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Another week, another set of outside the box predictions for the week in WWE. With his tag partner injured, what’s next for Seth Rollins?
One of my favorite pastimes as a WWE fan is to try and guess what’s going to happen in the future. I don’t go out of my way to spoil myself. But trying to get into the heads of the creative department is a good way to kill some time.
My crystal ball was way off last week. Instead of compelling storytelling to further build him up, Roman Reigns defeated Bray Wyatt on Raw to earn his way into the Men’s Elimination Chamber Match. Asuka not only wasn’t added to the Women’s Elimination Chamber Match – she got a match with Nia Jax instead, keeping her out of the Chamber as well. And no Finger Poke of Doom on SmackDown Live between Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn – not a good week for thinking outside the box.
So this week, I’ve got to try and make up for this swing and a miss. With more still to be announced for the Elimination Chamber pay per view, the Raw brand has to get things in gear. Team Blue has to make some sense out of its Top 10 List – plus determine the fourth participant in Fastlane’s WWE Championship match. And 205 Live is quietly becoming must-watch TV as the Cruiserweight Championship Tournament rolls on.
Now that we know where things stand heading into the week, we’ll forgo the crystal ball and try reading the tea leaves this week. Here are Daily DDT’s bold predictions for WWE for the week of Feb. 12.
In a Tale of Two Cruisers, The Ground Beats The Air
There are two tournament matches scheduled for 205 Live this week. One pits Akira Tozawa against Mark Andrews. Both superstars possess a visually amzaing move set, and have the ability to keep a crowd’s interest level up by busting out a dive or a flip when necessary.
The other match? Former – and possibly still – BFFs Tony Nese and Drew Gulak will throw down. With the exception of Nese’s Fosbury Flop, there’s next to no aerial offense between the two superstars. Gulak has built his character around literally staying on the ground, while Nese is possibly the strongest competitor on the 205 Live roster.
If you had to pick which match would be the better of the two, nine out of ten fans would laugh in your face as they said “Tozawa vs. Andrews.” (The tenth fan? Me.) With the possibility of a plethora of high risk maneuvers, how could you not look at the battle between high fliers as the more exciting – and therefore better – match?
And I answer your hypothetical question with a question of my own. Which movie is “better” – The Shawshank Redemption, or Pacific Rim? Pacific Rim is arguably more exciting – giant monsters fighting giant robots, plus Charlie Day – but Shawshank is without question one of the greatest movies of all time. It doesn’t need constant flashiness, or ridiculous spots – just a good, coherent story.
While Tozawa and Andrews are phenomenal athletes, there’s not a lot of history between them. What kind of story will they tell in their match? Nese and Gulak, though, have been through a lot since the Cruiserweight Classic. As long as that history translates into the match – and they put on the technical display both are capable of putting on – there’s no reason theirs can’t be the more impressive of the two tourney contests.
Fatal Four Ways are SOOOOOOO 2017…
Over on SmackDown Live, the chaos surrounding AJ Styles and the WWE Championship is reaching new heights. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn have both had opportunities to win the title, but something literally always happens to foil their efforts. The latest: Styles interfered in a match between the two that was meant to determine the challenger for the title at Fastlane.
Daniel Bryan – possibly in cahoots with Owens and Zayn – decided to make a triple threat match instead. But Shane McMahon refuses to be upstaged, and decided to book Baron Corbin against a returning Dolph Ziggler this week – with the winner being added to the Fastlane match for a fatal four way. Please disregard the fact that Owens, Zayn, Corbin, and Ziggler are nowhere to be found on the SmackDown Top 10 List – you know, the one that’s supposed to help determine title matches and stuff.
This one may not be so much a bold prediction as some of my others, but that’s what happens when you toss your lousy crystal ball and read the tea leaves. Neither Corbin nor Ziggler will win this week – but neither will lose. This will result in the Fastlane main event being a fatal five way – as was actually advertised a few months back, albeit with different participants.
Maybe as Ziggler is about to cement his place in the match, KO and Sami interfere. The Yep Movement could attack both Ziggler and Corbin, throwing the match out. Going the five way route makes the odds seem more insurmountable for Styles, but there’s no way he doesn’t go into WrestleMania as champion. Not since they’ve already started the build to the match between Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura.
The Architect Builds a Feud From the Ground Up
Man, Seth Rollins must be cursed. Since he became the first superstar to cash in his Money in the Bank contract at WrestleMania 31, he’s had a hard time getting back onto the big show. First, his severe knee injury kept him out of action for several months – including WrestleMania 32. Then last year, right around this time, Rollins reinjured his knee, which put his WrestleMania again in jeopardy. He was able to compete, but not to the ability he likely wanted (though the match against Triple H was fairly high profile and pretty good).
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This year, things were looking good for Rollins. He had reunited with Dean Ambrose over the summer; the duo were briefly joined by Roman Reigns in the fall to reunite The Shield. When Ambrose went down with injury, Jason Jordan filled his shoes. The reluctant team of Rollins and Jordan became Raw Tag Team Champions – only for Jordan to be injured as well, putting any major plans for Rollins on hold – with WrestleMania right around the corner again.
So what’s Seth Freakin’ Rollins to do? It’s time to make something happen to give him something worthy to do at WrestleMania. It looks like the Elimination Chamber may be passing him by, so a shot at the Universal Championship may be out of the picture. But the Intercontinental Championship seems ripe for the picking.
Last spring, The Miz, Seth Rollins, and Finn Balor had a great triple threat match on Raw for the Intercontinental Championship. In fact, we named it the best Raw match of 2017 in our year-end recap. Perhaps Rollins can rekindle his Shield-borne rivalry with The Miztourage and earn himself a shot at the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania.
Maybe Rollins will crash an episode of Miz TV. Or he could just call out The Miz. Hell, he could win a random fatal five way or something against, oh, Curt Hawkins, Goldust, Heath Slater, Rhyno, and Señor Benjamin or whatever to become number one contender. Whatever. But this week on Raw, Rollins will start to sow the seeds for a Mania feud.
Next: Can Seth Rollins Salvage His Road to WrestleMania?
What do you think is likely – or not likely – to happen in WWE this week?