Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt: WWE No Mercy 2016 Pick and Predictions

Sunday night at WWE No Mercy 2016, the intensifying feud between Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt will culminate in a hotly anticipated match that fans were robbed of a month ago, when injury prevented The Viper from competing.

Built on the idea that Orton could play the mind games as well as his diabolic rival, the match is one of the featured contests on the SmackDown-exclusive pay-per-view. A battle for dominance between two of the premier talents on the blue brand, the contest should provide fans with a look at which direction each competitor will take in the wake of the event.

Who will leave the winner of the match, and how will it affect their journeys on the Tuesday night show?

The Match

In a day and age when every conceivable high-profile match has been overdone and overexposed, Orton vs. Wyatt is relatively fresh. Never before have the two met in a major singles bout. They have interacted in Money in the Bank matches and multiman tag team bouts but not in a definitive one-on-one contest.

That was supposed to occur a month ago at Backlash, but the extra four weeks of build has allowed the story to take greater shape than it had in the immediacy following SummerSlam.

Since Backlash, the story has been fleshed out a bit more. Fans have a better understanding of the mind games at work between Orton and Wyatt than whatever the original emphasis was for their fighting in the first place. While still not the ideal foundation for a feud of this stature, it is better than the vague simplicity that greeted their program earlier.

The contest itself should be a fun one.

Both Orton and Wyatt have knacks for building drama through false finishes. Their facial expressions and body language are integral pieces of their presentations, and both have mastered them, making it much easier for fans to buy into the story they are telling than if they simply executed move after move.

Best of all, both are over with fans, enhancing the heat for the bout. While neither is the most interesting star on SmackDown at this point, the match could reinvigorate both. At the least, it should provide Orton enough momentum to headline future SmackDown extravaganzas in 2017.

Prediction

Wyatt needs this win in the worst way.

Long one of the more compelling characters under the WWE banner, he has been so wildly misused that his credibility among fans has been hurt as a result. He never wins despite cutting cryptic promos about bringing down machines and promising change.

A win over a solidified main event talent like Orton, a future Hall of Famer, would change Wyatt's fortunes and set him up as a legitimate threat to the WWE World Championship going forward.

Unfortunately, none of that will happen.

Orton will win Sunday night, if only because SmackDown needs new lead babyfaces to step up when it burns through Dean Ambrose and John Cena as threats to AJ Styles.

An RKO is in Wyatt's future. For the writers of the blue brand, the task of rebuilding Wyatt one more time awaits them.

Looking to the Future

Orton vs. Styles is a money match that WWE has not yet tapped into. The two have not even interacted with each other to this point, enhancing the value of the program. To properly set that up, Orton will defeat Wyatt and once again establish himself as The Apex Predator of WWE in the process.

Wyatt, unfortunately, will be left to feud with Cena and Ambrose in a retread of past programs, all the while seeking that one victory that definitively announces to the wrestling world that The Reaper of Souls is to be taken as a serious headliner rather than a glorified midcard baddie.