WrestleMania 35 predictions: Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins

With WrestleMania 35 all set to invade MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey this Sun., April 7, 2019, live on pay-per-view (PPV) and the WWE Network, it’s time to go about making predictions for the biggest show of the year. The match card is filled out and our staff of learned blowhards will give their best guess on who is going to emerge victorious this weekend.

But instead of doing this all in one post and giving you a wall of text and 5,000 words to read through, we’ll give the top matches their own post, then cover the undercard.

Got it? Good.

Let’s go:

BROCK LESNAR VS. SETH ROLLINS

Geno Mrosko: Conventional wisdom says Seth Rollins won the Royal Rumble and he’s the babyface challenger chasing the heel champion, Brock Lesnar, no one wants around so he should vanquish The Beast once and for all, taking the Universal championship in the process. But this is Vince McMahon, and WrestleMania, and more recent history shows that conventional wisdom isn’t worth much when the old man decides to go against the grain. Still, I can’t see him doing so for this one. I’ll probably be wrong. Pick: Seth Rollins

Sean Rueter: Judging the past 12 months of sports entertainment on a scale of “well, no $#!+” to “huh, that is not how I saw that playing out”, a luke warm Seth Rollins heading into a Universal title match that won’t main event ‘Mania registers as a full “huh”. There are lots of reasons for that, but closing the build to the match itself with more of the same “Brock hates wrestling” bs most of us rolled our eyes at last year definitely didn’t help. Especially when we saw how that turned out. Hopefully the match delivers, because not much else has, and I don’t really expect that to change on Sunday night. Pick: Brock Lesnar

Kyle Decker: It should be Rollins, but man, I can’t bring myself to pick him. With Roman back, it’s very likely they go back to Roman vs. Brock AGAIN. Because they love that friggin’ match even though the builds are all terrible and the matches aren’t even that good. Even if the plan is to get the belt back on Roman soon, have him face Seth for it! Because if Brock wins, he’ll probably hold the championship until at least SummerSlam (unless Roman faces him in their next Saudi Arabia show). That all sounds pretty terrible to me, but that’s probably how it’s going to go. Pick: Brock Lesnar

Rev. Claire Elizabeth: It should come as no surprise that I am just ineffably sick of Brock Lesnar. He still has some kind of aura, his entrance still inspires some kind of awe, but that all dissipates for me the moment the bell rings, and his matches have been more miss than hit. But, that being said, all his best matches over the last two years or so have been with smaller guys— AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, Finn Balor— so I’m actually kind of excited to see what Rollins can get out of him on Sunday. Of our three big babyface redemption stories this year, I feel like Seth is the least sure victory, especially since Roman Reigns is back and healthy and ready to rock, but I’m choosing to be optimistic heading into WrestleMania and I believe the Kingslayer can also fell the Beast. Pick: Seth Rollins

Cain A. Knight: The concept of “Brock Lesnar, absentee champion” would probably work much better on SmackDown, where the show is only two hours long and there are killer tag teams and women who can easily fill out the show on the weeks when the champ ain’t around. But in practice it has worked the other way, where SmackDown regularly gives hour long gauntlet matches for the WWE Championship story, leaving little time for much else, whereas Raw is so desperate to fill time (partially because no top champ is around on a three hour show) that mediocre-at-best Baron Corbin is one of the most featured heels. What I’m getting at here is that Brock Lesnar is going to retain, because Vince McMahon likely won’t let a smaller guy beat him, and then hopefully they’ll shift him to SmackDown during the roster Shake Up, while moving the WWE Championship to Raw. This underwhelming savior story they are using for Seth isn’t working at all; he was much hotter one year ago and should have challenged Lesnar at WrestleMania 34. Pick: Brock Lesnar

Stella Cheeks: I got two choices here. I can either chose with my heart and pick Rollins or I can go with my head and pick Brock. I desperately want to pick Rollins. Lesnar is tired, overrated and NOT EVER THERE yet he’s the champion on THE FLAGSHIP SHOW. On paper, it would make sense to put it on a wrestler that is not only there every single week, but who is beloved and who is a damn fine wrestler. But with Roman back in the picture it feels like we’re on the path to another Brock vs Roman extravaganza. Which sucks. Don’t get me wrong I am so happy that Roman is back, and frankly I wouldn’t even mind him with the belt again, I would just rather watch Roman vs. Seth as Roman vs. Brock as been done to death. So sadly, I am going head this round. I’ll save my heart picks for Becky and Kofi. Sorry Seth. Pick: Brock Lesnar

That’s what we think.

You?