Becky Lynch knew this day was coming.

Speaking with the Asbury Park Press and USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey in December, the World Wrestling Entertainment superstar said she had one goal for WrestleMania 35.

"The same hopes as I always have, to main event WrestleMania, right?" Lynch said. "And that’s what I want to do this year. And I don’t care who I have to go through to make that happen, that’s my goal, and to go out and steal the show."

Likewise, when Charlotte Flair spoke with the Asbury Park Press and USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey's "Fan Theory" podcast in 2017, she said she had two goals in her sights: capturing the SmackDown women's championship and, as she matter-of-factly put it, "main-eventing WrestleMania."

So it shall be when WrestleMania 35 takes places Sunday, April 7 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford.

Lynch, known to WWE fans as "The Man" and the winner of the women's Royal Rumble event in January, will compete in the main event against Flair, who began her third SmackDown championship reign on March 26, and RAW women's champion Ronda Rousey in a triple-threat match to close out the Showcase of the Immortals.

It is the first time a women's match has been the main event in 35 years of WrestleManias.

Rousey, who made her WWE competitive debut at last year's WrestleMania, has reigned as the RAW women's champion since August. She was also a trend-setter in the sport of mixed martial arts, where she was the first women's champion in the history of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Speaking to the Asbury Park Press this summer, the former MMA star wore her lifelong affection for the world of professional wrestling on her sleeve.

"The WWE universe is very protective of their love and their art and they don't want people flippantly coming in and disrespecting it and trying to capitalize off of it," Rousey said. "I wanted the WWE universe to know that this is something that is just as important to me as it is to them, and this isn't a 'get rich quick' scheme for me.

"This is something I really, really care about and want to contribute to. Like, I really, really want the WWE to be better off because I was part of it, and I would love for that to come across to the fans as well."

After months of being showered with adulation as a fan favorite, Rousey's character has shifted closer to that of a professional wrestling villain, approaching the RAW women's division without respect or mercy. It's a change that Rousey seemed to foreshadow in her August conversation with the Press.

"There have been times where you have to kind of play the dark knight and do what’s best and not what makes you look best," she said. "But I’ve been fortunate to have those things be aligned, at least as of late, you know? So it's been a very, very pleasant surprise, and if they all turn on me and boo me tomorrow, I at least hope that I will be entertaining them in the process."

The historic women's main event comes with plenty of star power — Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Joan Jett is set to perform her classic "Bad Reputation," Rousey's entrance theme, as the champion makes her way to the ring.

And the bout is the climax of a historic weekend, with boundary-breaking competitor Chyna, who died in 2016, set to be inducted as part of the D-Generation X faction in the WWE Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 6 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. In 1999, Chyna became the first woman to enter the Royal Rumble match and the only woman to win the company's Intercontinental Championship.

WrestleMania 35 will also see Bayley and Sasha Banks defend the newly created women's tag team championships against Beth Phoenix and Natalya, The IIconics and Nia Jax and Tamina — another WrestleMania first.

For some perspective, the last time WrestleMania was at MetLife Stadium, 2013's WrestleMania 29, the only woman on the card was A.J. Lee — and she was ringside in a managerial role.

A few months later, Alexa Bliss signed with WWE's developmental NXT brand. Since being called up to the main roster in 2016, Bliss has held the women's championships on both RAW and SmackDown. This weekend, she will be the host of WrestleMania.

"When I first started, there wasn't actually that much expected from our women," Bliss told us in March. "And to see us kind of change the game with Emma and Paige having the first NXT women's title match to having Ronda Rousey, it's been crazy to see the whole change and to see how many opportunities we've earned from WWE and how much we deliver."

Paige became the inaugural NXT women's champion in the summer of 2013, and went on to be a two-time WWE champion.

The British-born competitor played a key role in the mainstream ascendancy of women's professional wrestling. Neck injuries forced her to retire from in-ring competition in 2018, but she served as on-camera general manager of SmackDown Live until December.

During a February interview to discuss her WWE Studios co-produced biopic "Fighting With My Family," Paige discussed the then-rumored landmark WrestleMania main event.

"I wish I could be part of it, but I’m so happy that I was kind of one of the forerunners for it," Paige said. "It makes me feel really good, because that was my aim for when I came over here: I just wanted to change the perception of how women were looked at in general, and I thought me and couple of others kind of did that.

"And I’m so proud of all the women that took the flag and ran with it at this point, because we have so many talented women there. And I sit back and I’m like, ‘Wow,’ it’s so incredible to see. Because the women are just as good as the men, and some of them are even better.”

The women of WWE are constantly delivering some of the company's most physically demanding, compelling and must-see matches — for proof of that, look to Lynch and Flair's epic "Last Woman Standing" match for the SmackDown women's championship at the all-female Evolution event in October.

There's a reason the eyes of the wrestling world will be on the main event of WrestleMania.

"(We have) some of the best athletes in the world when you look at Ronda and you look at Charlotte and you look at Naomi, you look at 'The Man' Becky Lynch," Lynch said. "I think we have such high caliber of talent at the moment, and I think just the demand from the audience is that they want to see us go out there and do everything that the guys are doing because they know that we can.

"And it’s perfect, and it’s being well-received, and it hurts, and it’s taxing on our bodies, but we wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t absolutely love every single second of it."

WrestleMania 35

When: 5:30 p.m. Sunday, April 7

Where: MetLife Stadium, One MetLife Stadium Drive, East Rutherford

More: For tickets and more information, visit www.wrestlemanianynj.com.