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Greg DeMarco Forecast: Top WWE WrestleMania 32 Matches
411Mania’s Greg DeMarco knows it’s never too late to look ahead to WrestleMania 32, so he’s here to forecast the top matches on the card!
WrestleMania 32, held in Dallas at AT&T Stadium (aka the Jerry Dome) on April 3, 2016, is a lot closer than it appears. The Road to WrestleMania is always shorter than we expect, leaving many fans to complain about the lack of build for the major matches.
But with the Royal Rumble right around the corner (January 24 to be exact), the top matches for Dallas are not overly hard to decipher.
Necessary Assumptions
As much fun as it is to dream, there are some necessary assumptions you need to make about WrestleMania. These are givens, and won’t change. It’s not worth trying to change them in your mind, because you’ll just be frustrated come April 3. Instead I recommend accepting them now and allowing yourself to be entertained by them.
Trust me, it’s not that hard.
Here are the assumptions:
– The top three matches will feature the following six wrestlers: Roman Reigns, John Cena, The Undertaker, Brock Lesnar, Triple H and The Rock. The Rock’s recent announcement, assuming he’s wrestling, really eliminated any chance of an opening for someone else to break out of the midcard.
– Seth Rollins, Randy Orton and (sorry folks) Daniel Bryan won’t be wrestling on this card. I know you think the WWE is sandbagging Bryan’s injury for the Royal Rumble, but when Kane enters at #30 just remember that Greg DeMarco told you this would happen.
– “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Hul Hogan, and Ric Flair are not wrestling. If for some reason they team Flair with Charlotte, it isn’t in one of the main events.
– Roman Reigns is holding the WWE World Heavyweight Championship until, and past, WrestleMania. He’ll be making tons of appearances as champion en route to Dallas, which will be his mainstream media coming out party. If you don’t like ol’ Succotash Tater Tots now, you’ll really hate him once you hit the end of The Road to WrestleMania!
– We’re not likely to get a major NXT call-up who is inserted into a big position in time for WrestleMania. We all know those happen after ‘Mania, and it’s likely to be Finn Balor. In short, you are NOT getting the Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn match that seemingly everyone posting in Facebook groups lists as part of their card.
Once you accept these truths about WrestleMania, the card is much easier to decipher.
Your Three Main Events
I don’t care what CM Punk tells you, there is more than one WrestleMania main event. And he’s been in two of them already (vs. Jericho and vs. Undertaker). WrestleMania 32 will feature three main events, and as I already said they will feature Roman Reigns, John Cena, The Undertaker, Brock Lesnar, Triple H and The Rock.
So let’s chart these sumbitches out:
As an aside (and fuel to the IWC fire), WrestleMania 29 featured the following six performers in its three main events: John Cena, The Rock, The Undertaker, CM Punk, Triple H and Brock Lesnar. So you remove CM Punk, add Roman Reigns, move ahead three years and *POOF* you have the top of WrestleMania 32. Seth Rollins’ injury plays a large role in this, however.
So the real task is to slot the six performers into their three matches. Roman Reigns will face the winner of the Royal Rumble, which basically eliminates The Rock (even though that would be a great match-up to do). From there, it’s wide open among the other four main eventers.
John Cena can literally be slotted anywhere, although I can’t see them putting him opposite The Rock for a Thrice-In-A-Lifetime affair. And storylines don’t really point to Cena versus Triple H either.
Lastly, for the obvious eliminations, Triple H and The Undertaker had what really felt like a final encounter at WrestleMania 28, so I think we can rule that out.
I color-coded the eliminations in red, here:
Triple H versus The Rock has been teased before, and while it doesn’t seem likely today, I will list it as a possibility. I also feel comfortable ruling out The Undertaker versus Brock Lesnar, and probably should have done so above.
The person currently left with the least amount of possibilities is The Rock, so let’s make a decision on him. Is he facing The Undertaker or Brock Lesnar? While both could work, I’d put my money on Vince McMahon going with today’s biggest draw versus history’s biggest draw who is still available (i.e. not named “Stone Cold” Steve Austin).
Thus, I am marking The Rock vs. Brock Lesnar in blue, making it official for this column. I will also eliminate the rest of their potential pairings.
Your updated graphic:
Now that we all know what cookin’ Brock Lesnar and The Rock will be smelling in Dallas, we can actually fill in the rest by default. Since we already eliminated Triple H vs. John Cena, we are left with one match for Trips. And it makes perfect sense since I don’t see The Undertaker winning the Royal Rumble.
So we as fans finally get the WrestleMania showdown that at least some of us have been requesting for years: The Undertaker vs. John Cena.
That’s a money match-up, one that deserves a stage as big as AT&T Stadium for WrestleMania. Keep in mind, this could be The Undertaker’s curtain call as well. I can’t think of a better opponent than John Cena to serve as his opponent.
You’re already hating me, but here’s the updated graphic to sort it all out:
Get ready for it folks, because at the Royal Rumble it will be TIME TO PLAY THE GAME!
Your 2016 Royal Rumble winner is…….
And if you’re truly honest with yourself, this is obviously what they’re setting up. I know it’s easy to think they’ll do this at the Royal Rumble, but that match sells itself. Much like they did two years ago with Daniel Bryan, and last year with Seth Rollins, the WWE is blatantly foreshadowing their WrestleMania world title scenario by launching a feud between Roman Reigns and Triple H ever since Seth Rollins’ unfortunate injury.
I probably could have plugged this match in first, but taking the long way around was much more fun!
Roman Reigns defending the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against Triple H makes total sense to me. Triple H was technically involved in the WrestleMania 30 title picture, and he’ll be even more involved this year. It’s simple: Sheamus fails to win the title back from Reigns on Monday’s Raw, despite having Vince McMahon as the referee, so Trips enters himself in the Rumble. He gets help from either the League Of Nations or The Wyatt Family, and wins the Royal Rumble.
Triple H also goes on to be the third straight Rumble to fail to win the championship at WrestleMania, and the seventh out of the past nine years. Also, looking at the list, Triple H has the best chance of being treated like a heel by the WrestleMania crowd against Roman Reigns.
So there you have it, your three WrestleMania main events!
The Rock versus Brock Lesnar
John Cena versus The Undertaker
WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns versus Triple H
It looks like this:
For funsies, I have a two others to throw into the mix:
The League of Nations versus The Wyatt Family
The WWE seems to love 8-man tag team matches lately, and this could really break up the card. Plus it would be fun to see the WrestleMania crowd treat the Wyatts as faces, which they definitely would.
The New Day versus ???
I don’t know exactly who The New Day faces at WrestleMania, but I know they’ll be in a match, on the main card. It just makes sense given how over they are—not just with the WWE audience, but several mainstream media outlets as well. Money talks, and these guys are drawing money.
There’s obviously more, because we won’t end at five matches. But my goal was to establish the main event, and like it or not, learn to love it, because it’s WrestleMania!
Greg DeMarco is a wrestling fan of over 30 years and has worked on the independent circuit as a promoter, announcer, character and booker. As a featured contributor, Greg has been applying his opinionated style to the world of pro wrestling for 411Mania since October 2010… and has been pissing readers off ever since!
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