Predicting the match order at WrestleMania 39: Night one

It’s one thing to predict the winners and losers at WrestleMania 39, but how about taking a guess at the match order for the event?

Night one of WrestleMania 39 takes place tonight (Sat., Apr. 1) from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. The main card begins at 8:00 pm ET live on Peacock in the United States, on the WWE Network elsewhere, as well as on pay-per-view (PPV) if your cable provider is carrying the event.

WWE has announced seven different segments for the main card of this event. Here is my subjective view of how important each of these seven segments rank, ordered from most important to least important.

1. The Usos vs. Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens
2. Rey Mysterio vs. Dominik Mysterio
3. Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley
4. Seth Rollins vs. Logan Paul
5. Austin Theory vs. John Cena
6. Becky Lynch, Lita, Trish Stratus vs. Damage CTRL
7. Strowman & Ricochet vs. Street Profits vs. Viking Raiders vs. Alpha Academy

Main event

The two matches vying for the main event spot are the Kevin Owens tag match and Charlotte Flair’s defense of the SmackDown women’s title. I suppose the Mysterio match has a very small non-zero chance to also end up there due to how invested fans are in that story and Dominik being a heat magnet.

The case for Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens vs. The Usos in the main event is so much stronger than Flair vs. Ripley. The Bloodline story has carried the main event scene on both Raw and SmackDown television on the road to WrestleMania. A lot of that has fallen on the shoulders of these four men due to Roman Reigns being a part-timer who was home more often than not in the month of March.

The tag match also has Sami Zayn, who as recently as a month ago was the most over star on the roster. WWE is even promoting this bout as the biggest tag team match in history, which is a label that doesn’t make sense for a non main event match. The Usos have held the tag team titles for nearly two years, and their downfall plays right into the main event story for night two. Plus, the fans are so invested in this story that any match that has to follow this one is probably dead in the water.

The case for Flair and Ripley comes down to two things. One, Rhea Ripley is the Royal Rumble winner, and the Rumble winner always has a case for being in the main event of WrestleMania. Two, WWE might expect to receive a positive PR boost if women are in the main event of WrestleMania.

None of these arguments are strong enough to counteract the fact that the Flair / Ripley feud has never been positioned as a main event level story on television. Outside of one great brawl, the segments between them just don’t measure up to what’s been going on with The Usos, Zayn, and Owens.

When you look at the merits of each side, the bottom line is that Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley don’t belong in the main event on this card. This is a no-brainer decision that WWE has on its hands. The tag match is the obvious choice, and WWE shouldn’t overthink it.

Given that John Cena’s match has already been announced as the opener, that gives me the following card:

Segment 1: Austin Theory vs. John Cena
Segment 2:
Segment 3:
Segment 4:
Segment 5:
Segment 6:
Segment 7: The Usos vs. Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens

Everything else

The least important match of the night is often placed in Segment 2, so that’s where I’m throwing Braun Strowman’s four way tag match.

I don’t want to follow that up with another tag match in Segment 3, and it’s also too early in the night for Flair’s match. That means it’s either Seth Rollins or the Mysterios in Segment 3. I’ll get back to this choice later.

One of the women’s matches needs to go in the first four segments of the card, so Becky’s match gets the call for Segment 4. WWE doesn’t often place women’s matches in consecutive segments, so the only option is to pencil in Flair for Segment 6.

That leaves Segment 3 and Segment 5 for Rollins and the Mysterios, in some order. This is a difficult choice. I am ranking the Mysterio match as the more important one, so I’ll place it later in the card.

Finalized card

So here is my final prediction for the match order at WrestleMania 39 night one, along with guesses on the bell-to-bell match times:

Segment 1: Austin Theory vs. John Cena (11 minutes)
Segment 2: Strowman & Ricochet vs. Street Profits vs. Viking Raiders vs. Alpha Academy (13)
Segment 3: Seth Rollins vs. Logan Paul (19)
Segment 4: Becky Lynch, Lita, Trish Stratus vs. Damage CTRL (14)
Segment 5: Rey Mysterio vs. Dominik Mysterio (15)
Segment 6: Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley (16)
Segment 7: The Usos vs. Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens (22)

That’s my prediction for the match order at WrestleMania 39 night one. What’s yours?