9 Big Problems With WWE Heading Into WrestleMania 41

7. Nixing More Bankable Matches

This WrestleMania build is chock full of feuds that aren’t exactly setting the world on fire. Find one person who’s excited for AJ Styles versus Logan Paul, or whatever ends up happening with any of the secondary titles.

Mania didn’t need to be like this. Heading into the Royal Rumble, one of the hottest feuds bubbling up was Kevin Owens versus Sami Zayn. Everyone knew it was on the horizon, and some were fantasy-booking a scenario where KO won the Undisputed WWE Championship and Sami won the Royal Rumble, setting up an epic, brutal main event between former best friends.

Then Owens lost at the Rumble, and Zayn got eliminated by Jey Uso. Oh well, at least there’s a blood feud for Mania.

Wrong. WWE opted to blow a sure thing at Elimination Chamber in a disappointing unsanctioned match. Now, KO is programmed with Randy Orton, while Sami hasn’t been seen in a month. Owens/Orton might be fine, but there’s no way it could have competed with KO/Sami if done correctly.

Additionally, for the past several years, the Bloodline saga has dominated WWE programming. The drama took center stage at Survivor Series last fall, and the stage seemed to be set for it to culminate at WrestleMania in some fashion. But Roman Reigns toppled Solo Sikoa to recapture the ula fala on the Raw Netflix debut, and all Bloodline drama (outside of Solo and Jacob Fatu) ceased.

Like it or not, fans have invested years of their time into the Bloodline, and to have Roman regain the Tribal Chief title on an episode of Raw, with no big match for WrestleMania? How do you do that? Fatu/Reigns was sitting right there. It would have been huge and possibly a star-making match for the Samoan Werewolf.

Those two potential matches had “WrestleMania” stamped on them, but they were brushed off and replaced by matches that are far less interesting.