Tag: Becky Lynch

WWE Survivor Series 2019: Predictions & Analysis

As the end of the year draws near, WWE brings us another annual Survivor Series, a PPV which – for the last couple of years at least – has always been much better than it has any right to be. This year looks to be no different as there are already several matches on this show which have match of the year potential in my eyes.

Adding NXT to the mix was a stroke of genius as not only did it make TV for this month more exciting, but it finally put stock to everything WWE’s been saying this past couple of months about NXT no longer being “developmental” and being on-par with Raw & Smackdown. In addition to this, they’ve abandoned the idea of every match on the show having to be a brand vs brand match, which means there’s a couple of juicy looking title matches for us to get excited about as well.

All this means that there isn’t really a match on this show where I’m entirely certain about the winner, so let’s dig right into the predictions!

The Viking Raiders vs The New Day vs The Undisputed Era
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)

Straight out of the gate with the exciting matches.

So here we’ve got two teams that have already put on a couple of brilliant matches in NXT with Viking Raiders and Undisputed Era and then you add in one of the most consistently brilliant teams of the past decade in WWE with The New Day, how could you possibly not be excited about this match? These are three teams who know everything there is to know about having great tag team matches, my only real fear here is that there’s a chance it could get it’s time cut a little bit given some of the other matches on this show that are likely to go long.

If The Viking Raiders had won the world cup at Crown Jewel, then I would’ve picked them to continue their winning streak here, but since they now have that loss under their belt, that aura of indestructibility they had has faded a lot, especially when you consider that the Raw Tag Titles are the biggest afterthought in all of WWE right now. This leaves us with The Undisputed Era and The New Day and while I think it’s entirely possible The New Day will notch a win here, I’m going with The Undisputed Era to pick up the victory, as I feel like they have the most to lose here, in addition to the fact that I think this match will open the show, so an NXT win straight out of the gate will go a long way to shaking things up for the rest of the night.

AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura vs Roderick Strong
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)

Once again, there’s precisely 0% chance this match won’t be great, these are three of the best pure wrestlers in the world right now, even WWE will struggle to mess this one up.

Styles & Nakamura have proved time after time that they can put on solid matches with each other, so you throw in a guy like Roderick Strong, who can easily keep pace with the two of them and wrestle the exact kind of style they can and you’ve got yourself a winning formula. Then there are the standard benefits that a triple threat match provides, with the pace constantly being at a fever pitch, this should essentially be the awesome Cruiserweight Championship triple threat matches we’ve been getting all year, but turned up to eleven.

This is the only match on this show where I feel fairly confident in saying that I don’t think NXT will win. I don’t think that’s any kind of reflection on Strong, but NXT need to take a couple of losses on the night and I think Strong losing this match here will matter the least in the grand scheme of things. In fact, I can honestly say I’m pretty damn confident in picking AJ Styles to win this one. WWE has been extremely high on Styles for a good couple of years now and the past couple of months have shown that enthusiasm isn’t dying down any time soon, so a strong win for the guy here feel like the obvious choice.

Team Raw vs Team Smackdown vs Team NXT
(Women’s 5 on 5 on 5 Elimination Tag)

This is a lot of wrestlers…

The main problem I always have with Survivor Series elimination matches is how inept and weak it makes some of the wrestlers look. For the wrestlers who last in the matches for a long time, it’s great, but for the wrestlers who get eliminated in the first 10 or so minutes, it’s horrible. Generally, the first half of these matches are some very basic chain wrestling, followed by 3 or 4 wrestlers getting pinned to a single signature after about 2 minutes of time in the ring, sometimes not even that. So with 15 wrestlers in the mix instead of just 10, I can only expect this problem to be even worse.

That said, once the early eliminations are out of the way the action tends to pick up quite significantly and I almost always have a lot of fun watching the latter halves of these matches. In addition to this, there’s some great opportunities here to have some really intense confrontations between people we’ve never got a chance to see go at it, like Rhea Ripley & Nikki Cross, or Candice LaRae & Charlotte Flair, or Io Sharai & literally anyone.  The confrontation last night’s Smackdown implied that NXT’s team would be Rhea Ripley, Mia Yim, Candice LaRae, Tegan Nox & Toni Storm, but WWE has only officially announced Ripley as a participant, with the rest “TBD”, which almost certainly means they haven’t made their minds up yet whether they’ll include heels like Io or Belair yet.

This factor does make things a little harder to predict, however, I don’t think Team NXT will win this one regardless since most of them will be beaten down from WarGames the night before, but in a more general sense I think there are people on the other teams that need the wins more right now. As for the other two teams I’m quite torn. Team Smackdown has Sasha Banks who, after losing HER feud to Becky could really do with a win and Nikki Cross, who is being built up a bit more as a singles star. That said, Team Raw has Charlotte Flair, and it’s hard to bet against Charlotte Flair. When you consider this alongside the fact that the tensions between Nikki & Sasha have been played up significantly, I think everything points towards Team Raw coming out on top, most likely with Charlotte & Natalya being the survivors.

Team Raw vs Team Smackdown vs Team NXT
(Men’s 5 on 5 on 5 Elimination Tag)

I mean, if we’re looking at this from a purely kayfabe standpoint, Team Raw should walk this one.

Once again, this is a match that suffers from the WarGames problem, as they can’t announce anyone for Team NXT as there’s a good chance one or more people could get messed up by WarGames. That said, assuming no-one gets injured I’d say that Saturday’s Team Ciampa, with an added Matt Riddle seems like a pretty solid bet to me. In terms of how good I think the match is going to be, you can pretty much just copy/paste what I said about the women’s match, it’ll start off kind of boring, but become really fun by the end.

I’m struggling to determine who I think is going to win this one. My gut says that it’s definitely not going to be Team Raw, but I don’t really have any logic for that, other than they don’t exactly have anything to lose from a business standpoint. Smackdown has only just moved to FOX and I’m sure WWE would like to please FOX by making their show look like it’s better than both of USA’s shows, but at the same time, such a big deal has been made out of NXT invading and showing that they’re just as good as the other two brands that a loss here could be very damaging; and I’m sure WWE wants to do everything they can to make sure their ratings victory over AEW Dynamite on Wednesday isn’t a one-off.

I’m going to go with Team NXT to take this win, but just know that I’m not very confident in that pick at all.

Becky Lynch vs Bayley vs Shayna Baszler
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this has all the potential in the world to be the match of the year. Let’s take a look at what we’ve got here. We’ve got a woman whose been the biggest star in the whole industry for the past year in Becky Lynch; A fantastic wrestler whose character has recently gotten a new burst of life in Bayley; and one of the best heel wrestlers on the planet right now in Shayna Baszler. This match is going to tear all the houses down.

These three women have dominated their respective brands for the majority of the year so this match really feels like it’s a clash of the titans. I’m expecting tonnes of exciting action all the way through this with all three competitors getting plenty of licks in and hopefully, this will get plenty of time to do it all.

This brings us to the matter of who wins because I can honestly make a pretty solid case for all three women. There’s Bayley, who hasn’t had a big opportunity to show her stuff since turning heel and for the past month, she’s been somewhat undercut by Baszler showing up, so a win here would do her the world of good. Then there’s Baszler, who is currently amidst a long-running streak of dominance that’s become the focal point of every NXT Women’s storyline, so having her lose here would certainly do significant damage to that in the short-term. Finally, there’s Becky Lynch, who’s still the biggest star in WWE, so her winning would be no surprise.

Ultimately, Becky is never going to be damaged by a loss, especially one where she probably won’t take the fall. As much as it’d suck to see Baszler lose, she’s been made out as being such a huge deal on Raw & Smackdown this past month that as long as she gets a strong showing, her losing won’t be the end of the world. Which is why I’m picking Bayley. The fact that Shayna & Becky have been treating her as an afterthought is something that’s been played up a fair bit for this whole build and I think that will be the deciding factor, allowing Bayley to sneak in at the right moment and pick up the win.

Adam Coles(c) vs TBD
(NXT Championship)

This is a fantastic decision.

For the past couple of months, we’ve heard so much from WWE about how NXT is now the equal “3rd brand” but there hasn’t been much but empty words behind it until this point. I’m very glad that Cole didn’t just get shoved in the elimination tag match and more importantly, the NXT title is being treated just as important as the other two world titles, getting it’s own featured match between two of the brand’s top stars.

While Cole could end up facing any of the three men in the triple threat match, I think it’ll probably be Pete Dunne, partly because he’s that perfect mix between someone the fans might’ve heard of, but isn’t an already established wrestler on the main roster like Killian Dain is. On top of that, I think Cole vs Dunne will be a brilliant match, even if it doesn’t get as much time as it would on a Takeover.

That said, I can’t see the title changing hands on this show. Dain & Priest definitely won’t pick up the NXT title anytime soon and while I could see Dunne potentially getting a run with the strap I highly doubt it’ll happen this soon after his mammoth UK Championship reign. Not to mention that WWE has absolutely been pushing Adam Cole & The Undisputed Era as the featured NXT stars of this whole “invasion” angle, so I’m pretty confident in picking Adam Cole for this one.

Brock Lesnar(c) vs Rey Mysterio
(WWE Championship)
(No Holds Barred)

In a strange twist, Survivor Series has become a show where we can consistently expect one thing: great Brock Lesnar matches. His matches against AJ Styles in 2017 and against Daniel Bryan in 2018 were both fantastic lengthy wrestling matches and while his 2016 match against Goldberg wasn’t a clinic it certainly blew us all away. So as we sit here in 2019, Lesnar has a title match against none other than Rey Mysterio, a wrestler who wrestles a similar, small-guy, fast-paced style to Styles & Bryan and has shown absolutely no signs of slowing down with age.

Lesnar always works best when he’s fighting guys significantly smaller than him and they don’t get much smaller than Mysterio, not to mention that these two also worked together a couple of times during Lesnar’s first run in WWE in 2002-2004, so there’s tonnes of potential here for something really great to come out of this.

This is one of the two matches on this show that I’m pretty confident about picking a winner for. While it’s true that Lesnar is no longer the indestructible monster he once was, I don’t see Mysterio picking up the WWE title any time soon. I’ve no idea what the end-game is for Lesnar in this title reign, but the fact remains that he’s still where the money is and it makes sense for him to hold on to this title until at least Wrestlemania. Although I wouldn’t consider it a major shock for Mysterio to win this one, I’m sticking to old reliable and picking Brock Lesnar to retain.

The Fiend Bray Wyatt(c) vs Daniel Bryan
(Universal Championship)

Yes!

I’ve never got much of a chance to talk about it, but one of my favourite matches from this past decade was Daniel Bryan vs Bray Wyatt at Royal Rumble 2014, it was the match that made me realise how brilliant of a wrestler Bray Wyatt really was and I’m so excited that we get to see it again, only this time for a world title and with Bray’s extremely exciting new character and style.

It’s going to be really interesting to see how The Fiend’s style meshes with Bryan’s because on the surface, it doesn’t seem like they should; but if anyone can make it work, it’s the man I constantly herald as the best wrestler in the world today. The main feeling I’ve got from all of The Fiend’s matches so far is that they’re something “different”, sometimes that’s good, sometimes that’s bad, but it’s always a really interesting thing to watch unfold.

That said, as much as I think the match will be great, I’m entirely confident in saying The Fiend Bray Wyatt will walk away as the champion. There’s a chance that this will be a non-finish so the feud can run longer, probably to a TLC match next month, but there isn’t a chance in hell that The Fiend is losing that Universal title anytime soon.

So there you have it! Those are my predictions for Survivor Series 2019, thank you very much for taking the time to read this article, please let me know what you think will happen on Sunday either on Twitter @10ryawoo or in the comments below! Finally, make sure to come back tomorrow for my review of NXT Takeover: WarGames III!

WWE Hell in a Cell 2019: Every Match Ranked

Going into this show, I really wasn’t sure how I’d feel coming out of it Monday morning and now I’m sitting here beginning to type up this review, I honestly still don’t know how I feel. This show was filled with a lot of nothing, which I suppose is to be expected when you shovel 5 matches onto the show mere hours before it’s set to begin (and in one case, less than an hour).

That said, the matches that were noteworthy had quite a lot to them, which admittedly just be because we have the last-minute matches to compare them to but still. Then, of course, there’s how the show ended and the outrage it’s caused (don’t worry, I’ll get to it). I guess it’s time to take a dive in and rank every match from Hell in a Cell 2019.

9 – Natalya def. Lacey Evans
(Kickoff Show)

No points for guessing where this one would land…

I honestly don’t know what to tell you about this match, it’s my least favourite wrestler in WWE right now wrestling someone who doesn’t seem to be improving at all despite being given all the opportunities in the world. The match was slow, sloppy and boring, the commentators keep talking about how heated a rivalry this is, but I honestly couldn’t even tell you why it is they’re fighting and that’s after going back and looking for reasons from Raw.

Still, apparently, it’s heated enough to warrant a Last Woman Standing match tonight, can’t wait to see if Natalya can beat Lacey after watching Natalya beat Lacey

8 – The Viking Raiders & Braun Strowman def.     The OC via Disqualification

Someone did tell Vince McMahon this wasn’t an episode of Raw right?

As I sat down to write this article, I realised that not only had I forgot who won this match, but that it even happened full stop. For the most part, it was perfectly fine, but this is the exact kind of match we’ve come to expect from Raw main events that mean literally nothing, even while they’re happening. The match was at least fairly fun to watch and it probably would have landed a place or two higher if it wasn’t for the god-awful finish.

Not only was it a pointless DQ finish, but it was also the worst kind of DQ finish, where the ref just decided “No! You’re wrestling TOO MUCH!” and calls for the bell, it’s never made sense to me and it didn’t help anyone here. Utterly pointless.

7 – Chad Gable def. King Corbin

Do you get the joke? It’s because Chad Gable’s not as tall as Baron Corbin, which makes him somehow inferior. High-brow stuff I know, I didn’t get it until the 47th time they repeated it.

Extremely tired short jokes aside, this was an ok match. It got more time than I was expecting it to and both men put in a good effort to justify this spot, the only problem is I just don’t have the capacity to care because I’ve seen this match twice a week for the past three weeks now and if the backstage segment after the match is any indication, we’ll be seeing it again tonight.

It feels unfair because it’s not the fault of either man in the ring that no forethought went into any part of this show, but it’s the sad state of affairs we find ourselves in.

6 – Randy Orton def. Ali

I’ve been pretty snarky about these last-minute matches so far, but this is the first one that I can honestly say I enjoyed.

I can’t say I was (or ever am) expecting much from the show’s Randy Orton match, but god-damn if Ali didn’t work his ass off trying to make it entertaining. Ali’s style of offence worked surprisingly well with Orton, who didn’t spend much of the match on offence in hindsight, Ali made sure to keep the pace fairly fast outside of one part where Orton decided to work a chin lock for about 3 minutes.

Then, there was one of the coolest looking RKO counters I’ve seen in a long time, with Ali going along with the move only to pull off a handstand at the last minute. However, it was all for nothing when Orton hit the RKO and won the match anyway, but it was a cool moment. Contrary to what I’ve been saying so far in this article, I wouldn’t mind seeing this one again with a longer runtime.

5 – Charlotte Flair def. Bayley(c)
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

This is one of those situations where I enjoyed this match, but at the same time I know these two can do better, so I’m a bit disappointed.

It might be due to the fact that this match got less time than both Orton/Ali & Gable/Corbin, but I couldn’t help coming away from this match a tad underwhelmed. There was still a fair amount to like though, including Bayley’s dominance for a large portion of the match, which is the first time she’s actually looked like a competent wrestler against Charlotte in ages, and to my surprise Charlotte did a pretty good job of wrestling as the face in this match, it’s become so easy to see her as a heel in every situation that I was honestly taken aback when I saw how she was wrestling.

I also don’t mind Charlotte winning, if the other women’s title match had gone the other way then I might’ve complained, but given where I think this storyline is going to go in the coming months (I’ll talk about that when I talk about Sasha vs Becky) I don’t have a problem with it for now. It’s just a bit of a shame that Bayley’s title reign was rather an unremarkable one outside of the moment she won it.

4 – The Kabuki Warriors def. Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross(c)
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

Say what you want about this show, Kairi Sane won her first championship on the main roster and I’m never going to be unhappy about that.

If it wasn’t for the finish, then this match probably would’ve been a few places lower, because while I enjoyed the action of the match, it wasn’t anything special for the most part. I liked Nikki’s seeming omnipresence in the match, as she seemed to be involved in just about everything that happened in the match, which could lead to a good storyline now her and Alexa have lost the titles.

The finish is where the main attraction of the match is though, with Asuka unloading a green mist in Nikki’s face to win the titles. With any luck, this means we get a more heelish Asuka, perhaps even pitting her at odds with Kairi, who didn’t seem aware of what Asuka did to win the titles. With any women’s tag title win though, I have to ponder whether any of this will matter when they inevitably don’t get featured on TV for a month.

3 – Seth Rollins(c) vs “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt ended in a No Contest
(Universal Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

Ok…here goes.

Imagine, if you will, the most amazing gymnastics routine you could possibly think of, incredible flips and spins, the likes of which you never even thought were possible. Now imagine the gymnast landing sideways on their ankle, breaking their arms as they attempt to cushion their fall and cracking their skull open on the mat. That’s roughly the story of this main event.

I really struggled to find a place for this match and in the end, this felt right. Everyone’s going to focus on the finish – and I’ll talk about that in just a moment – but the thing is, everything leading up to it was BRILLIANT. Honestly, the only thing I’d change about that match is the referee throwing it out, I would absolutely keep everything else from before and after the match, exactly the same. The red lighting was a bit gaudy, but I think it worked in this instance, the atmosphere of the whole match was this tense and terrifying feeling that was absolutely fantastic, a feeling that was helped out by the slower pace.

Admittedly, making the Curb Stomp look like the most ineffective finisher in the world might’ve been a silly thing to do, but it made The Fiend look amazing when he kicked out at one after taking about 8 of them. Even the stuff after the match where he popped up to take out Rollins looked brilliant as all of the referees scattered from the ring. The Fiend is still something amazing and unique…but that finish WAS NOT the right way to handle this.

I think the level of outrage we’re currently seeing online over this is a bit much, especially considering this almost definitely is just the first chapter of the story, however, I sympathise with the frustration and I feel it myself. Two years in a row now, we’ve had a Hell in a Cell match end in a no contest, going completely against the whole point of the stipulation and it’s getting ridiculous, but it’s especially bad in this instance considering that after the referee threw the match out, it became clear that the sledgehammer to the head didn’t hurt The Fiend at all. I love the idea of telling the story that The Fiend is driving Rollins to an extremely dark place, but throwing out the match was a bad way to go about it.

Unlike most of Twitter though, I think this can still be saved and I’m confident that we’re nowhere near done with this story and I honestly think writing it off a disaster this soon does everyone involved a disservice.

2 – Roman Reigns & Daniel Bryan def. Erick Rowan & Luke Harper
(Tornado Tag Team Match)

In amongst all the terrible last-minute additions to this show, the stipulation of a tornado tag match here turned out to be a stroke of brilliance.

This match didn’t quite blow me away but I still had a lot of fun watching it. Roman Reigns is always at his best in matches where he can be the exclamation point, not being in action the whole time gives his high-impact offence a lot more weight and it great fun to watch. On top of that, it was refreshing to see Daniel Bryan wrestle a face style for the first time in quite a while. I particularly liked the sequence towards the middle of the match where he was alone again both Harper & Rowan, kicking wildly as they bore down on him trying to break free.

I also enjoyed the big spots of the match since none of them took ages to set up and the payoff is always great; sure, we could all see Roman’s Spear through the table coming a mile away, but it doesn’t make it look any less cool.

I’m not sure Roman & Bryan were the right choices to win, but ultimately I’m not all that fussed about it. Erick Rowan has shown he can stand on his own as a mid-card wrestler if you ask me and I don’t think any of us were ever in doubt of Harper’s abilities. I might’ve been good for Harper & Rowan if they’d won, but ultimately, if this is what it takes to end this feud, I’m not going to complain.

1 – Becky Lynch(c) def. Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

Well, it’s nice to have something on the show that I don’t have to complain about.

I’m always trepidatious when Hell in a Cell rolls around, weapons-based wrestling is generally my least favourite form of the sport and I generally believe most competitors can put on higher quality matches without it, but I’m happy to say that this was really good, and I enjoyed it more than their encounter from Clash of Champions.

This match managed to avoid almost all of the pitfalls weapons matches can fall into, I though all of the spots looked impressive and impactful, while only one of them looked overly contrived – the chair on the kendo sticks – but I can forgive that because the result looked great and it was a rare example of a brand new spot in a Hell in a Cell match.

Although it’s not what I would’ve done, I don’t have a problem with Becky Lynch retaining, partly because I’ve loved Becky’s title reign and I’m happy to see it continue, but also because I have a hunch Sasha Banks is going to be making her way to Smackdown in this week’s draft after this loss and there’s some good story potential over there with Bayley. Although honestly, after all the mediocre-crap stuff on this show, I’m just happy there’s something I can say was genuinely very enjoyable.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this review, let me know what you thought of the show either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back this Saturday where I’ll be talking about Celeste!

WWE Hell in a Cell 2019: Predictions & Analysis

I think it’s safe to say that this has been the longest 3 weeks in wrestling history. Seriously, Clash of Champions feels like it was months ago by this point, with NXT’s move to the USA Network, Smackdown’s move to FOX and AEW Dynamite’s debut on TNT so much has happened in the world of wrestling in such a tiny space of time that this show seems like the biggest afterthought of the lot.

I mean seriously, we only have four matches announced for the show, meanwhile, WWE have decided to focus on booking matches for the inevitable trainwreck that will be Crown Jewel at the end of the month. What blow my mind is that the two biggest matches on this card seem like really big deals in the world of WWE and yet management are treating it like it barely matters.

Still, let’s go through what matches have been announced (as I expect a handful to be added last minute) and see if we can’t predict the winners.

Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns vs Luke Harper & Erick Rowan

There were lots of potential outcomes when this weird story of Roman Reigns being attacked by a mystery assailant began a couple of months ago, but I don’t think any of us would’ve predicted that “a big push for Erick Rowan” would be what we ended up with, and I’m including WWE’s writers in that statement. As I mentioned in my Clash of Champions review, I’m happy to see Harper back on TV, but I hate that he’s been paired up with Rowan for the hundredth time and I can’t help but feel like this isn’t going to last very long at all.

That said, I actually think this match will be a fun one to watch. Roman Reigns carried a tag match featuring Shane McMahon and an ageing Undertaker to a good quality, so I can only imagine what we’ll get when Reigns is in there with the best wrestler in the world, the most underrated wrestler in WWE and Erick Rowan. This should be quite the chaotic match which, as I constantly say, is the perfect pace for a tag team match.

As for a winner, there are a lot of aspects at play here that make it quite difficult to pick with any sort of confidence. First off, you’ve got the fact that Luke Harper’s just returned, which typically means he needs a win here to look strong, but we know all too well that Vince despises him for basically no reason whatsoever, so that could very well be off the table. It would be nice to see Rowan carry on the momentum he got from beating Reigns but I just don’t think it’s going to happen, not to mention the fact that this feud had been going on for months with almost nothing in the way of face victories, so I’m going with Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns.

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

I’m not entirely sure whether or not I’m happy about the way Bayley’s been handled in the past couple of months. She’s been getting storylines that are actually about her for once and her character’s been given a new lease of life with this heel turn, but at the same time, she seems to be unable to do anything without Sasha being around to lend a hand. She outfoxed Charlotte last month but that mostly felt like it was because we needed to stall for a month until Sasha got her hands on the title.

Hopefully this match will get more time than it did at Clash of Champions (it bloody well better given the lack of content for the show right now), I just hope creative can pull something cleverer than another dirty finish out of their back pocket because I don’t think I can be bothered with two in a row. Still, if it gets the time and a bit of freedom, I think this will be a fun one to watch.

I’ll be honest, I don’t have much of a rationale for picking Bayley to win here. It also certainly won’t be clean if she does, but I can’t see WWE letting Charlotte take a clean loss to this version of Bayley. I think having Bayley lose the title just as Sasha wins hers would sweep the rug out from under the both of them in a major way and could really stifle Bayley. Once we’ve had the draft and the brands become more sperate I think it will be ok but for now, I say Bayley needs to hold on to the gold.

Becky Lynch(c) vs Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

I’ll be honest, I was very worried that this storyline would start to derail after the wonky finish last month but creative have done a great job of making sure that the heat to this feud only builds and I can safely say that I’m just as hyped for this rematch as I was for their first encounter last month.

I think the match will be just as good too, both of these women have put on high-quality weapons matches in the past – Sasha in the Cell against Charlotte and Becky in Last Woman Standing, also against Charlotte – so I’m not approaching this with my usual sense of dread, the pace should stay reasonably fast and the spots will be a spectacle to watch.

The key thing here is not to do another wonky finish and definitely don’t have Bayley help Sasha win. This whole feud has made Sasha look like an ass-kicker, but I’m worried that Bayley’s going to sneak her way into the Cell somehow in order to give Sasha the win, but I think that would hinder Sasha in the long run. Regardless, I think Sasha Banks is coming out with the win and hopefully, it will be clean. It’s unclear what format Survivor Series is going to take this year, but I could see them using it as a stop-gap before having a finale match to close out the year.

Seth Rollins(c) vs “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt
(Universal Championship)
(Hell in a Cell)

I’m really not sure what to make of this one.

On the one hand, Bray Wyatt is without a doubt the most popular thing in WWE right now, it’s a cool and original concept the likes of which we haven’t seen arguably since The Undertaker debuted so capitalising on it with a world title victory – especially as WWE positions themselves to move into a new era – seems like a great way to go about things. On the other hand, it seems way too soon for any of this to actually happen.

I’m optimistic for the match quality here, The Fiend has already shown that the style in which they wrestle is different and oddly compelling to watch and the addition of Hell in a Cell and all of the weapons there-in looks to only benefit the performance. I just really don’t know if I can see them winning the Universal Title this soon.

Seth Rollins still isn’t that far out from slaying the Beast and winning back the Universal Championship, while The Fiend has only had one televised match before this one. On top of that, I’m not entirely sure how The Fiend as Universal Champion would even work on week-to-week TV. Bray can, of course, do all his talking through the Firefly Funhouse but the fact is we only see The Fiend once per show when he cuts the lights and attacks, someone. It’d create this spectre of an immortal monster residing over RAW and the more I think about it the more I want to see it.

After thinking it through, I’m picking “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt to win the match, because now Finn Balor’s announced a return to NXT, I can’t see any way they could book themselves out of this where Seth keeps the title, but doesn’t actually beat The Fiend, thus, The Fiend has to win.

And that’s it! Sorry for this post being shorter than usual, but there’s not a lot I can do with only four matches to talk about. Still, thank you very much for taking the time to read this, let me know what you think is going to happen in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back on Monday for my review of the show!

WWE Clash of Champions 2019: Every Match Ranked

Well, the champions have clashed and we’re sat on the other side of it thinking…it was a decent show. There were a handful of matches that underwhelmed in different ways, but there were just as many matches that lived up to expectations and overall I came away from the show feeling like I had a nice time.

So let’s waste no time and get right into ranking every match from Clash of Champions 2019

11 – Bayley(c) def. Charlotte Flair
(Smackdown Women’s Championship)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that Bayley’s still champion, but was a bit of an odd way to go about it.

The finish itself is something I’m fine with. It could’ve been given a bit more build to it and it would’ve been nice if the commentators actually noticed it before 2 minutes after the fact, but this was a good way for Bayley to retain the title without throwing the match out completely, especially considering what would happen with the Raw Women’s Championship later on in the show.

My main problem with this match – and the reason I’ve placed it last – is that there was barely any kind of a match before the finish. We know Charlotte and Bayley can put on a great match, we’ve seen it several times before, but instead was just got 3 minutes of Charlotte dominating Bayley before Bayley used the exposed turnbuckle and win. I usually don’t have a problem with an exposed turnbuckle being an instant KO, because it’s normally used at the end of a full-length match, but right at the beginning like this just makes Charlotte feel a bit weak.

Like I said, I’m happy with the result and I can’t even complain too much about the finish, but I was really looking forward to a decent length match between these two and I didn’t get it.

10 – Kofi Kingston(c) def. Randy Orton
(WWE Championship)

You know that one match Randy Orton’s wrestled over and over for the past 12 years? This was that.

It was the absolute embodiment of what you think of when someone says “Typical Randy Orton match”, he spent far too long on “wearing his opponent down”, which, as I’ve before, is an effective tool in the toolbox, but not when you’re Randy Orton who doesn’t seem to own any other tools and tried to use the one he has for everything. That metaphor got away from me there, but the point still stands.

That’s not to say there weren’t some pockets of good stuff, Kofi’s offence was a lot sharper than it was during their Summerslam encounter and the whole thing felt a lot more concise, which is probably thanks to there being an actual clean finish. This match was better than the match they had at Summerslam, but that was a pretty low bar to clear and I think I’m ready for Kofi to move on to someone new, which – if the clean finish to this match is any indication – is hopefully what we’re getting.

9 – Erick Rowan def. Roman Reigns
(No Disqualification)

I know I’m ranking this match third from bottom, but there’s a small part of me that kinda liked it.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to hate here and I’ll dig into that in a moment, but there were a couple of sections in the middle of this match where I was vaguely enjoying myself. I’m well known for hating weapons matches by this point (looking forward to Hell in a Cell next month…) but there were some sequences in this match where I was enjoying watching these guys try to destroy each other.

I don’t think this was the best of showcases for Rowan however, he’s never excelled in long singles matches but I think Roman did a decent job of picking up the slack. That said, this match could only ever reach a certain level of quality and that wasn’t exceedingly high. Then there was the finish, which saw the return of Harper, who we’re still unsure on whether he’s got his first name back or not.

After all the shit he’s supposedly gone through with WWE management and Vince seemingly having a hate boner for the guy, I’m happy he’s finally back on TV, however, I’m not happy that he’s being paired up with Rowan for the 50th time. This pairing is so odd because they’ve never really done much as a team and yet it feels like they’ve already done everything there is for them to do. I don’t think it’s the right move for either of them to keep them joined at the hip like this, but that’s what we’ve got.

8 – Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross(c) def. Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

Now we get into that stage of the rankings where the matches were perfectly fine, but nothing noteworthy.

I actually thought these two teams worked quite well together, the crowd were really behind Nikki Cross which is great to see and Alexa continues to surprise me by being a pretty effective face wrestler. Mandy’s always great at pulling heat from thin air, although I often find myself rooting for her by association because I love Sonya Deville as a wrestler.

This match was very much split into two halves, with the 24/7 skit serving as the separation point. The first half of this match was great fun to watch, they went through this lengthy feeling out process where every combination of competitors in the match was explored and I thought it was really effective, then the 24/7 title stuff happened and I quite liked it, it broke up the match (which was starting to slow down a bit) and we got a nice little thrill as Alexa attempted to roll up R-Truth.

The main problem is that after the skit, it never felt like the match quite recovered to the point it was at beforehand. Things remained pretty slow pretty much right up until the finish and it ended things on a bit of a duff note. Ultimately I can honestly say that I enjoyed the match, but it was a bit flawed in places.

7 – Shinsuke Nakamura(c) def. The Miz
(Intercontinental Championship)

I said in my predictions article that this would almost certainly be a fun, ten-minute match and unlike most things I say in my predictions, what I said is exactly what happened.

There’s not a whole lot to say about this one really, it was a good, but not great, match where both guys wrestled the kind of match we’d expect them to wrestle and then the champion retained. Sami’s stuff on the mic was good fun, mostly because it shut Corey Graves up for 5 seconds (more on that later) and I think this pairing of Sami & Shinsuke might actually work out quite well for the both of them.

My main worry is what’s going to happen with The Miz going forward because he’s been absolutely shafted since becoming a face. All I can hope for is that the draft puts Miz in a much better position going forward, hopefully in the form of a heel turn, because this face run has been a total failure.

6 – Seth Rollins(c) def. Braun Strowman
(Universal Championship)

So this was a weird one…

This ended up being one of the shorter matches of the evening at 11 minutes and I honestly think that was to its benefit. It played off the sense of urgency that was inherently woven into the match thanks to both Seth and Braun having already wrestled a match that night, although it didn’t make Seth look especially strong if you ask me.

The majority of the match was Braun throwing Seth all over the place and even when Seth did start to make his comeback, Braun was extremely resilient, kicking out of three Curb Stomps. This is all great for Braun, but it doesn’t exactly help Seth in any way. You could easily argue that Braun kicking out of three Curb Stomps makes him look great in defeat, but that’s all dependant on what happens with him after this and if it goes similarly to how he’s been booked this past year, it’s going to have the opposite effect. To me, it’s instead made the Curb Stomp – one of the most brutal-looking finishers in all of WWE – look piss-weak, especially when you consider that in the past, Braun as lost to a single F-5 or a single Spear.

That said, I thought the second half of the match where Seth was making his comeback was exciting to watch and much like many of these matches, I came away from it satisfied with what I saw, although I think it would’ve benefitted from another five minutes (although given both men had to wrestle twice, the shortness isn’t a dealbreaker.)

5 – AJ Styles(c) def. Cedric Alexander
(United States Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

Ok, let’s get the obvious out of the way, this made Cedric look like a grade-A chump. There’s no way that anyone watching this match could see Cedric get absolutely dominated AND attacked after the match and get the impression that he was someone to rally behind, so if the intention was to get Alexander more over then it was a total failure.

That said, when it comes to the match itself alone, I really enjoyed watching it. I would’ve liked to see it last longer than 5 minutes, but the way these two wrestled this match gave it such a sense of urgency that I couldn’t help but enjoy myself. The action was fast & fun and honestly, that’s what I like best from wrestling, I just wish it could’ve been a bit longer.

At the end of the day, I hope this isn’t the end of Cedric’s push because he could do so much more without even needing to be that high up the card, but in a bubble, I had fun watching this one.

4  – Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode(c) def. Seth Rollins & Braun Strowman
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

Seth Rollins is just great at tag matches.

This had a healthy dose of everything I love to see from tag team wrestling. There was good psychology with the heels working effectively against the faces, which helped to give the idea that Ziggler & Roode have actually been training together as a tag team prior to them being thrown together on Raw. Then, as Seth always does, he did a great job of slowly building up to make a comeback and Braun is the kind of guy that’s always great for a hot-tag.

As for Ziggler & Roode winning the titles, I can’t say that I’m thrilled about it and I expect them to have a reign similar to that of Gable & Roode where they do precisely nothing with the titles, however I admit the titles will probably do better around their waists than Seth & Braun’s, since they’d likely just end up being treated as second fiddle to the Universal title, like they have all of this past month.

3 – The Revival def. The New Day(c)
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

This match was great and I’ll talk about it in a moment, but we need to take a moment to talk about commentary last night, especially Corey Graves because it was freaking awful. I don’t know what got into Corey last night, but for some reason, he was determined to turn every single conversation on the desk into a shouting match and it was so irritating to listen to, actively detracting from my enjoyment of the match at certain points. Graves can be a great heel commentator, but for whatever reason, last night was one of the worst commentary performances I’ve heard in WWE in a long time; so much so that I watched the majority of this match on mute.

That aside, this match was great.

It wasn’t anywhere near the all-time great Revival vs New Day match we all know is possible, but it was a good start. It’s not often that Big E is the one to be beaten down and desperate, but seeing it in situations like this is so incredibly effective for the story being told. It was able to create this great sense of desperation as Woods came in on a nearly broken leg to try and get them back in the fight.

Ultimately, it was to no avail and The Revival won the titles, which is hopefully a good thing. With any luck, this will be the start of a feud akin to New Day vs The Usos in 2017 where they put on amazing tag team matches on every PPV for about 6 months straight and everyone is very happy about it. Regardless of if that actually happens or not, I’m never going to complain about The Revival winning tag team championships.

2 – Drew Gulak(c) def. Humberto Carrillo & Lince Dorado
(Cruiserweight Championship)
(Kickoff Show)

Once again, the cruiserweights care not for your petty “pre-shows”, they’ll steal the show regardless of when their match is.

This match was more or less how I described it would be in my predictions. Carrillo and Dorado put in some great fast-paced offence and the sequences when they were going at each other was really fun to watch, then Drew Gulak was there to quite literally ground everything and slow the match down, but in an effective, in-ring psychology way, not a boring, Randy Orton way.

This whole match was full to the brim with memorable moments, like Dorado and Carrillo taking Drew out early on in spectacular fashion, to the segment towards the end where the three men traded blows and Drew flattened Humberto with a clothesline. As I said before, Drew retaining was definitely the right choice for now, especially with 205 Live likely being folded into NXT very soon, he’s an all-round solid performer who can make that title feel like a big deal on the new NXT if that’s what happens to it.

1 – Sasha Banks def. Becky Lynch(c) via Disqualification
(Raw Women’s Championship)

A great performance with a botched landing.

The first 15ish minutes of this match was exactly the kind of match you’d expect from two great wrestlers who know each other as well as these two. The action was smooth and fun to watch, with a great amount of back and forth with some genuinely innovative spots, namely, when each woman was able to slip on their signature submission hold seemingly out of nowhere. It was crisp and fantastic stuff that’s hopefully just a taste of what’s to come.

I’m of two minds with the finish, I like the idea of it and ultimately I think it was successful in portraying what it was intended to, however, the execution was a bit odd. Sasha pulled off some great heel-work with the chair shots and I loved the brawl around the arena, even if I just couldn’t take my eyes off of the mustard stain on Sasha’s back. What I found odd, was the way they went about the DQ. I’m fine with Becky accidentally striking the referee with a chair, but there was no bell ring or announcement to say Becky was disqualified until they’d gone around the whole arena and Michael Cole just randomly mentioned it on commentary; only when Becky decided she had enough of beating Sasha down did the ring announcer explain that Becky had been DQ’ed.

It left me with a  bit of a sour taste in my mouth because I was under the impression that the match was continuing because, you know, an unconscious referee can’t DQ anyone. That said, the whole situation did exactly what it was meant to and built up the intensity of this feud and I can’t wait for their inevitable Hell in a Cell match in a few weeks time.

Much like the show as a whole, this was a match that gave me some complaints but ultimately left me feeling satisfied and happy about what I’d just watched, which I consider a win.

So there are my thoughts! Thank you very much for taking the time to read my review and please let me know what you thought of the show either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back this weekend where I’ll be talking about more of my favourite music from video games!

WWE Clash of Champions 2019: Predictions & Analysis

Am I the only one that feels like Summerslam was just a week ago? I don’t know why, but it feels like this PPV cycle has gone past really quickly, a feeling that was probably aided by having three major non-WWE wrestling shows a couple of weekends ago, which means that a lot of people are going to be drawing comparisons.

As it stands, I think this looks like a really good card. There’s a couple of matches that I don’t think will do anything special, but I can honestly say I’m looking forward to seeing most of these matches, which shouldn’t be as hot a take as that’ll probably be.

Regardless, there must be winners and I shall attempt to predict them.

Roman Reigns vs Erick Rowan
(No Disqualification)

This whole story has felt like creative have no idea what to do with Roman Reigns until October.

Given that the original plan (as far as we’re told by the dirt sheets) was Roman vs Daniel Bryan at Summerslam, it definitely feels like creative have had to suddenly find ways to extend the story another two months and this is what we’ve ended up with. Almost every week something new and weird will happen that entirely feels like it was thought up the day before the show (or maybe later if Vince keeps rewriting shows like we’re told he does) and now we’re left with this match which feels largely pointless.

If this is a sincere attempt to try and put a bigger spotlight on Erick Rowan and make him a bigger star then I’m all for it, but I highly doubt that’s what this is. I know Rowan attacked Bryan and disavowed him on Smackdown, but this whole thing still feels like a master plan by Bryan to absolve himself of the crime and it’s only a matter of weeks until he’s revealed as the true culprit. I’d be happy to be proved wrong on that, but as it stands this match just feels like a stop-gap en route to the real money match in Roman vs Bryan.

I don’t think anyone would disagree with me when I say Roman Reigns is winning this. I can’t see what the plan is for Reigns past this feud with Bryan, but the upcoming draft could throw anything I say up in air regardless.

Drew Gulak(c) vs Humberto Carrillo vs Lince Dorado
(Cruiserweight Championship)

This entire year on 205 Live it’s seemed like just a matter of time until Humberto wins the Cruiserweight Championship and Gulak is the best person for him to win it from to complete the story, but I’m not sure tonight is the night.

As much as he’s spent most of this year being built up, Humberto hasn’t had any major wins against big stars of the division, especially not recently. His story lost a bit of steam going into the summer and now it’s being recovered out of nowhere and it doesn’t quite sit right with me. If this were still a one on one match then I would’ve been tempted to pick Humberto regardless, but then Lince Dorado was added and things became a lot clearer for me.

Like any Cruiserweight title match, especially multi-man ones, this is going to be great fun to watch, regardless of where it gets dropped on the card. Dorado and Carrillo are very exciting to watch and are great at the fast-paced action and as Gulak is perfect in the role of taking choice opportunities and occasionally slowing the match down for a greater impact, so I’m looking forward to seeing this one play out.

That said, I’m confident that Drew Gulak is going to retain the title here, probably by submitting Lince Dorado. As I’ve said, it’s only a matter of time until Humberto Carrillo wins the title from Gulak, but giving him a good looking defeat, where he doesn’t take the fall, might be a good way to get his story going again.

Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville
(Women’s Tag Team Championships)

The thing with this match is that I love all four of these wrestlers and it’ll probably be a fairly entertaining match, but I’m just not even slightly excited to see this match. That may in part be down to the fact that we’ve already seen it on Smackdown a couple of weeks ago, but I think the main reason is how crappy the women’s tag team titles have been treated since being taken off of Sasha & Bayley back in April. I know things are getting better but over 4 months of shoddy treatment isn’t going to be wiped away so quickly.

Plus, you could argue the shoddy treatment isn’t going to end anytime soon. Granted, any title that Alexa Bliss holds stands to get at least some level of credible treatment, but I honestly think that the only reason this match is even on the show is because of the “all titles will be defended” gimmick of this PPV.

As such, it makes this one quite easy to pick. Rose & Deville have already got a win over Bliss & Cross in a non-title match which means they haven’t got a chance of winning the titles here. Not to mention that a quick title change like this wouldn’t do any favours for titles that are looking to regain credibility. I’m an extremely big Sonya Deville fan so it pains me to say this, but Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross are walking out of this one with the titles.

Shinsuke Nakamura(c) vs The Miz
(Intercontinental Championship)

The Miz should always be a heel.

Don’t get me wrong, when he first turned against Shane McMahon it was great, he was getting consistent TV time and cutting fantastic promos while putting on great matches every week, but once he stopped feuding with Shane, all of that stopped. When Miz gets a chance to be on TV he tends to put on a great show, but those opportunities have been few and far between recently, it feels like creative don’t know how to book The Miz as a face and I can’t say I blame them, he’s a character that’s so perfect as a heel it’s hard to think of him any other way.

As long as this isn’t a squash match then I think it’ll be a fun watch. I’m not optimistic about the amount of time it’s going to get and it’ll almost certainly end in interference from Sami Zayn because Zayn & Nakamura is a pairing now which…ok I guess? But even if we don’t get a very long match, what little we get should be enjoyable.

I went back and forth on picking the winner for this one a little bit because, on one hand, there’s the fact that Miz is very close to topping Chris Jericho’s record with the Intercontinental Championship and given recent events, I’d imagine WWE would quite like to do just that. However, in the end, I’ve decided to go with Shinsuke Nakamura to retain instead because there’s absolutely nothing worthwhile in The Miz as Intercontinental Champion right now, I’d much rather it stay on Nakamura so this story with Sami Zayn has a chance of actually going somewhere.

AJ Styles(c) vs Cedric Alexander
(United States Championship)

Hm, well I guess there was always going to be one match that was made at the last possible minute.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure this is will be a great match if it gets more than 5 minutes on the show (which based on the number of matches, seems unlikely) but I just don’t have the capacity to care about a match that started being built 4 days ago. With any luck, this will end up being a big chance of Cedric Alexander on a big stage so people can start to properly get behind him, like with Ricochet.

Unfortunately, there’s almost no chance he’s winning here. As I said, this match had its entire build on Monday and this is one of those matches that wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the gimmick of this show being that every title would be defended. It’s possible that this title gets a shock change to balance out almost all of the other titles being retained, but Alexander wouldn’t hold the title for very long if that happened, so I’m playing it safe and sticking with AJ Styles to retain.

The New Day(c) vs The Revival
(Smackdown Tag Team Championships)

Well there you go, all it took for The Revival to be taken seriously is a tenuous link with Randy Orton that will be broken the moment Orton & Kofi’s story demands it.

As this story has been entirely intertwined with Kofi & Orton’s, it’s hard to say anything unique about it. It’s nice to see The Revival being treated as a threat but it’s going to end as soon as they lose here and Orton dumps them, then there’s The New Day who are great, but I honestly forgot they were tag champs until seeing the card for this show.

That said, when it comes to tag team wrestling, these are two of the best in the WWE, so this could be a killer match, even if it only does get ten minutes in the end. As I not so subtly hinted at above, I’m picking The New Day to retain. I just don’t see a reason to take the title off of The New Day so soon and ultimately I think the titles themselves will see a lot better treatment around their waists.

Seth Rollins & Braun Strowman(c) vs Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode
(Raw Tag Team Championships)

Nevermind going back in time and telling someone about this match, I’m still not entirely sure I believe it’s happening in the present. This has been a weird month.

So in the space of a month, not only have a random two competitors been put together as a tag team to win the titles, but another random two competitors have been put together in a tag team, beat EVERY OTHER tag team on Raw to get a title match. Then on top of that, you realise that the champions are fighting each other for a different title later on in the show and the whole title reign has essentially served that purpose and you realise how non-existant the tag team division in WWE is.

On paper, this match looks like it’d be great, but the fact of the matter is, this whole match is going to serve the Universal title match later on the show and nothing more. I know Braun keeps reaffirming how he’s determined to retain the tag titles, but that’s bullshit and I fully expect him to refuse to tag in for long portions of the match so Seth can get beaten up.

Funnily enough, though, I’m honestly not sure who’s going to win, purely because there’s absolutely nothing to be gained from Dolph Ziggler & Bobby Roode as tag team champions for just so many reasons. So beyond all logic, I’m picking Seth Rollins & Braun Strowman to retain and probably take a leak on them next Monday before vacating them.

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

Oh look, I’ve picked every champion to retain so far, that’s interesting. So who’s up next? Charlotte Flair, you say? Oh dear.

If you had asked me to pick this one when it was first announced, I would’ve picked Charlotte without even needing to think about it, but a surprising amount has changed since then. Charlotte’s alignment is a bit up in the air, but she still seems to be showing heelish tendencies, the main issue is that Bayley is now a heel, which is something I really didn’t see coming but is probably a brilliant move.

I’m not the biggest fan of keeping Bayley joined at the hip to Sasha Banks, but in this particular instance, I think it could benefit here greatly since Bayley really hasn’t done anything interesting as Smackdown Women’s Champion outside of the moment she won it. It’s also created a very interesting scenario where all of the 4 horsewomen are fighting for titles, I’ve no idea if that’ll lead anywhere but it’s a very nice thing to think about.

Needless to say, this match will be great. Admittedly we don’t know how Bayley works as a heel but I can’t imagine it’ll be much different from how she normally wrestles. On top of that, Bayley & Charlotte have always had great in-ring chemistry and I’m really looking forward to watching this match play out. As for a winner, it’s a tough call because I’m fully expecting a dirt finish as I don’t see Charlotte losing clean here at all, but if this heel turn is going to be worthwhile, Bayley needs to make something of it, so she’s who I’m going with, likely with an assist from a steel chair.

Kofi Kingston(c) vs Randy Orton
(WWE Championship)

In my Summerslam predictions, I talked about the match between these two very excited and optimistically. This is not going to be like that entry.

To put it simply their match at Summerslam was awful and it’s completely killed any investment I had in this storyline. Not to mention, the storyline itself seems to have stagnated on Smackdown this past month, with things going no further than “they beat each other up every week” which can be very effective if done well, but this has been done in a way that just makes it seem lazy more than anything.

There’s a tiny part of me that is holding out hope that this match will be what I wanted from their Summerslam encounter, but that part grows smaller and smaller by the day. It’s entirely likely that this match will involve shenanigans from New Day and The Revival, partly because that’s what this whole story has focused on, but also because Hell in a Cell is next month and they need to justify it by saying it’ll keep out everyone else.

Since I don’t think this is the end of the story, Kofi should be an easy pick to retain, but I’ve picked every title to be retained so far and I could easily see Orton swiping the title, if only for a month before Kofi gets it back, especially with Smackdown moving to FOX just before Hell in a Cell next month. It’s a tough one, but the more I think about it, the more risky picking Orton seems, so yet again I’m going with Kofi Kingston to retain.

Becky Lynch(c) vs Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Championship)

Oh boy, I’m so ready.

I’m really excited for this match, Becky Lynch’s character has recovered from months upon months of Lacey Evans and she feels like a big deal again and Sasha is riding this big wave of momentum from her return which has hopefully revitalised her energy towards wrestling. The writing between these two has really been killing it, Sasha’s always felt more natural as a heel and the back and forth between the two of them has been really great stuff, and that’s not even counting the added twist of Bayley’s heel turn.

As we’ve seen in NXT, the in-ring chemistry between these two is as good as you’d expect it to be and this match should be a shoe-in for match of the night. There’s so much potential for where this story could go in the coming months and a really good match here will be the perfect launching platform for all of it.

That brings us to the matter of picking a winner and I’ve already said that I think this is the first in a long series, which would imply that the champion retains here but I think this case is different. Sasha Banks is riding such a huge wave of momentum and has got a brand new lease of life on her character, so I just can’t bet against her here and I think she’s going to pick up the title.

Seth Rollins(c) vs Braun Strowman
(Universal Championship)

So this is going to be what all of Seth’s feuds are from here on out aren’t they?

Much like with the build to Seth vs Brock at Summerslam, I’ve not enjoyed the week to week build for this match, but I remain hopeful that the match itself will be enjoyable. Carrying on from my earlier predictions, I think Seth will be coming into this match on the back foot after Strowman lets him take a beating in their tag match earlier in the night (it wouldn’t surprise me if they did them back to back) and the main story of the match is Strowman absolutely dominating Rollins and Rollins trying to create openings to sneak in offence and turn the tide, much like his match with Lesnar.

These two seem like they should have good in-ring chemistry, as Seth always has with guys twice his size. On top of that, you have to remember that, as much as he hasn’t done much exciting over the past year or so, Braun can be a really fun wrestler to watch under the right circumstances and with any luck, this match will serve to remind people of that fact and bolster his popularity once again.

Ultimately, when it comes down to it, I’m not struggling at all to pick the winner here, Seth Rollins is retaining his title. Bray Wyatt has already announced he’s fighting the winner of this match next month and as much as there is some good story potential in Bray vs Braun, the money match is definitely Seth vs Bray. Not to mention the fact that Seth’s only just got the title back and became the first person since Goldberg to hand Lesnar a clean loss in the process, so it wouldn’t be the best decision to have him lose the title again this soon.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, let me know what you think is going to happen either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back early next week for my review of the show!