We are just two days away from WWE’s biggest pay-per-view event of the year, Wrestlemania 35, on April 7th at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
As of this moment, the card looks incredibly deep from top to bottom. Multiple championships are on the line as WWE champion Daniel Bryan defends his title against The New Day’s Kofi Kingston, WWE Universal champion Brock Lesnar faces Seth Rollins, WWE Intercontinental champion Bobby Lashley takes on Finn Balor, and WWE United States champion Samoa Joe battles Rey Mysterio.
Hollywood star Dave Bautista, also known as the ‘Animal’ Batista, will step in the ring for the first time since 2014 to settle an old score with Triple H in a NO Holds Barred match. WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle will also have his farewell match at Mania and he’s scheduled to face Baron Corbin.
Of course, history will be made as three ladies will be the protagonists of the main event at Wrestlemania. This year’s Women’s Royal Rumble winner Becky Lynch, WWE Smackdown women’s champion Charlotte Flair and WWE RAW women’s champion Ronda Rousey will be fighting for women’s division supremacy in a triple-threat match.
Wrestlemania 35 is shaping up to be a spectacle with so many intriguing matchups on the card. And there could be more surprises to come. The Undertaker, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Shawn Michaels, John Cena… Anyone of these guys could appear during the show.
But the biggest question that lies ahead is what’s next after Wrestlemania? Who will be the champions? Who will be the new challengers to the crown? What’s the next big rivalry for the remainder of the year?
Here are the four potential storylines to look forward after the Grandest Stage of them All.
Roman Reigns returns to the championship picture
As reported by pro-wrestling insider Dave Meltzer, Seth Rollins is projected to win his WWE Universal match against Brock Lesnar. And with Lesnar expected to leave WWE in preparation for his return in UFC this year, the company’s top poster boy Roman Reigns is set to enter the championship picture once more.
This isn’t much a shocking future storyline, if you ask hardcore WWE fans. Reigns is and has always been Vince McMahon’s pet, so it’s only logical to thrust him back to the main event. His bout and fast recovery from leukemia has evidently helped his popularity with the fans. However, it’s still very obvious that most wrestling followers don’t want to see the Big Dog grabbing the spotlight again.
As for his potential feud with Rollins, it may wait a few more months for this storyline to unfold. Rollins might still be defending the title against Brock Lesnar in the next pay-per-view after mania and he might still be facing several in-between challengers like Braun Strowman, Drew McIntyre or even Finn Balor over the next seven to eight months. Still, another Reigns vs. Rollins feud seems set for the future.
The Evil Empress of Tomorrow
WWE caught fans blindsided when they put up an impromptu match between Asuka and Charlotte Flair for the WWE Smackdown Live women’s championship last Tuesday. As we all know by now, Asuka lost the WWE championship to Flair, leaving her on a bubble heading into Wrestlemania.
While Charlotte winning the SmackDown women’s championship strap makes the main event a lot more compelling from weeks ago, a super-talented worker in Asuka is suddenly left in the dust. This sad turn of events could be the trigger fans have been waiting. Asuka could finally snap and show to the world how frightful she can be when all her principle abandoned.
Asuka direly needs an edgier and unapologetic character to connect with the fans more. Heck, this heel turn might be great for whole women’s division since there’s clearly a shortage of straight-fire female villains in the company. Asuka’s complete makeover can be even more enhance if he she aligns herself with fellow Japanese wrestlers Io Shirai and Kairi Sane, forming a truly fearsome trio to reckon with in the women’s division.
Horsewoman vs. Horsewoman feud
The battle between pro-wrestling’s foursome of Charlotte, Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks and Bayley against MMA’s quartet of Ronda Rousey, Shayna Baszler, Jessamyn Duke & Marina Shafir has been on WWE’s radar for quite some time, and this could be the year when it will finally happen.
This colossal feud has been two years in the making. Even before Ronda Rousey officially committed with WWE, the promotion was already planting the seeds for this epic showdown to happen way back in 2017 in the final of the inaugural Mae Young Classic.
In fact, WWE initially planned to stage the horsewoman vs horsewoman match at last year’s Survivor Series, but Duke and Shafir were still greenhorns at that time. Fast-forward to the present, and the duo of Duke and Shafir appears more than ready to step up their game to a higher level. WWE have already involved the two in the storyline with Baszler and Sane and already put them in several tag-team matches, including a confrontation with a much more experienced tandem of Shirai and Sane at NXT.
According to Meltzer, the storyline for the horsewoman vs horsewoman match could unravel just weeks after Wrestlemania and this will culminate in a full-fledged four-on-four showcase at SummerSlam in August.
The End of the New Day
This might be perhaps the most depressing post-Wrestlemania storyline, where we could see the New Day disband in front of our eyes.
After going through all kinds of tests at the hands of Vince McMahon, Kofi Kingston finally secured a date with WWE champion Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania 35, thanks to a courageous performance by Xavier Woods and Big E. Kingston’s tag-team partners went through five stages of hell in a very grueling gauntlet match to once and for all give their friend a title shot he deserves at the biggest stage of them all.
Now the fun, I mean the sad part begins. With Kingston reaching the pinnacle of his career, jealousy would slowly cripple in the minds of Woods and Kingston. Of course, Kingston will have some title defenses against Bryan, Kevin Owens and probably AJ Styles. He could even lose the title at some point, especially if his reign turns boring.
Still, there’s something in the air that is telling that Big E and Woods will turn on their friend around SummerSlam. As heartbreaking as the Shield breakup was, the incoming New Day disbandment might be even more agonizing to see. The New Day is such a class act and merchandize box-office to say the least, but it’s time for each individual to grow. Unfortunately, the only way for them to grow is to part ways so they can make a name for themselves. This would truly be a new era without the New Day.
Author: Lou Anguila
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