So after months of me bragging over and over again about being pretty darn good at predicting WWE Pay Per Special Events, I really took it on the chin with Summerslam. That being said, it was one of the more enjoyable PPV’s I’ve seen in a LONG time. However, I’ve got a feeling that NOC will be a return to safe predictable booking, what with it being an in-between show and all. I’m sure there will be some matches worth seeing, but my hype for this show is built more around having an excuse to have pizza and beer rather than wrestling. On to the predictions!
In What Will Probably be the Pre Show: Sheamus vs. Cesaro for the US Title.
To be honest, I actually had to look up who the US champion is before writing about this match. I actually wonder whether or not this match would even be on the show if it wasn’t “Night of Champions” where every title must be defended. That being said, I’m sure Sheamus will retain his title in a short, but decent match.
The Usos vs. Dusty’s Creepy Kids for the Tag Titles.
I could really go either way on this one, so I’ll pick the Usos because I still think they’ll hold onto the belts until The Ascension debuts and beats them (which could come at any time now that they dropped the NXT titles to the Lucha Dragons). As far as the Dust Busters go, I appreciate the fact that they are a tag team that looks and acts similarly (as in not two guys thrown together) but at the same time I’m just getting annoyed by it. Stardust is really getting on my nerves and I feel like they’re always a little too close to making out.
Dolph Ziggler (as played by R-Truth) vs. The Miz (as played by Damien Sandow) for the IC Title.
The feud between these two wresters has been pretty good so far, and while I feel like they’ve gone a bit to far by adding R-Truth as Ziggler’s permanent stunt double, it doesn’t bother me that much. As I said with Summerslam, I’ve really enjoyed Miz’s return to being a heel lately, and he plays off of Ziggler well. I’m predicting Ziggler will win as a result of some failed Sandow interference, leading to some confrontation between him and Miz.
Chris Jericho’s Fozzy Schedule vs. his WWE schedule (with Randy Orton!)
One of my favorite things about wrestling is seeing how characters develop, new guys transform into stars, and storylines change over time. With a match like this though, I don’t really feel like either wrestler is going to get anything out of it and that makes it hard for me to care about it all that much. I’m sure it will still be a solid match and all, with Orton beating Jericho with a violent finish that will leave him out for the length of a Fozzy tour, but I doubt it will be anything memorable.
The Bellas Invade The Divas Title Scene, featuring AJ and Paige
In the safest bet of the night I’m predicting that Nikki Bella will win the title so she can feud with Brie over it. I don’t hate the Bellas as much as most, so I’m not all up in arms about this change. And actually, given the couple of run ins AJ’s had with Stephanie over the last few months, I’m hoping that we’ll see those two have a match sooner or later.
Rusev vs. ‘Murica, part 42
I’m glad that they’re putting so much effort into this feud, but I think we all know that Rusev’s going to win in the end. I kind of feel like Henry’s just the latest warm body for Rusev to topple in his quest to face Cena, so no amount of flag waiving can really get me behind Mark for this one.
Roman Reigns vs. his Hernia (with Seth Rollins)
While it’s a shame that Reigns is injured and won’t be able to compete, we did just see him beat Rollins definitively last Monday, so it’s not like we really missed out on this match. Given that they just had this match on Raw I didn’t think we’d see a clean ending, so now I think this time will probably be used to bring Ambrose back to resume his feud with Seth.
Brock Lesnar vs. his Suplex Dummy
While I don’t think Cena will suffer as great of a beat down as he did at Summerslam, he’ll definitely still lose this match. Cena’s talked a lot in the last month about how he’ll come back and beat Lesnar, but I’m still not exactly sure why that is. Because he’ll try harder? As in he wasn’t trying hard already? He says he has to be John Cena for all the kids out there who believe in him, which makes me believe (Bo-lieve?) that he’ll follow up with a feud with Lana, who will refer to him as a failed American hero. Brock will go out to his secret hideout in a cornfield until the Royal Rumble.
So there you have it. Other than Cena vs. Lesnar, this card looks like it would be right at home on any episode of Raw, which tells you how I feel about it. I’m sure a segment or two featuring the Bunny and his handler, Adam Rose, will sneak in there and maybe we’ll get Bo vs. Swagger. And how’s Wyatt not on this show? Anyway, it’s still worth the $9.99 per month to me (y’know, alongside all of the other content they have that’s much, much better, like NXT and Nitro).
