Three weeks remaining until WrestleMania 31 and only half the card filled up, we’re going to take a few minutes and make educated predictions for how the card will continue to shape up.
The Existing WrestleMania 31 Card
WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Brock Lesnar (c) vs Roman Reigns
As much as some of you want this match to be changed, it’s almost definitely staying put as-is.
Sting vs Triple H
Just for the record, if anyone actually thinks that Triple H is going to beat Sting, you’re crazy. There’s NO WAY that Sting would FINALLY appear in WWE, in a big spot like this, just to be defeated. If it were against The Undertaker and Sting had a couple more years left in the tank, I’d see it as a possibility.
Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal
If I don’t mention someone in a match below, just assume this is where they’ll end up.
Intercontinental Title Ladder Match
Barrett (c) vs R-Truth vs Ambrose vs Harper vs Ziggler vs TBA
Six people in a ladder match is probably just about enough, so I’m only going to pick one guy to be added to this match.
Prediction #1: Daniel Bryan is the 6th Man
Sure, Stardust blasted him from behind at the end of Smackdown, but that’s just a placeholder red herring. Daniel Bryan is not only my predicted 6th Man, but he’s my pick to win the belt.
Prediction #2: Stardust vs Goldust
Sure, Goldust didn’t want to face his brother at FastLane, and looked conflicted when he beat him. But backstage, with his father right there, Goldust got beaten down by his younger brother. After recovering for a couple weeks, Goldust is going to be back with a vengeance, with a WrestleMania 31 match on his mind. Stardust will make his intentions official on RAW, saying he wants to be the 6th man in the aforementioned Ladder Match, but he’s going to get interrupted by The Bizarre One.
Prediction #3: Bray Wyatt vs The Undertaker
At one point, I thought perhaps Bray Wyatt was going to be calling out Kane, but now that it’s officially The Undertaker he’s seeking out, I don’t think this will officially be a Casket Match. Both competitors are going to gain something from this match, so Taker will win and then Bray Wyatt will give him a post-match beatdown and stuff him in a casket. If the stipulation were there, that wouldn’t be possible, and there’s no need for The Undertaker to lose two years in a row. If that happened, it significantly takes away from Brock Lesnar’s accomplishment.
Prediction #4: Diva’s Championship Fatal Fourway
It’s obvious that WWE is building up the feud between Nikki Bella and Paige. That said, there’s no need for TWO Diva’s matches at WrestleMania, and you CAN’T leave AJ Lee off the card. So add AJ to the match, and then add some intra-Bella tension by having Brie Bella in the match as well.
Prediction #5: Tag Team Championship
Though I’m not confident that WWE would have TWO Fatal Fourway matches on the same card, it is more likely to happen at WrestleMania than on any other event of the year. The Tag Team division is as hot (or hotter) than it has been in previous years, and there are four good teams to include in the match. The team of Cesaro and Tyson Kidd (The UpperCats, perhaps?) haven’t started a better feud yet, so they will probably work with The Usos again at WrestleMania. Having a straight-up tag match between those teams is too damaging to the losing team to do this match without including anyone else, so I’d predict that they’ll include two other teams into the mix who are also feuding: The Ascension and the recently re-formed Prime Time Players. That way any of the teams could leave with the belts without anyone being knocked back down too far on the ladder. That would also setup plenty of possibilities for the April/May event.
Prediction #6: Randy Orton vs Seth Rollins
The duo are getting along now, but I don’t expect them to stay this way for the next three weeks. They will either end up at odds with one another and have a match at WrestleMania OR Orton will be involved in eliminating Seth Rollins from the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal. Either way, they will be at odds by the time WrestleMania 31 has ended. Whether or not they get a separate match depends on whether there’s a spot on the card for them.
Prediction #7: Mizdow Separates from The Miz
Were there enough spots on the show, this match would make it onto the card, but this one could easily be solved through the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal. I’m not predicting that Mizdow will win, but he’ll almost certainly be the reason that The Miz doesn’t.
Prediction #8: John Cena vs Rusev
What, you thought I might leave John Cena off the list? There is a better possibility of Rusev losing his United States Championship to Curtis Axel on RAW before WrestleMania than for WWE to leave John Cena off the event’s card. Expect that Rusev will face Cena in a rematch at WrestleMania, and whether or not Rusev is still the champion at WrestleMania, I don’t expect that the title will still be on the line…
Although, how good would it sound to have United States Champion John Cena vs Intercontinental Champion Daniel Bryan in a title unification match at SummerSlam?
That’s where we’re at this week. Before the WrestleMania 31 card is filled out, I’ll revisit the storylines and see what else might change from these predictions.
