Category: Predictions

(Originally Posted Jul 2018)

I’m actually quite impressed with how many meaningful matches ended up on this card. Going into Money in the Bank it looked very much like Extreme Rules was just going to be filler, but they’ve managed to pull out a pretty nice looking card.

So let’s just right to it, here are my predictions for Extreme Rules 2018

Kickoff Match: The New Day vs SAnitY
(Tables Match)

So after waiting for about 4 months, SAnitY finally debut, and well….why did we have to wait this long? If they were waiting for the right time to do a big feud then it’d make sense, but they could’ve done this match in April and it wouldn’t have been any different.

Regardless, I think this has been built ok, and I would’ve liked it to be on the main show instead of something like Balor vs Corbin, but it should be a nice win for SAnitY to hopefully move into something a bit more weighty for Summerslam.

Finn Balor vs Baron Corbin

While I did just praise this show for not feeling like filler, that doesn’t mean there aren’t one or two filler matches. This is one of them.

While I did ironically love Baron Corbin for a little while, I’m over it now, and I really don’t care about anything he does. This whole “Constable” thing had been alright (although I’m not entirely sure WWE knows what a constable is), but I can’t how it serves any real purpose other than giving Corbin something to do for a few months.

While I do love Finn Balor, WWE haven’t done anything interesting with him since Wrestlemania, and I can’t see that changing any time soon. Balor is very much a guy who can be thrust up into the main event scene whenever they want, so they tend to just keep him treading water until that time.

As such, I think it’ll be a standard clean win for Finn Balor here, and he’ll hopefully get himself involved in something good for Summerslam.

Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt(c) vs The B-Team
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

Surprisingly, this has been one of the more entertaining things going on over on Raw this past month.

Bo & Axel have always had great chemistry together, but it’s really shone during this feud. Their 4th wall shattering impressions of Bray & Matt have been the highlight of Raw week to week and I’m holding out hope that this should be a great match. Honestly, it’s a shame there’s almost zero chance that they’re actually going to win this match.

While Matt & Bray haven’t been doing much since winning the Tag Team Championships, I don’t think there’s anyway they’re dropping the belts yet, and losing to the B-Team would be a pretty big death sentence for the team.

So disappointingly, I’m picking Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt to retain in this one.

Braun Strowman vs Kevin Owens
(Steel Cage Match)

Well this has been quite fun. Well…not for Kevin Owens, but for the rest of us at least.

I don’t expect this to be a long one, we’ll have some nice spots where Owens tries to run away and Strowman stops him, leading to Owens being murdered live in front of thousands of people.

Normally, I’d say Braun Strowman would win without a shadow of a doubt, but he’s the Money in the Bank holder now, and they traditionally lose a lot. Not to mention I feel that the Steel Cage stipulation is entirely designed for Kevin Owens to somehow win accidentally, only to send Strowman into a rage and destroy him.

Carmella(c) vs Asuka
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

I cannot begin to describe how much I don’t care about this.

Sure, Asuka’s a great wrestler, but if we take an honest look back on her time on the main roster so far, it’s been crap; it’s not her fault, but it’s the fact of the matter. As for Carmella, she’s fine, but she’s not brought anything interesting to the Smackdown Women’s Championship.

James Ellsworth being suspended in a shark cage doesn’t really change anything, since it always ends up with the person in the shark cage getting involved anyway; not to mention Ellsworth can probably pull and Enzo and slip through the bars in the cage.

So sadly, I think once again Carmella will retain thanks to Ellsworth getting involved.

Jeff Hardy(c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura
(United States Championship)

Given recent events, I think a Kennel from Hell match may be in order.

I must admit, I’m quite disappointed that this feud didn’t get as much of a chance to build as it deserved, but for once it wasn’t WWE’s fault in any way; because who really could’ve seen Nakamura getting bit by a police dog coming? (If you did, could you pick some lottery numbers for me?).

All jokes aside, this should be a great match, Hardy’s been on a roll since becoming a singles star and Nakamura can put on a great match whenever he wants; so as long as WWE don’t dump some of their home-grown bullshit on it, this should be great.

As for a winner, it’s gotta be Shinsuke Nakamura, he’s not won a Pay-Per-View match since February, and a loss here would destroy what little legitimacy he has left.

The Bludgeon Brothers(c) vs Team Hell No
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

This is a feud that doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense until you look at the bigger picture.

So the news came out last week that WWE are preparing for Daniel Bryan not to resign in September, and are thus treating this as his farewell tour which, if it’s anything like RVD’s 3 farewell tours, won’t mean a whole lot in a couple of months. Either way we’re getting some of Daniel Bryan’s greatest hits until he decides to either leave or sign a more long term deal in September. It’s not any of the greatest hits we want to see though, he’s not winning another world title, or beating Sheamus is 17 seconds, he’s just teaming up with Kane again, and fighting people who are taller than him.

So that leads us to this match here. Under normal circumstances, I’d say Team Hell No had this in the bag, however given that this is his greatest hits tour (and it’s been all over the internet for weeks) I’m going to say The Miz gets involved here to set up Miz vs Bryan at Summerslam and The Bludgeon Brothers walk away with the titles still over their shoulders.

Alexa Bliss(c) vs Nia Jax
(Raw Women’s Championship)
(Extreme Rules)

Given that Ronda Rousey has basically told us she’s going to get involved in this match (even if she didn’t say those words exactly), I don’t think there’s any ambiguity as to how this one is going to go down.

While Nia and Alexa have generally put on enjoyable matches in the past, I don’t think there’s anything new that they can bring to the table this time around. The inevitable triple threat match at Summerslam will probably be quite good, but we’ve got to get through this first.

So it’ll be a pretty boring match, until Ronda Rousey let’s her emotions get the better of her and she jumps Alexa. Then in the ensuing chaos, Alexa Bliss will find a way to keep the title, giving Nia some proper beef with Ronda for costing her the title, and we can move forward into what should be quite an entertaining feud.

Dolph Ziggler(c)  vs Seth Rollins
(Intercontinental Championship)
(30 Minute Iron Man)

I really don’t understand the career of Dolph Ziggler. He’ll coast along for a couple years not doing a whole lot and putting me to sleep whenever he appears on the screen, until one day he just suddenly remembers he’s a really good wrestler and puts on a string of really good matches before disappearing again.

Right now, we seem to be in the middle of a string of really good matches from Ziggler, and Seth Rollins couldn’t put on a bad match if he tried; so this should be fantastic.

As for a winner, I’m really hoping Rollins comes away with the title so we can get Rollins vs Drew Mcintyre at Summerslam, since those two men are my favorite wrestlers on the main roster right now. Although I want Rollins to win I’m not entirely sure that he will, because when I think about it, I’m able to come up with a reasonable argument for either man winning.

One the one hand, WWE love Seth Rollins, and he’s been on a tear so far this year and everyone would love to see that continue. But on the flip side an Iron Man match seems like a prime way for Drew, or someone else to get involved and cost Rollins a fall at a crucial moment of the match.

Normally when there’s an option for WWE to go for bullshit, then I’d pick that; but against my better judgement, I’m going to have faith in WWE and say Seth Rollins wins this one 3 falls to 2.

Roman Reigns vs Bobby Lashley

Normally I’d talk a bit about the build for this match, but there hasn’t really been any. There’s been some great build for Roman Reigns vs The Revival, but here he is fighting Bobby Lashley instead. I’m not even sure why these two are fighting, I think it’s because there was originally going to be a number 1 contenders match, but now there isn’t, so they decided they hated each other?

If Brock’s not working Summerslam, then they’ve got to find something vaguely interesting for Roman to do, and outside of a rematch with Cena, I can’t really think of anything.

Either way, Roman Reigns is winning this, it’ll probably be the main event, and it’ll probably crap, but what can you do?

AJ Styles(c) vs Rusev
(WWE Championship)

I was really hoping for a bit more from this feud than we got.

Things started out really well, as Rusev shook AJ’s hand only for Aiden English to be a dick about it, and I thought that was going to be how things were going forward, with Rusev trying to be respectful and good about it, but Aiden unable to stop being an asshole. Instead they tried it for all of about a week, until just reverting back to Rusev joining in with the heelish tactics.

Regardless of how it goes down, AJ Styles is absolutely keeping that WWE Championship, probably after Aiden English tries and fails to get involved.

So there are my predictions for Extreme Rules 2018! I must admit, now I’ve gone through and analysed it match by match, I’m a little less excited for it than I originally was, but I think there’s still going to be plenty to enjoy on the show.

As always please share this around and follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo, and make sure to come back early next week for my reactions and review to the show!

 

(Originally Posted May 2018)

Well, we got a whole 9 days rest, but it’s time for another WWE Pay-Per-View. Thanks to the single week of proper build, this doesn’t feel like that important of a show, but looking at the card it could have some pretty good matches; however that doesn’t stop it feeling like it’s mostly setup for Money in the Bank next month.

Still, let’s arbitrarily speculate over what we think is going to happen at the show.

Braun Strowman & Bobby Lashley vs Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn

The problem with meaningless matches like this on PPV’s is that it’s always so difficult to predict a winner, because ultimately it doesn’t matter. We make up a scenario that justifies whatever pick we make, but in actuality the exact opposite is just as likely to happen.

As such I’ve gone back on forth on this one a lot. On it’s surface it seems like a no-brainer, but Owens & Zayn are new arrivals on Raw and they’ve been getting their arses kicked week after week on TV. So I think Owens & Zayn are going to pick up a win here, there’s no way it’ll be clean, my money’s on a count-out of some description, but somehow, they’ll walk away with the victory.

Jeff Hardy(c) vs Randy Orton
(United States Championship)

This has gotta be Hardy right? No-one wants to see Orton hold that title again, not even Orton because he’d have to be on TV every week. You’ve got Shelton Benjamin waiting in the wings to pounce the winner anyway, and Hardy vs Benjamin should be a great match – if a little 2007 for my tastes. I don’t really have much else to say here, any feud where Randy Orton is the focal point isn’t really worth talking about, so Hardy wins and onto the next one.

Nia Jax(c) vs Alexa Bliss
(Raw Women’s Championship)

This match is really nothing more than a formality, they’re having this rematch because that’s what logic dictates they do. I don’t really see anything interesting coming out of this and there’s no way Nia Jax is losing that title this soon. Maybe we’ll see her next challenger appear at the end of the match but I doubt it, we just need to get this out of the way so we can see what’s next.

Daniel Bryan vs Big Cass

I like how this entire feud is about Bryan being small, yet on that graphic, they’ve made him seem taller than Cass. Bad Photoshopping aside, I really don’t see Cass winning this one, this is Bryan’s first single feud since returning and Cass already got his ‘win’ over Bryan be eliminating him from the Greatest Royal Rumble match. I think Bryan will probably go on to be in Money in the Bank, and Cass will go on to beat up someone lower down the card, maybe even stick his head in the US title scene. Either way, I’m picking Daniel Bryan to win this one.

Carmella(c) vs Charlotte Flair
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

This is an interesting case, because I think we all know how it’s going to go down, yet I still think it has the potential to be interesting. As for what is definitely going to happen, Carmella is going to retain, and it’s going to be via some form of dirty finish, probably involving The Iconics.

However, I don’t really know what the match up until that point is going to be like, Carmella is by no means one of the best women’s wrestlers, but she’s certainly not bad, and Charlotte can easily work with her to make the match a fun watch. I just think it’s more down to how heavily they want to go in on Carmella having to use cheap tactics to win. But, be it a win, or cheap loss, Carmella is leaving Backlash with that title.

Seth Rollins(c) vs The Miz
(Intercontinental Championship)

Another formality that it just feels like we need to get out of the way here. There’s no way that IC title is going over to Smackdown, so as a result I’m entirely confident Seth Rollins is winning the match. I think Miz is going to go back to how he was wrestling about a year ago in this one, wrestling safe and taking a few choice shots here and there to try and pick up the win, and when you combine that with Seth’s fast paced, babyface offense we could see a really entertaining match come out of it.

We also have to consider what the Miztourage are going to do here, because they’ve been trying to buddy up to Seth and Finn these past few weeks, but they might still try to help Miz. What I think would be quite funny is if they try to help Seth, but keep screwing it up and Seth ends up having to work around their incompetence. Regardless, Seth is walking away with that title still over his shoulder.

Roman Reigns vs Samoa Joe

This one is quite a tricky one to call in my mind, because both men really need to win here. Reigns has just come off losing to Lesnar twice (even if he didn’t technically lose the second one) and needs to start picking up some wins before they face off again; while Joe inserted himself into Smackdown’s main event scene on Tuesday and needs to win here and legitimize his claim.

It’s so weird what Reigns losing at Mania has done isn’t it? If Reigns had won at Mania, this would be a no-brainer, and yet he lost and it’s cast doubt on every big match he’s had since. Ultimately, I think Joe can lose here and still insert himself in the main event for Money in the Bank, and Reigns can’t afford to start losing to everyone, so I’m going to say Roman Reigns picks up the win here.

AJ Styles(c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura
(No Disqualification, WWE Championship)

In my review of the Greatest Royal Rumble, I talked about how each match these two have will to build on the last, until we get that 5 star match we’ve all been hoping for, however just a week later, I’m not so sure that is the case. This doesn’t feel like the blow off to their feud, but at the same time, I don’t think we’re going to get another singles match between them for at least a few months. As such, I’m starting to feel like it’s time to shit or get off the pot with these two, and while I think this’ll be the best match of the three, I don’t think it’ll be the big one we all want.

As for who’s going to win, they can’t just keep handing Nakamura losses can they? If he loses here, he sorta loses all claim at staying number 1 contender, so I think this’ll be the one where Shinsuke Nakamura finally picks up the title from Styles, leading to a triple threat at Money in the Bank, which includes Samoa Joe.  I’ve got my fingers crossed that this will be good, but I’m not entirely hopeful.

And that’s everything! This show really could go either way in terms of quality, and I like to remain optimistic, but we’ll see. Either way, make sure you come back on Monday for my review of the show!

Please make sure you share this around and follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo as I’ll probably be live tweeting the event! Thanks for reading and I’ll see you soon!

 

(Originally Posted Apr 2018)

Well, here we are again, another WWE Pay-Per-View has come around and we must arbitrarily predict who will win, and who won’t. I make it sound like a bore, but I actually have a lot of fun with these, and this is kind of a strange one; On the one hand it feels like an over-glorified house show, but on the other it feels like it could be an even more important PPV than Wrestlemania. So here are my predictions for the Greatest Royal Rumble:

Cedric Alexander(c) vs Kalisto               (Cruiserweight Championship)

This one is very much the least important match on the card, as much as I hate to say it. While I think story-wise it would’ve been more interesting for them to have Cedric vs Drew Gulak, I can understand why for this show, they’d much rather just have a showcase match with their top talents. So overall I think this match will be a very fun one to watch, but I don’t see any other outcome other than Cedric Alexander retaining his championship.

The Bludgeon Brothers(c) vs The Usos (Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

The build for this one has been excellent, the Bludgeon Brothers have been treated like horror movie monsters over the past month and watching the Usos play off them has been fantastic. Ultimately I hope this feud just builds and builds, I want the New Day and The Bar to get involved as the dynamic between all of them could make for extremely entertaining television. As for this match though, I think there’s no question The Bludgeon Brothers retain, they’ve done such a fantastic job building them up, there’s no way they’re going to tear that down now.

The Bar vs Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt                            (Raw Tag Team Championships)

Well this one feels very much like a formality doesn’t it? While I thought the whole Braun & Nicholas thing was super fun, it did kind of throw everything out of whack a bit. So now we’ve got another match were the outcome is pretty obvious, since I don’t see The Bar going back to Raw with the titles. However, I am very interested to see what Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt will do with the titles, so far there’s not been a whole lot other than Bray adopting Matt’s catchphrases, but I remain hopeful that once they have the titles, this could blossom and grow in all kinds of interesting directions.

Jeff Hardy(c) vs Jinder Mahal                                       (United States Championship)

Again, this is a match that just feels like another formality. Admittedly, I did consider for a while the possibility that Jinder could win back his belt, for either Joe or Miz to take the IC belt and the brands swap mid-card titles once again, but in the end I just decided that was artificially adding layers of complexity to something that doesn’t really need it. However, I still hold out hope that this will be a good match, Jinder can have entertaining matches when his opponent forces him to work a faster pace, and I think Jeff Hardy could get a lot of out Jinder, and ultimately retain his US Title.

Seth Rollins(c) vs Finn Balor vs The Miz vs Samoa Joe                                                                                           (Ladder Match, Intercontinental Championship)

Could no-one be bothered to badly Photoshop the belt onto Seth’s shoulders like they usually do? Seems kinda strange, but I digress. The problem with having Backlash be literally 9 days after this, is that they sometimes book themselves into a corner. So Seth vs Miz is already booked for Backlash so it really means that only one of them will win this match, and while it makes the most sense for Seth to hold onto the belt, they’re really trying to make Miz the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time, and tieing the record for holding the belt with 9 would be a good way to achieve that. However, I’m going to go with the logic on this one and say Seth Rollins retains.

The Undertaker vs Rusev                                                   (Casket Match)

Undertaker.

Next.

John Cena vs Triple H

Oh hello 2006, I didn’t see you there.

I really have no idea what to make on this match, it exists purely to sell tickets and means nothing to anyone in the grand scheme of things and really…I think that’s a good thing. If this was bogged down by a story I think it would be really boring, but as it is, it’ll probably just be a really fun, house show style match. Ultimately I think John Cena will win, just because it’s the crowd pleasing option, and that is really what this show seems to be about.

AJ Styles(c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura                               (WWE Championship)

So, I was rather underwhelmed by their Wrestlemania match, it felt like a pretty bog standard WWE style world title match; but now, I have a lot more faith in them to put on the match we were all hoping for at Mania. Heel Nakamura has been an absolute gem to watch and his new entrance theme is boss as fuck, and I’m hoping this shift in dynamic is exactly what’s needed to make this match something worth talking about. As for the result, I’m finding that one a bit tricky to call, because part of me says that they’re going to pull the trigger on the title change, but another part of me says, there’s gonna be a wonky finish only for the title to actually change hands at Backlash. However, I think I’m going to go with my first instance and say Shinsuke Nakamura finally picks up, his first world championship in the WWE.

Brock Lesnar(c) vs Roman Reigns                                  (Steel Cage, Universal Championship)

In a move that no-one saw coming (and if you did see it coming, you’re a liar), Brock retained the Universal Championship at Wrestlemania, and at first it was very confusing. Then one night later, this match was announced and suddenly it all made sense, they were saving Roman’s coronation for this big event, at a crowd that’s much more likely to cheer him. So yes, I do think Roman Reigns, is going to pick up the title here. I’m not sure what kind of match we’ll get, as we’ve seen both great and horrible from them; and I don’t know if the steel cage will help or hinder the match, as it’s done both in the past. I also don’t know what’s gonna happen with Brock after this, some sources claim he’s out the door, other sources claim those reports are false, so it’s all up in the air. Which, who knows, might make for an interesting time….probably not though.

50 Man Royal Rumble

And now, for this entire show’s namesake, the “Greatest Royal Rumble” which in reality is just the longest Royal Rumble, where the winner gets….a trophy? I mean I can almost guarantee you that the winner will claim a world title shot anyway, but it’s really not been made clear what the point of it all is. Either way, I think there are two men who have a shot at winning this thing, and here they are:

First up is Braun Strowman, everyone (myself included) loves Braun, and they can’t keep him down from the world title forever, not only would this be a huge thing for him to hang his hat on, I also think rekindling his program with Reigns would be a great way to kick off Reigns’ title run. Other than that, I just think it would get a huge crowd reaction, but not as big as…

Daniel Bryan, this is the man my money’s on to win this thing. I’ll admit, from a story perspective, there’s not really a whole lot of reasoning to it, but if you’re looking for the biggest crowd reaction to the winner of this match, then Daniel Bryan is your man, the place would explode if he won it. Plus, look me in the eyes and tell me you would want to see a Bryan vs Nakamura feud.

So that’s it! That is all of the matches predicted! In a weird way, I’m really looking forward to this show, even though I don’t think it’ll be super memorable in the long run, but hey, who doesn’t love a Royal Rumble.

Be sure to share this around wherever you can, and follow me on Twitter @10ryawoo, where I’m likely to be live tweeting the show! I’ll see you later in the week for my recap of the show!