The Story is Never Finished: WrestleMania XL Predictions
Cody Rhodes has to win. But don't be surprised when he doesn't.
WrestleMania is always overloaded with meaning. WWE’s showcase event must deliver a satisfying climax to months or years of story developments. The event must also create at least one reason for people to watch Raw on Monday. It’s like a season finale and season premiere wrapped into one weekend, and the fans are ready to react negatively if they don’t get what they want.
That is all to say that this weekend’s WrestleMania XL is the most consequential edition in a decade and maybe in the 21st century. The 40th WrestleMania offers at least a half dozen matches with the potential to pay off long-term storylines, including some dating back years, and a few others that should establish new directions as the company works to separate itself from Vince McMahon. Led by a fully villainous turn from The Rock, the event features tremendous star power and a reinvigorated creative vision that is invested in putting performers in the best position to succeed. It’s taking place in Philadelphia, one of the great American wrestling cities full of smart and vocal fans who have impacted major WWE story moments in the past.
But these near certainties make me nervous. Pro wrestling thrives on swerving the audience—subverting their expectations, shocking them, pissing them off. Vince McMahon, in particular, loved using the large-scale spectacle of WrestleMania to upend sure-thing storytelling directions. His antagonism toward the audience felt more pronounced since the early 2010s when the perspectives of passionate internet communities broke containment via social platforms. Countless ‘Mania moments felt designed to thwack fans on the nose as if to remind them who was in control: CM Punk being left out of the John Cena-Rock rematch at WrestleMania 29. Bray Wyatt losing to Cena at XXX, the Undertaker at 31, and Randy Orton twice in four years. Sting losing to Triple H at 31. An Undertaker-Shane McMahon Hell a the Cell at 32. Countless Charlotte Flair victories and Roman Reigns-Brock Lesnar matches.
Last year’s two-night event was perfectly set up for a more satisfying result. The company’s extended storyline involving The Bloodline—a group led by years-long champion Roman Reigns and now The Rock—featured in Saturday and Sunday’s main events. While Reigns’ cousins the Usos were defeated in a fantastic tag team match by Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, Reigns escaped with a cheap victory against Cody Rhodes, the most popular babyface in the company. The split Bloodline results created a few new storytelling avenues, namely the disbanding of the Usos as a team, but they also kept Reigns off television for most of the year.
January’s Royal Rumble suggested that last year’s WrestleMania was all a long-term play. Rhodes won the right to again challenge Reigns. Then The Rock intervened, fans revolted, and WWE spun a bad decision into some of its best-ever moments. Rhodes and Reigns are now part of two matches at this weekend’s event: a tag team affair pairing Rhodes and Seth Rollins against Reigns and The Rock on Saturday and a singles rematch on Sunday. If the latter duo wins on Saturday, Sunday’s contest will be held under “Bloodline Rules,” which just means the evil group can interfere more than normal.
Again, storytelling logic suggests that the heightened circumstances all but guarantee a Rhodes victory on Sunday, likely after a controversial loss on Saturday sets up the stacked deck to end all stacked decks. Fans are talking themselves into Avengers: Endgame-style sequences where all the characters previously screwed over by The Bloodline—Rollins, Owens, Zayn, Jimmy “The Good One” Uso, LA Knight, Drew McIntyre—and even “Stone Cold” Steve Austin will arrive to save Cody and WWE’s storyworld once and for all. Which is why I still think there’s a chance that WWE has one more big swerve in its arsenal to get people to watch on Monday night. After all, business is booming. Why mess with a good bad thing?
Let’s run through the two-night card with my predictions and evaluations for potential subversion of expectations.
SATURDAY NIGHT
Women’s World Title match: Rhea Ripley (champion) vs. Becky Lynch
Swerve scale (out of 5): 1
The likely opening match with insanely high expectations. I’m setting the low-bar result at “top five WWE women’s match,” which is probably unfair. Ripley had an all-timer last year with Charlotte Flair and spent the next year building her star persona. She and Lynch will want to top that one this year, and I suspect they will. Both performers are hugely over with the audience and I’m not sure what a Becky victory does at this point. Rhea wins.
Six-Pack ladder match for the Undisputed Tag Team Championship: Finn Bálor and Damien Priest (c) vs. Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa vs. The Miz and R-Truth vs. Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston vs. Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne vs. Austin Theory and Grayson Waller
Swerve scale: 3
It’s a 12-person ladder match for unified tag team titles crying out to be de-unified. If everyone is predicting a split result, with two teams grabbing different sets of belts, is it a swerve? It’s hard to do that split result with the champions retaining, so I predict a face/heel divide with The Miz and R-Truth and Theory and Waller winning.
Intercontinental Championship match: Gunther (c) vs. Sami Zayn
Swerve scale: 2
Gunther is the longest-reigning Intercontinental Champion in history. Sami Zayn is a historically beloved underdog character who got his ass beat by Gunther on Raw this week. A Zayn victory would set Gunther up for bigger storylines in the summer, but this story hasn’t been going for that long and Zayn got a huge moment at last year’s event. Gunther retains.
Jey Uso vs. Jimmy Uso
Swerve scale: 2
Even if WWE screws with fans elsewhere in The Bloodline universe, it feels like a Jey Uso win is as close to a sure-thing result as this weekend offers.
Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill, and Naomi vs. Damage CTRL (Asuka, Dakota Kai, and Kairi Sane)
Swerve scale: 2
This is Jade Cargill’s first real match after the former AEW star debuted at January’s Royal Rumble. She, Belair, and Naomi should win in a fun, if probably too short, match that tees up some Damage CTRL division on Sunday.
Rey Mysterio and Dragon Lee vs. Santos Escobar and Dominic Mysterio
Swerve scale: 3
Something weird has to happen here, I think. Dirtbag Dom cannot lose to his father again, but there’s some simmering tension between him and his Judgment Day compatriots for his involvement in this more personal business. Andrade lingers as well. Could this be the event’s one stupid DQ result setting up a more convoluted match at the next Premium Live Event? Let’s say so.
Roman Reigns and The Rock vs. Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins
Swerve scale: 5
The real swerve would be lampshading the “Bloodline Rules” stipulation and then having Rhodes and Rollins win, nullifying it altogether. But that would create a different role for The Rock on Sunday, and I think WWE wants him out there from the jump. The bigger question is how Reigns and The Rock defeat two guys who have championship matches the next night. Rollins taking the pin is boring and Rollins turning on Rhodes is way too easy. Everyone involved here, including creative head Triple H, will want to lay it on really thick for Sunday. That means we get a parallel result to last year’s Reigns/Rhodes match with Solo Sikoa interference, Cody losing the match for his team, and an extended beatdown after the fact. Cody will bleed.
SUNDAY NIGHT
World Heavyweight Championship match: Seth Rollins (c) vs. Drew McIntyre
Swerve scale: 5
The hardest outcome to predict all weekend. Smart business says Rollins can’t lose twice, but McIntyre is doing the best work of his career as King Troll and also can’t seriously lose to Rollins for this title for the third time in a year. There are two wildcard elements here: the injured CM Punk on commentary and Money in the Bank holder Damien Priest.
WWE might want to play this one straight if the main event is going to be an overstuffed showcase, but Punk is getting involved and Priest’s time with the briefcase is running out. Priest cashing in his title shot mid-match, as Rollins did at WrestleMania 31, only to be pinned by McIntyre sounds good to me. It sets up Drew-Punk down the road and Rollins loses twice without being pinned.
LA Knight vs. AJ Styles
Swerve scale: 1
These guys are giving it their all. They’re fighting in each other’s yards. They’re fighting at pre-Mania fan events. It'll be a fine 12 minutes that gives LA Knight some shine for growing into a legitimate star in the back half of 2023.
Triple Threat match for the United States Championship: Logan Paul (c) vs. Randy Orton vs. Kevin Owens
Swerve scale: 3
Logic says the mostly-aligned Randy Orton and Kevin Owens get testy with one another and Logan Paul retains. But this is a secondary title and WWE loves loading up Orton’s record with accolades. He RKOs Paul into hell and wins.
Women’s Championship match: Iyo Sky (c) vs. Bayley
Swerve scale: 4
My top pick for the “Actually, That Was The Best Match” Reddit posts and tweets come Monday morning. Bayley’s journey back to the good side hasn’t been given as much airtime as the Ripley-Lynch feud, but these two can tell a hell of a story in the ring. The story energy is all about Bayley getting her big WrestleMania moment, but she’s a tremendous loser and Damage CTRL is getting involved. This feels like the big, deflating heel win of the night. Iyo retains.
Six-Man Philadelphia Street Fight: The Pride (Bobby Lashley, Angelo Dawkins, and Montez Ford) vs. The Final Testament (Karrion Kross, Akam, Rezar)
Swerve scale: 1
Someone will go through a table. The Pride win.
Undisputed WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns (c) vs. Cody Rhodes
Swerve scale: 5
I want to pick Reigns here. WWE leadership, including The Rock, has been so allegedly transparent about pivoting back to the Reigns-Rhodes match to give fans what they want. But giving fans the match they want and giving them the result they want are two very different things. Do not underestimate WWE’s desire to stir up audience hatred to tease a theoretically bigger match—Rhodes defeating Reigns and The Rock in a triple threat, perhaps—down the road.
Alas, the fan-friendly outcome (Rhodes winning) also serves everybody else involved. The big tease is for a later Rock-Reigns match that overshadows every moment of Cody’s title reign. The Bloodline keeps it in the family and still wins.
This is TV Plus, a newsletter about television written by Cory Barker, a media studies professor and veteran blogger. Readers can expect dispatches on industry trends, overlooked shows, and historical antecedents to current events.
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