(Hey Hellions, meet Howie Decker.  Howard is the chief blogger and editor for the amazing UnderScoopFire.com  Longtime friends of the blog and fellow members of the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, UnderScoopFire is the kind of blog you wish you had.  Great posts about TV, movies, toys, women, sports, comedy and everything else going on in pop culture.  Bookmark the site and go through all of the old articles.  Get caught up in the fire.  Crossfire!  You’ll be caught up in the… UnderScoopFire!

Follow Howie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/howardthedeck

Follow UnderScoopFire on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/underscoopfire

Ahem.  Anyways, here’s Howie!)

WrestleMania predictions from UnderScoopFire’s Howie Decker
Tons of Funk (Brodus Clay and Tensai) and The Funkadactyls (Cameron and Naomi) vs. Team Rhodes Scholars (Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow) and The Bella Twins (Brie and Nikki Bella)

This match seems to be replacing the annual “throw a celebrity in a match with a wrestler who has no current angle” slot. Odd that Vince didn’t empty the coffers to attract a B-list celeb to challenge Big Show or something, being that the event is near NYC and the weekly product continues to skew toward mainstream.

Rhodes Scholars/Bellas with the win.
Wade Barrett (c) vs. The Miz Singles match for the Intercontinental Championship

While this will be a decent match, and could have had me really looking forward to it if they’d done a proper buildup, I was more excited when it looked like a “Student vs Teacher” showdown was brewing between Barrett and Chris Jericho. Miz has fallen from main eventing WrestleMania as WWE Champion to being wedged last minute into an Intercontinental Title match.

Barrett retains, as Miz doesn’t stand to gain much by becoming IC Champ again.
Chris Jericho vs. Fandango

Poor, poor, Y2J. Chris Jericho comes back to the WWE about every 8 months, wrestles for about 2-3 months and leaves with no circumstance. Let’s take a look at how the WWE’s valuation of Jericho has trended recently:

When he came back 4 times ago: great feud with Shawn Michaels, put his head through the Jeri-tron or whatever it’s called.

When he came back 3 times ago: excellent program with CM Punk, with Punk as the straight-edge face. Jericho mocked his family and poured liquor on him. A main event quality angle with a current main eventer.

When he came back two times ago: an oddly-paced albeit entertaining feud with Dolph Ziggler, a superstar who is perpetually on the rise. Jericho put him over, but it seems his work has gone for naught as Dolph continues to toil in the mid card zone.

When he came back this time: at times it has appeared that he’d be entering the fray with The Shield, and then he looked to be joining in the Barrett-Miz angle, only to be relegated to a WrestleMania match with Fandango. A match that has been scantly built up to, a match that Jericho will certainly lose, to put Fandango over and begin his push. Jericho will then inevitably disappear again to tour with Fozzy. Hopefully next time he returns he gets to work a proper program, although by now it is evident that Y2J exists solely to put younger talent over, kind of like:
Brock Lesnar vs. Triple H No Holds Barred match; if Triple H loses, he must retire.

Triple H. This will be a fun match to watch, but there’s no way Lesnar came back to the WWE to lose his first two high profile matches. We are supposed to perceive Brock as this unstoppable machine, and he has already lost to Cena (while Cena was supposedly in the middle of the worst losing streak of his career?).

Triple H’s career being on the line means nothing, as we’ve seen situations like this get ret-conned all the time with a wave of the “GM re-hired me, here I am” magic wand.

Lesnar wins a brutal match.
Team Hell No (Kane and Daniel Bryan) (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler and Big E Langston Tag team match for the WWE Tag Team Championship

Another shoehorn match. These guys are wedged into a match that has had little to no buildup. This match along with 3-4 others are as much evidence the WWE should need that the Money in the Bank Ladder Match needs to

come back to WrestleMania. Instead of cramming these guys into matches that mean nothing and garner no fan anticipation whatsoever, put all 10 of them in a MITB match. They were always awesome, and we promise you can still do a separate MITB match and we sheep will buy it cooperatively.

As a match, it could impress, if Bryan and Ziggler give the performance we know they can, and if Big E and Kane hit some big spots. Ultimately, there’s no benefit in placing the tag straps on Dolph and E. Hopefully this will not be the last we see of Ziggler tonight.

AJ will interfere, but Kane and Bryan retain.
Ryback vs. Mark Henry

Ryback wins, putting the finishing touch on yet another halted Mark Henry push. Every year they push Henry as an unbeatable vicious monster, until he meets the face on the rise. Although I wish Henry would win here, signaling the official end of the failed Ryback moon push.
Sheamus, Randy Orton & Big Show vs. The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns) Six-man tag team match

Another match that feels forced. Shield has been attacking every major face on the roster since their inception, so their opposition here could have been anyone. Out of nowhere, they start something with a heel? Oh, that’s the Big Show, who had no official face turn but is now supposed to garner our love just for joining two heroes to face The Shield? It’s not working. This match could have been something with the right combination of superstars and a good stipulation or special referee (who could turn Shield at the right moment – SWERVE!).

The Shield wins, or else what’s the point?
The Undertaker vs. CM Punk

The match will be good, as both CM Punk and The Undertaker rarely disappoint. There’s absolutely no reason for Taker to lose. He will have an open invitation to return to WrestleMania as long as he’s alive. Why would WWE end The Streak, thus taking away the angle at any future WrestleMania that Taker would agree to appear in? Sure, his body is deteriorating, but WWE would never gamble on the fact that he wouldn’t want to come back one more time.
Alberto Del Rio (c) vs. Jack Swagger for the World Heavyweight Championship

A few weeks ago this match and title were Swagger’s for the taking. A former World Champ getting his push back to prominence. While the program has been entertaining, a couple things have threatened to derail this feud. The Del Rio/face experiment hasn’t gone as well as WWE hoped, and Swagger violated the Wellness Policy, signaling an inevitable suspension. There’s no way Swagger wins the title and disappears for a month or more.

Swagger will get another shot down the road, but Del Rio retains.

The Rock (c) vs. John Cena for the WWE Championship

Absolutely no way Cena loses this match. I’d love to see The Rock win, which in and of itself would be a major swerve, but that would require him continuing to appear on WWE programming on a regular basis and defending the title. Won’t happen. This plotline has been mapped out since The Rock promised another WresteMania appearance last year. Cena gets his redemption.