WWE Clash of Champions 2019: Full match card and predictions

Kofi Kingston (c) vs. Randy Orton [WWE Championship]

Since dethroning Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35, Kofi Kingston has held the WWE Championship for five months, retaining it against superstars like Kevin Owens, Dolph Ziggler, and Samoa Joe. Based on how these aforementioned superstars have been booked lately, they wouldn’t seem like legitimate threats to Kingston’s title reign in the eyes of the common viewer.

Randy Orton, on the other hand, is the very first legitimate threat to Kingston’s title reign. In fact, he is the ideal superstar to dethrone Kingston and become the new WWE Champion because he is Kingston’s arch-nemesis who thwarted Kingston’s advancement to the main event scene in 2009.

Indeed, Kingston and Orton had a memorable feud in 2009 when Orton was teamed up with his former Legacy comrades, Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase. To emulate their feud as much as possible, Orton joined forces with Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder to form a new faction of his own.

Back then, Kingston didn’t have any comrades to even the odds but he now has Woods and Big E to back him up. With Kingston and Orton being rumored to continue their WWE Championship feud at Hell in a Cell in October, there could be a faction war pitting The New Day against Orton and The Revival in a ‘Winner Takes All’ match for the WWE and SmackDown Tag Team Championships.

As a result, don’t be surprised if Orton wins the WWE Championship now just to drop it back to Kingston at Hell in a Cell. If no one has noticed this yet, Orton wins at least one championship every year; in recent memory, most of his reigns usually only lasted a month (i.e. his 14th WWE Championship reign began in April 2017 and ended in May 2017 while his 1st United States Championship reign began in March 2018 and ended in April 2018).

As for 2019, he is still yet to win the gold. With Kingston getting the momentum on SmackDown Live with a picture-perfect, nostalgic leg drop to Orton through a table in Madison Square Garden, it would not be too far-fetched for Orton to revert that momentum into a championship victory of his own at Clash of Champions.

Considering that many see Kingston as a one-hit-wonder WWE Champion who won’t ever return to the main event scene after losing the championship, losing the championship now would be a wondrous testament to Kingston’s heroic perseverance to win it back. Since Kingston is one of the greatest WWE Champions in WWE history, it would be ‘stupid’ for Kingston to lose the championship in the short-term but ‘smart’ for his firm establishment in the main event scene in the long-term.

Prediction: Randy Orton

The New Day (c) vs. The Revival [SmackDown Tag Team Championships]

In order to extend this feud and facilitate the aforementioned faction war at Hell in a Cell, The New Day would have to retain their championships against The Revival. That way, both factions have championships to chase after.

The Revival is a Raw Tag Team and thereby has a very minimal chance of winning the SmackDown Tag Team Championships. On top of that, this is The New Day’s first title defense since winning the championships from Daniel Bryan and Rowan at Extreme Rules in July and thereby has a maximal chance of retaining their championships.

Other than being involved in Orton and Kingston’s feud from time to time, these tag teams didn’t really have sufficient build-up to their own feud. This merely exemplifies the lack of care for the tag team division in WWE.

The New Day and The Revival are two of the best tag teams in the WWE, and many would agree that they should have a more meaningful rivalry going into Clash of Champions. Other than taking Woods out of commission with incapacitating attacks on his knee, they were completely absent from WWE television for the past two weeks and added nothing else to their potential storyline.

Nonetheless, The New Day had never defeated The Revival conclusively on the main roster as of yet, and this should be their very first victory as well as an exciting return from storyline injury for Woods.

Prediction: The New Day