411’s WWE WrestleMania 38 (Night Two) Preview

Hello 411 guys, gals, enbies, and everyone else! Welcome to 411’s WrestleMania 38 Night Two preview! I’m Jeremy Thomas as always, and night one is in the books — or will be by the time you read this. We’ve had some very big moments, title changes, returns and more (I’m assuming, at least). Now we move onto Night Two, where with any luck WWE will be able to follow up on its momentum with some great bouts. There are ones that certainly have potential to do so — and ones that I question the wisdom of, but such is all WWE PPVs. Anyway, we have plenty to discuss so let’s just jump in!

Pat McAfee vs. Austin Theory

Image Credit: WWE

The building up of Austin Theory has been an interesting development on Raw. Not that the storyline has been all that interesting, to be clear; rather, the idea that Vince McMahon has been directly involved in Theory’s rise to a point in the midcard. It obviously suggests that Vince (and thus WWE Creative) see a lot in Theory’s potential, though it should be noted that as we all know, a Vince endorsement doesn’t necessarily mean a successful run in WWE (hello, Drew McIntyre’s first run). That said, putting him in a high-profile match against Pat McAfee is giving Theory every chance to get over with the fans. McAfee is in a weird spot in terms of a WrestleMania match because he is a WWE regular, but still hits some level of celebrity status since he has plenty of fame outside of his WWE work. Both Theory and McAfee can deliver at some level in the ring; the question becomes how many McMahon-related shenanigans will come into play. The fact that McAfee is seen within WWE as more of an announcer than a competitor or outside celebrity probably means that Theory picks up his first WrestleMania win, and honestly I’m okay with that because establishing a player in Raw’s midcard is more valuable than putting over McAfee considering there’s already one celebrity match on Sunday (not to mention the Logan Paul picking up his win on Night One).

WINNER: Austin Theory

Bobby Lashley vs. Omos

Image Credit: WWE

WWE has had some obsessive desire with getting Omos a singles match on WrestleMania 38, and I guess I just don’t get it. Omos has undoubtedly been successful in his WWE run to date, mostly because of the canny decision to pair him with a workhorse in AJ Styles as a tag team. Now that they’re split, he’s been largely working handicap matches which — eh, they’ve been fine I suppose. He’s a big guy, but I don’t get the need to get the giant on the main card. Nevertheless, here we are and he’s facing Lashley in what is not likely to be a stellar match. Lashley is back as a babyface to face off with Omos, and I have questions as to the shelf life of a babyface Lashley, but we’ll see how that goes. WWE is going to need to crown a new champion for one of the brands if they do still want brand champions after ‘Mania as has been reported, and solidifying Lashley after his turn would be a wise move if it ends up being the Raw brand champion. Meanwhile, Omos can take a loss here because he’s been booked so dominantly since splitting from Styles. All that suggests that Lashley is the clear choice to win this match.

WINNER: Bobby Lashley

WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Match
Queen Zelina & Carmella vs. Sasha Banks & Naomi vs.
Rhea Ripley & Liv Morgan vs. Natalya & Shayna Baszler

Image Credit: WWE

The Women’s Tag Team Championships need a shot in the arm, and badly. Since winning the titles in November, Queen Zelina and Carmella have only defended them a single time and they’ve become the biggest afterthought in WWE since Shotzi hit the main roster. Here’s a chance for them to remind people that the titles exist, and the best way to do that is crown new champions. I don’t see a heel-to-heel transition doing much here, as Natalya and Shayna are just kind of there as a team right now; that brings it to our two babyface teams. Sasha Banks and Naomi have a lot of fan support behind them and understandably so, but I suspect that Banks may end up being eyed as a solo title challenger soon since we’re probably having a title change on Saturday (as I’m writing this, it’s still early in Night One). That brings us to Ripley and Morgan. Ripley needs to be built up a bit after she dropped out of the title scene and then failed to capture the Women’s Tag Titles with Nikki A.S.H., while Morgan has been denied a title reign for a while despite the fans obviously being behind her. If it’s booked well and leans heavily on the match’s better performers we could have a fun little bout here, and in the end, I’m picking Morgan and Ripley to get the win and the straps.

WINNER: Liv Morgan & Rhea Ripley (NEW WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions)

Anything Goes Match
Johnny Knoxville vs. Sami Zayn

Image Credit: WWE

Each night of WrestleMania gets a celebrity match this year — and you know what, I’m okay with that. One thing WWE has proven over the last few years is that they’ve been able to actually find celebrities and train them well enough that they can go in the ring. Johnny Knoxville has been perfectly fine thus far, even if he’s no Bad Bunny, and his feud with Sami Zayn has been funnier than I expected. I was worried that WWE wouldn’t have the ability to extend this feud as long as they did, but they pulled it off moderately well. No matter how good or bad Knoxville is in the ring, we know Zayn can likely carry him to a watchable match at the very least. Given that Logan Paul picked up the win on Saturday, you would think this would open up Zayn to pick up the win here — and yet, I still think the Jackass star takes this one. Zayn’s character only gets better when he loses matches like this, and I expect that he’ll take a loss here — likely due to jackassery of some kind — which will be fine with me.

WINNER: Johnny Knoxville

Raw Tag Team Championship Match
RK-Bro vs. The Street Profits vs. Alpha Academy

Image Credit: WWE

I’ve been on record as saying that the success of RK-Bro has legitimately surprised me. I was never a huge fan of Riddle, and really expected this to be a way to get him to feud with Orton. Instead, they’ve become an incredibly entertaining team that has not only rejuvenated Orton, but helped Riddle develop immensely in terms of his character. All that said, I still rather expected that they would end up splitting for a solo match against each other at WrestleMania and I’m actually glad I was wrong. They’ve had great runs as Raw Tag Team Champions and made a lot of things palatable when they otherwise wouldn’t be. Meanwhile, Alpha Academy is another team that’s been better than the two members individually, and Street Profits are always solid as a tag team. I say all that to mean that this has everything it needs to be a great match. At this point I would only see one reason to take the titles off RK-Bro, and that would be if they do plan to split Riddle and Orton. That could be the plan for a SummerSlam feud, but I do think there’s still steam in their run as a team, so I’m going to predict that they retain in what should be an enjoyable three-way dance.

WINNER: RK-Bro (STILL Raw Tag Team Champions)

Edge vs. AJ Styles

Image Credit: WWE

I am still amazed that Edge is a semi-regular WWE competitor in 2022. I know, it’s been a long time at this point, but it’s still wild. Putting him on the WrestleMania card was a no-brainer, though I would not have predicted at the start of the year that you would turn him heel to battle a babyface AJ Styles on the show. And yet, here we are. It almost goes without saying that Edge and AJ are both magic in the ring, and I’m incredibly excited to see what they can do. WWE reportedly has big plans for Edge that involve him getting his own stable, and I could see that following up either a loss or win here. But we also know that Edge loves his long feuds, and I don’t think he’s going to be done with Styles yet. If they want to keep going, you have more options if Edge gets the win here. This is probably the hardest match of the night to predict, and I wouldn’t be shocked to be wrong, but I am going with the Rated-R Superstar.

WINNER: Edge

Winner Take All Championship Unification
Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar

Image Credit: WWE

I mean, when it comes to night two this is what we’re all here for, right? Don’t get me wrong; I am looking forward to a lot of matches on Sunday’s card. There’s some really good stuff in the matches above. But this is the match that WWE has been booking practically the entire promotion around for quite a while. Lesnar vs. Reigns for all the marbles was an obvious choice for WrestleMania, and while it seems like they’ve been fighting forever they’ve actually done a fairly good job of keeping these two apart. You have all the story elements WWE loves here: the Irresistible Force vs. the Immovable Object, the question of whose side Paul Heyman is on, the title unification. Question the wisdom of that last bit all you want (I do), but you can’t deny that WWE has gone all in on making this match seem as important as it can possibly be.

Reigns and Lesnar have proven that they have good chemistry in the ring, so there isn’t a question as to whether we can expect good things from the in-ring work. The big question is who walks away with the titles. On one hand, Roman Reigns’ title reign has been ridiculously dominant at this point. He’s been champion for 576 days and in modern WWE terms, that’s a whole eon. At some point someone has to take the title off him — and if not Brock, then who? On the other hand, Lesnar isn’t someone you want to put your sole main event championship on unless he’s going to stick around for a while, and that’s just not The Beast’s style. Furthermore, when Reigns does lose the title, that will be friggin’ huge for someone and Lesnar does NOT need the win. Add that into the single champion factor, and I can’t see how Reigns doesn’t walk away with the titles when WrestleMania 38 is said and done.

WINNER: Roman Reigns (NEW Unified WWE Universal Champion)

And that’s all we have for night two of WrestleMania 38! The first night was by and large a good show up to the point that I’m writing this, and I expect Night Two will be able to follow it up well. Thanks once again for reading and remember that we will have live coverage of the show courtesy our own Scott Slimmer right here on 411mania.com. Now, I have to go, but before I do, I’m going to check with an expert and see if my predictions are correct…

Image Credit: WWE