Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Shades of Wrestlemania - 6 Months in Advance

I know, I know, Wrestlemania is not for another 6 months, but for true wrestling geeks like me, we can't help but get excited for it already. So like a kid trying to guess what he's getting for Christmas in the summer, I took the time to guess what matches we will be seeing at the end of March when the WWE gives us the 24th installment of the Grand-Daddy-of-them-all

So without further ado, I proudly present to you, my predicted card for Wrestlemania 24!



WWE Title: Orton © vs. Triple H

This one really appears to be a given right now. The WWE had wanted this to be their big Wrestlemania Match 3 years ago, and you know that they want it to happen again. I’m sure that they have wanted it to happen every year since then. The return of HBK allows Orton to have a feud in the interim and gives them a chance to stretch out H’s “big win”.

World Title: Edge © vs. The Undertaker

When it comes to Mania matches, they usually come in two varieties, fresh, exciting “Dream Matches” and age old “Grudge Matches”. This one is oddly a bit of both. The feud between these two started back in May when Edge cashed in his ill-gotten-gains and won Taker’s Title, making this a grudge match. Somehow, these two veterans have never squared off in a big time one-on-one match (sure they Taker helped squash Edge many times back when he was in a tag team with Christian, but that doesn’t count), thus making this a special dream match as well. I think that the vibe of this match works better with Edge as the champion for some reason, but it could go either way. Also, Edge can claim that since he never finished last year’s MITB Match (and ended up winning the briefcase anyway) that he is still undefeated at Mania, so we can have a Streak vs. Streak Match.

ECW Title: John Morrison © vs. Ric Flair

ECW and SD have recently announced that they are sharing their rosters, which makes the ECW Title open to anyone currently on Smackdown, including the hiatusing Nature Boy. This presents an interesting opportunity for Flair to go for the ECW Title. Sure it may not mean much at the moment, but Flair winning the title could help it out, plus he would be the only wrestler in history to win the NWA, WCW, WWF, and ECW Titles, not a bad list I dare say. Plus after Flair wins and retires, they could set up a tournament for the vacant title and take a chance to “reset” the ECW Title scene.

Batista vs. Lashley

I’ve always kind of liked it when they do special Inter-Promotional matches at Wrestlemania and I see this being a huge opportunity for both men. Since their respective brands title pictures are already full and Batista is really low on fresh opponents, so why not have a special Dream Match of two of the WWE’s best big men? This could be done as either a straight face vs. face match, or have one of them (preferably Batista) turn heel.

Shawn Michaels vs. Rey Mysterio

Here we are with another Special Inter-promotional match, which we have never seen in a big time setting. Sure it happened at the Eddie Guerrero Tribute Edition of RAW, but usually shows like that are ignored when it comes to WWE Cannon. So this could easily be booked as a First Time Ever Match. I think that both men make too good of faces to turn either of them. If the WWE gives these two 20 minutes to flat out go, we should have Wrestlemania moments for years to come.

Chris Jericho vs. Mr. Kennedy

We all know that Jericho is coming back, it’s just a given really! I can’t even begin to say how awesome of a feud I would find this one to be. I love both guys promo work and think that this could really work. The face-heel dynamics would be interesting since they both make such awesome heels, but Jericho would probably return as a face, and Kennedy always gets a ton of face pops. I think that this match could be awesome if they had Jericho go in as the face, Kennedy as the heel and tried to pull the ol’ Double Turn.

United States Title: MVP © vs. Matt Hardy

I think that if there is any current feud in the WWE that can be stretched out for another six months it is this one! I love the dynamic between these two, and feel that it deserves a huge blow-off match at the grandest stage of them all. The build would be pretty simple, just have them continue to work as Partners for a little bit longer, before they lose the title (to a team listed below…) and end up having a match at the Royal Rumble, where MVP retains. He gets some high priced lawyers to say that was Hardy’s last chance and he wants to move onto some other opponent. Come No Way Out, Hardy somehow wins some sort of multi-man match or mini-rumble to get a shot at the US Title at Mania. The only downfall of having this match here is that it would ideally be a Ladder Match, but they can’t really get away with having two Ladder Matches on the card. Still, they could easily make in a No DQ match and it wouldn’t lose much luster.

Women’s Title: Beth Phoenix © vs. Kelly Kelly

There needs to be a Women’s Title Match at Mania, and there are rumours of an Extreme Expose edition of Playboy coming out in March. The WWE loves to reuse the idea of having the Playboy gal go for the Women’s Title, and I see no reason why this year would be any different.

WWE Tag Title: Khali and Big Daddy V © vs. Harry Smith and Ted Dibiase Jr.

I know this one is a stretch, but hear me out. First off, they need to get the Tag Titles off of MVP & Hardy eventually, but the tag scene on the blue brand is pretty lame. Now that SD and ECW are sharing rosters, they have a great chance to create a Colossal Connection type team with Khali and Big Daddy V, since they clearly are not going to fire either of these guys. They could run rampant over the Tag Division for months before a new tag team “The Next Generation”, consisting of the sons of The British Bulldog and The Million Dollar Man, step up and challenge the dominant champs at the biggest show of the year. Come on, it practically writes itself!

Money in the Bank: Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk vs. Umaga vs. Kane vs. Santino Marella vs. Finlay vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Carlito

It’s a yearly tradition, and a pretty dang good one I dare say! The cast-offs of the other matches all getting lumped together in one crazy spot-fest. The group I have this year may not have the same star power that they had last year with Orton, Edge, and Booker, but it would still be a pretty darned good match. Of the potentials I have listed, I think that Punk, Hardy or Umaga would be the most intriguing winners.


And that concludes that. Hope you enjoyed, in 6 months I'll look back and see how right I was!

Until next time,

G

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