This is one of the best sports weekends of the year. Tonight, the Final Four takes place in Minneapolis, which will surely produce an intense five hours of television viewing. And, surrounding the Final Four, WWE also puts together its biggest weekend of the year: WrestleMania weekend. No matter how unexciting some of the matches may seem leading up to WrestleMania, by Sunday I will gladly devote my entire day to watch the outrageous spectacle.
As an appetizer to WrestleMania on Sunday, NXT Takeover: New York last night was incredible. Despite a similar situation where the matches seemed to lack the usual build, they all delivered, particularly the Tag Team, North American, and NXT Championship matches. Unfortunately for WWE, NXT also creates unrealistic expectations with these insane Takeover specials. If there’s one thing that is constant with WWE, it is that the man in charge (good ol’ Vince), is completely out of touch with his viewing audience. The thrills of yesterday will only highlight the blunders of tomorrow even more.
With that being said, I’m in a particularly cynical mood, so there’s no better time to make my WrestleMania predictions! There are an astonishing 16 matches on the official card, and I’m legitimately interested in approximately three of them. This is the result of WWE thinking that everyone on its roster needs to have a title and they all need to be defended at the same time. So here we are.
Projected Pre-Show Matches
WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal
The only one of the 13 women confirmed for this match that I can justify winning is Mandy Rose. WWE seems to forget her existence the least of them all. However, I can’t see there being less than 20 women in this match, so if it’s not Mandy standing at the end, the winner would likely be one of the seven unannounced competitors. Lacey Evans is the only potential surprise on the main roster that I take seriously. It’s also possible that Bianca Belair from NXT, or maybe a past Women’s or Divas’ Champion, could show up take the whole thing.
Either way, WWE will likely forget that this match happened and not further the story whatsoever, just like last year. Does anyone know who won at WrestleMania 34? I just looked it up – it was Naomi! Go figure!
Prediction: Mandy Rose
WWE Cruiserweight Championship
Buddy Murphy (c) vs. Tony Nese
If there’s one group of people that WWE cares less about that its women’s division, it’s the cruiserweights. In the most Vince McMahon fashion possible, they were featured for maybe half an hour on each episode of RAW for a short period of time a while back, given terrible stories to work with, not enough time to put together great matches, and what do you know? They never really gained any popularity! This was clearly Vince’s plan all along, because if you’re not six feet, five inches tall, with one percent body fat, you don’t matter.
Ironically, Buddy Murphy and Tony Nese probably have one percent body fat, but the ship has sailed on the cruiserweights until they get regular time on national TV. I’m sure this will be a good match, but 205 Live is not one of the shows I see regularly, and that’s the show that has built this entire story. I don’t have a ton of investment here. From what I do know, Buddy Murphy has been the Cruiserweight Champion forever, and I’m not sure Tony Nese really has the “it” factor to be the one to beat him.
Prediction: Buddy Murphy
Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal
In some ways, this match is very similar to the women’s battle royal. I had no recollection of who won last year until I looked it up (Matt Hardy!), and that will probably be the case one month from now with this match.
The main difference between this and the women’s match is that 29 of the 30 competitors are already known. None of them really do anything for me, but maybe that’s because I already know the story goes nowhere no matter who wins. I’m most intrigued to see who the one surprise entrant is. Everyone from Bray Wyatt to Gronk is in play.
Prediction: Mustafa Ali
