It’s “just” a house show, meaning we should take any advertising for it with a large helping of “card subject to change” and remember that whatever does end up actually happening there exists outside the already loose continuity of WWE television.
But it’s hard to not look a little harder at the Sunday, Mar. 12 WWE Live Road to WrestleMania event taking place in Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden. The company has stacked the card with stars from both Raw and SmackDown, there are no pay-per-view (PPV) shows for either brand between it and April 2 in Orlando and, if WWE has a “home field”, it’s the Garden - so they usually like to create “moments’ there, even when they’re not broadcasting.
It was for that reason we got excited about Kevin Owens vs. Brock Lesnar being advertised (and it’s still listed as a Universal championship match, probably to throw us off the scent of the widely reported Goldberg title win planned for Fastlane the week before). And it’s also why the addition of one line to the bottom of the match listing on the venue’s website caught our eye:
…and special appearances by AJ Styles and Shane McMahon
A lot of folks don’t like it, but AJ vs. Shane is supposed to be a Mania match. Perhaps there will be some friction between SmackDown’s commissioner and the Phenomenal One?
Speculate away. And while the rest of the card hasn’t changed much since our last post on it, here’s the whole thing again:
- John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt for the WWE World championship
- Brock Lesnar vs. Kevin Owens for the Universal title
- Dean Ambrose vs. Baron Corbin vs. Miz for the Intercontinental championship
- Luke Harper vs. Randy Orton
- American Alpha vs. The Usos for the SmackDown tag titles
- Apollo Crews vs. Dolph Ziggler
- Nikki Bella, Becky Lynch, Naomi & Tamina vs. Alexa Bliss, Mickie James, Carmella & Natalya
- Rhyno, Heath Slater & Kalisto vs. Breezango & Curt Hawkins
…and special appearances by AJ Styles and Shane McMahon
*CARD IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE*