted since Charlotte won the women’s title, I’m very happy that The IIconics are getting their Wrestlemania moment, even if they don’t get to win. I’m also very happy for Beth Pheonix, she was one of those women just was just 4-5 years too early to really get the chance to shine, and even if she can’t go like she used to, I’m glad she gets to participate in a match that she would’ve dreamed to have when she was an active competitor.

Picking a winner is a pretty straightforward affair though, Nia & Tamina aren’t getting anywhere near those belts, and I doubt Beth is going to wrestle full-time past Wrestlemania, so they’re out, and while I would be over the moon if The IIconics picked up the title, this really has to be Sasha Banks & Bayley‘s moment. Whether you think that Mania will end with the horsewomen standing tall or not (I’ll get into my thoughts later), it makes the most sense for them to retain here, and hold those titles for at least one more month.

AJ Styles vs Randy Orton

Now we enter the “for shits and giggles” portion of the show.

I understand that this is a big match that we haven’t seen outside of a short Smackdown match a couple of years ago, and if Orton’s motivated it should be pretty good, but I still can’t help but ask why? Orton felt like he’d long since given up on his mission to tear down our heroes, and the general impression I’ve gotten for why these two hate each other so much is “cos indies”, which doesn’t exactly seem like a Wrestlemania feud to me.

It also seems pretty predictable, as much as AJ has lost matches like this before (remember Chris Jericho?), AJ’s been taken down quite a lot since losing his WWE title to Daniel Bryan, and a big win over Orton would be a pretty good way to build him up, and hopefully send him over to Raw where he can do something new.

I remain optimistic about this match, but I know that it could end up getting way too much time and stinking out the joint, but as I said I will hold onto my hope, and say that AJ Styles will beat Orton.

Roman Reigns vs Drew Mcintyre

Now, this is an interesting one.

Both men have been really good on the mic in the build-up to this match and they seem to have gone to great lengths this past month to build him up as an absolute destroyer (not having lose to both Ziggler & Balor a couple months back might’ve helped, but oh well.) and I’m hopeful that this match will rock.

I’m having quite the pickle choosing the winner though because on the one hand, it’s Roman pissing Reigns, who’s just returned from kicking cancer’s ass and this is first big singles feud. On the other hand, Drew would be quite heavily damaged by a loss here, and a win would absolutely catapult him into stardom.

Ultimately, I think I find myself leaning on the side of Roman Reigns winning, partly because it feels like the safe bet, but also because I really think this will be a big feel-good moment to kick off the show with and get the show off to a great start, but even if it doesn’t go on first, I just can’t really see Drew winning this one.

Kurt Angle vs Baron Corbin

This is probably the match I’m looking forward to the least.

I understand the choice in opponent since, given WWE storylines since Angle’s return, it does make sense, and honestly, I’m OK with it. Would I have preferred someone better? Absolutely, Cena, Bryan, hell even someone like Elias would’ve been a better choice, but am I furious that this is what we got? No, not really.

As much as I hate to say it, Angle’s farewell tour has just proved that he really can’t go like he used to. He can still wrestle circles around a guy like Corbin of course, but I get the same feeling watching Angle wrestle now that I do when The Undertaker wrestles. I love him with all my heart as a performer, but I really just want him to stop and leave the memories alone at this point.

I also don’t think this is a bait and switch, I think Angle vs Corbin will be the match we get, it will probably only be about 10 minutes, but here’s the thing…I want Corbin to win. If we’re going down this road, let’s do it properly. I don’t consider myself to have an old-school mentally by any stretch of the imagination (hell, I’ve only been a fan since 2013), but I really do agree with the ethos that wrestlers, however legendary, should go out on their backs.

Will Corbin ever be the star WWE probably want him to? I doubt it, but lets at least give it one last try, so I’m doing it, I’m predicting that Baron Corbin will win this match, and more so than that, I think he should.

The Miz vs Shane Mcmahon
(Falls Count Anywhere)

Why is there even a conversation here, it’s the Best-Wrestler-In-The-World™ versus The Miz. I mean, come on guys.

Jokes aside, I really don’t know what to make of this match. On the one hand, I’ve been wishing Shane would be a heel for ages and so far face Miz has been on fire, but I’m not sure it’s going to make for all too compelling a match.

Miz is definitely a top-level wrestler now, that much is true, but I’m not sure he’s a guy like AJ Styles that can carry Shane to a 4-star match. Hopefully the Falls Count Anywhere stipulation will do something to remedy this, making the match more about brutality than technicality, but I’m still worried that this could be quite the slog, especially if it’s placed late on the card.

I have been umming and erring a little bit about who I think will win here, but when I picture it in my head, I just can’t reasonably see Shane standing tall, it doesn’t make any sense to me at all and it would kill The Miz’s face turn dead immediately and then you risk him sinking back into the territory he was in throughout late 2013/early 2014 where no-one cared about him in the slightest, so I say The Miz has to win this one.

Triple H vs Batista
(No Holds Barred)

Wow, the Ruthless Aggression Era just doesn’t ever want to end doesn’t it?

This is another match that I think is an interesting one to break down because there are two conflicting ideas going on here. On the one hand, Batista is a big Hollywood star now, and if there’s one thing WWE love it’s pushing their multi-media stars for the whole world to see (just look at who’s in the main event this year).

Then you look at Triple H’s Wrestlemania record since Mania 29 and it shows quite the obvious trend. Triple H loses to all the young guys (Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins & Ronda Rousey), but beats the older ones (Brock Lesnar & Sting) so logic would dictate Triple H beats Batista here right? Not only that but this storyline kicked off with Batista attempting to murder Ric Flair, so Triple H is the big babyface defending one of his friend’s honour, so that should make it a lock.

So I was going back and forth on this one for a while until they went and added the stipulation that if Triple H loses, he must retire. Admittedly, Triple H does only wrestle one or two matches a year, and if he’s going to be running the company in the coming years he may want to stop wrestling, but I highly doubt it would happen with this little build and hype behind it.

Until that stipulation was added I was seriously considering picking Batista, but now I’d be an idiot to not say that Triple H is going to win.

Daniel Bryan(c) vs Kofi Kingston
(WWE Championship)

Interestingly, I think a lot of people’s opinions on the show will hinge on this match.

Much like last year, where AJ vs Nakamura disappointed most, one match seemed to cause everyone to have an overall negative opinion of the show. I know Brock vs Reigns helped too, but I think if the WWE title match had been amazing, then people wouldn’t have been anywhere near as harsh on it as they were, and this match is in the exact same position this year.

This match has all the potential in the world to be amazing, it’s between two of the best pure wrestlers in the company, and the story is arguably the most well written on the entire card (something AJ vs Nakamura didn’t have last year). If this match gets about 20 minutes and the two are allowed to go with minimal shenanigans, this could be the match of the night, even if Daniel Bryan ends up retaining.

Which brings me to who I think is going to win, I’ll get into the debate over whether all three faces can get their big wins towards the end of the article, but this is the match which I currently feel the most confident in the result of. There is still this niggling little doubt in my mind, but I believe that we’re going to get a big moment here and Kofi Kingston will pick up his first ever world championship in WWE. I don’t think the reign will be all that long, but I don’t think that matters because his Wrestlemania victory will secure his legacy for the rest of his life.

Brock Lesnar(c) vs Seth Rollins
(Universal Championship)

Boy, this one is more difficult than it should be.

Every semblance of wrestling logic I’ve ever learnt is screaming that Seth Rollins finally slays the beast and goes on to have a long reign with the Universal Championship. He was the best wrestler in the WWE throughout 2018, he had his big climactic Royal Rumble win in January, and Lesnar only has the belt again because of Roman’s illness.

The flip side of the coin is pretty much the sentence “but Brock Lesnar”, which is a surprisingly hard argument to counter. Last year we were all 100% without a shadow of a doubt certain Roman Reigns would beat Lesnar for the title, and look what happened then. If there’s anyone who will inexplicably win when it makes absolutely no sense for them to, it’s Brock Lesnar.

All that said, I really am getting the feeling now that the “Brock as the champion who doesn’t exist” era is ending, given that WWE tried to end it at Summerslam last year. So I’m going with what I desperately want to happen, and saying Seth Rollins will win this match.

Ronda Rousey(c) vs Charlotte Flair(c) vs Becky Lynch
(Raw Women’s Championship & Smackdown Women’s Championship)

What a wild ride this has been.

This storyline as a whole has certainly had it’s ups and downs as we’ve followed it since Summerslam last year, and if I were to traipse through all of it, it would take all day, so let’s review the highlights.

– Becky’s heel turn turned out to be the best thing she’s ever done in her career.
– Her feud with Rousey on Twitter turned out to be the new best thing she’s ever done in her career.
– Then Becky won the Royal Rumble, which once again turned out to be the best thing she’s ever done in her career.
– Following that, things got a bit convoluted with suspensions, Charlotte, and the Smackdown Women’s Championship getting involved.
– Finally, The go-home Raw had the most over the top, yet brilliant, segment of the whole feud.

I know some people thought it was hokey and crap, but I thought it was a great way to cap things off before Mania, since it took all these complicated plot strands that have been going on since the Royal Rumble and boiled it down to three women who just hate each other so much and desperately want to win the biggest match of any of their lives.

I don’t think there’s any question about the quality of the match, it’s going to be awesome, and will hopefully go down as one of the greatest main events in Wrestlemania history, the real question is who’s going to win.

Up until Charlotte won the Smackdown Women’s title, I was the least confident about this one, I could quite easily see Ronda Rousey walking out of this one with both the belts. However, once Charlotte got herself a title, things changed in my mind, because now it feels like Becky Lynch has to win.

I know, I’ve picked all three faces to get their big win, and the prevailing opinion is that only 2 out of 3 will, but I’m not so sure. This is going to be such a long show that if it’s structured right, then you can avoid the crowd running out of energy and give all three faces their time in the sun. I’m not entirely confident that it will happen, and in all honesty, I’m expecting at least one of them to lose, but I just can’t put my finger on which one. If you pushed me for an answer I think I’d say Seth is most likely to lose, but I still think it’s at least a 50/50 chance.

All I know for certain is, it’s made things very exciting indeed.

So there you have it, those were my official predictions for every match that is announced to be taking place on Sunday (as of time of posting). If you enjoyed then sharing it on social media would be a big help, and make sure you come back early next week for my reviews, of both NXT Takeover and Wrestlemania. I will also be live tweeting both shows @10ryawoo on Twitter if you want thoughts as they happen!

I’ll be seeing you very soon.

10 Times a World Title Changed Hands Between the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania

As we continue our travel along the winding road to Wrestlemania, there is often one thing that is a complete certainty, none of the major championships will be changing hands.

Coming out of the Royal Rumble WWE begin the process of advertising their big main events to sell tickets, and as the media starts to promote them more and more in the build-up, it’d be a pretty bad idea to suddenly change a marquee match simply for the sake of shock value.

While this holds true for the most part, sometimes (ten times to be precise) there are outside circumstances or storyline plans that trickle over into the months between the two major events, and the result is that we get a shocking title change only a month or so out of the granddaddy of them all. So I thought it’d be interesting to take a look at all the times this has happened, the circumstances surrounding them, and what came of them come Wrestlemania.

Shawn Michaels – Vacant – Bret Hart – Sycho Sid: 1997 (WWF Championship)

One of the most talked about moments in Shawn Michaels career is what kicks off this list.

Going into Wrestlemania 13, there were big plans for a main event match between Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart in a rematch from their Wrestlemania 12 Iron Man match, with the plan being for Michaels to return the favour and drop the title back to Bret Hart, however, it was not to be.

Thanks to a knee injury that Shawn claimed had been nagging him for a while, he was forced to vacate the championship over a month out from the big event. There are many that claim this injury wasn’t as bad as Michaels made it out to be and just didn’t want to drop the title to Bret Hart due to growing real-life heat between the two.

Shawn would drop his infamous “Lost my smile” promo and disappear from our screens for a good few months. This left a WWF Champion sized void in the plans for Wrestlemania, so a Fatal 4 Way match was made between Bret Hart, The Undertaker, Stone Cold and Vader, in which the Hitman would come out victorious.

It wasn’t to last though, as thanks to interference from rival Stone Cold, Bret Hart would lose the title just 24 hours later to Sycho Sid. Sid would carry the title into Wrestlemania 13, where The Undertaker would defeat Sid to claim his second WWF Championship and grow the still very young streak to 6-0.

The Rock – Mankind – The Rock: 1999
(WWF Championship)

Two years down the line, the landscape of the then WWF was vastly different, the Attitude Era was in full swing, and with it came a whole host of quick title changes.

Mankind and The Rock had been feuding for the WWF Championship ever since The Rock and Vince Mcmahon had pulled a repeat of the Montreal Screwjob at Survivor Series 1998 to give The Rock the title. Mankind had claimed the title for himself the following December with an assist from Stone Cold (and turning the tide in the Monday Night Wars in the process), only for The Rock to take the title back at the Royal Rumble in the infamous I Quit match where The Rock went way over the top with chair shots and used a recording to win the gold.

This led us to the first ever Halftime Heat event, that took place 7 days after the Royal Rumble and aired during half time of Superbowl 33. This featured the only ever empty arena match for the WWF Championship where Mankind would win the title for the second time by pinning Rock with a forklift that seemed to have a camera strapped to the underside for some reason.

This epic feud would eventually come to an end on the February 15th 1999 episode of Raw where a ladder match between The Rock and Mankind would end with The Rock picking up the gold in an extremely brutal hardcore match. Sadly for The Rock, he would once again experience a short reign as at Wrestlemania 15, The Rock would lose the title to Stone Cold Steve Austin, with Mankind acting as the referee.

Kurt Angle – The Rock: 2001
(WWF Championship)

Due to the nature of the road to Wrestlemania, most of the title changes that are highlighted on this list tend to have some series of shenanigans or storyline justification surrounding them, to heighten drama going into the grandest stage of them all. So it’s quite weird to see a title change as clean cut as this one at this time of year.

This title change is exactly that, however, since at No Way Out 2001 The Rock would take the WWF Championship from Kurt Angle a chaotic match, with a couple of shenanigans throughout, but had a fairly clean finish. This would mean that The Rock would carry the WWF Championship into Wrestlemania X-7 to face off against Stone Cold in their legendary main event. Where Austin would famously shake hands with Satan himself, turning heel and aligning himself with Vince Mcmahon in the process.

Edge – Triple H: 2009
(WWE Championship)

These next two form a little bit of a two-parter, as both took place at the No Way Out Pay-Per-View in 2009.

Edge carried the WWE Championship into the Elimination Chamber that night, after winning it from Jeff Hardy the previous month at the Royal Rumble, however by the end of the night, things would look very different. The WWE Championship Elimination Chamber match kicked off the night, with Edge being in the unfavourable position of entering the Chamber first, against the man he beat for the title, Jeff Hardy.

A mere three minutes into the match, however, Edge would go for a spear, only for Hardy to catch Edge into a small package, pinning him and eliminating him from the match, losing the WWE Championship in the process. What followed was a fairly entertaining chamber match between the remaining five men, ending in an exciting one on one between Triple H and The Undertaker, with the king of kings eventually coming out on top.

Triple H would carry the WWE Championship into Wrestlemania 25 where he would face Randy Orton in the world’s most boring match, retaining the gold in the process.

John Cena – Edge: 2009
(World Heavyweight Championship)

Edge wouldn’t stay without world title gold for long though, as we would find out later that same night.

Once again looking at No Way Out 2009, this time we’re taking a look at the main event, an Elimination Chamber match for John Cena’s World Heavyweight Championship featuring, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Kane, Mike Knox (no, I don’t remember who he is either) and Kofi Kingston. Sadly for everyone’s new favourite wrestler, Edge would make a surprise appearance during Kingston’s entrance, laying Kofi out before locking himself in the pod, taking the spot in the match.

This tactic would end up paying off for the superstar that’s rated R, as he was able to convince the other participants in the match to gang up on champion John Cena, taking him out after everyone hit their finishers on him. Edge would then find himself in the final two against Rey Mysterio and eventually came out victorious, walking out of No Way Out 2009 drapped in just as much gold as he entered with.

This wasn’t to last, unfortunately, since at Wrestlemania 25, Edge would lose his World Heavyweight Championship back to John Cena, in a triple threat match along with the Big Show. Yeah…Mania 25 wasn’t really that good, to be honest.

Sheamus – John Cena – Batista: 2010
(WWE Championship)

Yet another set of changes that took place on the same night, only this time around it’s not thanks to a single man.

Entering 2010, the WWE Championship scene was in a rather strange place. It was a time before CM Punk would make his meteoric rise, the age of Orton was over and Triple H was slowly winding down the amount he wrestled on such a high profile, this meant there was a big void at the top of the card for someone to face John Cena. Then along came Sheamus.

I’ve mentioned in various articles about how Sheamus tended to win things at the wrong time and in weird ways, and his WWE title win at TLC 2009 was no different. Sheamus would defeat John Cena in a tables match to claim the title in one of the worst table matches finishes ever – on par with Big Show accidentally stepping through a table – as both men would fall off the top turnbuckle, and Sheamus would narrowly miss a table as he fell, so narrowly that it looked more like a botch than anything else.

Regardless, come February Sheamus walking into Wrestlemania as WWE Champion seemed like a very real possibility, until he ran into an Elimination Chamber featuring both John Cena and Triple H. In expected fashion, John Cena “overcame the odds” to become WWE Champion yet again, only for Vince Mcmahon to come out, announce the return of Batista, who would immediately be granted a WWE title match against the leader of the Cenation and came out victorious.

Batista would take the title to Wrestlemania 26, where he would immediately lose it back to big match John. So that was worthwhile.

The Undertaker – Chris Jericho: 2010
(World Heavyweight Championship)

The night wasn’t over, however, as in the main event of Elimination Chamber 2010, we would see the World Heavyweight Championship change hands. Not because of a random Batista appearance, but a sudden Shawn Michaels appearance.

The Undertaker had held the World Heavyweight Championship ever since October 2009, where he defeated CM Punk in the most one-sided Hell in a Cell match in history, and we were now in the midst of the excellent storyline, where Shawn Michaels was begging The Undertaker for a rematch of their classic Wrestlemania 25 bout.

The Undertaker would constantly refuse Shawn Michaels’ request, and after Michaels failed to win the Royal Rumble to face the Deadman at Wrestlemania, the heartbreak kid decided drastic action was needed. Right at the end of what was a rather good Chamber match, which included The Undertaker being set on fire by his own pyro, Shawn Michaels would appear from underneath the Chamber, superkick the unaware phenom allowing Chris Jericho to pick up the gold.

Jericho would be challenged by Royal Rumble winner Edge at Wrestlemania and successfully retain his title, before being cashed in on the very next Smackdown by the one and only, Jack Swagger.

Edge – Vacant – Dolph Ziggler – Edge: 2011
(World Heavyweight Championship)

Now time for some title changes that happened all in the same night.

Going into 2011, Vickie Guerrero had paired herself up with Dolph Ziggler during her “cougar” phase and was still mad at Edge for that time they were supposed to get married. Also at some point prior to his World Heavyweight Championship the Spear had been banned, so, since hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Vickie used that as an excuse to strip Edge of his World Heavyweight Title.

Once this was done, Vickie would waste no time in handing the title to her boy toy Dolph Ziggler, which was a historic title reign that would last all of an hour, since Edge would win the title back later on that very same episode of Smackdown.

This title reign would take Edge through Wrestlemania, where he would defeat Alberto Del Rio until he would tragically have to vacate the title due to a neck injury that also forced him into retirement. As much as the ending of it was historic though, nothing else about this particular title change was in any way noteworthy, and just seems rather weird when you look back at it.

John Cena – Bray Wyatt: 2017
(WWE Championship)

It’s strange to think that John Cena’s most recent WWE Championship reign (the reign which tied Ric Flair’s record) lasted a mere two weeks, but that was the state of affairs we were faced with just two years ago.

The Royal Rumble 2017 was quite a weird event, with an excellent WWE title match that was won by John Cena, a cluster of a Universal Title match where Kevin Owens would defeat Roman Reigns thanks to Chris Jericho – who was hanging above the ring in a shark cage – and a sudden Braun Strowman appearance. Then we had the Royal Rumble match which, despite having about 7 potential winners, was one by Randy Orton in an extremely confusing fashion.

This left us with arguably one of the most predictable Elimination Chamber matches ever, as Randy Orton was still involved with Bray Wyatt at the time, and it was clear that things were leading to a Wrestlemania encounter. Eventually, following an extremely good Elimination Chamber match, Bray Wyatt would stand tall among his fireflies as WWE Champion for the first (and as of writing, only) time.

Sadly, it wasn’t to last as Bray would disappointingly lose the title to Randy Orton at Wrestlemania 33 in what was arguably the most boring match on the card.

Kevin Owens – Goldberg: 2017
(Universal Championship)

Oh boy.

Goldberg won a World Championship in 2017, I’m just pointing that out because I don’t think we make a big enough deal about it. It was over so quickly that it’s pretty easy to forget, but we must always remember that Goldberg won a WWE World Championship in 2017, and also at one point his son joined them in the ring to celebrate and took his shirt off for no apparent reason. Never Forget.

There was a lot of moving pieces going into Fastlane 2017, Brock Lesnar vs Goldberg had already been booked for Wrestlemania 33, and Kevin Owens had recently turned on Chris Jericho at the heartbreakingly wonderful Festival of Friendship. This left us with two big Wrestlemania matches in the works, both of which could’ve potentially been for the Universal Championship. WWE just had to make a simple choice.

They chose poorly.

Kevin Owens vs Goldberg was booked for Fastlane and panned out pretty much how you remember it in your head. Owens refused to get into the ring and officially start the match until eventually, Chris Jericho appeared to distract Owens, Spear, Jackhammer and 22 seconds later, Goldberg was your new Universal Champion.

Golberg also wouldn’t hold his newly won title very long, as Brock Lesnar would conquer the one who conquered the one in twenty-one and one to take the Univeral Championship. Which, in a roundabout way, leads us up to exactly where we are today, going into Wrestlemania 35.

So there you have it, all 10 times that a world title changed hands going into Wrestlemania. Thankfully we haven’t had anything as exhausting as that to deal with this year (although there is still one more week for Shane to win the title making Shane vs Miz a title match), but I hope you enjoyed this look through the past to see how it’s been done before.

If you enjoyed then please leave a like and share this around on all your favourite social media sites, and follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo as we head into Wrestlemania weekend, as I’ll have a whole lot of opinions to blurt out into the ether, and stay tuned for my NXT Takeover & Wrestlemania predictions and reviews over the next couple of weeks.