Wrestlemania 31 Predictions

The Showcase of the Immortals, WrestleMania 31 takes place this Sunday. The hype for WrestleMania has been somewhat all over the place. There's the good (Sting/HHH), the bad (I-C Title hype-well anything involving R-Truth) and the bizarre (Orton/Rollins). Here are my predictions and my thoughts on how these matches were built.


Brock Lesnar vs.  Roman Reigns. I thought I missed something on Raw when Reigns came out and the next thing I saw he was playing tug o war with the title. He didnt speak? That, to me, was somewhat mind boggling. Now, people have really railed against Reigns since the Royal Rumble feeling that Daniel Bryan and maybe even Dolph Ziggler deserved Reigns' spot. I will say the crowd reaction should be interesting. I mean now that Lesnar is staying, I would think the fans at WM will cheer Lesnar wildly. Its too bad for Roman. I like Roman, I really do. I think the problem is that fans wanted some closure to Bryan's chase for the title and never got it. He got injured but there was never him chasing the title he never lost story and the fans resent Roman for it. Its not Roman's fault in the least. Btw, Paul Heyman has been nothing short of phenomonal during this. Actually, he's always great. I mean what else is there to say about him that hasnt already been said? Onto the match, I think Reigns beats Lesnar and Rollins cashes in MITB.


Sting vs. HHH- I'm a little surprised at all the WCW talk going into this considering WCW shut down 14 years today. I've liked the hype to this. Sting, standing for morals and seeing how WCW shut down wants to make sure HHH doesnt do the samething to WWE. Its obvious that fans want Sting based on his reactions and he looked good on Monday. He seemed fired up. I will say I dont think this will be Sting/Flair at the first Clash but I think it will be good enough that it will have a lot of drama. I think Sting wins clean. I'd actually have HHH call out Sting after WM and continue to taunt him to giving him a rematch and Sting comes through the crowd every other week or every two weeks and attacks Authority members like he did in 1996/1997 until they have there rematch at Summerslam.


The Undertaker vs. Bray Wyatt.-Tough for a guy to carry a feud when the other guy isnt there but Wyatt has done a great job. I mean he's a great talker. I see a lot of Jake Roberts and even some Mick Foley in his delivery. I guess I can understand why Taker wasnt on tv before WM but I would have liked to seen him on Raw because he is The UnderTaker. Believe it or not, I'd have Wyatt win and then build The UnderTaker for next year as a guy whose struggling after the streak. This would lead me into the UnderTaker vs. John Cena match up next year. UT wins and UnderTaker retires.

John Cena vs. Rusev- I've liked the hype to this match. Rusev looked like a badass on Monday and that was a great angle. Sadly, we've been down this road before. Cena will hulk up and give AA's to about 50 guys and he'll end Rusev's streak. I mean that shouldnt happen. Give that Ziggler or Ambrose. I mean give it to somebody that can be pushed with that. Cena doesnt need to end his winning streak. He doesnt need it. Not only that but Cena gets a little too rah-rah with me being the Ultra Patriot. I mean I get where he's coming from but he's getting a little annoying. I mean, what's next? Him coming down at WM looking like Apollo Creed in Rocky 4 with the USA Top Hat etc. So, in closing Cena wins.

The IC-Title Match- The hype for this as of a couple of weeks ago has been lousy. R-Truth adds or has added nothing to the match. Its a shame because I like Truth and loved when he was a heel with Little Jimmy. I mean all Truth has done is take a a title that doesnt belong to him, clown around on commentary and not put over the guys in the ring on commentary and treats the title as a joke. In fact, everybody played hot potato with the title doesnt make the title look strong. I think this will be a dangerous, fun and memorable match. I think Daniel Bryan wins, just because...well give the guy a break already.


Randy Orton vs. Seth Rollins-This could be the sleeper match. The hype was strange as Orton came back at Fastlane attacked The Authority only to go back with them the next night. Lets face it, it made The Authority look like fools for thinking Orton was back. The whole story wasnt good. I mean what if at Fastlane Orton came back and attacked Ryback's team instead and THEN a few weeks do the beat down? I mean everybody could see that Orton was setting a trap and made The Authority look bad. That being said, I loved the beatdown that Orton gave to Rollins. It was vicious. Now Rollins should have gotten his heat back. Maybe on Monday he should have snuck in and curb stomped Orton but Orton looked stronger. Me, my prediction, I see Orton winning overshadowing that Rollins cashes in later that night.


The Divas Tag Team Match- Believe it or not, this could be the show stealer. I think if there given time to work they could steal the show as all 4 divas are ones the fans care about.  Nikki Bella is really shining and Paige and AJ are great. I think Brie has lost some momentum since SummerSlam but the fact is that these 4 draw some crowd reactions and when given time to work they could put a pretty good match on. Hopefully #GiveDivasAChance is starting to resonate in WWE. I think The Bellas cheat but they win Sunday.

Andre the Giant Battle Royal- My gut feeling is saying Ryback is going to win. They seem to be pushing him a little more but I think the Big Guy takes it. I also think it comes down to Miz and Ryback and Mizdow either turns here or somehow Mizdow costs Miz the match either by accident or on purpose. If its by accident then Mizdow tries to apologize, Miz wont have none of it and Mizdow attacks the Miz. Think of when Virgil turned on Ted Dibiase at the Royal Rumble in 1991.


The 4 Way Tag Match-It shows how much I care about this match as I had to see who the 4 tag teams were. I like New Day. I do for some reason but I think they get booed so bad that there not winning. Forget Los Matadores. I cant stand that bull. Natalya could've eaten him for all I care. What an annoying gimmick they are. The Usos I would have picked but I dont know about Jimmy or is it Jey's, injury. The Uso might not do too much because of it. So, I'll say Kidd and Cesaro retain. They deserve it. Two great workers with a great worker, Natalya, in there corner.


So what do you guys think of my predictions for WrestleMania 31?

How I would change the NCAA Womens Basketball Tournament

I like the NCAA Womens Tournament. I like the fact, that just like the men, all the games are televised. Its a far cry from the days where maybe you saw one or two women's tournament games on ESPN or CBS or wherever.  I like the fact that the Women's tournament gets treated on par with the Men's as far as tv exposure, sites where the games are held etc.


But like everything else the Women's Tournament does need help. I mean if you follow the tournament somewhat you'll see that the Women's Tournament does need to broaden itself to make the overall experience good. This blog will hopefully give some ideas on how I'd fix the Women's Tournament.


1) Go to neutral sites for the first 2 rounds just like the men.  I know what your saying "why do this when the games for each site which has home teams draws nobody? Honestly, to me, its a pride thing. I mean if you watched Albany at. Duke last week, there was nobody there. Duke. At Duke and there tons of empty seats. I mean how can you justify that?

Check out this article from espn.com about the women's attendance. http://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/tournament/2015/story/_/id/12553346/attendance-ncaa-tournament-sees-boost 

Uconn, the Kings of College Basketball only drew 4,000 per game for each of there first 2 games, about half of what they usually draw. Now, yes, South Carolina drew about 10,000 for each of there games but you cant tell me that even having a home game that you don't sell out doesn't worry you. The reason for the neutral sites is just to get away from being home because its embarrassing. I mean at least try what the Men's tournament is doing. Technically there not home games but at least there not campus. Imagine watching Duke play at home and nobody's there? Besides, neutral sites grow the game and I'm not talking that far away. I'll get to that in a moment.


2)ESPN needs to be better on there coverage. This article from awful announcing says it best. http://awfulannouncing.com/2015/espns-coverage-womens-ncaa-tournament-carries-echoes-sports.html

If there's a better game to get to, go to it. There's no reason you have to stay with a Uconn game when there winning by 30 points and there are other games that are close. I know ESPN would stay with the game in my area because I live in CT. but you have to do a better job with there whip-around coverage as well. There have been lots of times a team will have a 20 pt. lead and they stay with the game even though its not a local team. Be like the Men's tourney used to be and when a team leads by over 10pts. switch to another game.


3)Move the Tournament back to Saturday. This Friday thing didn't work. How could it when half of the Men's Tournament started on Friday? Empty seats all over the place. I'd go to a Saturday/Monday, Sunday/Tuesday format like it was before. Therefore, you'll have the Men's Tournament involved but it wont be as bad.

4)Move the Selection Show back to Sunday. ESPN2 at 8pm sounds good to me. I mean something like that should be on a Sunday. Mondays at 7pm is somewhat of a burial time slot. I'd rather have it on Sundays at 8pm instead of the old days when I believe it was on before the Men's Tournament. That just didn't fit.


5)Focus on more than Uconn. We get it. There great. They draw ratings. But if you want to grow the Women's game, you need to focus more than Uconn. South Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, Baylor, Norte Dame etc. It gets pretty boring when you have one team superior to the whole Women's game. People will get turned off if they don't see anybody that can be on Uconn's level, at least when it comes to exposure.


Now, back to the neutral sites. Here's how I would have scheduled the first round of the tournament:


March 21

FGCU/Okla. St.-12:30pm(Orlando)
Maryland/New Mexico St.-1pm(Baltimore)
Northeastern/Ark.-1:15pm(Dallas)
Dayton/Iowa St.-1:30pm(Dayton)
FSU/Alabama St.-3pm(Orlando)
Princeton/G.B-3:30PM(Baltimore)
Baylor/Northwestern St.-3:45pm(Dallas)
Norte Dame/Montana-4:15pm(Dayton)
Louisville's game-7pm(Orlando)
Ohio St.'s game-7:15pm(Baltimore)
Arizona St.'s game-7:40pm (Dallas)
Minnesota's game-8pm(Dayton)
South Florida's game-9:40 pm(Orlando)
UNC's game-9:50pm(Baltimore)
Texas A&M game-10pm(Dallas)
Kentucky's game-10:10pm(Dayton)

March 22

To save time, I will just list one of the teams, the times and the venues

South Carolina-12:30pm(Raleigh)
Iowa-12:45pm(Nashville)
Oklahoma-1:15pm(Moeghan Sun)
Gonzaga-2:05pm(Los Angeles)
Syracuse-2:45pm (Raleigh)
Chattanooga-3pm(Nashville)
Stanford-3:50pm-Moeghan Sun
Texas-4:40pm-Los Angeles
Duke-7pm-Raleigh
Miami-7pm-Nashville
Rutgers-7pm-Moeghan Sun
Oregon St.-8pm-L.A.
Miss. St.-9pm-Raleigh
Tenn.-9:20-Nashville
Uconn-9:30-Moeghan Sun
California-10:20-L.A.


Now the venues would be:

CFE Arena, Orlando-9,000
Baltimore Arena, Baltimore-14,000
Moody Coliseum-University Park-7,000
The Nutter Center-Dayton-10,400
Municipal Auditorium-Nashville-8,000
Mohegan Sun Arena-Uncasville, CT.-9,000
Rabobank Arena-Bakersfield, CA.-10,400
Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum-Winston Salem, NC.-14,000

All venues, locations and seating capacity are thanks to wikipedia.org.


OK, so the venues don't match up to what I planned but I think you understand. The venues are there and I think if they were announced in advance you can get a little bit of a buzz going on.  So, what do you guys think of my fixing of the NCAA Womens' Basketball Tournament?