10 Non-Title Matches That Could Happen At WWE WrestleMania 35
Gold standard, only without the gold...
The Elimination Chamber saw the dawning of a new title in WWE as Sasha Banks and Bayley bested five other teams to be crowned the inaugural WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.
This new addition to WWE’s trophy cabinet makes it 10 active titles across main roster programming, while there are another seven on the NXT brands either side of the Atlantic as the company invests in gold to build its worldwide empire.
At the two WrestleManias post-brand split, since when WWE’s title scene has become overcrowded, 17 of the 27 matches have been for championship gold, with only one title being omitted from the show entirely - the SmackDown Live tag belts at WrestleMania 33.
It is getting harder and harder for non-title matches to get on the card at ‘The Showcase of The Immortals’. At last year’s WrestleMania 34, there were only five of them, and two of those were battle royals. With Fastlane the only significant checkpoint left on the road to WrestleMania 35, those superstars who are currently title-less may be starting to sweat.
However, there are plenty of options for WWE to explore when it comes to non-title matches for the April 7 event, and some of these could be gold standard - even without the actual gold.
10. Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal
Let’s begin with the obvious. The Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal has been a fixture of the WrestleMania card for five years now and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, the same of which could be said of most of its winners.
Having been introduced as a potential launching pad for stars of the future, WWE has lazily reverted to type in the last couple of years, and this is now seen similarly to any other battle royal - an excuse to get wrestlers with nothing to do a place on the card - and thus it has been demoted to the pre-show for the last two years.
The 2019 edition could be well stocked with talent, with quite a lot of big names such as Dean Ambrose, Elias and EC3 from RAW, and Shinsuke Nakamura, Samoa Joe and Jeff Hardy on SmackDown Live, all lacking direction less than two months out.
This is the non-title match that nobody actually wants to be in...