Apparently Ryback got a staph infection on his knee and has to miss Battleground.
Hmmm… the armchair booker in me thinks Finn Balor should take his place and defend the NXT belt against BS and Miz. Have the latter two come out first, then darken the lights, roll out the fog, and have the alien spider emerge. That would rule.
Ok, I’m half tempted to say that Miz should then win the NXT title and be sent down to NXT to teach them how to get real heat just by talking. Three months of him running around with the title and heeling it up would be entertaining. Especially if he keeps the title close, refuses to let anyone touch it, while still claiming that he’s main evented Wrestlemania and this title is beneath him.
Edit to add: He should only win by throwing Balor out of the ring after Balor has done a number on Show, giving Miz the cheap win and easy pin.
Alright, I’ve held off long enough. It’s time for the official Battleground edition of Smapti’s Undisputed* PPV Match Predictions;
I’m going to have to put my actual prediction in spoiler tags here, because it refers to insider information/rumors that one may not wish to know about;
The Undertaker is currently scheduled to appear both at Battleground and at Raw the night after. It’s pretty much a given, assuming these reports are true, that he’ll get involved in the main event. Either he costs Rollins the match and allows Brock to win the title, or he goes after Brock to get revenge for his ending the Streak and Rollins retains by DQ. I’m leaning towards the latter. It’s been rumored that they’re planning Rollins vs. Triple H for Summerslam; if that’s the plan, Rollins should retain here so that Trips can win the title at Summerslam and set up for the ultimate conclusion of the Authority storyline next year at WrestleMania.
Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt. Reigns wins. Easy call.
Randy Orton vs. Sheamus. WHY. Why is this match happening? Does WWE not remember when these two fought at the post-Mania Raw in 2013 and it bored the audience to tears? This is not a match that should be happening.
I’ll give this one to Orton, because Sheamus is Mr. Money In the Bank, and that title means that he is doomed to job over and over again until he inexplicably becomes world champion sometime next year (or gets jobbed to John Cena and descends into a celebrity impersonator gimmick; that’s cool too.)
Prime Time Players vs. New Day for the tag titles. PTPs retain, IMO; WWE is loving the mainstream media attention they’ve gotten for Titus winning some “celebrity dad of the year” award.
John Cena vs. Kevin Owens for the US title. CENAWINSLOL… is the way that this match usually goes under typical WWE booking. Cena and Owens have one win apiece in this feud, so this is the rubber match which typically ends in Cena beating the Heel of the Month clean and sending him back to the midcard. That is absolutely what should not happen here. Owens losing the NXT title in Tokyo is a clear sign that he’s going to be a part of the main roster from here out. The “best for business” decision here would be to have Owens beat Cena clean for the US title, and do so in a way that (kayfabe) injures Cena and keeps him out of action for a month or two so they can avoid the perfunctory rematch. Owens has the potential to be one of the best heel champions WWE has had in ages, so long as they don’t ruin his credibility by feeding him to Cena, so I really hope they go the sensible route instead of the route that they’d usually go here.
King Bad News Wade Barrett vs. King R-What’s-Up-Truth for the right to be called ‘king’. This is the pre-show match. I give this one to Truth because they clearly have no idea what they’re doing here, and when in doubt, the babyface wins.
The Ryback vs. Miz vs. Big Show match has been cancelled due to Ryback’s injury. The safe substitute here is to do Miz vs. Show in a #1 contenders match. I’d pick Miz to go over in that match if that’s what they go with. I don’t believe they’ve announced a Divas match for this show yet; considering the setup they did on Raw, I could buy them doing a triple threat trios match of Nikki/Brie/Alicia vs. Charlotte/Becky/Paige vs. Naomi/Tamina/Sasha, though that’s a longshot; they’ll probably just go a throwaway singles match between Nikki and whoever’s turn it is to be fed to her on her path to breaking AJ’s record so that Maggle never has to acknowledge AJ’s existence ever again.
In other news, the government of Mexico has just announced that they’re establishing a special universal healthcare plan for lucha libre performers, which is expected to cover about 5,000 luchadors and their families. Meanwhile, WWE continues to insist that its talent are “independent contractors” and therefore they’re not obligated to provide them with any medical coverage whatsoever.
*Except in Kansas City and Reno
I thought I read something about Cena doing another movie. If so, it would make no sense for him to win, but again, Difficulty: Vince.
Just noticed something seeing the replay of Raw on Smackdown. The intro of the NXT women. Ok, at one point you have three groups;
Sasha lines up with the two black women on the left.
Bellas and light skin black in center.
Blonde, redhead, extremely white girl on the left.
Nice visual representation there, WWE. Give it away a little. You’ve got your women lined up by color of their skin, from the darkest on the left to the palest on the right, and aligned in factions along those color lines.
I’m going to chalk this up to coincidence, Chimera. Becky and Charlotte are faces, so they’ll be on Paige’s side. Sasha is a heel, and the Bella faction already has three, so she’s with whatever’s left.
I had always thought Sasha Banks was short, but she’s actually taller than Naomi. I’m so used to seeing her with the much taller Charlotte.
I agree with your spoiler prediction, Smapti. You-know-who vs Brrrrock would headline SS better than a rematch with Seth. I’m going to go with KO winning the title from Cena, however. KO’s a gold mine, and Vince is going to milk that for all it’s worth.
I actually WANT R Troof to beat Wade Barrett so he can get rid of the KotR albatross and go back to being the meta-cracking BNB. The KotR concept should just fade away and die. It may have worked thirty years ago, but nowadays it’s something old hat like chintzy Vaudeville acts and…
The latest SWERVED has Fandango, Heath Slater, and Ascension going to a restaurant and witnessing the brother-and-sister owners engaging in inappropriate PDAs. Heath, oddly enough, displays a moral streak.
So, WWE has announced that at Takeover Brooklyn, Tyler Breeze is going to be wrestling none other than Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger, the 25-year New Japan veteran who wrestled extensively in WCW in the '90s and ROH over the past decade.
This is going to be interesting.
The Kane leg injury coinciding with the return of Taker has interesting possibilities. So I expect WWE to totally waste that opportunity.
So… The Vaudvillains as new Kings of the Ring? 
Oh, and looking over the spoilers for the NXT tapings, I’d be willing to put a few bucks on Bayley finally winning the NXT Women’s title at Takeover:Brooklyn so that Sasha can move full time to the main roster.
Which puts Bayley as face champ against Evil Emma, PlasticPrincess, Carmella and whichever new women get to step up.
Originally, KOTR was something that was won and then pretty much forgotten. They tried to make it sound like it was on an even level with the WWF title, but nobody bought it. Unfortunately, it looks like they’re trying to bring back the “King Harley Race” gimmick, where the winner is “King of the WWE” even after another KOTR gets crowned.
I just hope they don’t mention that the last “King of the WWE” before now was Dusty Rhodes (which it was - IIRC, when he won it, he refused to wear it as “I’m just a common man” and the whole thing died off) and decide that now that Dusty has died, the crown was vacated.
King Sheamus, King Booker, the King of Kings Triple H, and the Macho King Randy Savage would like to have a word with you.
The winner of the King of the Ring match parading around in a crown and robe is still a stupid cartoonish concept. I assume that nonsense started with Jerry, but I don’t recall exactly. Needing R Troof to put end to this is a good indication of how stupid it all is. Wuts Up wid dat?
"For those waiting for my return I appreciate it but let’s focus on what’s going on right now. I’ve had my time and it’s over so it seems but there’s an abundance of talent on the main roster for them to pay attention too. Just let it go.”
Then of course there’s something claiming that is fake.
As Dean Ambrose might say; NOPE.
Wrestling is all Daniel Bryan has ever wanted to do, and he’s going to keep doing so until he can’t. I hope he doesn’t one day end up in a state like Kurt Angle where he should be retired but refuses to, but he’s going to be back.
In yet another addition to the Wednesday Night Wars, Chikara is going to start running a weekly wrestling show at the end of this month. It’s exclusively on Youtube, but given that Chikara is known both for having great lucha-libre style wrestling and some of the most over-the-top anime-esque storylines one can possibly pull off in a high school auditorium (seriously, just look at their roster) it ought to be well worth watching.
Not sure about Chikara. I like to pretend I take wrestling seriously, and Chikara is all about the silliness. I watched an 8-man tag match with Swamp Monster (the guy wears a green fuzzy green blanket) vs one of the Ice Creams (chocolate). Ice Cream guy kept holding his nose to sell that SM was exuding bog stench. The guy could hardly see and just kind of stumbled around till he charged over the top rope and let the teammates pick things up.
So it’s been two weeks, which means another NXT house show with Ms. Cups, and this was just as good as last time (better for one of us…)
Autographs were: Baron Corbin, Stripper Bitch (Dana Brooke) and my girl Bayley
Match 1 was Enzo and Cass vs Scott Johnson and Dash Wilder: A fine opening match I guess. The crowd was a bit obnoxious towards the fake Bushwackers, but Enzo and Cass were good as always. They ended up winning too. It’s also worth mentioning that when we were walking into the venue we parked next to a rental that had about 5 people wearing “Sawft” shirts. We followed them into the building and they had some special seating, and rooted for Cass pretty loudly. We’re thinking they’re family.
Next up was Angelo Dawkins vs Uhaa Nation: Uhaa is a big big man. Dawkins was playing heel by saying he’s the best in the country or something like that. Uhaa ended up winning by doing a pretty cool looking standing moonsault.
And now that there have been two matches its promo time! Here come the Vaudevillans. The best part of this happened a match earlier. Throughout the first couple matches the seat in front of me was empty, and eventually walks in a pretty Asian girl wearing a Batman dress. So now we are back to the promo and out come the guys are doing their thing except Simon Gotch is eyeballing this girl. Like…eye humping the bajeezus out of her, plus he was really hyper and you could just tell something was going on. We are thinking it was a girlfriend because it was apparently family night at Cocoa. While the Vaudevillians were talking the Superhappys came out and started some shit.
Back to wrestling! We got the Hype Bros!!! (exclamation points obviously needed) vs JJ and Bagels. No IU chant this time for JJ, but it was apparently Mojo Rawley’s birthday so a bunch of guys yelled that and he seemed pretty happy about it. I still lose my shit every time that Rawley does “the hammer” it’s so damn funny. Hype Bros win with their little dual move thingy.
Last match before intermission is Baron Corbin against Mike Rawlins. We had some people by us who did the counting down thing, and tried to get Corbin to end it, but he kept saying “I do what I want” and kinda heeling off on us. Corbin didn’t impress me much on this match, but I’ve noticed with him he plays to his competition, and Mike Rawlins isn’t the best in the world.
Intermission time! I had an orange Fanta cuz I’m a badass, Ms. Cups had another Sprite because she needs to learn how to live her life
First Divas match of the night! My girl Bayley against the Red Queen herself Eva Marie. I’m torn about this match because I do enjoy me some Bayley, but I just don’t think she’s THAT good of a wrestler. Her character is fantastic which, I think, carries her a lot. Eva herself was actually fine VERY heel. I think her character is going to end up being “oh, you don’t like me? screw all y’all I’m just gonna wrestle”. Surprisingly she ended up losing to Bayley. I say surprisingly because I assumed NXT wants her to look strong. But house rules of “faces always win” wins out in the end. Bayley gave high fives and I got one! Yeah touching Bayley!
When we got to the arena there was a ladder that was covered really badly. We didn’t know what it was for, but eventually figured it out. After every match we had The Perfect 10 Tye Dillinger come out and rate the matches. Now he comes out to wrestle himself. He went against Bull!. Another hilarious Bull match that involved running, dancing and…jiggling. Funniest part was that Tye and Bull were doing the “running around the ring” thing but Bull stopped, turned around, and shushed us. He then hid and let Tye just run to him. Good stuff.
Promo number 2 was Solomon Crowe putting over the locker room. Saying they would all die for us and it was just…weird.
Divas match number 2 is a tag match. Carmella and Lena against Stripper Bitch and Cassie. For those playing at home, Lena is the gigantic Samoan chick, and Cassie is one of the new Aussie heels. I am really impressed with Carmella’s ability to wrestle. I never noticed it before, but when I was there I could see she was really quite good. She and Lena won because of “face wins” house rules.
Main event time! OMG IT’S TYLER! comes out first. Then the lights go down, the heartbeat starts, and it’s NEW NXT CHAMP Finn Balor! This is the first time we’ve seen the Champ at one of the house shows, and especially happy it was Finn. Breeze worked the leg for the match to set up the story, but at the end of the day the champ prevailed and all was well. After the match Finn made a huge deal in greeting the fans with the “too sweet” which means that, for the first time, Ms. Cups was able to touch Finn Balor. Not only that, she got a picture of herself doing it so she could have proof forever. So needless to say her night was made.
Overall it was a fun show. We’ve never seen Breeze, Carmella, Enzo or Eva Marie in action, so now we’ve seen everyone other than the heavy hitters and/or injured guys! And don’t worry, we already have our tickets for about three weeks from now!
So…
CM Punk claims he had an untreated Staph Infection WWE Docs blew off. He also bashed Ryback.
Ryback is out of tonight’s PPV due to a Staph Infection and thanking the WWE Doctors for their prompt action.
Hmmm…
Ok, they deliberately played up that difference. Did they have JoJo standing in a pit? Stephanie McMahon towered over JoJo. Jojo is 5’2", Stephanie is 5’9".