What WINC Wants Vol. 3: WWE WrestleMania 41 Edition

WWE's WrestleMania 41 is upon us. With a baker's dozen matches on the books (so far), the cards for both nights of pro wrestling's biggest annual spectacle are stacked. All four major titles are on the line, plus two men's secondary titles and two sets of tag team titles. And that's not counting the grudge matches, though it's worth noting that more than one of these title bouts has descended into grudge match territory.

John Cena faces Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship. Tiffany Stratton defends her WWE women's title against Charlotte Flair in what's become a dramatic storyline. CM Punk, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns face off for the soul of Paul Heyman, which he may or may not have already sold decades ago. LA Knight hopes to hold onto his United States title against the Samoan Werewolf Jacob Fatu. Bron Breakker will try to keep his Intercontinental title against half of Judgment Day and high-flying newcomer Penta. That's not even half of the card! 

Since it's WrestleMania 41 week, we decided to devote the entirety of our new feature, What WINC Wants, to exploring who the Wrestling Inc. readership wants to win.

We already gave you some of the results in last week's installment of What WINC Wants, but we figured it was worth updating you on these contests.

A week ago, we told you 40% of our readership wanted CM Punk to win the main event of Night One of WrestleMania 41. That hasn't changed much, though it has increased; now 43% of you are pulling for the Second City Saint. Those three percentage points came at Seth Rollins' expense, as his share of the vote drops from 38% to 35%, with Roman Reigns remaining flat at 22%.

Some of you are trying to stack the deck against Punk, because 55% of audience respondents voted to see Paul Heyman screw over not only Punk but also Reigns.

Jey Uso has also gained some support; we previously reported that 57% of you want to see him dethrone Gunther to become World Heavyweight Champion and 2% more have joined to cause to make it 59%.

The grudge match pitting Jade Cargill against Naomi is one of the best built and most anticipated matches on the WrestleMania 41 card, and it will go down on Saturday in what is sure to be an emotionally-charged bout. While Cargill has been a fan-favorite since making the jump to WWE, all of us, both readers and WINC staff alike, want to see Naomi come out of this on top. While it's closer with our readership, with 63% of votes cast going for Team Naomi compared to our 82%, it seems the overarching belief is that Naomi's new heel character is too good to take the loss.

While our predictions for just who will win the match may be different, as we predicted Cargill is actually the woman winning this one, we all want to see Naomi best Cargill. Naomi actually had a relatively short heel run as Trinity in TNA Wrestling, but for many of us, this is our first time seeing the star work as a heel and we believe she's doing some of the best work of her career. That's all from what we've seen in just a few weeks time and if given the time and momentum from a WrestleMania win, she could only get better. Her "Proceed With Caution" gimmick has led to some amazing promo work in video packages, and the numbers show from our readers as well that we're mostly in agreement about that.

Cargill also hasn't had many singles matches in her WWE career and has never been to WrestleMania as a singles star. Considering we polled some of the more hardcore wrestling fans, it's no shocker that we all want to see Naomi, who has more experience in the ring, get the victory, as we can all agree she deserves it with how hard she's worked over the years. Not that Cargill doesn't, and 37% of our readers believe she does, she's just not yet the established singles star like Naomi is, so her getting the victory isn't as believable.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Drew McIntyre looks to exorcise his demons from last year as he heads into WrestleMania 41 in a Sin City Street Fight against Damian Priest. McIntyre and Priest have ple ty of history. It was at last year's "Show of Shows" that Priest cashed in Money in the Bank, moments after CM Punk had attacked the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion, to wrest the title away from McIntyre mere minutes into his reign; McIntyre pursued the title Priest had stolen from him, losing a rematch in front of his home crowd at Clash at the Castle in Glasgow and then once more failing to cash in his Money in the Bank he had won earlier on at the namesake event — both times through the interference of Punk. 

McIntyre switched gears to feud with Punk, eventually losing the feud and heading into the Royal Rumble to get back on track to regaining his title. Alas, Priest would eliminate him from the match, and when they met again inside the Elimination Chamber Priest once again eliminated McIntyre. The next best thing for McIntyre at this year's WrestleMania is a shot at retribution against Priest, and with "The Punisher" having had his number at every point for the past year it certainly feels like "The Scottish Warrior" needs the result more. That is reflected by the polls put to both the Wrestling Inc. team and staff, with 82% of the team backing McIntyre to get the win, while 75% of the readers have also favored him. 

It makes sense that McIntyre would be the favored choice for the fact that his journey seems bound to his pursuit of the world title. That's not to say Priest would be an unworthy victor, as reflected by the minority voting for him, but he simply doesn't need to win as much as McIntyre does. 

Written by Max Everett

After defeating Shinsuke Nakamura for the United States Championship last month, LA Knight's opponent for WreslteMania 41 was still up in the air until two weeks ago, when Jacob Fatu defeated Braun Strowman in a Last Man Standing Match to become the number one contender. Heading into this weekend, Knight is inching closer towards 50 days as champion, where Fatu will be looking to capture his first singles title on WWE's main roster since debuting for the company last year. 

There's not a lot of history between Knight & Fatu. Due to Knight's title reign still being relatively new, and Fatu becoming one of the hottest stars on "WWE SmackDown" as of late, Wrestling Inc. readership has been split on who should emerge victorious at WrestleMania 41, with "The Samoan Werewolf" being the slight favorite at 57%. However, our staff clearly believes a new champion will be crowned on Saturday, with 100% of us backing Fatu to win the title. Although it may seem surprising that our staff has little faith in Knight retaining the United States Championship at "The Grandest Stage Of Them All," we believe it would be smart for WWE to capitalize on Fatu's recent popularity, especially now that he's no longer in Solo Sikoa's shadow.

In addition, having Fatu win his first singles title should propel him closer towards the main event picture, as a strong championship reign following WrestleMania will hopefully put him in a position to eventually challenge for the world title once he loses the belt. Although Knight is still a fan favorite, losing at WrestleMania will likely not impact his position on the card going forward, where Fatu could definitely use a win to solidify himself as a top singles star.

Written By Julien D'Alessandro

The Intercontinental Championship is set to be defended in a fatal four-way for the first time in WrestleMania history, and perhaps even more historic is the fact it might be the first time a lot wrestling fans want Dominik Mysterio to win a match. While those of us here at WINC who voted want to see Penta take the gold, a good portion of our readers who voted, 57% to be exact, want to see Mysterio win the IC title.

Mysterio winning the IC championship would be the best catalyst for the breakup of the Judgment Day, which is presumably what many fans want out of this match involving both Mysterio and Finn Balor. Following the departure of the "Terror Twins" Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest, Judgment Day has been hanging on by a thread and it's just time to see the faction end, as the storylines aren't interesting anymore.

Mysterio has been one of the best heels in WWE in recent memory, but he's been leaning more babyface over the last month or so when he's been attempting to get back in Balor's good graces, to the point it's become almost endearing. His recent media tours alongside Liv Morgan, including a high-profile appearance on "Hot Ones Versus," make us want to see him with the championship, especially if he's slowly turning face.

While here at WINC, 55% of us are on Team "Cero Miedo," our readers put Penta in third place when it comes to who they want to win the IC title at just 13%, tied with Breakker retaining. Our readers put Mysterio high above all others involved in the match, with Balor coming next with just 17% of the votes. Either way, not many of us want to see Breakker retain the title. After his now-iconic spear that had Carlito announcing his own funeral on social media, we think it's safe to say we're all on the same page in thinking it's time for Breakker to move up into the main championship scene.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Tiffany Stratton faces the biggest challenge of her career this weekend at her first WrestleMania, defending her WWE Women's Championship against the winner of the Women's Royal Rumble, Charlotte Flair. Flair herself has already told Stratton that she is not ready for the 14-time world champion, two-time Royal Rumble winner, and future Hall of Famer, but claimed she was willing to stoop down to her level, make an example out of her, and pluck a 15th championship in the process. In fact, the feud has largely swung around the idea that Flair does not see Stratton as a worthy opponent, and the reductive tone has continued until they were both going off-script and referencing one another's relationship histories. 

Purely focusing on the competition between them, Stratton is entirely new to the event while Flair is wrestling her eighth time at WrestleMania — all of which have been with a title on the line. Flair currently has a 4-3 record at the "Show of Shows," losing last year to Rhea Ripley as her only one-on-one defeat at the event. So while there is always a chance for Stratton to retain her title, the odds are surely not in her favor based on statistics alone. That much was reflected in the Wrestling Inc. predictions for Saturday, with 71% believing Flair will take the title on the night. 

However, that is not a reflection of subjective desire, as 82% of the team and 76% of readers voted that they wanted to see "Tiffy Time" at WrestleMania 41. A win for Stratton over Flair at the biggest event on the wrestling calendar would undoubtedly be a huge feather in the cap of one of the company's top young stars, whereas Flair would be winning yet another title reign mere months after she returned to the company. Simply because of who she is and her resume it will always feel like "The Queen" is going to walk out with her hand raised, but it's more than fair to say that the hope is the younger star shines through. 

Written by Max Everett

This weekend, IYO SKY will head into WrestleMania as a champion for the second consecutive year, and yet, it doesn't feel like it.

For weeks, Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley have verbally and physically cast aside SKY in what were supposed to be three-way meetings on WWE television. The first came when Belair and Ripley derailed SKY's celebratory interview on "WWE Raw" by yelling at each other, then shoving her away on two separate occasions. More recently, Ripley threw their WrestleMania 41 match contract at Belair, causing the two to resume another heated faceoff. When SKY then tried to intervene, Ripley pushed her out of the way, prompting the reigning WWE Women's World Champion to knock down both her WrestleMania 41 opponents with a missile dropkick in retaliation, and also as a signal that she demands respect.

We at Wrestling Inc. demand respect for SKY as well, so much so that 73% of our staff want her to walk in and walk out of WrestleMania night two as the WWE Women's World Champion. WINC readers seem to think similarly because 51% of them have circled SKY as their preferred winner pick as well.

Belair vs. Ripley has been a heavily sought-after main roster singles match for years now, and perhaps this event is planting the seeds for it to happen at SummerSlam or even WrestleMania 42 in New Orleans. For right now, though, the majority of us are rooting for the underdog (in this case, IYO SKY) to rise and simultaneously change her fate at "The Show of Shows."

Written by Ella Jay