This weekend is the biggest wrestling show of the year, WrestleMania 38. The two-night event will take place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas and here is my preview for the Show of Shows.
One thing to note before I break down each match individually is that I don’t watch WWE weekly like I used to. I can’t even remember the last time I sat down and watched Raw, and I only occasionally watch Smackdown. However, I do keep up with the shows by reading the results online and seeing clips on WWE’s YouTube page. Also, I am only covering the matches that have been made official for WrestleMania as of this writing. If anything gets added sometime this week, I won’t be covering it in this blog post. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s break down each match on this year’s WrestleMania card along with who I think will win and who I think should win.
Announced Match Card: Night 1 (Saturday)
Becky Lynch (c) vs Bianca Belair – Raw Women’s Title Match
The Mysterios vs The Miz and Logan Paul – Tag Team Match
Drew McIntyre vs Happy Corbin – Singles Match
The Usos (c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs – Smackdown Tag Team Title Match
The New Day vs Sheamus and Ridge Holland – Tag Team Match
Seth Rollins vs TBA – Singles Match
Charlotte Flair (c) vs Ronda Rousey – Smackdown Women’s Title Match
Also Announced: The KO Show w/ Stone Cold Steve Austin
Announced Match Card: Night 2 (Sunday)
Brock Lesnar (c) vs Roman Reigns (c) – Winner Take All Title Unification Match
Queen Zelina and Carmella (c) vs Sasha Banks and Naomi vs Liv Morgan and Rhea Ripley vs Natalya and Shayna Baszler – Fatal 4 Way Match for the Women’s Tag Team Titles
Johnny Knoxville vs Sami Zayn – Singles Match
Pat McAfee vs Austin Theory – Singles Match
RK-Bro (c) vs Street Profits vs Alpha Academy – Triple Threat Match for the Raw Tag Team Titles
AJ Styles vs Edge – Singles Match
Bobby Lashley vs Omos – Singles Match
Match by Match Breakdown:
Let’s start with the presumed main event of Night 2, Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns in “The Biggest WrestleMania Match of All Time”. Putting aside the awful match slogan, this does have a big fight feel and despite their numerous matches in the past, I am looking forward to this match. Every other time they have wrestled, Roman has been the babyface and Brock has been the heel. Now the roles are reversed, and it is the Tribal Chief vs The Beast. This feud has been built up pretty well especially in recent weeks and does have a certain unpredictability to it in my opinion. While I do see Roman Reigns leaving with both belts, I could see WWE pulling a bit of a swerve and having Brock take home the gold. I am expecting a good match similar to their WrestleMania 31 encounter. Hopefully this match doesn’t go too long as I think the style of match, they will wrestle could get old quick if it goes more than say 15 minutes. I predict Roman Reigns will win and I think he should be the one who wins and ends WrestleMania by holding both the WWE and Universal Titles up high.
The next match I will discuss is Edge vs AJ Styles. Everyone expects this match to steal the show and I completely agree. This has all the makings of a WrestleMania classic. Edge is proving to be as good as he ever was, and AJ Styles can put on a classic with a broomstick if given the chance. The feud so far has been good with Edge turning heel and introducing this new character. I am still not quite sure how I feel about his new character, but I think with time, it will win me over in the end because its Edge and he can make anything work well. There isn’t much more to say about this other than I expect it to be amazing and I could even see this match setting up a rematch down the line potentially. It all depends what WWE wants to do with Edge’s new character. I predict Edge will cheat to win and I think he should win to establish his heel character.
Seth Rollins’ story heading into WrestleMania has been a great one and lets the audience know that WWE is capable of telling engaging stories with satisfying payoffs. They may not do it too often but when they do, it is must-see TV, and this has been no exception. Seth Rollins’ desire for a WrestleMania match has been unfolding over the past number of weeks and he has finally gotten his wish. I think everyone at this point kinda knows who Seth’s opponent is going to be and, if the rumors are true, it will be an all-time WrestleMania moment. I won’t spoil it here just in case you haven’t heard about it, but I truly believe the payoff for this moment will be incredible and something people are talking about for a long time. As for the winner of this match, I predict Seth’s mystery opponent comes out on top and, again if the rumors are true, he should be the one winning this match to re-establish himself as a major player in WWE.
The Women’s Title match that I am most looking forward to is definitely Becky Lynch vs Bianca Belair. A matchup almost 8 months in the making ever since Becky made her return at SummerSlam and defeated Bianca in a matter of seconds. This feud may be the best built feud leading into WrestleMania. The backstory is there and the personal animosity between the two characters has been off the charts. Hats off to WWE as they have really crafted an excellent story with these two women. Becky and Bianca always have pretty good matches and I think this one will probably be the best match on night 1. I think Bianca will win and capture the Raw women’s title and that is what should happen. Having Bianca lose this match would basically signal to the audience that WWE has given up on her which would be a huge mistake. Bianca has all the potential to be one of WWE’s top stars and, much like last year’s match against Sasha Banks, this should be one of her defining moments.
If I told you 6 years ago that All-Pro Punter for the Indianapolis Colts, Pat McAfee, would be wrestling at WrestleMania, you would have thought I was crazy. However, this is the case as he is wrestling Austin Theory. Pat McAfee is easily the most entertaining personality WWE has in my opinion. His commentary might be off-putting to others but to me it is exactly what WWE has needed at the commentary desk for quite some time. In 2020, when Pat McAfee made his in-ring debut against my favorite wrestler, Adam Cole, I was skeptical. However, Pat completely exceeded everyone’s expectations and put on a damn good wrestling match. I think this match has the potential to surprise a lot of people with how good it is. It won’t be a Bret vs Owen technical masterpiece, but it will do exactly what it is supposed to. Theory is a solid worker and Pat can go inside the ring. I am excited for this, and I believe Pat takes the win here as he should before heading back to commentary.
Now that I have basically covered all of the matches I am most excited for, I will now discuss briefly some of the matches that I am maybe not as excited for. RK-Bro are absolutely fantastic together and I am so glad WWE hasn’t pulled the trigger on breaking them up just yet. Their triple threat tag team match will be fun and should result in them retaining the titles. This feud has been somewhat fun but nothing about it has truly excited me in a way that great tag team feuds should. Overall, it should be a fun match but nothing more.
From one tag title match to the other, The Usos take on Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs. I love Nakamura and The Usos, but the Rick Boogs character has really overstayed its welcome in my opinion. I enjoyed it at first and thought it brought a great dynamic to Shinsuke’s character but now it is too much and The Usos need to retain their belts here to keep the Bloodline looking strong post-WrestleMania.
The women’s tag title match is sort of just there for me. It is a great way to get a lot of talented women on the show but overall, none of these “teams” feel like true tag teams. They are basically just singles wrestlers thrown together because WWE needed teams for their women’s tag division. I am hoping for a fun match and if I was WWE, I would have Naomi and Sasha Banks walk out with the belts. That is a fun pairing that could maybe bring some prestige to the Women’s Tag Titles. Some prestige that is desperately needed.
Charlotte Flair vs Ronda Rousey is the one big match on this card that I just haven’t personally been invested in yet. I am not really expecting a great match here. Their match a few years ago at Survivor Series was fine but that’s it, just fine. This match should be better but to me, this feud has been underwhelming to say the least. Ronda hasn’t quite connected as a babyface in my opinion. Maybe I am wrong, and the crowd enjoys her work as a babyface but to me, she isn’t convincing enough in that role. I think there is some resentment on her part towards the crowd because they basically turned on her last time. I am not sure if that is the issue or not but for whatever reason, it just hasn’t clicked for me. Ultimately, I think Ronda will win and I think she should win as well. Charlotte has done nothing with the belt so why not give it to Ronda and see if you can flesh out her character a bit more with the title.
The two celebrity matches on this card are kinda just there for me. I will never really criticize a wrestling company for bringing in celebrities. I think it is a cool thing to see people outside of wrestling coming into wrestling and being a spokesperson for it. I am hoping these two matches are better than I expect. Sami Zayn has done a great job of making this match mean something and that is something a lot of wrestlers in his position can’t pull off so kudos to Sami. Unfortunately, I think Johnny Knoxville will beat him in this match even though I think Sami should win. Just think about Sami Zayn gloating after beating Johnny Knoxville at WrestleMania. Those promos would be must see TV and would establish Zayn as a threat, something he hasn’t always been treated as during his main roster run. The other celebrity match is The Mysterios vs Logan Paul and The Miz. Logan is a natural heel so him being a heel on TV is pretty intriguing. I could see him pursuing wrestling full-time after this and, if he did, I would definitely be interested in seeing more of him. I think Paul and The Miz pick up the win here.
The New Day vs Sheamus and Ridge Holland is a nothing match to me. This feud is sadly going to be best remembered for Big E breaking his neck on Smackdown, which is just a terrible situation all around. I hope Big E is able to come back from that injury better than ever because he could be a top guy for WWE, and he just seems like the nicest person on Earth. New Day walk out with the win to avenge their fallen brother is my prediction.
Another nothing match is Drew McIntyre vs Happy Corbin. Due to Drew’s injury, I completely understand why WWE went this route and this match shouldn’t last more than 5 minutes and should end with a Claymore from McIntyre to Corbin. Corbin is a charisma black hole and McIntyre can hopefully heal up and move on to face Roman Reigns at SummerSlam.
The final match I will discuss before moving on to the only angle announced for the show is Bobby Lashley vs Omos. First of all, does Bobby Lashley have super-human healing powers because he literally just had surgery on his shoulder a month ago. The estimated recovery was around 4 months but here he is back in time for Mania. Lashley should get the win here, but I could see them putting Omos over and then giving Lashley a few months off to fully heal his shoulder.
I saved this for last because it is the segment I am looking forward to the most on this entire show. I will try to be as brief as possible as this post is already running pretty long. Stone Cold Steve Austin on the Kevin Owens Show at WrestleMania. That sentence alone sold me on this segment. They could have announced this 4 weeks ago and done nothing to build it up and I would not have cared. Stone Cold and Kevin Owens interacting is enough for me to watch. Kevin Owens has done a masterful job of building this up and it just shows how talented he is. WWE doesn’t have many guys like Kevin Owens and that is why I am so glad they resigned him earlier this year. He is a major star, and they couldn’t afford to let him leave. I have personally never seen a Stone Cold match live and in person as he retired when I was young. However, he is still one of my favorite wrestlers of all time. This segment is easily the thing I am looking forward to most but the one fear I have is that Owens’ comes out of this looking like a joke. I have faith that that won’t be the case, but anything is possible in WWE. I have no clue what to expect in this segment but damn is it going to be fun, and I will be glued to my TV for every second of it.
That is my WrestleMania 38 preview and come back next Tuesday to read my WrestleMania 38 Night 1 and 2 review. I will go through every match just like I did in this post and talk about what I liked and didn’t like. Thank you for reading and enjoy this year’s WrestleMania!
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