WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship Match: The Bar (c) vs.The New Day
Remember how I just said titles won’t change hands? Well, I lied (call it being carried away in the insincerity). New Day will regain the belts in clean fashion because Vince knows people will forget about WWE tag title victories. They’ve been hot-potatoed and devalued for the better part of twenty years, what’s another one-month reign?
Winner and NEW Tag Team Champions: The New Day
WWE Universal Championship Match: Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman
With Roman Reigns having to relinquish the strap to the leukemia announcement (#ThankYouRoman, kick cancer’s ass), we’re set to see Lesnar vs. Strowman one-on-one. Folks are banking on seeing Brock phone it in physically, but Brock’s facial expressions and mere presence still amps up any match above the usual Mendoza line of mediocrity. Strowman will be the focus of this bout anyhow as he walks out victorious with a milestone moment for himself.
Winner & NEW Universal Champion: Braun Strowman
Shawn Michaels & Triple H vs. The Undertaker & Kane
So much happening in this match. Not physically. That will be dropped to a minimum, but the contextual layers behind it will be nonstop action.
First, we’ve got HBK returning from an eight-year absence from in-ring competition. This has been a deflating decision to see the return of an all-time great with so much cache behind his retirement. I loved the fact Shawn stayed retired. Nobody with that type of star power has ever done that and HBK stuck to his guns. I bet you a dime to a dollar that Shawn got the itch to return while training whipper snappers in NXT, and then you combine that with a gargantuan opportunity for a payday, the band started tuning up. Too bad its not against someone like a Daniel Bryan and really too bad its with Saudi Arabia as a backdrop. I get the old school mindset of grabbing the cash, but with Shawn’s legacy and spiritual background this one kind of hurts, particularly because I am a Kliq guy. Who knows all the ins-and-outs of his situation, but from an outsider perspective, the optics are a bit of a bummer for me. Maybe he’s looking at it as a favor to Hunter, but yeah, I don’t like it (then again, I don’t like the whole thing.)
Which brings us to Mayor Kane, who I can only think is doing this as a repayment to Vince because why in the “Big Red Machine” hell would you potentially tarnish yourself – your mayorhood, after just taking office? It makes zero sense otherwise.
All of this as a main event has to hurt fans in the nostalgia feels. You take this match completely away from those couch lounging lizards and it would be a somewhat easier pill to take down, but its all with skeezy, dirty money surrounding the ring Inferno match style, this sadly, might leave some scorched earth for everyone involved. It will at the very least be a bone bruise. I’m taking DX in this one getting the pin over Kane.
Winners: Shawn Michaels & Triple H
