Seven Matches for WWE WrestleMania 38 Following Royal Rumble 2022

By Connor Casey - January 30, 2022 03:37 pm EST

WrestleMania 38 is just over two months away, and following the events of Saturday's Royal Rumble pay-per-view WWE has started to tip its hand towards a number of matches that could take place at its biggest event of the year. The Rumble saw the WWE Championship change hands for the second time in a month, Brock Lesnar win the second Royal Rumble of his career, Ronda Rousey return from hiatus to win the Rumble and Roman Reigns intentionally get disqualified against Seth Rollins in order to retain his WWE Universal Championship. All signs now point towards Reigns vs. Lesnar at WrestleMania for the third time in seven years.

Below are seven potential matches WWE can book for WrestleMania 38. Are we way off base? Are there any we missed? And does this sound like a lineup you'd be interested in watching? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments!

Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins

Remember how I just said Reigns and Lesnar were gearing up for their third WrestleMania match in the last seven years? Well here's a way to fix that. The sad truth is that there's not much of a hook for yet another Reigns vs. Lesnar bout. We've seen it twice on this stage before, with the second time being so bad that Lesnar infamously chucked the Universal title at Vince McMahon in Gorilla Position after the show was over. The argument can't even be made that the "Tribal Chief" vs. a babyface Brock is new because we just saw that in October.

But then there's Rollins, who not only played his role as a chaotic wild card perfectly in the build-up and match with Reigns to open the Rumble but has been getting the best reception from the crowd since his first Universal Championship run. Plus, there's something so wonderfully poetic about the Reigns vs. Lesnar saga (hopefully) ending by bringing back in the third man that spoiled their initial WrestleMania 31 match.

Yes, it's another WrestleMania triple threat main event. But last year's match delivered, it makes narrative sense and WWE can legitimately say they're giving fans something (relatively) new.

Charlotte Flair vs. Ronda Rousey

Yes, you're going to have to wait even longer for Rousey vs. Becky Lynch. The sad reality is Raw simply isn't the A-show anymore and WWE is much more inclined to put its biggest stars on SmackDown. Just don't ask who will be the babyface in this program, because right now that's anyone's guess.

Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair

The one upside of Rousey getting paired up with Flair is that it leaves Lynch open for a match with Belair. "The EST" is the only woman on the Raw roster who has been positioned as a legitimate threat lately and a win over Lynch gives her the chance to redeem what happened back at SummerSlam.

AJ Styles vs. Edge

It's a great matchup that both men have talked about publicly. With the right amount of time, it could steal the weekend.

Randy Orton vs. Riddle

RK-Bro has been a great time, but this is always what the team was leading towards. It feels like the first step towards the match was taken when they lost the tag titles to American Alpha.

Sasha Banks & Bayley vs. The Bella Twins

Yes, this seems like a weird one, but hear me out.

The Bellas, despite Nikki dealing with serious neck issues, were back in action in the Women's Rumble. Nearly every time they talk about another WWE run, they discuss the need to win the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships (something WWE is doing virtually nothing with on Raw). If WWE has them win the gold in the next couple of months, they could get paired up with the inaugural champions in Banks and Bayley.

Sure, Banks and Bayley still hate each other. But it wouldn't take much for them to put their differences aside and team up to fight Brie and Nikki.

Bobby Lashley vs. Drew McIntyre

wwe-drew-mcintyre-bobby-lashley-wrestlemania-1267874.jpg — (Photo: WWE)

Run this one back. Bobby Lashley is once again WWE Champion, but he has no obvious top challenger with Rollins (presumably) still preoccupied with Reigns. Meanwhile, McIntyre is stuck trying to recapture his success from 2020 but keeps coming up short (most notably in the closing moments of last night's Rumble). So how about instead of having him kill time with Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss you send him back to Raw (let's say he was part of the trade that resulted in E going back to SmackDown) you have him take one more shot at his old rival. You could even have them swap the heel/face dynamic now that Lashley is seemingly turning babyface.