Note: As of right now, only 6 matches have been announced for this Sunday’s WWE Battleground. WWE will probably add more to the card, but we can’t predict matches that haven’t been announced.
WWE Battleground predictions
R-Truth vs. King Barrett
Luke: The 3,000th meeting between R-Truth and King Barrett promises to be one of the 3,000 best matches they’ve had so far. This time they’re fighting for Barrett’s King of the Ring crown, which would be cool if the King of the Ring crown was presented as something worth having for longer than the length of the tournament itself. It wasn’t, though, so here we are with a meaningless undercard match, which means I’m picking the babyface. R-Truth gets the pin and the crown becomes a comedy prop.
Joe: 3,000th meeting? More like the 9 billionth meeting. The King of the ring gimmick is such a fricken joke now. Like it hasn’t meant anything in over 15 years. Guys like Sheamus and Regal won it in the past decade and they did nothing with it. We all know that R-Truth’s comedy gimmick is giving tons of jollies to Vincent K. McMahon. To me, Vince is more high on stupid comedy than King Barrett. I think R-Truth wins and Vince will get to laugh more while the King of the Ring title means even less.
Randy Orton vs. Sheamus
Luke: I refuse to believe that WWE is unaware of how much their fans hate seeing these two guys together. This must be intentional. Remember how terrible RAW was on the night The Shield broke up? It was like they made the show boring on purpose to make that moment stand out more. I hope this is like that – just filler to space out more important matches and events. I’ll pick Orton. Never forget the old proverb: “He who holds the Money in the Bank briefcase may lose every match in between winning it and cashing it in, and it shall matter not.”
Joe: Randy Orton is completely lost at this juncture. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy and think he has everything, but he’s the same character from 8 years ago and he does the same promos and programs. I feel he either needs a makeover or needs to feud with new folks. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing a Kevin Owens vs. Randy Orton program next. I feel like I’ve seen Sheamus and Orton 2,000 times before. I think Orton wins since he really hasn’t done much in the last two months.
Prime Time Players (c) vs. The New Day WWE Tag Team Championship
Luke: Credit to WWE for resurrecting an old tag team to freshen up the division and give Titus O’Neil and Darren Young something worthwhile to do. I was initially skeptical of the reformed PTP, unsure whether they were going to get any kind of push, but their feud with The New Day has been one of the better parts of RAW recently. Having just won the tag titles a month ago at Money In The Bank, I’ll pick PTP to retain. Ain’t nobody stopping Titus once he gets that hot tag.
Joe: Alright, the new day has grown on me. They are funny as hell and I think the whole positive angle is pretty funny, albeit, we had that from Bo Dallas. As for Prime Time Players..they need new writers as I find their jokes to be incredibly corny. PTP will retain.
Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt
Luke: There is a world not too different from ours where Reigns vs. Wyatt is the main event of WrestleMania 32 (or even 31). But this is not that world, at least not today. Everything Reigns does right now feels fake because WWE has cycled through so many different versions on his character, trying to find one that sticks. Is he the Samoan badass, the wisecracking mini-Rock, the guy nobody believes in, Dean Ambrose’s cool friend, or something else entirely? You can’t exactly blame WWE for that – they have an incredibly talented young guy in Reigns and want to maximize his potential, and there’s some trial and error in that. But whether it’s blameworthy or not, whiplash makes it hard to buy into Reigns’ stories and matches right now. Wyatt, on the other hand, has grown boring from giving the same speech too many times, aimed at too many targets, with too little thought put into why. In sum: I’m not very invested in this match, but I recognize its potential. I’ll pick Bray to win, although not clean, building to a bigger match between the two at SummerSlam.
Joe: If you were to tell me 2 months ago this would be a program, I would have said this would have been the right course of action. New guys=New feuds=something new. Well, it sucks. We can go into details how the whole 3-way family triangle is unrealistic and Reigns looked like a dumb ass 3 weeks ago when he thought Bray had his daughter and he jogged out of the ring like he was trying to catch the ice cream truck that had a blown tire. Its supposed to be your kid, you idiot! RUN WITH A PURPOSE!! I’m not gonna just blame Reigns, as I think Wyatt really serves no purpose in his promos. He sounds like an incoherent version of Marv Levy. You always here from Bills players saying that they had no idea what Marv was talking about because of his advanced vocabulary. Well, that’s how I feel about Wyatt. After he says his speech, you’re left to wonder “WTF is this guy talking about?” Bray to me has been a big letdown since his feud with Cena last year. Anyways, I think Roman wins because he’s WWE’s pet project.
John Cena (c) vs. Kevin Owens United States Championship
Luke: This is a tough booking decision for WWE. On the one hand, Kevin Owens has been on fire since his debut, with merchandise sales suggesting he’s already one of the top stars in the company. You want to keep him strong, and while beating Cena once as he did at Elimination Chamber is a big deal for a newcomer, lots of guys have beat Cena only to then lose multiple rematches with higher stakes in response. That usually doesn’t work out so well. (I’m looking at you, Wyatt and Rusev.) That makes me think Owens should win here, but on the other hand, Cena has done a great job elevating the U.S. title, and his U.S. Open Challenge might be the best thing on RAW – it’s a guaranteed great 20-minute match every week. If he loses the title to Owens, you lose that segment and need something else for Cena to do that keeps him prominently featured on the show without being the main event. It’s a bit of a cop out, but I would have outside interference cost Owens the win. Cena keeps the belt and sells more t-shirts, Owens moves on to someone else.
Joe: I am a Cena hater. Proud of it. However, he’s been great since he won the US title. Of course it helps that WWE gives him 25-minute matches it seems like on every Monday Night. God knows if Dolph Ziggler had the US Belt, he’d be losing non-title matches in 5 minutes. Anyways, Owens has been hot. Extremely hot. WWE cannot fuck this up! They do this all the time when someone at NXT debuts, they get hot, but then they end up losing out in their first program. Stop it. You wanna know why everyone has been on Cena’s nuts? Its because the US open invite gimmick and the fact he gets to have 20-minute matches. Now, he’s done great with it, but I think a few guys could take that gimmick and do just as good. Give Owens the belt and let him inherit that gimmick. If he loses here, he’ll “TRY” to get his heat back with a beat down on Monday, but it won’t matter because wins/losses are the ultimate test of maintaining heat. So..of course..Cena will win in some fluke because he always does.
Seth Rollins (c) vs. Brock Lesnar WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Luke: After seeing Lesnar rip off a car door and throw it into the crowd on RAW, Seth Rollins doesn’t look like much of a challenge for The Beast. That being said, the man who calls himself “The Architect” must be aware that he faces a huge challenge Sunday, so I expect him to have a gameplan beyond “go out there and wrestle good.” In fact, I’ll go a step further: I’m picking Seth’s brains over Brock’s brawn. The usual suspects – J & J and Kane – probably won’t be enough, but I’m betting Rollins has something else up his sleeve. He had to know Brock was coming back for his title eventually. Sink or swim, Seth. This should be a great match.
Joe: There are soooooo many rumors out there about this match. If you haven’t heard (SPOILER ALERT), supposedly Sting and Undertaker are coming back at Summer Slam. Something tells me both those guys will have something to do with this match. I’m thinking Sting vs. Rollins and Lesnar vs. Taker at Summerslam. It makes some sense for Rollins/Sting because Sting feuded with the authority for like 6 months. So, let’s have HHH send Rollins to take out Sting. As for Taker/Lesnar, it makes sense given the streak ending, but then you’ll have issues with deciding who is the heel since Brock is a face currently. Now, who has the belt for those matches is anyone’s guess. So, back to this match…I think Rollins somehow maintains with tons of interference by Taker/Sting maybe. However, I wouldnt be shocked if they set up Taker/Lesnar and say the championship is something Taker wants to have again before he goes off into the sunset.
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