'Road to WrestleMania' lackluster despite blockbuster matches
The WWE’s biggest event of the year, ‘WrestleMania 42’ is now just two weekends away, and if you’re only looking on paper, the event looks absolutely stacked.
Roman Reigns vs CM Punk and Cody Rhodes vs Randy Orton as the two presumed main events is impressive enough, but you also have a technical match made in heaven with Seth Rollins vs Gunther, a clash of two titans in Brock Lesnar vs Oba Femi, and the two best women’s championship matches possible with Stephanie Vaquer vs Liv Morgan and Jade Cargill vs Rhea Ripley.
Yet still, when I tune into Raw and SmackDown each week, while there are some bright spots, I can’t help but feel like something is definitely missing in the majority of the feuds, even with the big names involved.
I have compiled a list of what I believe the WWE has gotten right, and gotten wrong on the Road to WrestleMania 42.
Wrong: Lack of trust in big names
This is a very specific thing to point out, but I feel that the biggest issue with the current build to WrestleMania is that the WWE isn’t truly letting their household names do their thing.
When you’re talking about the main event of WrestleMania, you expect a certain level of storyline and depth to be there. Roman Reigns vs CM Punk, and Cody Rhodes vs Randy Orton are two scenarios where the wrestlers should undoubtedly have enough chemistry and story, it was just up to the WWE to tell that effectively, and while there is still time, I don’t think that has happened yet.
Orton and Rhodes go way back to 2008 when they were in ‘The Legacy’ together. They have a lot of history they should be using to push the story of this match. Instead, since Randy’s turn, we’ve seen him attack Matt Cardona and Jelly Roll, and as of tonight’s episode, align with Pat McAfee to attack Cody? I’m sorry, but in a WrestleMania feud with these two legends, I don’t want two important weeks of the build wasted on Jelly Roll, Cardona and McAfee. We’re talking about two of the GOAT’s here. Give them 20 minutes on the mic and let them cook. Let them talk about Legacy and get personal, give us a reason to be excited besides just their names. There is only one more chance next Friday.
I have much of the same issue with the CM Punk and Roman Reigns match build. This one did start off better, as Punk and Reigns had a heated promo battle that ended with Punk saying he was going to bury Reigns next to his father. My issue came a few weeks later when Roman returned. The two had another battle of words, which ended in Punk attacking Reigns after Reigns called him ‘old’. I don’t know about you, but the CM Punk I know, that just said what he said about Roman’s dad, wouldn’t get angry and start swinging over being called old. Why are holding these legends back? We know what Punk can do on the mic, and we know that Roman has improved, let them go.
The last major feud that I think the WWE has done a poor job building is Jade Cargill vs Rhea Ripley. The star power between those two should be enough to sell the match, but it’s been the promo battles that have really sunk the feud. These two had real heat going on social media when Jade accused Rhea a few weeks ago of always talking to WWE creative, and Rhea responded angrily. But, when they came out later that week for their first promo together, they flexed on each other about whose muscles were bigger and who was stronger. Since this, B-Fab and Michin have aligned with Jade, and helped things a bit, but still these two have a clear lack of chemistry, and only one more week before their match.
Right: Doing a lot with a little
With so many matches to build, there are going to be some feuds that don’t get as much television time leading up to ‘The Show of Shows’. There are two specific matches that I believe have been built extremely well despite not having a lot of time.
The difference between the Brock Lesnar vs Oba Femi story and many of the others, is that the WWE is catering the build towards the strengths of the competitors, not relying on name value. They have only had three segments together, all less than five minutes, but effective nonetheless. The Beast was not just challenged, but was dropped in back to back weeks by a newcomer who is just as strong as him. Femi looks strong, Lesnar looks threatened and us fans can’t wait to see how the match will go. Not a lot of time, extremely strong storyline.
Stephanie Vaquer and Liv Morgan have been feuding longer than Femi and Lesnar, but similarly have had short segments. Whether it was their extremely personal vignettes toward one another, or Vaquer making Morgan cry in a face-to-face interview, they continue to keep viewers wanting more. I believe they solidified this build on the March 23rd Raw when Vaquer attacked Morgan, and the two spent the next 60 seconds genuinely trying to hurt the other, even spilling into the backstage area. I’m convinced they actually hate each other, and that makes for a great WrestleMania build.
Wrong: Not going with the flow
Two specific matches on the current WrestleMania card are proof that when the WWE has it’s own pre-determined plans, they are not afraid to do anything to make those plans happen, even if it means disrupting all momentum and flow.
Fans were tired of Cody Rhodes winning everything. So when he lost the Elimination Chamber to Orton, had no more shots at the title, and it was Orton vs McIntyre set for Mania, the fans, including myself, were happy to see something new. But then just minutes later, the WWE went directly against its own ruling of not giving Rhodes another title shot, giving him one for the following Friday, which of course he won. They finally had something fresh, with Cody not in the main event of WrestleMania, but couldn’t fathom that thought. Going with the flow here would’ve looked like Drew vs Randy, or even the four-man match that was possible between those two, Rhodes, and Jacob Fatu. They did the exact opposite though because of the potential of the Cody and Randy feud, and I don’t want to decide before the match happens, but to this point, I don’t think the build was worth taking the title off Drew in such a contradictory way.
The other match that the WWE forced to be on this card is Sami Zayn vs Trick Williams. Similar to the situation above, this feud also featured a champion who had done well with the title and was stripped of it at the last second, in Carmelo Hayes. On last week’s SmackDown, Hayes unexpectedly dropped the title to Zayn, after Williams inadvertently punched Hayes during the match. Fans were reasonably upset, as Hayes had done an amazing job in his nine weeks as champion, and that was now being taken away from him right before his opportunity to walk into Mania as champ. In tonight’s SmackDown, Hayes demanded a rematch, just for Zayn to beat him again, with the excuse of Hayes suffering a leg injury that caused him to lose. If the WWE wanted Zayn and Williams in a match at WrestleMania, it could’ve been in a triple threat with Hayes going in as champ, as all three have a history with each other. Instead, they forced the title back onto Zayn, now he’s being booed as the good guy in this match, and Melo doesn’t look to have a match lined up in two weekends.
We’ll see how the WWE does with the remaining weeks of building these matches, but regardless of this all, we do still have some excellent in-ring performances to look forward to at WrestleMania.
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