Gosh, it’s not like Ziggler has a history of concussions or they did something extremely stupid like have his head busted open with a headbutt the night before, right?
Well, as long as they don’t have a special needs kid, he’s probably safe. :eek:
I am not marking out for KO since I have literally zero exposure to him outide of NXT, but I thought that that was one of many bright spots for RAW.
The amount of times that I said “Oh this is interesting…” was about triple the amount of times I’ve said it the last 3 months (sooo…three times then?)
Not that many people pay attention to the Divas but are there any faces left? Nattie is off with a heel-ish Team Uppercat (and looking like a Mad Max whore rip-off), Naomi and Tamina are being great heels, Rosa is off making out with heel Adam Rose and Paige heeled off on Nikki last night. I guess they are making the Bellas face cuz there isn’t anyone else left.
We had a Zach Ryder sighting…that was pretty funny.
Hate hate hate hate hate this Rusev/Lana bullshit. It makes no sende for him to turn on her (for no reason) it makes no sense for her to go to Ziggler (for no reason) it makes no sense that the WWE is splitting them up because they are perfect together and given that she doesn’t wrestle at all she is just there for…what purpose exactly? I know that gal-pals are always there in wrestling, but this seems to behind-the-times.
Good stuff…they got some good stuff goin. I’m still sticking to my guns: DA and Rollins feud, DA loses the championship match at EC but wins the Money in the Bank
Oh man, speaking of EC…no Neville? I don’t like that. I also think that him feuding to Bo Dallas is a huge step down, not because of a talent thing, but because I don’t need to see a re-hashed NXT storyline…be original guys.
The scuttlebutt is that they want to make Lana the new face of WWE, so that’s why she’s splitting with Rusev. So, she’s actually getting promoted.
Bo’s been filling the Santino Marella role, so it looks like they’re trying to make him a more serious contender. WWE’s usual jobber squad is probably sick of putting him over, so they’re going with Neville, who hasn’t been in the main roster long enough and doesn’t want to make waves. Backstage politics and stuff. Maybe Bo and Neville will tangle in the pre-show.
Alright. Fresh off my successfully predicting the outcome of every single match at Payback, it’s time for the Takeover 5: Sami & Kevin’s Bogus Journey edition of Smapti’s 100% Guaranteed Accurate* Match Predictions;
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Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens for the NXT title. It has been officially confirmed this morning that Zayn is medically cleared to wrestle tomorrow night, so after several weeks of worrying, the fight is on. This match is the logical conclusion of this chapter of the feud between these two that’s spanned years and multiple promotions and gimmicks, and since Kevin now has a main roster PPV match scheduled, I’m thinking this will be the final showdown between the two of them for awhile. While they haven’t yet formally announced Owens vs. Cena as a US title match, we all know that Owens fights for the prize. My guess is; Sami beats Owens tomorrow night to win back the title, next week’s Raw has a contract signing where Owens insists it be a title match; and at EC, he cleans Cena’s clock to become the new US champion and feed his family.
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#1 contenders match, Finn Balor vs. Tyler Breeze. We got good news and bad news this morning - Sami Zayn was cleared to fight, but Hideo Itami has been officially pulled from this match. It’s possible they could insert another top contender to make it a triple threat again, but AFAIK it’s a singles match now. Finn won the #1 contender match at Takeover 4: A Good Day To Take Over, and Tyler has yet to have a singles championship match, so I’d bet on him to win here and become Sami’s new top rival over the months to come.
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Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch for the women’s title. Not really sure where this one is going to go. I’d like to see Becky win - I must confess I’m a mark for her, as she’s one of the few woman wrestlers in WWE who actually looks and acts like a strong confident woman who could kick some ass in a fight. (The only others I’d put in that category right now are Natalya, Tamina Snuka, and Dana Brooke - more on her later). It seems a little early for Sasha’s run to end, though, and Becky isn’t really in a good position to feud with anyone else as a face champion, so it’s likely that Sasha retains now and Bayley gets the title push soon.
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Enzo Amore and Big Cass vs. Wesley and Buddy for the tag titles. Enzo and Cass, by all rights, should win here. Blake and Murphy have been completely unimpressive as champions - it seems like creative doesn’t really know if they want them to be faces or heels, this thing where they both keep trying to seduce Carmella at the same time is just weird, and frankly I still can’t remember which of them is which. In hindsight, I think they only got the belts because it was time for the Lucha Dragons to get called up and there weren’t any other teams in a good position to go over those two. (Speaking of which, what happened to the Vaudevillians? They just kinda disappeared.) It’s time for the boys from Prospect Street to get their time in the sun and build up to their eventual main roster debut.
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Rhino vs. Baron Corbin. Easy prediction - Corbin wins. Rhino is basically in a JTTS role in NXT - he’s here to put over the guys being groomed for the main roster and to give the newbies a seasoned pro to work with. Hopefully this match will be longer than the typical squash, but the end result is not in question.
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Bayley & Charlotte vs. Emma & Dana Brooke. This is what we get for letting Vince watch an NXT show, isn’t it? Because the build to this match has been main-roster-Divas level of stupid “bitches be crazy” nonsense that would fit right in with Vince’s ideas about how women think and behave. Bayley is mad at Emma for stealing her hairbands, Emma is mad at Bayley because Bayley is happy and likes to hug people, and Charlotte and Dana are mad at each other over… a clothing endorsement, I think? As I said above, Dana has the look that a dominant female wrestler ought to have, and she’d be great if she stopped groping herself all the time. I think the heel team wins this one, because this is generally the kind of match the heels win.
Six matches is about standard for Takeover, so I wouldn’t expect any surprise matches. It was rumored that Samoa Joe would be debuting here, but it was announced over the weekend that he’s scheduled for some indie dates in August, so either WWE’s given him a much sweeter deal than the standard developmental contract, or he and WWE haven’t yet come to terms. (Triple H is known to be a huge fan of Joe’s, so it’s entirely possible he arranged a sweetheart deal for him, but I wouldn’t bet on it.) It’s also possible that Uhaa Nation might show up since they’ve been running his promos, but as far as I know they haven’t even settled on a new ring name for him yet.
Between this, Payback, EC, and the Lucha Libre World Cup, this is an action-packed couple of weeks we’ve got going on here.
*Double your predictions back if you are not satisfied
Since Owens is obviously hitting the main roster, he probably loses the title, but I can think of some storylines where he doesn’t.
But still good for him as he can now tell Sami “You got here first, but I got there (WWE) first, and I’m not coming back.”
It’s weird. I would think they’re well past needing to pull the trigger on Prince Pretty, but they never seem to. The gimmick is a fresh take on one that has worked well for mid-card and upper mid-card for as long as wrestling has been around. Gorgeous George, Adrian Adonis, Rick Martel, Rick Rude, etc.
I’m good with either one of them winning. Becky Lynch has come a long way in the last year. Sasha should be hitting the main roster soon, but we’ll have to wait and see if Vince is ready to cut some of the beautiful dead wood on the Diva’s roster to bring up women who can actually work.
Hoping Enzo & Cass win this one.
I think they probably caught on that the gimmick is great at NXT, but isn’t suitable for a larger stage.
Agreed, but my question is how long it goes and how good or bad does Corbin look in the effort. He’s still mighty green and needs to learn how to work longer matches and actually sell.
Emma takes the pin from Bayley.
Dana looks way too plastic and unnatural to me, and her mannerisms and speech patterns really put me off.
FWIW, the dirt sheets are reporting that Kevin Owens is not being demoted to the main roster at this time. Take with a grain of salt–but it seemed to be driving everyone’s UnStoppAble (NXT PPVs need some sort of weird capitalization or punctuation) predictions, so I thought it was worth mentioning.
I tend to take predictions from the sheets with a grain of salt - they always have the inside scoop after something big has happened, but none of them knew Owens would be appearing on Raw in the first place.
I’d say that what happens at Takeover will foreshadow his future fate - if he drops the belt he’s going to the main roster, if he keeps it he’s staying.
No argument from me there.
Unless he decides to take ALL the belts. 
Well, the precedent from when Paige was stripped of the NXT women’s title by General Manager JBL (who was actually tolerable in the role) is that you can’t hold a main roster title and an NXT title at the same time because a main roster champion needs to be able to defend all around the world without being obligated to also defend around Florida.
That logic is a little flimsy now that NXT has started doing tours, but it makess sense.
I’ll concede that her promos are very off, in an “alien replicoid attempting to imitate hoo-man speech” way. (Do real people actually accuse others of being “jelly” of them?) She’d probably be much more suited to a silent badass role like Tamina.
William Regal: “Either come back and forfeit the title or you will be stripped of it”
Kevin Owens: “Come take it from me”
Leading to various NXT Wrestlers appearing on Raw and Smackdown to try to take it from him and return it to NXT.
There, see? Easy peasy.
She could also stand to stop rubbing all over herself like a strip-tease parody, though at least that’s limited to ring entrances.
That might work on your Brad Maddoxes and Teddy Longs of the world, but William Regal has become established as a character who refuses to put up with anyone’s BS or let the wrestlers tell him what to do. If Owens refused to give up the belt, he’d just tell him to keep it since it’s now worthless and next week they’ll have a new NXT championship belt to award to the new champion.
…Or, failing that, he’d just wrestle Owens himself. And win. 
I now have my lodgings for NXT arranged. Sir Tea Cups came up to my neck of the woods yesterday and we saw the Apocalyptica show at Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh. I cleverly manipulated him into thinking he owes me free room and board when I come down to Orlando for NXT after he moves there.
Seriously, we had a blast, and he’s a very low maintenance guest. He didn’t eat or drink anything at the house, and as soon as he woke up this morning, he was gone.
Apocalyptica started out as four cello players from Finland who covered Metallica singles. Now they’ve added drums and a vocalist and do mostly their own tunes and crank up the lower registers of their big fiddles to make the floor shake. They spin their long blond hair like a Becky Lynch entrance. They do the cello equivalent of screeching guitar solos. They did a beautiful version of Sanitarium as an encore, and now I can’t get those vibratos out of my head.
The opening band, Art of Dying, was pretty good. The lead singer did Finn Balor poses. He tilted his head back and extended his arms to point outwards like Finn does during the hooks in his entrance music. Metal bands resemble wrestlers, with the tattoos, black leather and wild hairstyles and whatnot. Just needed some chair shots and piledrivers to make it complete.
Forgot to mention that I showed STC the awesomeness that is Lucha Underground. We watched a few eps where Drago & Aerostar were working their best of 5 series, and the beginnings of the Trios tournament. I assume STC is burning with jealousy that he doesn’t have access to LU, but that should eventually change.
I’ll do a match-by-match tomorrow, but the KO/Zayn feud is beginning to bore me.
The storytelling of their rivalry is making for poor stories in the ring. I mean, that injury segment was like 5 min long. Yeah, we get it, KO is a heel…move on
…well, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been worked.
I know I mentioned it at as a possibility, but Samoa Joe making his WWE debut, under the name Samoa Joe, in the main event, was the last thing I expected to happen.
Bravo, Triple H. My hat is off to you.
The big question now is, where do we go from here? Joe vs. Owens for the NXT title seems like an obvious main event for Takeover 6: The Undiscovered Championship, but Sami’s still entitled to another rematch since there was no finish to this one. Meanwhile, we’ve got Cena vs. Owens coming up at EC, which still feels like it ought to be a US title match - perhaps Owens wins both belts, has to forfeit the NXT title, and Joe vs. Owens ends up being a US title match on an NXT show? Maybe Joe gets hot-shotted to the main roster considering his age and experience? If they continue to let him call himself Samoa Joe going forward, he’ll be the first new signing since CM Punk to get that privilege - will Vince be willing to allow that, or will they hastily find a new name for him in the next few weeks? Altogether, I’m definitely looking forward to what happens next.
Oh, and some other matches happened too, I’ll let T-Cups deal with those.
Good news! Zayn is still injured and expected to be out for some time. 