WWE SummerSlam 2012: Predicting the Outcome of Every Match on the PPV

The biggest party of the summer is almost here.

In just a few days, the WWE invades the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the 25th anniversary celebration of SummerSlam.

The pay-per-view card is shaping up to be a loaded one, too.

CM Punk will defend his WWE Championship against both John Cena and Big Show in a Triple Threat match, and we'll witness two matches that have never happened before: Dolph Ziggler vs. Chris Jericho and Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar.

The WWE is pulling out all the stops for this "Big Four" pay-per-view, and what happens on Sunday should set the stage for the company as we head into the fall.

SummerSlam is actually shaping up to be one of the more unpredictable PPVs of 2012, but that's not going to prevent me from trying to accurately predict what will go down in L.A.

Here are my predictions for every match on the 2012 SummerSlam card.

WARNING: The following slideshow contains a SPOILER regarding the World Heavyweight Championship match at SummerSlam, so STOP READING if you want to be surprised.

United States Championship: Santino Marella (C) vs. Antonio Cesaro

The pre-show YouTube match will be a foreign affair that, oddly enough, is for the United States Championship, as Santino Marella defends against Antonio Cesaro.

An interesting report on the WWE's stance on Cesaro surfaced earlier this week that really makes me wonder what the company's short-term plans for him will be.

But he's gotten a decent push on TV as of late, even picking up two non-title wins over the man he's facing on Sunday.

Of course, we all know, though, that the WWE often has its champion lose non-title matches only to finally win once the title is actually on the line.

That's why you have to think that Santino is probably considered the favorite on Sunday. Well, that and because it seems like baby faces win every pre-show YouTube match.

Still, I'm gonna go against the grain here and say that Cesaro will walk away as United States champion on Sunday night.

Santino has held the title since March, done nothing but destroy its prestige since then and should have dropped the belt months ago.

I think that the WWE finally does the smart thing at SummerSlam and books Santino to lose to the up-and-coming Cesaro, who could use a championship to help him get over with the crowd.

Beating an over baby face like Santino is a great way to do that.

The Pick: Cesaro, clean

WWE Tag Team Championship: Kofi Kingston & R-Truth (C) vs. Prime Time Players

All the chatter surrounding the WWE Tag Team Championship centers around a guy who won't even be there on Sunday and, in fact, is no longer even with the WWE.

But we should be talking about what's much more important: The fact that the tag team titles are being defended on pay-per-view.

We've been pining for tag team wrestling to matter, and it does now that R-Truth and Kofi Kingston will defend the belts against the Prime Time Players (Titus O'Neil and Darren Young) at SummerSlam.

Going into the pay-per-view, Young and O'Neil's beef with Epico and Primo has actually been the biggest story in the tag team division, which is why I'm surprised that this isn't a Triple Threat match.

I could see Epico and Primo being added to this match at some point, but either way, I think the result will be the same.

Kingston and Truth have held the titles for a while now, but I've never felt like they really clicked. They seemed like a random pairing more than anything else.

It's time to get the titles off of them. It's time to put the titles on the Prime Time Players.

Even without A.W., Young and O'Neil are still the WWE's top heel tag team, and they've done a solid job since being promoted to the main roster just a few short months ago.

This is a classic case of the champions (Kofi and Truth) being stale and a change being needed to make things more interesting.

The Prime Time Players should and will walk out of SummerSlam as the new WWE tag team champions.

The Pick: Prime Time Players after Young hits Truth with a double-knee gut buster

Intercontinental Championship: The Miz (C) vs. Rey Mysterio

When Rey Mysterio returned a few weeks ago, I thought he'd be headed for some type of SummerSlam match with Alberto Del Rio.

Instead, he's now going to face The Miz for the Intercontinental Championship.

The feud and match seem kind of forced. After all, all Mysterio did was beat The Miz in a non-title match on last week's SmackDown.

But it should be a good match, so I guess I can't complain too much. The creative team, however, finds itself in quite the pickle here.

The Miz just returned last month and almost immediately won the Intercontinental title but lost to both Mysterio and Kane last week, while Mysterio has already lost a lot of the momentum that he had on the night of his return.

Both guys need the victory at SummerSlam, but that, of course, can't happen.

So, who's going to win?

Although I have a hard time picturing Mysterio losing clean so soon after his return, The Miz just won the Intercontinental title, and it's far too soon to take it off of him.

The WWE has been playing a dangerous little game of flip-flop with the belt as of late, so it's time to keep the title on one guy for an extended period. That guy is The Miz.

I think he goes over in a way that allows this feud to continue, because neither guy really has a feud lined up after SummerSlam.

The Pick: The Miz via roll-up

Daniel Bryan vs. Kane

A lot of fans will complain that Daniel Bryan will be competing in a SummerSlam match that ultimately doesn't mean much, but hey, at least he's getting on the card.

The WWE decided to rehash his feud with Kane, and though I'm not crazy about that decision, I'm not totally against it either, because these two seem to have some good chemistry together.

This should be a decent match, but given how rarely Kane loses cleanly (especially now that he's a baby face), I don't see any way that Bryan wins this one with a clean pin or by making Kane tap out.

The wild card here is actually someone who's not even under contract with the WWE, though: Charlie Sheen.

I have no idea if the WWE plans on using Sheen in some way at SummerSlam, but given how many times his name his been brought up on TV recently, I wouldn't be shocked to see him sitting ringside for this one.

Obviously, he'd be there to support Kane because he has "beef" with Bryan, and I think he'd stay out of the match until the finish.

Perhaps Sheen distracts Bryan at the end of the bout (or even attacks him), which will, in turn, allow Kane to hit Bryan with a chokeslam and get the victory.

Something along those lines seems like a safe bet, because the chances of either Kane or Bryan taking the clean pin here aren't very high.

Bryan should go over here, but it won't hurt him too much if interference ultimately costs him the match.

The Pick: Kane via chokeslam after interference from Charlie Sheen

Chris Jericho vs. Dolph Ziggler

Dolph Ziggler vs. Chris Jericho is a dream match between two of the best in-ring performers in the WWE at the moment.

At least on paper, this should be the show-stealing bout at SummerSlam. I'm just not sure it will get enough time to do so, but my hope is that it gets 15 minutes or so to let Ziggler and Y2J tear the house down.

This will likely be Jericho's final match in WWE for a while, as he seems to be headed for another hiatus to tour with his band Fozzy.

Thus, the logical scenario here is that Jericho does what he does better than anyone else: Put Ziggler over in what figures to be his last match for at least a few months.

The problem is that top baby faces are booked so strongly these days that I could see the creative team doing the dumb thing and having Jericho go over, with Ziggler attacking him post-match.

That being said, I'm going to have faith in the WWE here and say that Ziggler picks up the victory, as Jericho does what he's made a career out of and puts "The Showoff" over.

I don't expect a 100 percent clean finish, though.

Especially after the interaction between the two on last week's SmackDown, I expect Vickie Guerrero to somehow get involved, allowing Ziggler to either hit the Zig Zag or do something cheap to pick up the victory.

The WWE is trying to get Ziggler over as a top heel (which is hard because he's often cheered like a face), so it makes sense to have a hated heel like Vickie interfere on his behalf to help him win the match.

It keeps the heat on him without making him look too weak.

Post-match, Ziggler probably attacks Jericho and takes him out to set up a potential return feud between the two down the road, likely when Dolph Ziggler is the World champion.

The Pick: Ziggler in cheap fashion after interference from Vickie

World Heavyweight Championship: Sheamus (C) vs. Alberto Del Rio

Take a wild guess what happens on tonight's episode of Friday Night SmackDown.

Yep, it's announced that Sheamus will indeed defend his World Heavyweight Championship against Alberto Del Rio at SummerSlam.

I'm not sure why the WWE decided to call this match off only to put it back on, but I still couldn't care less about it.

ADR and Sheamus have basically been feuding since before Over the Limit in May, and Sheamus went over Del Rio clean in a subpar match at last month's Money in the Bank pay-per-view.

That was ADR's second failed attempt to win the World title (the first coming in a Fatal 4-Way match at Over the Limit), yet for some reason unbeknownst to me, the creative team insists on giving him another title match at SummerSlam.

Truth be told, I think that it would have been Sheamus vs. Randy Orton here, but Orton's probably being left off the SummerSlam card as punishment for his second wellness violation.

So, instead we're stuck with this never-ending rivalry between Sheamus and ADR that has been pretty atrocious the whole way through, with Del Rio not posing any type of real threat to Sheamus' World title reign.

The WWE seems intent on pushing the hell out of ADR despite the tepid crowd reactions he receives, so something tells me there's at least a small chance he walks away as champion on Sunday.

But ultimately, I think that Del Rio is really just someone for Sheamus to run through until he feuds with someone we actually care about following SummerSlam.

Let's hope that the WWE moves on from this feud after the pay-per-view. Oh, and by the way, I don't see a Dolph Ziggler cash-in happening after this match.

Maybe a tease, though.

The Pick: Sheamus via Brogue Kick

Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar

Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar is a huge match that's never happened before and will be one of the main draws at SummerSlam.

The build to it, however, has been rather lackluster, and I still maintain that Triple H is the wrong opponent for Lesnar.

Why? Because there's absolutely no long-term or short-term benefit to Triple H going over here.

If he wins, so what? He's a 40-something-year-old part-timer who's more worried about the business side of things now than he is his own in-ring career.

That's why Lesnar has to go over in this match. Has to.

The WWE killed a lot of Lesnar's momentum by having him lose his first match back at Extreme Rules, and it's absolutely imperative that he wins here so that it means more for someone who beats him down the road.

If Lesnar beats Triple H at SummerSlam and then loses to someone like Sheamus at Survivor Series, that puts Sheamus over in a huge way, which greatly benefits the WWE in the long term.

But if Triple H wins, Lesnar's just a loser. He will have lost to Cena and Triple H, making his return almost completely irrelevant.

I don't particularly care exactly how Triple H vs. Lesnar ends, but it should end with Lesnar as the winner.

I've watched the WWE long enough to know that that's unlikely, though.

Shawn Michaels (and his broken arm) is the X-factor here, but it seems likely that "The Game" will walk away victorious because, well, he's a baby face in a WWE that rarely has its top baby faces lose these days.

I've seen all kinds of wild scenarios thrown around that include Punk getting involved here (which I think is possible, especially if this match goes on last), but ultimately, I think Michaels (along with Paul Heyman) will be the only one who gets involved and will help Triple H get the victory somehow.

Like I said, Triple H should not be winning at SummerSlam. But that's precisely why he likely will.

The Pick: Triple H via Pedigree after both Paul Heyman and HBK get involved 

Triple Threat Match for WWE Title: CM Punk (C) vs. John Cena vs. Big Show

We'll probably get a pretty good indication of how the WWE Championship match will end by its placement on the card.

If it gets the main event slot, then chances are that John Cena is going to win the match and the WWE title. If it goes on earlier in the card, this probably means that Punk is retaining.

I know that most fans seem to think that Cena is going to win this Triple Threat match because, well, he's Cena. 

That's not a given, though. The only given here is that Big Show will not leave SummerSlam as champion—no way that's happening.

It's either going to be Cena or Punk emerging victorious, and the Triple Threat stipulation leads many to believe that Punk will lose without being pinned, which would further fuel his heel turn.

As for me, I don't see any benefit whatsoever in putting the WWE title on Cena here. The WWE is obviously building toward Punk vs. The Rock, so it makes the most sense (at least in my view) to keep Punk as WWE champion until the Royal Rumble.

Like most other fans, I obviously question whether or not the creative team would have Cena lose here, though, especially since he's been out of the title picture for so long.

But there's a way to make everything work. The match could end like this: Cena hits the AA on Big Show, and Punk slides into the ring and either pulls Cena out or kicks him in the face, allowing him to sneak in and pin Big Show for the victory.

That would accomplish a lot of things: Protecting Cena (which is pretty much a given), keeping the belt on Punk where it belongs, making Punk come across as more heel-like, etc.

My gut says that Cena will ultimately pin Big Show to win the WWE Championship, but—what the hell?—i think my finish makes more sense, so that's what I'm going with.

The Pick: Cena hits Big Show with an AA, Punk pins Big Show to retain