Notes about WrestleMania from Dave Schilling.
From March of 2019 to late April of 2019, Dave Schilling was a member of WWE’s creative team. Through that stretch, he was able to be part of the build to WrestleMania 35.
Schilling rewatched that year’s WrestleMania and shared notes from it via a thread on his personal Twitter page. One of the notes was that the original SmackDown Women’s Championship bout was supposed to be Asuka versus Mandy Rose versus Sonya Deville and Rose was going to win the belt. The SmackDown Women’s Title was a part of the double title main event with Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey.
Other notes that Schilling shared was Brock Lesnar and Seth Rollins’ Universal Title match was supposed to be the semi-main event. Lesnar got the match switched to the opener so he could leave early. As a result, Finn Balor versus Bobby Lashley was pushed to that semi-main spot.
There was a singles match between Shane McMahon and The Miz and up until the day of the show, the plan was for Miz to get the win.
On the build to Samoa Joe versus Rey Mysterio for the United States Championship, Joe was going to stretcher Dominik Mysterio. WWE was able to get Dominik licensed in the state of Maryland so he’d be in the clear to take moves but Rey ended up getting hurt.
In a production meeting, it was mentioned that fans were not enjoying the idea of Kurt Angle versus Baron Corbin. Vince McMahon laughed and said, “F*ck em”.
Schilling went on to share an image of the words/phrases not to use and among those were: Ass, back and forth, belt, choke, crazy, feud, hate, hell, here we go, number one contender, strap, stupid, violence, revenge, national television and DQ.
Alright, so I have never watched WrestleMania 35, because I was in catering all night, but I am going to live tweet it *right now*. I will have some thoughts. pic.twitter.com/oR86BaQOR2
— Dave Schilling (@dave_schilling) March 16, 2023
As of this writing, here is the match card for this year’s WrestleMania:
Night One (April 1st)
– Logan Paul vs. Seth Rollins
Night Two (April 2nd)
– Undisputed WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns (c) (w/ Paul Heyman) vs. Cody Rhodes
Date TBA
– SmackDown Women’s Championship: Charlotte Flair (c) vs. Rhea Ripley
– Raw Women’s Championship: Bianca Belair (c) vs. Asuka
– Brock Lesnar vs. Omos (w/ MVP)
– WWE United States Championship: Austin Theory (c) vs. John Cena
– Trish Stratus, Lita & Becky Lynch vs. Damage CTRL (Bayley, IYO SKY & Dakota Kai)
– Hell in a Cell Match: Finn Balor vs. Edge
