The Massive Irish Whip Wrestlemania Preview (Part 1)

The time for talking (…and talking and talking) is over!  The time for action is upon us!  And there had better be a lot of action; those guys need to keep moving to stay warm.  Sunday’s high is listed as 62 degrees and that’s during the day.  If the WWE performers give us goosebumps at Wrestlemania, it will be partly because they have so many to spare.

1. (Pre-show):  Intercontinental Championship: Wade Barrett (champion) vs. The Miz

The Road: Wade Barrett is the champion.  Miz wants the title because, well, um, he has fallen out of the main event scene in the last 2 years, couldn’t beat Kofi Kingston to regain the IC title last year and couldn’t beat Antonio Cesaro for the US Title.  So what else is he gonna do?  This feud has consisted of Wade Barrett wrestling matches while Miz is on commentary and then they yell at each other.  Or to change things up, The Miz wrestling and Wade Barrett on commentary and then they yell at each other.  In case you thought the midcard championships were worth anything at all, just consider that the IC title match is not even on the pay-per-view portion of the show and the Divas title and US title are at best, unannounced.  At worst, not booked at all.

What Will Probably Happen: The Miz will force Wade to tap out to the Figure 4 and become the new Intercontinental champion.  Barrett has done almost literally nothing as champion.  He can continue to lose to Randy Orton and Alberto Del Rio and Sheamus on TV three times a week without the embarrassment of having gold around his waist.  At least with Miz being the color commentator on Main Event, the belt will be visible.  I guess.

What I Want to Happen: Barrett knocks out Miz in less than a minute, then gets on the mic and challenges anyone.  Bo Dallas hops out of the crowd and says, “remember when he we had that feud that got dropped inexplicably?  Well, I’m back!”  Impromptu match, new champion.  Not that I really WANT Barrett to lose, per se, but I sure would like something interesting to happen with this formerly meaningful championship.

 

2.  8 person tag team match: Tons of Funk (Brodus Clay & Tensai) + The Funkadactyls (Naomi & Cameron) vs. The Rhodes Scholars (Damien Sandow & Cody Rhodes) & The Bella Twins (Brie & Nikki)

This match will either be first or be the filler before the main event.  I’m listing them in order of importance though, so I’ll start here.

The Road: Cody Rhodes was seriously considering crossing heel-face locker room battle lines to ask out the Divas champion, Kaitlyn.  Sandow, intentionally or not, nipped this in the bud by reintroducing the Bella Twins.  The Bellas then introduced themselves to the Funkadactyls by beating them up.  Since the Scholars and the Bellas have now become an inseperable foursome, Sandow & Rhodes were more than happy to put the Funky Ones on their radar as representatives of the unenlightened masses.  It remains to be seen if Cody is fully on board with his fellow heels or if his eyes are staring longingly down the hall toward what might have been.

What Will Probably Happen: The heels have been getting victories and one-ups at every turn in the last few weeks.  Therefore, wrestling logic dictates that the faces will prevail.  Especially if this is the pay-per-view opener.

What I Want to Happen: I love the Scholars as best friends.  It was adorable the way they wore each others’ authentic WWEShop T-shirts on Raw.  But all friendships go through trials and tribulations.  I would like Kaitlyn to distract Cody and complicate the brewing love pentagon that has been teased.  But who am I kidding?  Mid-card feuds don’t get that complicated and I’m sure Kaitlyn telling Cody to shove it was considered the end of that (non) angle.

 

3. Chris Jericho vs. Fandango

The Road: This was a head-scratcher at first.  Last year, Jericho came back to challenge for the WWE Championship.  This year, he’s facing the latest NXT call-up.  Weird.  Anyway, Fandango’s deal is that he won’t wrestle unless his name is pronounced correctly, which has proven impossible for anyone who tries it, because that’s how heels operate.  When Fandango interrupted a Jericho backstage promo for no reason whatsoever, Jericho also got his name wrong, in the process, rattling off a list of clearly wrong Jericho-isms like Fan-dingbat, etc.  Since then, Fandango has been attacking Y2J at every turn, dropping Alabama Jams on him and demanding Jericho say his name.

What Will Probably Happen: Chris Jericho has spent the latter half of his career and (even more so in his latest return) putting people over.  Jericho has been losing so much that it has lost its impact.  The intended effect is “wow, that guy beat Jericho, he must be good.”  But it’s been happening so much, now it’s more like, “Why is Jericho a jobber?”  Jericho is a great performer and I’ve heard nothing but good things about Johnny Curtis (Fandango) so this could be a card highlight.  And then Jericho will lose.

What I Want to Happen: As much as I hate seeing Y2J do the job yet again, I don’t see how a win would help him.  It would only hurt Fandango.  So for once, my wants are lined up with what will probably happen.  What I DON’T want to happen is for Curtis to break his ass doing the Alabama Jam.  That is one move WWE doesn’t have to worry about me trying at home.

 

4. Tag Team Championship: Team Hell No (Kane & Daniel Bryan) [champions] vs. Dolph Ziggler (with AJ Lee) & Big E. Langston

The Road: D-Bry & Kane are both part of AJ Lee’s storyline dating history, so Bryan took great pleasure in seeing her accidentally doused with water by Ricardo Rodriguez.  Over the weeks, Ziggler has scored singles victories over both tag champions and Big E has laid down unprovoked beatings as exclamation points.  Team Hell No finally laid out a Wrestlemania challenge, which was accepted.  This will be Big E. Langston’s first match in WWE.  …Not counting the fact that he is the NXT champion.  WWE has had a hard time deciding if NXT exists or not.  They mention it every time a rookie is on television, yet its storylines don’t count in main roster canon.

What Will Probably Happen: This is a true clash of opposing “rules.”  The faces getting beaten down constantly means that they should win.  But no one loses their debut.  So will Hell No get their revenge and retain or will Big E win a title in his first match?  It’s a tough call.  I fear Bryan and Kane will be arguing and the heels will get the jump on them for a victory in mere seconds.  Then it can become a running gag that Daniel Bryan loses championships at Wrestlemania in under a minute every year.  Or I can see Ziggler calling AJ up to the apron for a kiss and that costs them the titles quickly.  The story could be that it’s AJ Lee who is a Wrestlemania curse.  OR, Ziggler could get the kiss and have Langston run interference for him; this way they can acknowledge history and DZ can say he was too smart for that.  I honestly don’t know what will happen, but my gut says that since we didn’t get the champions breaking up on the road to WM, they will probably keep the belts here.

What I Want to Happen: I want “Ziggy & Biggie” to capture the gold, have Dolph cash in on his world title Money in the Bank, have Big E be the American who can beat Antonio Cesaro in an impromptu match, and have AJ beat Kaitlyn for the Divas title.  Then they can all come out the next night on Raw with their 4 championships.  The internet wrestling community would wet its collective pants with delight.

 

5. Ryback vs. Mark Henry

The Road: There will be no flying head scissors in this battle of the big boys.  This a feud that began simply by the two behemoths passing each other on the entrance ramp.  It has since escalated to a personal level.  At a bench pressing exhibition, Henry stopped Ryback from beating his mark by grabbing the bar and attempting to murder his rival.  Since he technically did not touch him, the no contact clause was not violated.  I don’t often agree with Jerry Lawler, but he got it right that that is a very dubious technicality.  Ryback countered on Raw by throwing Santino at the world’s strongest man.

What Will Probably Happen: See in that picture how Ryback is clearly in front of Mark?  What do you think is going to happen?  What’s going to happen is that I will be weeping openly into my ‘Bent on Destruction’ shirt when my boy gets shell shocked by that big bald doofus.

What I Want to Happen: I love everything about Mark Henry.  I love the way his squash matches are old school squash matches where he no sells everything.  Santino can’t hang with him so he beats him in two moves!  I love the way he yells stuff like, “That’s what I do!!!!”  Mark Henry randomly yelling stuff is hilarious.  I love his theme song.  That is why I can forgive him for trying to murder Ryback because it says right in the lyrics that he is going to murder people.  Ryback should have known better, honestly.  I love Henry so much right now, I even hesitate to call him my second favorite wrestler.  I’ve been leaning toward CM Punk as 1-A and Henry as 1-B.  So obviously, I want Henry to world’s strongest slam Ryback so hard that it breaks the ring and Ryback has to be pulled from television until Summerslam to sell that he was almost dead from being Mark Henry’d.  That’s what I do!

 

6. Randy Orton, Sheamus & The Big Show vs. The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns)

The Road: The Shield have been coming through the crowd to beat down babyfaces since Survivor Series.  Usually, the heels involved in the match that gets interrupted just leave, but Big Show was still recovering from the fight when he got accidentally bumped during a Shield-induced melee.  He retaliated with an instinctive knockout punch.  This put Show on the Shield’s radar, so they laid him out on the following Raw.  When Ryback got pulled from this six man tag match in order to face Mark Henry, Randy & Sheamus were left without a partner.  Big Show offered to fill the spot, but the faces were reluctant.  The Giant is cranky and unpredictable.  Could they really trust him if they put a heel on their team?  The trio have since had a series of matches together, with mixed results.  But whenever The Shield tries to attack, the three men have stood back to back, ready for the fight.  It appears that as long as they continue to share a common enemy, all will be okay.  For now.

What Will Probably Happen: This is another tough one to call.  Teams that had John Cena and Ryback on them couldn’t take down the Shield.  This seems to me like a weaker team than the last one that faced them.  And the combustible element of two faces teaming with a heel leaves the door wide open for disagreements to be their downfall.  On the other hand, that could be just what they want us to think so it will be a “surprise” when they pull off the victory.  And the “hounds of justice” has just about run its course.  How long are these guys going to keep doing run-ins and hardly ever wrestling?  Ultimately, I feel like the thing that makes the most sense is for the Shield to win while the reluctant allies blow up and start a feud amongst themselves so that they’ll all have something to do post-Mania.

What I Want to Happen: Like I said, the Shield gimmick has run its course.  Despite the push they’re getting, I feel like they’ve hit a wall.  I’d like to see them broken up and given something new to do.  Like wrestle in more matches, for one.

 

PART 2 will be posted tomorrow where I’ll run down the top half of the card.

 

Tagged: AJ Lee, antonio cesaro, bella twins, big e langston, brodus clay, chris jericho, cody rhodes, Damien Sandow, daniel bryan, dean ambrose, dolph ziggler, fandango, funkadactyls, kaitlyn, kane, mark henry, randy orton, rhodes scholars, roman reigns, ryback, seth rollins, sheamus, tensai, the big show, the miz, the shield, tons of funk, Wade Barrett, wrestlemania