Greetings. Let’s get right to it, shall we? Last week, I did the fantasy booking thing for Elimination Chamber. Let’s use that as a jumping off point to head towards a fantasy booked WrestleMania card.
Each week, I will posit a couple scenarios for the build-up to WrestleMania. We’ll take a look at what would need to be done to get to WrestleMania and what would be the end game for each storyline.
Match 1 – Dolph Ziggler versus John Cena
Let’s start with an idea that is not 100% original. In fact, Mick Foley previously suggested a similar storyline between Dolph Ziggler and John Cena. This takes that idea and runs with it. For Elimination Chamber, I thought Dolph Ziggler should destroy Apollo Crews and Kalisto with a chair after losing his match. That pretty much happened. And with his brief interview on Smackdown Live!, it looks like Ziggler is doing a whole “I’m not going to lose my spot to a bunch of youngsters” thing. Okay, fair enough. While it would make sense for one of these youngsters to step up and fight Ziggler at WrestleMania, my fantasy booking goes a slightly different way.
Now that John Cena has lost the World Title, and is seemingly out of the title picture since he’s been pinned twice now by Bray Wyatt, and we don’t know when the next reality show is going to need a host, let’s at least give him something to do at WrestleMania. I was going to have him go up against The Undertaker, but I think I can squeeze more mileage out of Cena defending the youngsters and acting as a mentor of sorts. I know that is a little different from the current motivations of Cena since he seems to be happy blowing his horn as being on a different level than the youngsters. But hear me out.
We’ve got a little time to build this feud between Cena and Ziggler, so we will start with the basic Ziggler hates the new guys and Cena has decided to defend the honor of the new guys. However, as the weeks go on, Cena’s defense of the new guys always seems to happen after Ziggler has laid them out. The new guys notice this and someone (maybe Apollo Crews) even calling Cena out on his behavior.
This leads to Renee Young doing some investigative reporting and coming to the conclusion that Cena is not really interested in fighting Ziggler in defense of the New Era. In fact, he and Ziggler tend to agree on the New Era guys. But why is Cena in Ziggler’s grill all of a sudden? Ziggler speculates that maybe Cena is jealous that he steals the show on a nightly basis and Cena is just average.
While this is being speculated about, we notice Ziggler watching Nikki Bella’s matches. Ziggler even helps Nikki defeat Natalya in a no-DQ match. Nikki does not seem to respond to Dolph’s assistance, but Ziggler keeps hanging around. One week, Nikki Bella comes out to the ring to announce her retirement from wrestling. John Cena comes out and gives Nikki a hug when she gets emotional. Then Dolph Ziggler comes out to interrupt. Ziggler congratulates Nikki on a fantastic career, even though it was hindered by being seen as Cena’s girlfriend. Ziggler points out that when he was dating her, she seemed happier, had better control over her own career, and was seen as her own woman.
Cena starts saying that is because Nikki is a brighter star than Ziggler could ever be, which infuriates Dolph. Then Dolph stops, takes a deep breath, and starts laughing. When Cena asks him what is so funny, Ziggler says that he just figured out what Cena’s issue with him is. It has nothing to do with the New Era guys or Ziggler’s excellence in the ring. Cena is simply trying to push Ziggler out of the picture for Nikki. He continues, “What’s wrong, Johnny? Does she still call my name? Is your ego too big to accept the fact that I am a better man than you?”
Cena starts throwing punches and sends Ziggler to the outside. He then turns his back and Ziggler sneaks back into the ring to set up a superkick. Nikki sees this and pushes Cena out of the way and Ziggler accidentally kicks Nikki in the jaw. Dolph immediately drops to check on Nikki, but Cena doesn’t. Instead, Cena grabs Ziggler, picks him up and hits an A.A. Medical personnel hit the ring as the segment ends.
Thus, we wind up with a Dolph Ziggler versus John Cena grudge match scheduled for WrestleMania based on a number of things – defense of the young wrestlers on the roster, wrestling ability, and most of all, the love of Nikki Bella. This match will keep Cena away from the main event, but still give him sufficient face time in front of the camera. And, I would book Ziggler to win at WrestleMania in a final attempt to make him relevant again. The loss could be just enough to tip Cena over the edge and turn fully heel, setting up an interesting dynamic going into the summer.
Match 2 – American Alpha versus Gallows and Anderson
In my fantasy booking of Elimination Chamber, I picked The Usos to knock off American Alpha and have Gable and Jordan chase the titles until WrestleMania. Well, American Alpha went over the entire Smackdown roster of tag teams and are still the champs. While I think we all expect that The Usos and American Alpha would have a good match at WrestleMania, I think it would be better to go a different route.
I believe we could have a pretty good champion versus champion match. It can be billed as two teams fighting for the honor of their brand’s title scene, whether the teams are faces or heels.
I think the positive of this approach would be that it would allow American Alpha and Gallows and Anderson to both spend the next two months dominating their respective tag team divisions. This would build American Alpha and Gallows and Anderson up in a big way and put more verve on their showdown. It would also allow a reset after WrestleMania for a new team to either come from NXT (DIY or The Revival, etc), another company (the Briscoes), a return (the Hardys), or two singles wrestlers joining forces (say someone like Mark Henry and Big Show).
I know that Gallows and Anderson can handle the promo work on their side. If American Alpha begins to suffer in that aspect of things, we can even have Kurt Angle return to put his stamp of approval on the Smackdown champs. Angle could act as their motivational coach and rally them against the Raw champs.
Since neither set of tag team belts would be on the line, the winner of the match would not be all that important. But I would fantasy book it for an American Alpha victory to make the fans happy. It would also put a slight crack in the armor of Gallows and Anderson who had been on a strong run.
On the following Smackdown Live! we would see Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas, the World’s Greatest Tag Team, return, leading to a showdown for Kurt Angle’s affections. As tempting as it is to make that match for WrestleMania, I think we can leave it to be a featured feud going into the summer.
And that would be the first two matches set for my Fantasy Booked WrestleMania 33. Next week we will go through a couple more matches and the stories behind them. For now though, let me know what you think in the comments and what you would like to see coming up. Big surprises await! Until then…
