We are five weeks away from WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas. The main events have been announced. Night 1 will be the American Nightmare Cody Rhodes taking on the Viper Randy Orton for the WWE Championship. 

Night 2 is headlined by CM Punk facing Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight Championship. There are six women’s matches rumored to be featured on the card, and 14-16 bouts total. 

So, when looking at the WWE roster right now, who is in danger of missing out on the grandest stage of them all? Let us look at six WWE superstars who might not have their WM moment this year. We are also not counting injuries, so Bianca Belair, Roxanne Perez, or Bron Breakker will not be included on the list.

Tiffany Stratton and Guilia

It might not be Tiffy Time at WrestleMania this year. 

Stratton has not appeared on WWE television since losing the Elimination Chamber match and has been on television only five times this year. She defeated Kiana James on Friday Night SmackDown, along with Chelsea Green, Alba Fyre, and Guilia. The reason I paired these two together is that Stratton has her eyes on the Women’s US Championship, and Guilia currently holds the belt. The problem is that the title has not been featured on a PLE since its debut at Saturday Night’s Main Event in December 2024. They could find themselves competing for the belt on the SmackDown before ‘Mania or the Raw a day afterwards. Let’s hope Triple H makes the right decision and gives this championship the spotlight it deserves

Lyra Valkyria

Last week on Monday Night Raw, Bayley won the Gauntlet Match to become the No. 1 contender for the Women’s Intercontinental Champion. She will face AJ Lee, and there could be some shenanigans. Becky could interfere, and so could Lyra. If Becky gets added to the match at WM, where does that put Lyra? They could make it a Fatal-Four-Way, but the odds of that happening are slim. Valkyria is the inaugural Intercontinental Champion, and it would be nice to have to be involved in the title picture somehow. Perhaps she is in Bayley’s corner at WM. That would be worth an appearance.

Gunther

The career killer has not had much of a direction since retiring AJ Styles at the Royal Rumble. He last beat Dragon Lee on Raw and took off Lee’s mask, causing a controversy. Now, Gunther is without an opponent for WrestleMania. He could face Rey Mysterio, but I do not see Mysterio putting his career on the line and losing. Or he could answer Brock Lesnar’s open challenge, but the rumor is these two will collide at SummerSlam in what would be Lesnar’s last match. Heading into WM, the “Ring General” is the biggest heel in the company, and not having him on the card would be disappointing.

LA Knight

LA Knight cannot catch a break. He is one of the most over superstars in WWE, but never gets the push. 

Reports suggest Triple H has a personal dislike for Knight, and this could be the reason he is not the WWE Champion yet. Knight is currently feuding with the Vision in a nothing burger of a rivalry. He is rumored to be one of the options to face Brock Lesnar at WM, but fans don’t want to see him get squashed. Knight has been letting out his frustrations with the company, and as reported by Ringside News, he asked to move to Raw because he was done feuding with the MFTs. Hopefully, WWE can find a slot for him in Vegas because the WWE Universe is clamoring for it.

Aleister Black

Seriously, what were we even doing with him? His last two appearances on SmackDown have been interactions with Sami Zayn. The two are not reported to be headed towards a collision course at WrestleMania, so what is the point? He is relegated to backstage segments even though his match with Randy Orton was fine. Black and Vega are being portrayed as Karrion Kross and Scarlett when they were in WWE. Not adding much to the program, and not having any real character development. I really do not know what they will do with him, and would not be shocked if he did not get his WM moment.

Triple H has a lot of work to do, and it is rumored WWE Creative is hoping Bron Breakker can return before ‘Mania to kickstart a rivalry with Seth Rollins. The dominoes will soon fall, and WWE fans will have a clearer picture of what they will be seeing come April 18th and 19th. Speaking of which, there are five matches announced for the event, and by the end of this week, more will be added. In the next article, I will delve into each match and the rivalry between the competitors.

What we’ve got here, Keith Gill, is failure to communicate.

Or maybe I should direct my ire not at Gill, the Sun Belt Conference commissioner and this year’s NCAA Tournament selection committee chair, but at CBS for bungling the delivery of the biggest news of Selection Sunday.

Somebody help me out, because the committee did the right thing — they put Miami (Ohio) in the tournament — and somehow it still feels like Gill was backpedaling and playing defense on the topic throughout Sunday.

Miami, as in the “other” Miami, had a historic 31-0 regular season, the fourth perfect regular season this millennium, but the RedHawks had neither “beaten anybody” nor won their games all that convincingly. Four wins, including three in the Mid-American Conference, needed overtime and a handful of others came by two points in regulation.

But winning is winning, and prejudiced analysts like ex-Auburn coach Bruce Pearl were saying some wild things about whether Miami deserved an at-large NCAA bid, which only intensified after the RedHawks were promptly upset in the MAC quarterfinals.

When the selection show came around Sunday, college basketball journalist Seth Davis declared on CBS that “Miami (Ohio) was the last at-large team selected. They were one spot away from not being in this tournament.” And the accompanying graphic showed the “Last Four In” to be NC State, Texas, SMU and Miami (Ohio). It’s widely understood through the prevalence of pop bracketology that those lists are in a sequential order, and being last on said list signifies you were the last team into the field.

Cut to Gill’s interview on CBS, as well as further damage control on other networks, as he swore up and down it was not the case.

“Miami (Ohio) was not the last team selected into the field,” Gill said. “They came in before NC State, Texas, and SMU. And when we did our scrubbing process, those teams scrubbed above (Miami) relative to the predictive metrics and also the difference in the quality of the wins.”

So CBS’s “Last Four In” graphic ordered the at-large teams by overall seed — which had Miami (Ohio) last, even if the committee wrote their name down before Texas a few minutes prior, which does feel like splitting hairs. On the NCAA’s overall seed list, Miami is 44th and VCU is 45th; Gill made sure to explain that if VCU hadn’t won its conference tournament, it wouldn’t have been an at-large.

Got all that? I never thought I’d hear the word “scrubbing” so much on a selection show. I’ve watched these all my life, and I’ve never felt less like I understand the process that’s going on behind those doors.

If Seth Davis looks at a list and understands Miami (Ohio) to be the last team in the field, the general populace who only watch college basketball four weeks a year will be inclined to believe the same.

Miami was 31-0, friends. The point is that the RedHawks should have been safely in the field, not teetering on the bubble. I’m sure they don’t terribly mind going to Dayton, an hour away to campus, for a veritable home game against SMU. But it reflects poorly on the committee and CBS alike that 

1.) This came so close to being screwed up and 2.) The messaging about how a team ended up where it did is a Gordian knot to be untangled across multiple interviews.

There wasn’t much else to critique this year, as the four No. 1 seeds were fairly obvious, but let me lodge two more complaints:

St. John’s won 19 of its last 20 games, captured the Big East regular-season and tournament titles and is… a five seed.

UConn, with a nearly identical overall record, is a two seed. Purdue had an abysmal end of the regular season, swept the Big Ten tournament and was boosted to a two seed. “But it really it is a full body of work,” Gill later said. “One of the things I would say about St. John’s is their results in the nonconference did not have the same depth and quality as some of the folks that are ahead of them.” OK, then maybe the proper point of comparison is No. 1 Florida. Both teams started sluggishly and took four losses against similar nonconference strengths of schedule, but the Gators sure weren’t held back for that reason.

Just admit you’re doing an eye test thing about the strength of the Big East. I’ll tell you right now, St. John’s will demolish No. 4 seed Kansas if it comes to that in the second round.

I’d be furious this morning if I rooted for Miami. The real Miami this time, Florida, The U. That’s because the Hurricanes are the No. 7 seed in their region but must play No. 10 Missouri in St. Louis of all places. Why should the lower seed get a home-court advantage that blatant?