Even then, wouldn't it have made more sense to turn on Wyatt the Smackdown before WM? Bray has a whole month to prepare now.

The bad news is that the Cena/Nikki vs Miz/Maryse match was all but confirmed and they are setting the seeds for an AJ/Shane match. The three most important male wrestlers on Smackdown will be stuck in meaningless WM matches.

Wrestlemania is to WWE like Christmas is to churches. It's not intended to appeal to the people who are already there every week. It's intended to appeal to those for whom this is their one time per year, in the slight hope that maybe one or two of them will feel a twinge of nostalgia and start showing up a bit more often. To the people who are already there every week, it's just an annoyance, but it's an important enough event that you can't really skip it either.

Summerslam has become like Easter. The true fans know that's actually the most important day on the calendar.

Which one is Halloween? The Rumble or Survivor Series?

Halloween is not a Christian holiday. It's of SATAN.

So, Bound For Glory.

Obviously the Rumble is Thanksgiving.

Appeal to casual is what made Undertaker/Shane make sense. AJ/Shane makes no sense because casuals have no idea who AJ is.

Why are we thinking it will be AJ vs Shane at WM again? AJ won the match even after Shane restarted. What am I missing?

Randy Orton is a WILD CARD BITCHES

Shane will reinstate Orton's title shot at WM and say "sorry AJ, no soup for you" I imagine

lol, so they're gonna force Shane into a meaningless match with the hottest wrestler on their roster rather than have the WWE title match just be a triple threat match and use the time they're giving to Shane to a full-timer? wtf

Seems to be a dirt-sheet thing.

SD is in my back yard next week, and part of me is a little bit tempted to go, but I haven't been watching and this thread doesn't seem to be particularly positive on SD's WM build, which is cooling my temptation level down.

Damn really? I think SD has been doin a great job building towards WM. Ok maybe not great but the only thing to compare it to is Raw which is just a huge pile of ****.

Who is the Undertaker gonna fight at WM? Roman?

I know "because it's wrestling" is a lame answer, but it kind of applies here. Wrestlers will often act out of their own best interests if it makes for a more intriguing storyline/build.

I guess the kayfabe explanation is he wanted to stake his claim to the title shot before it was officially given to AJ.

Roman.

I just had the realization that this whole "knowing who's going to fight who at Wrestlemania months in advance" thing is what absolutely kills this time of year.

Especially when the card is blah

So are we just assuming Roman is going over Braun at Fastlane and that'll just be that? If so, I have a few questions.

1) How do they plan on building a Roman/Undertaker feud at WM? Surely they can't have Braun beat Roman at Fastlane due to Taker interference.
2) Who does Braun fight at WM? Nobody? His build would feel pretty pointless if so.
3) Wouldn't Roman beating Taker at WM be the perfect opportunity for a heel turn? Say you're building the match story, no one at WWE can be clueless enough to think "and the crowd will pop when Roman pins Taker" is an actual ending that could happen. They know what would happen. So isn't the clear ending to have Roman win clean, expect a cheer in kayfabe, and then when he's getting booed just say "**** it, enough's enough" and beat the living **** out of Taker? I think that'd be ****ing awesome and exactly what the show & Roman's character needs.
4) If WWE attempts to have Roman goes over Braun at Fastlane and then beat Taker at WM as a pure babyface would that be the single worst, least self-aware, booking decision in WWE history?

The worst booking decision in history was having Cena single handedly beat the Nexus and it isn't close.

[gifDavidArquettteWCWChampion]

I should have specified WWE. WCW set the bar to unattainable heights.

Austin turning heel was a terrible decision and far more harmful than the Cena/Nexus thing.

Oh, guess I should have posted that in NVG. In pure kayfabe terms, they aren't building towards Shane/AJ. But the dirtsheet rumors have been speculating on that match since RR. The fact that it's now March and they haven't yet advanced that storyline is possibly good news. But the fact that Shane was physically involved (albeit at the feet of Harper) is a definitely a sign pointing towards Shane getting a match.

People keep talking about how much better Smackdown is than Raw and how they wish Smackdown was more prominent in the joint PPVs.

The three Smackdown matches so far are AJ/Shane, Cena/Nikki vs Miz/Maryse, and the title match. Neither the Intercontinental champ (Ambrose, I had to look it up because of how little it is emphasized), nor the woman's champ (Bliss) is in a program. The tag champs are bland and not over at all. It's really not that much better than Raw.

Ambrose is in a program with Corbin.

Yeah Ambrose is feuding with Corbin, it's actually been one of the better angles at the moment but I think a lot of that's just because they've been mostly putting Corbin over.

The Smackdown is better than Raw talk has been dying here for a while, not sure if people are still saying it around the internet. Pre-Rumble there was no doubt SD was much better than Raw.