10 WWE WrestleMania 34 Card Predictions After Royal Rumble 2018
Dream Match City.
Royal Rumble 2018 was a game-changing show.
WWE's first ever 30-woman battle royal was a roaring success, with stars of the past, present, and future delivering all the dramatic qualities the Rumble is known for, and Asuka emerging victorious. Hers was a crowd-pleasing triumph, as was Shinsuke Nakamura's on the men's side. Their wins stand as a welcome spot of fan service from a company known for relentlessly trolling their audience, and it'll be great to see two popular stars in big WrestleMania matches, wherever they land.
The Rumble was WWE's first step on the road to New Orleans. While the 8 April card is far from complete, this year's first pay-per-view offered several hints as to where the company will head over the coming weeks and months. Things can change, of course, but by taking the threads established at the Rumble and tying them up with everything else going on on Raw and SmackDown, the picture becomes a lot clearer.
The Styles vs. Nakamura dream match is excluded, because barring a disaster, that one's a dead cert. The rest? Anything can happen, but logic leads us towards the following line-up...
10. Cruiserweight Title Ladder Match
The Cruiserweight division is in the midst of a reboot. We won't know its true extent for a few weeks, but with Enzo Amore gone and a new General Manager on the way, change is in the air. Last week's show presented an outstanding workrate-centric main event between Cedric Alexander and Mustafa Ali, and while hoping for a new ethos more in-line with 2016's Cruiserweight Classic might be fanciful, the bout felt like a step in the right direction for a show in dire need of shaking its 'Little Guy Raw' stigma.
Recent months have seen WWE try to rebrand the show as a more character-driven enterprise. Now, their boldest personality is gone, so it'd be smart to tilt their focus away from wacky gimmicks, and back towards athleticism. Thus, it makes sense to strap a rocket to somebody like Alexander and build to a chaotic multi-person scramble at 'Mania.
There's always a ladder match on 'The Grandest Stage Of Them All,' so why not give it to the Cruisers this year? It's the perfect environment to deliver the kind of fast-paced stunt show many of these wrestlers specialised in pre-WWE, and the likes of Ali, Alexander, Akira Tozawa, and Kalisto can certainly deliver.