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After a missed week, I’m back for more WWE SmackDown Live predictions. It was a good show this week, with a big focus on the Royal Rumble pay-per-view event and some decent wrestling.
It’s still mostly status quo stuff, but as usual, the show flew by very quickly and was an easy watch. It was a fun show. Let’s talk about this week and what I think may happen on the penultimate SD Live before the Rumble.
#5 Bobby Roode and Jinder Mahal win their semifinal matches
I think it’s a pretty obvious move, and it looked pretty clear from the beginning that the US Title tournament final would come down to Bobby Roode and Jinder Mahal. The actual winner at the Royal Rumble PPV is difficult to call.
If Dolph Ziggler is going to return, then it doesn’t make sense for the foreign heel Mahal to be the champion, but Ziggler vs. Roode is a tired match and doesn’t need to be continued.
It will immediately make it tougher for Ziggler’s return to mean anything significant because he would be returning to the same exact scenario he was in before he left.
If rumors are true and Ziggler will be returning in the Rumble match, then I think Jinder will probably end up getting the title. Either way, I expect that both semifinal matches will take place next week on SmackDown Live in order to give them the final week before the PPV to build the match with promos against each other.
#4 Tons of hype for the Mixed Match Challenge
The Mixed Match Challenge tournament begins next Tuesday night after SmackDown Live, and I expect that on both brands, there will be match-ups featuring women seconding their male partners for matches and vice versa.
With the way the teams are set up, there are a lot of important feuds going on featuring wrestlers that probably won’t be appearing on TV together, so chances are that there will be tons of external hype (showing videos and social media stuff, etc.) but the matches will feature men and women not doing too much.
I expect that Goldust will probably be in the corner of his partner Alicia Fox, likely against Bayley with Elias in her corner on RAW.
SmackDown Live will see Big E or Carmella vs. Rusev or Lana. It’ll probably be the men since they’ll do a women’s one on RAW. Or it could be vice versa. I do think it will happen, though.
#3 An Uso vs either Benjamin or Gable
The Usos didn’t even appear on the show this week, but it wasn’t a huge deal since their match got a lot of the spotlight in the segment with Daniel Bryan addressing Benjamin and Gable’s concerns.
Next week the teams will mix it up a little bit with Jimmy or Jey taking on Benjamin or Gable. It’s standard WWE booking but they have strayed from that again recently so they are probably due for a match like this.
If not a singles match, both teams may find themselves in two-on-two matches with other teams, but it feels like there’s so much parity in the SmackDown tag division right now that they probably don’t want to sacrifice a team, even in a competitive match.
I understand that sounds a little silly with how the Bludgeon Brothers have been destroying everybody, but even Breezango ended up getting a win over Rusev and English this week. The only team that looks unbeatable right now is Harper and Rowan, and who knows if anything will ever actually pan out with them. It seems like there’s no future there, somehow.
As great as the SD Tag Division is, the booking is shaky, so it’s tough to foresee what they’re going to do, but if it keeps going the way it has, The New Day and The Usos will end up being the only two teams anybody cares about and it’ll be back to square one.
#2 Continued frustration in the women’s division
I just don’t know what to say any longer. Like I said in the RAW predictions earlier this week, there’s nothing going on. It’s just like the way it used to be back when the Divas Title existed.
There are no stories being told and it’s just lots of women who hate each other. This week, Becky Lynch returned to in-ring action and defeated Ruby Riott in a good singles match, which makes no sense.
Why wouldn’t you keep something like that for a major promoted match? Because they don’t care. I know they do a lot of stupid stuff with the men, too, but the Riott Squad and Absolution are apparently just clones of each other instead of actually being associated, and both teams have taken a number of losses already.
That shouldn’t be happening. Nothing matters, and the “Women’s Revolution” is over. It’s all lip service now.
#1 Nakamura and Owens go one-on-one
There’s not a lot to do right now when it comes to the main event storyline. Bryan and McMahon are continuing to have their disagreements, AJ is the ultimate good guy who just wants to do what’s right and Owens and Zayn are the bad guys who will do anything to get ahead.
Nakamura and Orton are the side players because they are big stars that WWE doesn’t have anything to do with right now, but have to stay on television.
That said, I still expect to see Orton turn heel soon. It won’t be this week, but he will probably be in Nakamura’s corner to counteract Zayn’s presence. Orton and Nakamura have just been too buddy-buddy for something to not happen between them.
I think that if they are having SmackDown Live talent show up on the big 25th Anniversary of RAW, Orton will turn on him there, otherwise it will happen the next night on the final show before the PPV. Until then, one more week of holding pattern it is.
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