Predicting the match order at WrestleMania 39: Night two

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 two of WrestleMania 39 takes place tonight (Sun., Apr. 2) 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 six different segments for the main card of this event. Here is my subjective view of how important each of these six segments rank, ordered from most important to least important.

1. Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes
2. Edge vs. Finn Balor
3. GUNTHER vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus
4. Bianca Belair vs. Asuka
5. Brock Lesnar vs. Omos
6. Rodriguez & Morgan vs. Shotzi & Natalya vs. Rousey & Baszler vs. Green & Deville

Opening match and Main event

Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes is the only choice for the main event. This will continue Roman’s current stranglehold on WrestleMania main events.

Going back to his first such main event in 2015, the only years where Roman has not been featured in the WrestleMania main event are 2019 and 2020. This will mark Reigns’ seventh WrestleMania main event, putting him damn close to Hulk Hogan’s all-time record of eight (that’s counting the bullshit Hulk pulled on Bret Hart at WrestleMania 9). There is a very good chance the Tribal Chief will tie and/or break Hogan’s record over the next few years.

With that out of the way, which match will open tonight’s card?

The three plausible options are Sheamus, Belair, and Lesnar.

When Brock Lesnar isn’t the main event, he sometimes likes to open the show so he can leave early. Yesterday’s show began with John Cena in the opener, so they might as well start night two with another star of that caliber. That’s why I think Brock will be giving Omos an F5 in the opening match of WrestleMania 39 night two.

That gives me the following card:

Segment 1: Brock Lesnar vs. Omos
Segment 2:
Segment 3:
Segment 4:
Segment 5:
Segment 6: Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes

Everything else

Segment 2 is often where the least important match of the night (Rousey’s tag match, in this case) ends up, but that probably won’t happen if Lesnar vs. Omos starts the show. The Omos fight is the worst match on the card in terms of work rate, and it also won’t last very long, so putting the filler women’s four way tag right after it is not a great idea. Something more important should go there.

Rousey’s tag match makes the most sense as a cooldown match between Edge’s Hell in a Cell and the main event, because those two matches will probably be the longest ones of the night. So I’ll put Edge in Segment 4 and Rousey in Segment 5.

That leaves Sheamus and Belair for Segments 2 and 3, in some order.

After opening the card with the worst worker on the roster, the best idea is to put a banger in Segment 2, so that’s where I’m sticking Sheamus.

Finalized card

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

Segment 1: Brock Lesnar vs. Omos (3 minutes)
Segment 2: GUNTHER vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus (18)
Segment 3: Bianca Belair vs. Asuka (16)
Segment 4: Edge vs. Finn Balor (21)
Segment 5: Rodriguez & Morgan vs. Shotzi & Natalya vs. Rousey & Baszler vs. Green & Deville (11)
Segment 6: Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes (25)

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