WWE Clash of Champions 2019 Predictions

Hey everyone, MikeJC here back to talk about this weekends WWE pay-per-view, Clash of Champions.  This has been a very interesting time in WWE, some good, some bad, some really bad.  There's been a very good King of the Ring tournament (with a few stinkers both involving Shane McMahon in a prominent way) that I don't think anyone predicted would go the way it has with the finals taking place next Monday instead of on this show.  The aforementioned Shane McMahon continuing a horrible feud with Kevin Owens that has only gotten worse and should have ended at Summerslam with no more Shane on television, but I digress.  I have a lot to say about the build of this show, so be prepared for a long one.  So let's get into the matches on Clash of Champions, the 2019 edition.

Triple Threat Match

Cruiserweight  Championship

(C) Drew Gulak vs. Lince Dorado vs. Humberto Carillo

Okay so my continued disregard for 205 Live continues here, it just has not been something I look forward to watching as a stand alone show especially after Smackdown.  My hope is Triple H's recent proclamation that the show 205 Live is going to end and this division will migrate to NXT (how it should have been in the first place) is true.  Regardless, of my non viewing of this show or this feud, I've seen all three of these men work numerous times, and am very excited to see this match.  It's sure to be fast paced and high energy like most cruiserweight title matches, and the new dynamic of it being at triple threat match I'm sure will be great.  Gulak is an amazing heel, and is expected to retain here as I see him going into a big feud with Kushida in the coming months so Gulak will win, but look for both Dorado and Carillo to put on a show.

Intercontinental Championship

(C) Shinsuke Nakamura vs. The Miz

Anyone who knows me, knows I never have been and probably never will be a fan of The Miz, heel or face.  This face turn just like his previous one in 2013 has resulted in nothing at all, and has cooled him down considerably not that he was doing anything recently before it anyway.  Despite my continued dislike for the character of The Miz, it's obvious to everyone he should always be a heel, and stay away from feuding with people he really shouldn't be feuding with, like Shinsuke Nakamura.  This is without a doubt the coldest Nakamura has been since his call up to the main roster.  Before he won the IC title he wasn't doing anything for months, after a tag team with Rusev quietly disappeared, recently he's gotten Sami Zayn as his mouth piece which is great, since WWE has ruined him as well why not pair these two together and make Sami into a bigger loser.  Do I like the pairing yes and no, yes cause it's different and both guys need different, no because Sami seems to not be wrestling at all while it's happening and he's being booked as the annoying heel manager that gets beat up by everyone when he should be on the same level as his new partner.  Notice how I spent a long time talking about these individuals and not the feud, that's cause there isn't one, it was barely put together, handled poorly and Miz has no reason to win here, so I'm picking Nakamura.

Tag Team Match

Smackdown Tag Team Championship

(C) New Day vs. The Revival

This feud, and the involvement of these two teams in the WWE Title match as well has been very good.  I've loved The Revival being with Randy Orton, I feel like it's a perfect match and should have happened years ago, I love that Orton and The Revival have worked together to systematically destroy the New Day, to the point where we haven't seen Xavier and Big E for weeks, and Kofi has had to fight off The Revival as well as Orton.  Now the problem I have is, with that said, why has the Revival lost at all leading up to this match? Why did they receive a shot at the Raw Tag Title contendership if they were already in this feud? The Revival is probably one of the worst handled tag teams as far as booking goes, and that's obviously not their fault, they should not have lost at all before this match leading to the return of E and Xavier, this match to me is very very tough to call, cause the returning people should win but it really depends if WWE wants to pull the trigger on Revival and Orton sweeping the New Day, I think this is a Toss up and the result of this match will be telling as to what happens in the WWE Title match.

Tag Team Match

Women's Tag Team Championship

(C) Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. Fire & Desire

This feud has been...stupid.  Honestly we can barely call it a feud cause it's only had about two weeks of build.  This entire division has been poorly handled because of Vince McMahon's reluctance to even have a women's tag team division.  He never wanted it in the first place but he couldn't ignore the fans anymore, with that said he took it upon himself to make it his mission to ruin it and he did that very very quickly, maybe in record time of his history of ruining things.  In February when this division was established six teams competed to be the first champion, four of the teams in that match, are no longer together because of a combination of horrible booking, being on separate brands (even though that hasn't mattered for a while) or injury.  Fast forward to Mania where The IIconics won the belts, and never defended them for about four months, why is that you ask, nobody knows.  The current champs Alexa and Nikki are the third champs ever, with a division that is very lacking because another thing promised when these title's were created was crossover into NXT, that never happened, so Mandy and Sonya are the only other team that WWE isn't wasting, let's not forget they put Asuka and Kairi, two ladies who are 100 percent better as singles stars in a tag team and done nothing with them at all.  I mentioned earlier this feud is stupid, here's why, Mandy and Sonya were given a random non-title match beat the champions and during the match, Mandy told Nikki "You'll never look like me!" and that's been the basis of this feud.   It's a Vince McMahon special and it's very dumb.  Alexa and Nikki should retain and I honestly don't know where this division goes from here.  Let me just add I've enjoyed the dynamic of Alexa and Nikki as a team and expected Alexa to just turn on her as I think a lot of people did.

United States Championship

(C) AJ Styles vs. Cedric Alexander

I've actually enjoyed the build to this match, recently Cedric Alexander has received a resurgence he rightfully deserved, and a short feud with Drew McIntyre, that helped him get the exposure he needed to get here.  The recent heel turn of AJ and reformation of The Club now known as The OC has been the right move for AJ going forward.  AJ has been goading Seth and Braun recently and in his frustrations he ran into Cedric and The OC attacked Cedric for no reason.  Sparking this feud and hopefully a very exciting title match to follow. the slow ascent of Cedric is ongoing but I don't think his big win is here, it will come, but AJ is winning here.

No Disqualification Match

Roman Reigns vs. Rowan

I have no idea what is going on in this feud, I don't think anyone does, not even Vince McMahon, there's been no sign of this feud resulting in anything good for anyone.  It started as a mystery attacker storyline, where a scaffold was pulled onto Roman, he was fine but it was poorly shot, with camera angles from every which way except the angle of the side the scaffold fell from, Roman accused Samoa Joe, the person he was feuding with at the time that is until the second attack attempt saw a car try to run over Roman, a car that had a camera in it with video footage from inside the car being used in the video packages going forward, and took way too long to leave the scene (you can't make this shit up).  Roman later went to Buddy Murphy who accidentally appeared in the footage of the first attack and accused him, this was good for Murphy who had done literally nothing since his "call up" from 205 Live, he had an amazing match with Roman, and a big win against Daniel Bryan, after Murphy had claimed that Rowan, Bryan's friend, was the attacker.  Bryan said Rowan was innocent and spent a week to prove it, he said he knew who did it, and spent an entire Smackdown broadcast building to the reveal, he would reveal a Rowan look alike, and we never saw the look a like again (again you can't make this shit up).  We were then given footage weeks later that showed Rowan at the scene of the first attack, and Rowan didn't deny it or tell us why he did it, and Bryan said he had no idea of any of this.  This has resulted in brawls between Rowan and Roman, Rowan subsequently turning on Bryan for no reason, and to this day no concrete reasons given for any of this, I think Bryan will reveal he was behind it all along but for now, nobody knows what's going on and I think Rowan will win because of Bryan.  I warned you this would be long. 

Tag Team Match

Raw Tag Team Championship

(C) Seth Rollins & Braun Strowman vs. Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode

Okay, right off the bat I will tell you my number 1 problem with this match, neither of these teams were together a month ago.  Also the reason Seth and Braun even received tag title shots is ridiculous, and the former champs, Gallows and Anderson of The OC had to go through a gauntlet match with five other teams which they lost by double DQ to get another shot.  Seth and Braun "earned" tag title shots just cause AJ was harassing them and Gallows and Anderson got involved, that makes no sense, and of course they won cause Gallows and Anderson couldn't lose by DQ to keep the belts, they had to do this stupid tag partners who aren't friends as tag champs deal are also feuding for the world title trope, that they've done before.  The aforementioned gauntlet match, saw Dolph Ziggler, and Robert Roode, a makeshift team that hated eachother a year and a half ago (but Vince thinks we don't remember that) win and become number one contenders, while teams like Authors of Pain, sat and watched it, and lets not forget The Revival took a spot in the match even though they are feuding with the the other tag champs and took a loss in the process.  None of this makes any sense, and this could have been War Raiders (I know what I said) vs. Gallows and Anderson.  Regardless, I think Ziggler and Roode have a good chance of winning as ridiculous as that sounds, because of the fact that Seth and Braun are fighting for a bigger prize in the main event and they shouldn't have been tag champs in the first place.

Smackdown Women's Championship

(C) Bayley vs. Charlotte

So when this feud started, it aggravated me because of the fact that Charlotte needs to be involved in a title feud every other month, she could have sat back until November and let Bayley have the matches she promised with the people who never get opportunities, but Vince just can't help himself.  That all changed when Sasha Banks returned, turned heel and Bayley subsequently aligned herself with Sasha and turned heel (I think).  Bayley said that she didn't plan to be overshadowed, by Becky as the opposing champion, and that she wanted to show the children what it means to be loyal, and sticking by your friends no matter what.  Sasha is her best friend and in turn because Sasha is feuding with Becky she did what she felt was right.  I love this new edge to Bayley, and that made this match a whole lot more interesting, because it meant that it was no longer a foregone conclusion that Charlotte would be winning, usually the trope is if you get one over on Charlotte you definitely won't next time, it's happened more times then I can count, I don't think it will this time, because believe it or not, Charlotte is the least over of the Four Horsewomen of WWE right now and I love that.

WWE Championship

(C) Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton

I mentioned earlier how I loved the pairing of The Revival and Randy Orton, because it has been perfect not just for The Revival, but for Kofi and Orton as well, Kofi has had to work against the odds, with his New Day brothers taken out for the time being, and having a team like The Revival to back him up Randy Orton has been better then ever.  I will say the thing I hate for sure, is the WWE trope of faces not having a lot of friends, but heels always having back up, but regardless, this feud has been great, just because of the history behind it alone.  Dialing it back to when Kofi and Orton feuded ten years ago was the perfect way to go, as we all know a lot of times WWE likes to pretend things like that didn't happen, why I don't know.  Kofi wants to prove that his title win and reign isn't a fluke, Orton wants to end the fairy tale of Kofi Kingston, and I love it.  Even reliving the MSG spot from ten years ago was great, Kofi and Orton have been working great together and like I said earlier I think the result of this match really depends on who wins the Smackdown Tag Title match, I feel like if Revival wins, Orton can't lose, it be the perfect way to tell a big story of all the New Day trying to get back to the top,  I don't know if it's time for Kofi to lose the belt, but if it is, he's had one hell of a run as champion.  As I said before it's a toss up for me here, if Revival wins, I think Orton has to win, if Revival loses, Orton can still win, but it's more likely Kofi will if New Day retains.

Raw Women's Championship

(C) Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks

This is hands down, my favorite feud going into this pay-per-view,  Sasha's surprise return after Summerslam, was a breathe of fresh air for this division, that saw Lacey Evans feud with Becky for three months and that was agonizing.  Sasha came back and attacked and injured Nattie on the one year anniversary of her father's death, and revealed a new look in the process, a change that definitely proved Sasha was back to do different and be different.  Sasha hadn't had a heel turn since 2015, which is mind blowing, because she's such a natural heel.  This match, has been on the list of many since Becky's rise to super stardom.  Becky was goading Sasha on social media for months, calling her a coward for leaving, and that she felt disrespected by Sasha "taking her ball and going home" for not getting what she wants, while Becky worked harder then anyone to get where she is.  Now add to this new Sasha, a mean streak, a drive to be the best, and to do it on her own terms, with her best friend, Bayley, by her side, their goal is to run the divisions on both shows, and do it together.  I love the promos, Becky has had during this feud, the brawls between two have been great as well, further having us fans chomp at the bit to see where this one is gonna go, and even though I'm the biggest Becky supporter there is, I'm picking Sasha, I want to see what happens with this new Sasha and Bayley dynamic with both of them as champion, and we all know Becky can chase the hell out of a championship and make it mean something.

Universal Championship

(C) Seth Rollins vs. Braun Strowman

Here we are, we made it, I told you all this would be a long one, but anyway, this match, I'm sure won't be bad, that's not the problem, the problem is the story, the way this match came about was, Seth was being outnumbered and a recently absent Braun came out to make the save, the following week Seth returned the favor, this led to mutual respect, but Braun would always glance at the Universal Title, and instead of earning a shot like he's supposed to, he was awarded a title shot, just cause Seth agreed he deserved it, why I don't know as I mentioned earlier he was absent for a little while and really did nothing to deserve a title shot.  Then the whole tag title thing I mentioned earlier happened, and instead of these two feuding for real they been teaming, but having some miscommunication here and there but as tag champs, it makes no sense at all.  The OC got in the way of a lot going on with these two, including interrupting a contract signing for this match two weeks in a row, one of which included Stone Cold moderating and AJ Styles receiving a stunner.  Nobody has turned on the other, nobody has done anything to really make this seem like a legitimate feud.  It just feels like a placeholder match before the winner faces Bray Wyatt at Hell in a Cell which they have made pretty obvious is happening with Bray's recent promos.  For that reason, Seth will probably retain, Seth will continue his conquering of bigger guys, and I guess we'll see what happens from here, but this build, has not been great by any means, I'm sure the match won't be bad, Seth will do what he can to make it good, cause that's what he does.

Okay I'm done, I've gone on long enough, if you haven't noticed, I dislike the build for most of these matches, but regardless, usually when this happens we get a hell of a show so, I'm hoping that happens again, and let me add, as I've said before, and continue whether it's here or on twitter arguing with people who don't get it, people like me, who "complain" about wrestling, don't do so because they hate it, we do so because we want to see wrestling get better.  Things in WWE (main roster) are not great, we all know it, and true fans watch no matter what, so with that said, try to enjoy this show on Sunday, continue to love this sport, and continue to hope for better times ahead in the wrestling world.