WWE WrestleMania 33: Triple H vs. Seth Rollins Should Become a Tag Team Match

Instead of a bad WrestleMania 33 singles match made worse by Seth Rollins’ injured knee, it should become him and Sami Zayn vs. Triple H and Samoa Joe.

Triple H and Seth Rollins are scheduled to face off at WrestleMania 33. This match was originally supposed to take place last year at WrestleMania 32, but it couldn’t take place due to Rollins’ knee injury. One year later, the match is virtually penciled in…and Rollins has reinjured his knee.

The build-up for this hasn’t been the kind we’ve been looking forward to. Instead of both sides getting equal shots in at one another, there has only been one narrative. And that narrative is centered on whether or not the Architect can actually compete at WrestleMania 33.

Now, WWE isn’t likely to back down from this match. After all, both Rollins and Triple H are among Raw’s biggest stars, and a considerable amount of time, effort and storytelling has been put into this match. But Rollins’ injury has forced their hand, and now risks turning this highly-expected war between two great wrestlers into a disaster.

However, there’s another option for WWE. Instead of just ploughing ahead with the same scheduled singles match, they can do something else. It would make for a much better match if WWE make it a tag team match instead. Rollins can team with Sami Zayn, while Triple H can bring in his Destroyer, Samoa Joe, to team with him.

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With that, you have a much more interesting match-up ready for WrestleMania.

At present, both Joe and Zayn are not scheduled for WrestleMania 33, which is a disappointment. Zayn, despite his questionable booking, has a loyal fanbase that constantly gives him a huge reaction.

Joe, meanwhile, is a relatively fresh face on the main roster whose presence has already been made to be a big deal. Both of these men should appear on the WrestleMania card, at least to help increase fan interest in the product.

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But if they were to be added to the WrestleMania card somehow, WWE’s power-brokers would probably put them in a random singles match either on the pre-show or the undercard.

That wouldn’t make sense, especially since the card’s already stacked as it is. WrestleMania 33 will have 13 matches this year, which is one of the highest number of scheduled contests in history. Putting more matches on will just exhaust the audience.

But both Zayn and Joe have another something in common, other than not currently scheduled for WrestleMania. And that is, they’re both involved in a rivalry with Raw’s authority figures.

Since last fall, Zayn has been directionless on Raw. That’s not hyperbole; those were his exact words in a Raw promo. He has done nothing of note and has been trying to prove himself as a top-tier talent to Mick Foley and Stephanie McMahon.

Yet while Foley has eventually come to accept that Zayn is indeed an important member of the Raw roster, Stephanie has not. In fact, on the Mar. 20, 2017 episode of Raw, she said that he wasn’t even worthy of speaking to her, he was so low on the totem pole. And now that Foley’s gone from RAW, Stephanie’s word appears to be law on that brand.

But Zayn hasn’t given up yet, nor does he ever. Despite getting thrashed on a regular basis, he keeps getting up, desperate to prove to the world just how good he really is.

Then, there’s Samoa Joe. For a long time, many have wondered when and how Joe would make his main roster debut. Those wonders were put to rest when Joe attacked Rollins on the Jan. 30, 2017 edition of Raw, aligning himself with the Authority in the process.

Since then, he has become Triple H’s hitman, attacking anyone the Game considers an enemy, and to great effect. He remains undefeated in singles competition, and is being treated like a big deal.

Since that day, Joe and Zayn have crossed paths several times, mostly in singles matches. Joe has won all of those matches, usually in decisive fashion.

But Zayn has not given up, and at times has also attacked Joe in response to Joe getting the victory. From what we’ve seen so far, these two men appear to still be embroiled in a bitter rivalry that is to lead to a major conclusion somewhere down the road.

This brings us to the main dilemma for WrestleMania: Rollins’ knee. His injury has been so bad that there’s still genuine speculation that he risks damaging his long-term career by wrestling at WrestleMania.

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While his determination and willingness to put his body at risk to entertain the fans is praiseworthy, WWE’s insistence on continuing with this scheduled singles match is not.

Seth cannot be expected to perform at the same main-event level with an injured knee. If this is supposed to be the main event match it has been promoted to be, WWE might be expecting Rollins to perform at a 100 percent main event level. He cannot do so with this injury.

If he does, he risks turning what could be a true dream match into another version of Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar from WrestleMania XXX: a highly-anticipated bout that went south due to an early-match injury.

To remedy this problem, WWE can add Zayn and Joe as tag team partners to both sides. In doing so, it would accomplish several things.

First, it would put Joe and Zayn on the WrestleMania card, thus elevating their level of importance to the audience (because if you’re in WWE and you do not appear on the WrestleMania card, it’s an obvious sign that you don’t matter as much to the powers-that-be, and by extension, to the fans).

Secondly, it would give Rollins the chance to be in a marquee match at WrestleMania without having the pressure of having to do so much work. Zayn could act as his team’s workhorse, doing most of the hard work and taking most of the dangerous bumps. Rollins, meanwhile, could wrestle in short bursts and get enough offense in without risking aggravating his injured knee.

Third, adding Joe and Zayn to the match would elevate the drama of seeing Rollins and HHH fight. Imagine the following scene. Joe and Zayn start the match, and wrestle for a few minutes. They get the crowd invested in their part of the match, and the fans wait in anticipation for their partners to tag in.

Then Joe tags in Triple H and the crowd gets excited. In response, Zayn works the crowd, walks over to his own corner and tags in Rollins. And the crowd goes wild as these two former associates turned bitter rivals go at it in their own mini match within this larger tag team match.

Fourth, you’d have an opportunity to test the dynamics between four wrestlers instead of just two. Seth Rollins and Triple H have obvious chemistry, as do Sami Zayn and Samoa Joe. But we have yet to see Samoa Joe and Seth Rollins in an actual match together, and Triple H vs. Sami Zayn has never been seen before.

If WWE were to combine these two feuds into one dream tag team match, it would be a great match, especially since the aging veteran and the injured rising star would each have a healthy workhorse on their team to make up for their existing shortcomings.

Finally, you’d have an additional storyline element for Zayn’s own rivalry with the Authority. So far, most of his wins have been against either lower-midcarders or jobbers, and he has lost more matches to established stars than he has won.

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He needs a big win on a big stage to prove to all of his naysayers that he’s still as good as he says he is. And there couldn’t possibly be a bigger stage than WrestleMania, and there couldn’t be a bigger dragon for him to slay than Triple H.

As for who’d win the match, the better decision would be for Rollins and Zayn to defeat HHH and Joe at WrestleMania. Despite Joe having an undefeated streak on Raw since his debut, Rollins and Zayn both need a win here much more than Joe and the Cerebral Assasin.

Triple H is a bona fide part-timer whose reputation will not change regardless of whether he wins or loses. The same cannot be said of Rollins and Zayn, who are still relatively new talent and who still have a hard time convincing today’s audience they’re big stars.

Joe, meanwhile, is still booked strongly no matter what due to his affiliation with the authority, so he does not risk losing much from a loss at this WrestleMania, especially since he only debuted two months ago.

To that end, it would make sense for either Rollins or Zayn (preferably Rollins) to pin Triple H cleanly in the middle of the ring. This would allow him to finally get his revenge on Hunter for his betrayal by beating him on the grandest stage of them all. Zayn, meanwhile, can ride on Rollins’ coattails in a way, helping Rollins achieve this critical victory.

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Going forward, Rollins can rest up, knowing that he finally managed to score a victory over the man that had betrayed him, and Zayn can ride this wave of momentum, hopefully towards a more prominent position on the Raw roster.