A Feud With A View

WrestleMania 30 is right around the corner. Since the Royal Rumble the Creative Department has been building toward this event. Daniel Bryan and the "Yes!" Movement have dominated most of the upper-tier story. Batista's return has fallen flat, and WWE, in response, turned him heel. For a long time, it looked as though the main event at WrestleMania 30 would be Batista vs WWE Champion Randy Orton. A "hijacking" of Monday Night Raw later left us with Daniel Bryan vs Triple H, with the stipulation that if Bryan won he would enter the main event with a shot at the title. A week later, in a fit of anger, Triple H expanded the stipulation that whoever won the Triple H vs Bryan match would enter the title match, giving WrestleMania a potential Triple Threat main event.

Wrestling icon Hulk Hogan returned to the WWE and announced that WrestleMania 30 would feature the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, a 30-man, over the top rope, elimination event. The winner will receive a special trophy, which in wrestling terms means someone is getting a trophy broken over their head or back. While the prize is a throwback to the first ever Royal Rumble in 1988, the competitors will feature athleticism beyond that seen in the first battle royal.

WrestleMania season also means the return of the Undertaker for his yearly match. The Phenom is 21-0 at WrestleMania, having recently taken down CM Punk, Triple H (twice), and Shawn Michaels (also twice). This year, Taker goes up against Brock Lesnar. The build for this one, admittedly, has been quite weak. Undertaker has twice humiliated Lesnar with no reprisal. I figure that changes at Raw tonight.

The best built feud for WrestleMania is, without a doubt, the upcoming battle between John Cena and Bray Wyatt. Cena is the undisputed face of the WWE, garnering the support of what I refer to as a demographic full of toddlers and soccer moms. Bray Wyatt is a backwoods cult leader who has twisted the minds of two big men to do his bidding (Harper and Rowan).

Wyatt and Cena have crossed paths several times, as the Wyatt family cost Cena the title at Royal Rumble, and then again found themselves inside the Elimination Chamber, where they again denied Cena a chance at championship gold.

Wyatt confronted Cena while the latter was in the ring talking with Hulk Hogan. In what has become typical fashion for Cena and WWE booking, Cena proceeded to mock Bray Wyatt. Cena has a history, thanks to WWE Creative, of burying up-and-coming talent in an effort to keep Cena acceptable to the toddlers. Thankfully, though, Wyatt was not buried. Why? Because Cena is the most polarizing figure in the WWE. While the kiddies and soccer moms love him, adult fans, and members of the vaunted Internet Wrestling Community (IWC) cannot stand him.

Bray Wyatt has put forth some of his best promo work against John Cena. As a quick aside, the report is that Bray Wyatt writes his own promos and submits them to Creative for approval, which they usually are. He tends to record his promos ahead of time, but that does not diminish the effectiveness of Wyatt. The best of the promos he's recently delivered saw Wyatt dressed in Cena's t-shirt and wearing a Cena armband, spouting that he could "sign autographs, and kiss babies, and make sure that everyone buys all my merchandise...I could go home to my plastic girlfriend in my castle." The plastic girlfriend line being a not-so-subtle dig at Cena's real-life girlfriend, Nikki Bella.

The next episode of Raw saw Cena take on Luke Harper in a brutal match. Just as Cena looked poised to win, the lights went out and some scuffling was heard in the ring. When the lights came back on, Cena was tied up in the bottom ropes and was wearing Rowan's sheep mask. It was a particularly creepy image for the toddlers.

I wouldn't be surprised if Wyatt and Cena clash tonight. Whoever comes out on top tonight will likely lose at 'Mania. That's sort of WWE's code. (Don't believe me? Just watch Raw tonight.)

But so long as the promo work remains top-notch, then this feud will continue to be the best of the bunch.