WWE Night of Champions 2014: Final Picks and Predictions for All Matches
World Wrestling Entertainment will present its annual Night of Champions pay-per-view this Sunday night, and for the most part, the company has produced a stacked card that could be responsible for one of the more surprising shows of the year.
John Cena will attempt to avenge his defeat at the hands of Brock Lesnar, as he tries for his record-tying heavyweight title No. 16. Should he accomplish that feat, he will join Ric Flair as the most decorated heavyweight champion ever. If he does not, questions will begin to abound regarding his inability to defeat Lesnar.
Chris Jericho will wrestle his last match for the time being as he squares off with Randy Orton. With nothing at stake but pride, the two Superstars will be driven to prove that they are better than their opponent. Who will emerge from the annual September event victorious?
Roman Reigns has the opportunity to go 2-0 against Seth Rollins this week. Will the juggernaut star continue his rise to the top of the industry with another big victory, or will Mr. Money in the Bank recover and score a major upset on the otherwise unstoppable star?
With four other championship bouts slated for the show, Night of Champions should be an eventful broadcast, if nothing else.
Who should you expect to see leave with their arms raised and their heads held high?
Let's take a look.
Intercontinental Championship Match: Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz
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Dolph Ziggler is one of the greatest in-ring talents in WWE and one of the more consistent stars on the entire roster. His Intercontinental Championship victory over The Miz at SummerSlam rejuvenated his career and brought him back to relevancy. Since that night, Ziggler has appeared more motivated than he has in nearly a year.
The Miz, on the other hand, has introduced the new Hollywood gimmick to the audience to mixed results. The character is entertaining, and the little things the performer does to get it over help to enhance it tenfold. The problem is that booking has not really backed up Miz's renewed efforts to make an impact, and thus, fans still do not care much about the villainous character.
Prediction: Dolph Ziggler retains
There is far more that WWE Creative can do with Ziggler as champion than with Miz in that role. There are higher-profile matches available, including a showdown with former champion Bad News Barrett. In addition, management can trust Ziggler's in-ring performance.
WWE does not have that same trust in the more inconsistent Miz.
United States Championship Match: Sheamus vs. Cesaro
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Sheamus is an incredibly hard worker, and there was a great deal of excitement and hope that he would be able to restore some prestige to a badly diminished United States Championship when he won the title from Dean Ambrose last May. Unfortunately, he became lost in the shuffle, being overshadowed by the rise of the former members of The Shield and the incredible runs of the Wyatt Family and The Usos.
He retained his workhorse mentality, delivering each and every time he stepped inside the squared circle, but it became clear relatively fast that the Celtic Warrior had never been less consequential.
How did WWE attempt to change that? Did it enter him into a high-profile rivalry? No. Did it elevate the importance of the United States title? Nope.
What WWE Creative did was take Cesaro, another guy who is completely lost and directionless, and booked him to become the No. 1 contender to the title, hoping awesome matches between the two would be enough to get their story over.
Predictably, it did not work, and now Sheamus and Cesaro enter Night of Champions for a match that it is hard to care less about.
Prediction: Cesaro wins the title
Neither man is going to benefit from winning the match and remaining entrenched in the spot he currently fills. They are stuck, and until WWE Creative decides to book them ahead of the likes of Rollins, Ambrose, Reigns, Wyatt or the more established top stars on the roster, they will continue to wallow away in the midcard, wasting their best years wrestling great-yet-meaningless matches on a weekly basis.
Cesaro wins here, only because a title win will help rehab him after a horrendous three-month span of repeated losses and non-existent character development.
Mark Henry vs. Rusev
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Mark Henry's return to prominence in WWE coincides with a strong rivalry with Rusev, who is showing very real weakness for the first time in his career. Together, they have managed to convince the fans to invest emotionally in the story they are telling, leading to one of the more hotly anticipated bouts on Sunday's card.
Henry has manhandled Rusev to this point, who has only been able to respond accordingly when Lana has gotten involved. Without her, he would have been thoroughly embarrassed, humbled and dominated throughout the entire program.
Luckily for the Bulgarian Brute, the Ravishing Russian will accompany him to the squared circle for the match, enhancing the likelihood that he will leave Night of Champions with his unbeaten streak intact.
Prediction: Rusev via pinfall
It is too early to kill the feud off by having Rusev force a tapout from Henry with the Accolade. With that said, a pinfall victory that comes following interference from Lana would create doubt in the mind of the audience as to whether or not Rusev really earned the win while laying the groundwork for a rematch at Hell in a Cell.
Divas Championship Match: AJ Lee vs. Paige vs. Nikki Bella
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The sibling drama between the Bella Twins has overshadowed what should be a defining rivalry between Paige and AJ Lee over the Divas Championship. Sunday night at Night of Champions, those two stories will be fused into one as Nikki Bella receives her title shot in a Triple Threat match against Paige and AJ.
There is certain to be involvement from Brie Bella as she attempts to keep her self-absorbed sister from leaving with the title, thus leaving Paige and AJ to continue their bizarre battle for Diva supremacy.
The mind games the women have played with each other to this point have led to a somewhat disjointed story, but WWE Creative has seemingly gotten back on track recently, with AJ making Paige as uncomfortable as possible in an attempt to lure her into a trap and regain the championship.
Will it work? Will Nikki overcome interference from her sister and leave with the title and the full support of The Authority?
Short answer: no.
Prediction: Paige
Paige is the future of women's wrestling in WWE. Her first reign with the Divas Championship was marred by bad booking and the fluky nature of her title victory. Since then, she has spent time developing and working to ensure that her latest run is not looked back upon as disappointing or unsatisfactory.
Changing the title to AJ or Nikki after just one month would do far more damage to Paige than had she never regained it in the first place. It is clear that WWE sees great potential in the Norwich native, and if the company wants her to achieve the success it has planned out for her, it must allow her to run with the proverbial ball.
There is still plenty of story left to tell between her and AJ, so WWE Creative should take its time and tell it, rather than rushing through it to a poor conclusion that benefits no one.
Chris Jericho vs. Randy Orton
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Randy Orton is coming off a huge loss to Roman Reigns at SummerSlam, while Chris Jericho limps, quite literally, into Night of Champions after two straight losses to Bray Wyatt.
Neither Superstar has been booked impressively in quite some time, and as a result, Sunday's match feels very much like an afterthought.
There is no real story surrounding it or any real reason for the two to be fighting, outside of Orton's backstage attack on Jericho. Said attack made no sense considering the fact that neither had much interaction with each other to that point. It was simply a lazy way to bring them together.
That one word sums up the entire story perfectly: lazy.
Prediction: Randy Orton
One of these Superstars will be on Monday Night Raw, while the other will be off touring with his band Fozzy. While it would not be a surprise to see Jericho get the big win as a thanks for returning and bringing some star power back to the shows, that would be counterproductive to the future.
Randy Orton is a lifer. He is on Raw and SmackDown, works all the house shows and is a constant in WWE. He is a hell of a worker who is as good from a psychology perspective as anyone else and has earned the right to win a match like this, especially given how little he has had to work with over the last month.
WWE Tag Team Championship Match: The Usos vs. Goldust and Stardust
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The Usos are consistently great workers who are responsible for the rebirth of tag team wrestling in 2014. Whether they were working with the New Age Outlaws, RybAxel or Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, the Usos rose to the occasion time in and time out, delivering the best match of the night on several high-profile cards.
Sunday night, however, their title reign looks likely to come to an end at the hands of the peculiar duo of Goldust and Stardust.
The challengers' recent heel turns have injected some edginess and an element of danger to the brothers that they did not have before. It rescued them from becoming a permanent midcard comedy act and catapulted them to the front of the line in terms of title contention.
Prediction: Stardust and Goldust
Adding tag team titles would only help the overall presentation of their characters. For weeks Stardust has been speaking of the Cosmic Key. The tag titles could be that key and very well be the payoff to the characters' return to prominence.
Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins
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Roman Reigns' victory over Seth Rollins on Monday Night Raw had fans questioning WWE Creative's decision to book that match just days before it was scheduled to be a high-profile bout on pay-per-view.
Reigns has been booked as a world beater, an unstoppable force on his way to the top of the industry, while Rollins has been portrayed as an opportunistic, somewhat sneaky villain who looks for an opening and then capitalizes on it in an attempt to continue his own upward progression.
Something has to give when they share the ring Sunday night.
Prediction: Seth Rollins via pinfall
It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Roman Reigns loses cleanly at this point. He is the next face of WWE—something WWE is all too familiar with—and the man who will guide the next generation of stars.
Having him drop a match of little importance to Seth Rollins would be a tremendous mistake. At the same time, Rollins has already been beaten and cannot really afford another decisive loss at this point. He must beat Reigns to maintain legitimacy.
How he does it without cleanly pinning the second-generation star is a mystery at this point, but one thing is for sure: Never forget about the 7-foot corporate demon stalking around whichever arena WWE fills that night.
WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar
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The match between John Cena and Brock Lesnar this weekend is one that is sure to attract new viewers to the WWE Network, especially given the way their previous match at SummerSlam was booked. Lesnar dominated that match, absolutely destroying Cena en route to his first heavyweight wrestling title in a decade.
Now, Cena has the chance to avenge that loss and become only the second man in wrestling history to amass 15 world championships. If he can do that, he will silence the detractors who questioned Cena's ability to wrest the title away from Lesnar after such a thorough beating at SummerSlam.
If not, Lesnar will continue his reign atop WWE—leaving many to ask who could possibly knock him off the mountaintop.
Winner: John Cena regains the title
With Brock Lesnar working such an inconsistent schedule, it is hard to believe that WWE management would have him hold onto the title for too long, especially given that there are live events to book and heavyweight title matches are a huge draw.
It will not be easy for Cena, especially as Lesnar tosses him around like a rag doll, but his guts and sheer determination will lead to him regaining the top prize in all of professional wrestling.
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