Booking WWE WrestleMania 30: Are we too far out?

It’s October. We’re two weeks away from Hell in a Cell, six weeks away from Survivor Series and three months away from the Royal Rumble. That’s not counting a pit stop at TLC in December before the Royal Rumble and the subsequent Elimination Chamber before we’re even close to knowing who is in position for matches at WrestleMania. 26 episodes of Raw, the same number of SmackDowns (for what they’re worth) and plenty of time for injuries, wellness policy violations and backstage politicking means that it’s far too early to be thinking about WrestleMania 30. Surely? Guessing the Mania card and watching it take shape is tremendous fun so I’m about to take a stab in the dark…

If we try to look at this with some logic (dangerous, I know) we should start with the facts. WWE will want WrestleMania 30 to break records but in order for that to happen they will need to pay attention to the numbers: SummerSlam was down to 186,000 US buys domestic with Punk, Lesnar, Cena and Bryan in the main events. If they are to trust this as a sign of things to come, all of this booking speculation may be well wide of the mark. This drop was from the stellar previous year’s number, 296,000, where Brock and HHH were in the main event. This year’s Mania wasn’t where they assumed it would be either. Yes, they had difficulties with streaming but that aside they were down, overall, from 1.219 million to 1.048. Not a huge drop and still big business but the trajectory is down, not up. In fact, since Elimination Chamber, the ppv numbers have been down on 2012, with the exception of Money in the Bank which was marginally up by 4,000. I would imagine that this all fuels Hunter’s belief that he needs to be on the card and that people like Lesnar and Rock will only generate so much of an artificial increase in numbers.

The common factor amongst the most successful of recent ppv buyrate numbers seems to be that they spike for gimmick ppvs. Fans enjoy them because they invoke imagination and produce unpredictable outcomes like Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber and Money in the Bank. The question that may be answered in the next few months is just how tangible the support for Bryan is in terms of ppv buys and this, coupled with digging themselves out of the hole that they created by that brutal ppv last week, may produce an answer that they don’t like. Whether or not the increase in buys for a particular ppv is due to the personnel or the booking is unclear but what is clear is that arenas full of “yes!” chants aren’t an indication that a consequent ppv will sell well.

Well, all this said, I’m going to largely go with logic but mainly stick my neck out. I’ll call some locks, make some fantasy predictions and speculate on what could be for the event in April 2014. Let’s start with the locks.

Undertaker v Brock. A match that was talked about last year but it was rumoured that Undertaker didn’t much fancy working with an opponent as stiff as Brock and because they don’t see eye-to-eye. They felt that Punk was a better prospect since he needed a high-profile match coming off his long title reign. You can see now that the timing is right for this. The Beast v The Streak - whatever you want to tagline it - would be one of the few legitimate matches where people could suspend their disbelief enough to trust that the streak could end. It would be a match where they might feel The Undertaker could actually lose. Heyman is a perfect addition for this, too. They can have Brock lose, turn on Heyman after the match or on Raw the next night and, hey presto, we have a babyface who is massively over. Perhaps at Extreme Rules (a ppv that Brock has appeared at for the last two years) they’ll do Ryback and Brock.

Rhodes v Rhodes. I have to believe that this is where they’re going with these two. Wrestling loves a sibling rivalry and this one has been talked about for years. Bringing Dustin back this far out would give plenty of time for us to invest in them as a babyface team so that when they split and go against each other, we actually care. The saving grace of Battleground was that beautiful finish of their match against The Shield and that can be where the promo video for this match starts. I assume that long term they don’t see Goldust as part of the active roster but Cody needs to kick on soon otherwise he’ll never get beyond the lower mid-card. Goldust is, though, a hell of a worker and is in good shape right now. His inverse face paint (black being the dominant colour) could be a foreshadowing for his character’s capacity for temptation and I would suggest that the Helmsley-McMahon regime turn him to their way of thinking and we see him turn heel on Cody. The tag titles will probably be involved early in the story arc and I can see Goldust turning on Cody when he costs them so that they lose them at the Rumble or Chamber ppvs.

Triple H v Vince. I’m not saying that these two are going to wrestle. In fact, I seriously doubt that. But what we do know is that this storyline is going to end with a fight for control of WWE. Perhaps neither wrestles, perhaps each picks a protégé or a team each but, let’s be honest, Hunter is going to want to be on the card at WrestleMania and particularly at the 30^th anniversary show. It would seem that Triple H and Big Show is already a match raring to go and I’m not sure how you would keep them apart for six months. Orton would be a good opponent but it’s been done and would mean turning Orton again. Cena might be the answer. Does Shane return? Well, there are many ways that they could go with this but the ultimate idea for this feud, along with its very real and concrete stipulations, is a lock.

Speculating and fantasy booking is really fun but few are successful at calling it right. Myself included. Those 26 weeks’ worth of Raw I mentioned? Those shows get scripted twice (at least) so, unless you can climb into Vince’s head, you’ll never be 100% on booking these shows. Mind you, I doubt even Vince knows right now what he wants at WrestleMania 30. So, to fantasy booking and speculation!

Punk v Bryan. Lots of things lead many to believe that this will headline the ppv. Firstly, it would produce the best wrestling match that the company could put on. Both are extremely over, both have shown themselves to be safe bets to produce excellent matches on ppv and both should be in the title picture. Even though the title is vacant, Bryan is winning it at Hell in a Cell and we know that the plan is to put Punk back into the title picture sooner rather than later. I’d have Punk win the Rumble. If Cena is kept off this title program, which is a big ‘if’, and Orton is used elsewhere, then this would be a fantastic main event title match. Punk has also made it clear on numerous occasions that his ultimate goal is to be last on at a Mania. Yes, it would be a 50/50 deal with the crowd and I know that’s an issue. Being last on at Mania, if they did that, could of course be a poisoned chalice – remember Hunter and Orton getting zero reaction when they went on last after Taker and Michaels? – well, maybe this will be his year. If it isn’t, the much-salivated-over Punk v Austin for the following year might be the time for that. 

Wyatts v Shield. I could be way off on this and they may well go with Bray Wyatt for the World title sooner or later. Who knows where these two teams will be placed on the card in six months. The Shield were the big thing, then they did something stupid backstage and the push was cooled and now they seem to be jobber-enforcers - in the main event picture but as nothing more than glorified lumberjacks. The Wyatts have a great gimmick but garner no reaction in the ring. Wyatt can work and has proved that he can in the past but is way off the pace at present. Harper and Rowan are much more limited. Having said that, six-man tag matches are almost always good in WWE and there’s plenty for them to hide behind in a match like this. Will it draw? Well, it’s not going to sell any tickets but it could sell some goat masks.

Cena. I don’t know where Cena fits in to all this. You could put him against Orton. You could put him against Hunter. Either would work but he needs to be front and centre to sell some buys. I’m picking him to be up against Triple H.

Hogan. Does Hogan return? As things stand the claim is that he’s not going back to TNA and they’re playing up that they don’t want or need him. It could all be a work, of course. He came out yesterday and said that he was ‘wide open’ right now. Would Vince want him to be at WrestleMania 30? Possibly. Would he draw? Possibly. But if Hulk Hogan returns to WWE, he’s not going to work and no-one really wants to see an old, beat-up, out of shape Hulk Hogan work. He’d be fine in the nostalgia roll; he’d be a great Hall of Fame inductee: he could come down and help to clear the ring of some heel faction, tear his shirt and posture to the crowd, putting over some up-and-comer in the process. That would be about it. What would that cost the WWE? You have to wonder whether that would that be a good use of resources. 

Ryback. I really don’t believe that they will make Ryback v Goldberg. If they had wanted to go with that, wouldn’t it have made more sense for them to reach out to Goldberg to promote his DVD? Instead, they’ve promoted it and produced it in-house and haven’t contacted him once. He was never approached to make the DVD and that says to me that they’re not about to put Goldberg over anytime soon. Would he agree to come back for one match where he lies down for a dangerous, green, limited version of himself with pink eye? I don’t see it and, frankly, I’m not interested in it.

Michaels. Please God, let Shawn Michaels appear at WrestleMania 30 in any other roll than a guest referee. It’s been done and it’s being done. I don’t know how you use him here but he’ll be there. When he retired I think he meant it. I don’t see him returning to the ring to wrestle ever again and I think it bothers him that people say that they’re retiring and turn back on their word. When he ‘retired’ Flair, it bothered him that he went on to wrestle again. 

Sheamus. I’d pick him to return and win the Rumble but that seems too obvious and puts him in the title picture against people like Cena, Del Rio, Orton, Bryan or Punk. None of those feel right for WrestleMania 30. But he’s a babyface that they like and Hunter is particularly fond of – they spot each other in the gym, apparently. If you put him in a tag team you might be able to squeeze him on to the card but I’d guess he’ll be in the World Heavyweight Title picture. The problem with Sheamus is that to date he has never been in a meaningful feud; it’s very hard to care about him.

Who’s left? Jericho, Kane, Miz, Mysterio, Henry, Sandow and his briefcase, Ziggler, Langston, Christian, Prime Time Players, Cesaro, Swagger, Tons of Funk, The Usos, all the Divas, Fandango, Kofi, Curtis Axel. They may do the pre-show battle royale and there’ll be a Divas Title match. That’s a lot of chaff. 

And what about the annual celebrity appearance? Cena has reached out to Jimmy Kimmel and Justin Timberlake. If so, they’ll not doubt be a combination of hosts and ‘social media ambassadors’, with Timberlake possibly performing.

WrestleMania 30 has to be viewed as a ppv that tries to break the buyrate record. Many fantasy bookers look at what they’d like to see happen rather than what is realistic and many articles that are out there on this same issue are also too keen to make this some sort of nostalgic, unrecognisable event that is more reminiscent of Raw 1,000 than it is the annual marquee ppv that sees the culmination of key storylines and the starting point for new ones. I don’t know that we’re too far out to book WrestleMania 30 but I do know that I look forward to being completely and utterly wrong with my speculative conjecture in six months’ time.