Night of Champions 2011 - Predictions

I haven’t written anything in quite a while, huh? I won’t be watching the PPV live tonight. Instead, I’ll be watching back at some point tomorrow. In any case, here are my predictions for ‘Night of Champions’.

Beth Phoenix V Kelly Kelly © for the Divas Championship. It’s a surprise in itself that K2 retained at SummerSlam but I fully expect Beth to win tonight in her hometown. It makes sense. I hope it’s a clean win too. For those of us, who still have the glimmer of hope that change is coming (Hello CM Punk), a clean win for Beth is what we want, right?

Dolph Ziggler (c) V John Morrison V Alex Riley V Jack Swagger for the United States Championship. I wasn’t expecting a fatal four-way. Near SummerSlam, I expected Ziggles to defend against Alex Riley with A-Ry possibly going over but Swagger came in the way. I think Swagger and Ziggles will cost each the victory (perhaps a face turn for one of them?) and they will possibly engage in a feud (though I’m hoping for Ziggles to be elevated to the main event very soon)? This leaves us with John Morrison and Alex Riley. It’s anyone’s game, really. A-Ry, I understand why he’s in the match. JoMo, it seems, was just randomly thrown in. Maybe if he turned heel, he and A-Ry could give us a good series of match? I can see JoMo winning just because A-Ry is still pretty green but a feud with JoMo would help there and keep him in the title picture. I'm going for JoMo to win.

Cody Rhodes (c) V Ted DiBiase for the Inter-Continental Championship. This match has been booked too early. I don’t think Ted should have turned on Cody so soon but it was still effective and Ted did a good job. I hope to see Ted DiBiase win and hopefully a feud with Cody will last longer than A-Ry and Miz’s did.

Air Boom (Evan Bourne & Kofi Kingston) (c) V Awesome Truth (R-Truth & The Miz) for the World Tag Team Championships. This should be a good match. I’m a bit unsure as to who will win following RAW and Smackdown this week. Having Air Boom lose after losing their singles matches this week would make them look very weak yet I’d like to see Miz and Truth go over and it would make sense for them to win. I’m going with Miz and Truth to win.

Mark Henry V Randy Orton (c) for the World Heavyweight Championship. Mark Henry has to win. End of. Having him lose would majorly fuck up this entire storyline. There are rumours circulating that Kane and Show could turn up and cost him the match? If Henry’s going to lose, I’d like it to be via DQ as he destroys Orton. Orton winning clean will make me lose all faith in this company.

Alberto del Rio (c) V John Cena for the WWE Championship. WWE go on their tour of Mexico next month. It would be incredibly stupid to take the title of ADR. ADR hasn’t been made to look like a champion at all so it’s important he wins tonight. I expect him to retain, preferably clean but I can see some interference from Ricardo, following what happened on RAW. Either way, ADR should win. No more rematches for Cena. Someone else should be pushed for the world title.

CM Punk V Triple H in a no DQ match. If Triple H loses, he must step down from being COO. Ah yes, the real main event. The match this PPV is all about. If anything, this should be a great match. It should be pretty intense considering the heat between these guys both on and off-screen. If Triple H can control his ego, we could see Punk win. But I think Kevin Nash will interfere. In favour of whom, I have no idea. I’m thinking most likely Punk? It could really all be an act between himself and Triple H. Or perhaps Nash is in support of Punk? Why do I say that? We saw him leave with Johnny Ace a few weeks ago. If Triple H has to resign, he’s a perfectly viable option for the next COO, right? I, personally, would like to see some McMahon drama and Stephanie step in. Preferably against HHH but let’s be honest, storyline or not, The Game would never let that happen, right? We could have a great set-up for Survivor Series if Nash and his buddies try to help HHH. I mean, why else would HHH introduce this no DQ stipulation? Add in the rumours going around for a while now about guys like KOW apparently about to be signed (Claudio Castagnoli who was signed a few days ago under Antonio Cesaro) amongst others and Punk could have a stable of his own formed. I think so long as it’s more beneficial for the storyline, it doesn’t matter too much who wins. I’m going to say Kevin Nash interferes and cost… Triple H the match. ><

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share your view. :D

RAW - 22/08/11 - (8/10)

Alberto del Rio opens the show and before he can get more than two words in John Cena interrupts, saying how only CM Punk and he deserve that title and how he’s going to take it off ADR. CM Punk turns up and tells Cena his rematch clause is non-existent and that he’s the one who’s going to win the WWE championship. Triple H interrupts and tells ADR he’s not here to defend him and that he has a non-title match next. He turns to Punk and Cena and says they can’t just ask for rematches whenever they want because he’s in charge, not them. The main event is also announced: John Cena v CM Punk to determine the #1. Contender for the WWE Championship in a match at Night of Champions.

ADR’s mystery opponent turns out to be John Morrison. My prediction was JoMo would be buried and ADR would win. Thankfully, I wasn’t quite right. It was a good match. I think ADR came off too strong though with all the nearfalls despite JoMo giving him everything he had. If JoMo’s out injured now, bitches will be cut. That’ll just be ridiculous. I think we were expecting some kind of Truth appearance to cost JoMo the match. That didn’t happen so I think it’s safe to say that feud’s been put to rest.

Eve Torres defeats Nikki Bella. It was Nikki, right? The match was bearable by these girls’ standards. I don’t know why Eve and the Bellas are back on RAW so often again. I’d have had Beth in the ring every week, maybe even with Natalya, just basically squashing the divas roster. Lawler said something about Kelly “sending out a message” (lolshush) but shouldn’t Beth be the one doing that? Beth and Natalya come out whilst K2 and Eve celebrate and clap for them.

Vickie Guerrero introduces Jack Swagger for his rematch against Alex Riley. Alex Riley doesn’t even get an entrance. What? Hey, that botch last week was Swagger’s fault so don’t go punishing A-Ry! Anyway, Dolph is nowhere to be found until halfway through the match where he turns up, asking what Vickie’s doing with Swagger. Vickie falls, making it look as though Dolph pushed her, which distracts Swagger from the match, long enough for A-Ry to recover. Dolph’s trying to get Vickie to leave. A-Ry manages to get the upper hand and roll up Swagger to pick up a win. I’m assuming Vickie will end up having to choose between Swagger and Dolph and I think she’ll pick Swagger (I hope) and there’ll be a feud for the US title. What confuses me is what happened to the hint we saw to a feud between Dolph and A-Ry for the US title a few weeks ago?!

Triple H calls out Kevin Nash and there’s the confrontation about the text message again. CM Punk turns up and calls them both liars and says how he’s going to beat Nash’s ass. He also introduces Suspect #3, whom we’re all suspicious of, Stephanie McMahon. It was an alright segment, not up to usual CM Punk standards. We didn’t really get anything resolved either. Punk continues to verbally beat down Triple H and Kevin Nash. Triple H says he said he wouldn’t get physically involved but at the rate CM Punk is pushing him, I might end up doing just that. CM Punk, unfazed, carries on with that smirk. Nash sends Punk to the floor after delivering a fist to his skull. Punk sits there, looking amused.

Next we have a match for the Tag Team Titles! It is Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne V David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty. I didn’t care much for this match. I don’t really call this a tag team division revival quite yet but they’re heading in the right direction. The match was… A bit of a mess in areas. I feel kinda bad for Otunga and McGillicutty with everyone burying them, even on commentary. I have hopes for the tag team division. I’m happy Evan Bourne has a title! However, I doubt there tag team will last longer than just a few months. I don’t think they’ll fully establish themselves as a legitimate tag team when that’s what we really need in that division as opposed to two random wrestlers throw together. Their styles complement each other reasonably well, I guess but aside from that, I don’t know.

The guys are interviewed backstage and Zack Ryder turns up, showering them with champagne. Including the match, the whole segment got a good crowd reaction and it was a bit of a relief to see the title change hands, which is good.

Next we have quite possibly my favourite segment of the night. Santino Marella is making his way to the ring. Halfway down the ramp, The Miz and R-Truth attack him from behind before entering the ring, beating him up some more and having a great in-ring segment. If these two end up teaming up, it’ll be great. They’re both good in the ring and brilliant on the mic so they could work together really well. Miz agrees with R-Truth’s conspiracy theory and says how sick he is of being under-utilized and having to pick a fight with Jared from Subway just to be on TV! My thoughts exactly, Miz. They got some great heel heat from the crowd and worked together really well. The segment ended with Truth rapping and Miz joining in for the “You Suck”s to the crowd.

John Laurinaitis informs Triple H that Kevin Nash is in the hospital after an accident. Apparently. I reckon he was bluffing and just wanted him out of the arena.

Finally, we have the main event of the night. John Cena V CM Punk in order to determine Alberto del Rio’s opponent at Night of Champions for the WWE Championship. There was the brilliant moment when the crowd threw Cena back his t-shirt twice, haha. Bless him. Poor guy, haha. It was a bit of a blah match. It wasn’t particularly exciting and it certainly paled in comparison to their previous two matches. It was okay though, I guess. There were a couple of repetitive sequences but they did catch me off-guard and grab my attention a bit. I think we all saw Cena winning. CM Punk will probably just be involved in a feud with Nash now. Nash, who distracted Punk during his match. Nash, who wasn’t in the hospital. Nash, who enabled Cena to defeat CM Punk. I really think the angle with Punk/Cena is being played out far too quickly. Right now, CM Punk, if I were in charge, wouldn’t even be with the WWE. There would be no Kevin Nash. Cena would be feuding with someone (maybe ADR) for the title and no one would spare CM Punk a second thought. Then BAM!, he’d come out from nowhere with his WWE title and a massive stable of ROH beasts and destroy everyone and… I’ll shush now.

I’m interested to see where the Punk/Nash angle goes, much more so than the Cena/ADR angle.

RAW was pretty decent. I wanted to see Stephanie again though, add to the heat. I’m hoping she’ll respond to Punk’s accusations next week. I’m hoping to see the Corporation return. If Shane McMahon turns up, the show gets immediate full marks though that would never happen but, yeah… I give it 8/10, which comes to scraping an A.

RAW - 15/08/11 (6.5/10)

SummerSlam 2011 ended with a lot of questions we wanted answered on RAW. So there were high expectations out of the show this week. Did it live up to them?

The show opened with none other than Triple H. He talked about nothing important. He revealed that Kevin Nash would be making an appearance later on and that he had nothing to do with the incident that took place at SummerSlam. He also stated he made a mistake with his refereeing as John Cena’s foot was, in fact, on the ropes but he just failed to notice this. He says he’ll apologize to him and then introduces our new WWE Champion, Alberto del Rio. Alberto goes on about destiny and cuts a pretty lengthy promo. It felt pretty awkward to me but I think we can blame the crowd more for that. I though San Diego was very irresponsive and just… Generally sucked. He talks about how he’s gonna beat up their hometown boy, Rey Mysterio and they barely react.

In the first match, R-Truth faces John Morrison in a Falls Count Anywhere match. This should have been on the PPV. First thing I notice is that R-Truth has music again! Anyway, it was a good match but I think they should have taken advantage of the stipulation and moved further away from the ring rather than keeping to the ringside area. It could have given JoMo more of a chance to showcase his abilities. A longer match would have been nicer too. JoMo ended up finally winning. Had this been on SummerSlam, it would have been a nice culmination to their feud.

Miz is reduced to cutting a promo… For Subway. With “Jared from Subway”. It was great, don’t get me wrong. I loved it. It’s just… Reducing the former WWE Champion to this of all things?!

For some reason, The Bella Twins are back on our TV screens. Or, in my case, laptop screen. Kelly Kelly and Eve Torres defeats Brie and Nikki Bella in a tag team match. Eve pins one of the twins. Compared to the usual shit we see out of these four, it was a decent match, surprisingly enough. At the end, Natalya and Beth come out, stood at the top of the ramp and clap, mockingly, watching them. I’d have preferred to see Beth to cut a promo though. The girls need mic time. Screw this match. Pointless. Utterly pointless.

To follow, we have what I think was the highlight of the night. Kevin Nash enters the ring and explains he’s good friends with Triple H, who provided him with SummerSlam tickets upon request and how he doesn’t believe that his “best” friend didn’t know why he attacked Punk that night. He explains how he had a text message from a friend, telling him to take out the champion regardless of who it is. As he makes to leave, explaining he was just following orders, Punk comes out to a big pop. I thought he kind of slaughtered Nash in this. He was great, whereas I think Nash was a tad awkward. That and I guess, Punk did bury him, making him seem weaker… Punk explains how he’s pissed off at him, not Alberto because he understand how Money In The Bank works. He also reads out a text from his sister, “OMG. Kevin Nash. WTF. Thought he was dad. LOL”. Best ever. He then proceeds to say that it is, in fact, Nash’s career that’s dead. I loved it when Nash told Punk to watch his mouth and Punk said in response: “You need to watch the show. I do and say what I want to whomever I please”, as well as shooting down his statement about Triple H “shaking things up”, saying CM Punk, not Triple H is responsible for this”. I’ve already gone into more detail than I usually would. This was a great segment. Go watch it. It’ll be on Youtube. Punk’s about to fight Nash when security block him so he shrugs that off and says he’ll confront Triple H backstage instead. It’s kind of sad that Punk hasn’t been able to showcase his promo skills like this until now! After, what, 5-6 years?!

Backstage, Nash bumps into John Laurinaitis, who says Punk’s been very disrespectful and asks to speak with him privately. It sounded a bit dirty really, the way he suggested this… We’ve been seeing a lot of Johnny Ace. I feel like things are really stepping up on Raw. Not Smackdown. Raw.

We have a very strange match between Jack Swagger and Alex Riley with Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero at ringside. There was more attention on Dolph and Vickie than the match itself, which was pretty frustrating. I don’t know what Vickie was doing, putting JR’s hat on Justin King. I’m certain there were plenty of other ways to distract him. JUSTIN KING IS GREAT, OKAY, VICKIE. She and Dolph bickered a lot. Swagger ended up winning with a ridiculously botched finish, thanks to Vickie’s distraction. Backstage, it looks like she may have  a new “client” as Swagger requests her, uh, assistance. I’m hoping this means Ziggles is really close to leaving her, dammit!

Punk is backstage and walks into a room, to see Stephanie. I’m shipping these two right now, okay. There is some blatant sexual frustration in the air. Back on topic, she says how sorry she is that he lost at SummerSlam but there is that mocking tone to her voice. It’s pretty blatant she’s the one responsible for Nash’s attack, particularly once she says in a pretty dark tone that people always get what they deserve before leaving Punk. How brilliant would it be if Shane was responsible for Nash? I’d probably jizz and mark out so hard. That’ll never happen, unfortunately. Shane is doing great without his father’s company. Good on him. I just miss the guy.

Otunga and McGillicutty are thrown into a random tag team match against Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne. There was a lack of chemistry so the match wasn’t particularly interesting. The highlight was basically Airbourne. No surprise there. Evan pins… One of the other two. I don’t know.

I pray to God these rumours on the dirt sheets about reviving the tag team division are true. The Young Bucks AKA Generation Me had a tryout match pre-Raw. If they get signed, that’ll be one step in the right direction. Triple H apparently has employed someone to especially look at working on the tag team division. There’s been word that they’re looking at Beer Money, once their TNA contract is up and various ROH teams like Kings of Wrestling & The Briscoe Brothers. Thrown in MCMG and we’re definitely improving by a hell of a lot. I’d watch either of those guys face off weekly, no problem. If any of these do get signed, I really hope they don’t get ruined.

Finally, we have the main event, which is Alberto del Rio versus Rey Mysterio for the Undisputed WWE Championship. Am I the only one who really wants Chris Jericho to turn up every time they say “Undisputed”. It was an okay match for me, nothing special. ADR won by pinfall, retaining his title. Pretty predictable. The crowd kinda sucked. Rey got a pretty good pop considering San Diego is his hometown.

ADR continued to attack him post-match, locking him into the cross arm breaker. Then Cena turns up and gets a bigger pop than Rey. Okay. Cena attacks ADR and says the opposite of Punk, saying ADR is no worthy champion and he sure as hell is pissed at him. Cena cuts a pretty good promo. I wish we could see this side of him more often! It would really keep me from getting pissed off him. I have respect for the guy though.

All in all, it was an okay show. I kind of expected more from it. The matches weren’t great. We didn’t get much answered though I don’t mind having a few questions… It’s like we didn’t get anything new properly revealed. The highlight of the show was the face-off between Nash and Punk. Aside from that, there wasn’t much to it. It was pretty awkward. San Diego were pretty crap as an audience. Whatever.

I give the show 6.5/10, a solid C.

What if... The person responsible for Kevin Nash is...

Shane.

I know, I know. It'd never happened... He's gone for good. I just miss the guy. :(

S'probably Stephanie and/or Vince...