What Should Main Event WWE WrestleMania 33?

With just weeks remaining until the 33rd annual show of shows, we look at what match should be headlining this year’s WrestleMania.

We are staring down the final weeks until the WWE lights up Orlando, Florida in what will be the biggest entertainment spectacle of the calendar year – WrestleMania 33. Not even a handful of matches have been confirmed for the event just yet, but going based on rumors alone, the line-up is starting to look rather intriguing.

We will be treated to a plethora of heated rivalries coming to a head, some with championships on the line, some coasting purely on the animosity brewing between WWE’s finest athletes. That being said, there is only one match that closes the show.

The company likes to appease its roster – and in some cases, its fans – by implying the show be too big for just one main event, but the general consensus is that the match that closes the show is the one true main event. So what will it be this year?

Well, given how heavily it’s been featured over the last half-year, the assumption would be that the conflict between Goldberg and Brock Lesnar is finally going to be brought to an end just before WrestleMania fades to black. But does this match really deserve to headline amidst so many other spectacular outings?

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Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar is nothing new. We’ve seen this one-on-one match twice now. The first time, they completely sucked the life out of Madison Square Garden at WrestleMania XX, and the second time wasn’t even ninety seconds long.

Sure, the rematch will be fun, even if it is for the WWE Universal Title, but fun as it may be, we are simply not going into this with high expectations anymore.

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It may or may not be more competitive than Survivor Series and Royal Rumble were, and if Brock comes out victorious, it’s going to be an interesting development for all parts involved. But this match is not a WrestleMania main event.

All that remains of the fan interest in this rivalry is “I wonder if Brock Lesnar will win this time”. The majority of investment in the build-up, and the actual story of the match is gone now since we know that Goldberg isn’t cut out for long matches.

The only variable here is the victor, and that’s not enough for this to headline the biggest event in wrestling, regardless of what WWE tries to spin in the coming weeks.

In reality, the inevitable WWE Championship match between Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton is the best candidate to headline WrestleMania based on a number of factors.

First and foremost, the WWE Championship is by far and away the most prestigious title in the company. Work has been put in over the last eight months to make the WWE Championship worthy of a WrestleMania main event.

Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles and John Cena all brought something to that title, regardless of the time period they held it for. Unlike Monday Night Raw, SmackDown Live doesn’t mince words when telling you what the main event is.

We have great talent in the mid-card with Ziggler, Corbin, Crews and now Ambrose, but we all know that the main event picture is that which contains the WWE Championship. The people involved may change from time to time, whether that be Ambrose, Styles, Cena, Wyatt, Orton or even Ziggler back at SummerSlam, but the one constant is always the WWE Championship – with very few exceptions.

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On Raw, it feels like the main event picture is based merely on what the biggest match is any given week.

If Goldberg or Lesnar are in the house, you can bet your bottom dollar that they are the feature attraction that night.

If Roman Reigns is going against the odds in a One vs. All scenario, you can be sure that “The Big Dog” main-events. Heck, if two giants like Braun Strowman and Big Show are going toe-to-toe, why not put that on last and be done with it?

The only time Kevin Owens went on last as champion, there was probably just nothing better on that week, or maybe Owens had lucked out by facing Reigns.

At this stage, the WWE Universal Championship is treated as little more than a glorified mid-card title, and it’s because of haphazard booking that sees its name sullied in favor of whatever the flavor of the month happens to be.

Sure, SmackDown Live got the main strap in the WWE draft last July, but it can be said without doubt that very little has been done to try to elevate the newly established top title on Monday Night Raw to the same level of that which is defended on Tuesday nights. That alone sounds like justification for the WWE Championship to headline WrestleMania as opposed to the WWE Universal Title.

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Then we come to the match narrative itself.

Wyatt and Orton have developed quite the relationship over the last half-year. They started off at each other’s throats, but the second Randy Orton realized that Bray Wyatt was simply too powerful for him to overcome without resorting to drastic measures, he underwent a complete shift in character to gain the psychological edge.

He compromised his morals for the sheer sake of overcoming Wyatt, which is going way above and beyond the call of duty in comparison to other ongoing WWE rivalries.

Just watch this promo from Randy Orton last September if you want reason to believe this has been one of the best-built feuds over the last few years:

Substituting the man for Bray Wyatt and the rabbit for the WWE Championship, it seems like “The Viper” had his game plan set in stone all along.

He joined Bray Wyatt, allowing him to get comfortable by Orton’s side, watching as he excommunicated one of his oldest brethren in Luke Harper as a sacrifice to him.

He sat in wait as Wyatt finally won the title, and just as Wyatt handed him the keys to the castle, Orton turned around to strike when the iron was hot – with plans to take both the WWE Championship and Wyatt down simultaneously at WrestleMania.

It’s almost genius really, certainly compared to anything else we’ll be treated to at WrestleMania, and that’s not a dig at the rest of the roster.

The long-term storytelling here has just been too subtle and too compelling to overlook. This is WWE doing “over the top” in a great way, and in terms of emotional investment, this should be the match that WWE leads with in April.

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Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt is the standard bearer for all of this year’s WrestleMania rivalries, and by God if it doesn’t deserve to close the show then nothing does.