WWE Evolution – Predictions
Evolution is a time to celebrate the Women who have contributed to professional wrestling. From Eve (the original heel) all the way to Becky Lynch, who took a shot against feminism by calling herself “The Man” for several years now.
All joking aside, WWE is putting on the all-woman PLE (a term no one asked for) on Sunday at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. Being the second PLEPV we’re covering this week on TalentAlone.com, we don’t know the score at the time of writing and have no way to game theory our way to a comeback or commanding lead in our year-long wrestling predictions contest. As of last check, the score is 10-6 correct towards Mike and 7-3 wrong with me in the lead, so who is really winning?
There are seven matches announced for Evolution…. Wait…. Seven? Did Tony Kahn book this? Should they split it into two days?
Anyways, there are seven matches announced, so Mike and I are gonna get to what we’re best at, armchair quarterbacking booking decisions, and yelling at the screen when we’re wrong.
WWE Evolution Predictions
No Holds Barred Match: Jade Cargill vs Naomi
MIKE: A staple of Vince’s booking for a lot of past MITB holders was that they could lose a bunch of their matches and just get all their heat back once they cashed in. Does Triple H have the same mindset? My guess is yes. Especially when the MITB holder is Naomi who’s character isn’t one that revolves around her being unbeatable in the ring. This feels like the blow-off to this feud, so keep it simple and have the babyface go over to cap things off.
JADE CARGILL
ADAM: Not much to add here, Naomi has the case and is the heel, Jade is perennially in the process of being built up between AEW and WWE and there’s no reason for her to lose here.
JADE CARGILL
Women’s Intercontinental Championship Match: Becky Lynch (c) vs Bayley vs Lyra Valkyria
ADAM: Gonna bypass the instinct to do an Irish accent and just talk about the match. Becky’s run hasn’t done a ton for me, and Lyra Valkyria has a rocket strapped to her back (which is funny considering she normally has comically large wings strapped there). The Bayley addition to the match, initially, seemed interesting, but I think it was really just to add someone to eat a pin before Lyra gets her win back for real at some other show.
LYRA VALKYRIA
MIKE: Damn, pretty sure I used up all my bird jokes in our last WWE predictions article. I guess I’ll just have to skip the chicanery and keep it serious. After all, I don’t want to beat around the bush and risk ruffling anybody’s feathers. Our readers could get upset and start chirping at me on social media. I just hope I get this prediction right and don’t end up laying an egg. I agree with Adam that this was made a triple threat for the classic reason of having a third party to take the pin, however that persons not Bayley nor Lynch. It’s Valkyria. It’s unfortunate but I believe the young superstar will once again get her wings clipped in this match. The focus is going to be on Lynch v Bayley going forward and Lyra is here to avoid either of the others opponents from having the perceived one up on the other. The internet will get angry, slamming their keyboard and phone screens about WWE burying a young talent. Keep in mind though, Trips like long term storytelling. So Valkyria hitting rock bottom will just lead to her building herself back up until she makes her way back to the top. As for the winner, the babyface chase is always more interesting than the title run after they win. Way too soon for Bayley to win the strap now.
BECKY LYNCH
#1 Contender Battle Royal
MIKE: When are wrestling companies going to show respect to people making predictions online by announcing all the participants in these kinds of matches? All we know is that Nikki Bella will be in it and the handful of NXT wrestlers they recently announced. I’m fantasy booking in the dark over here. Something we should keep in mind, though, is that the winner gets their title match at WWE’s upcoming clash in Paris, and according to Google’s Gemin,i there are currently… no French wrestlers on Raw, Smackdown, or NXT. Well, crap, that didn’t help. Okay, new strategy. When I look at the Evolution car,d an interesting name I see missing is that of Stephania Vaquer. Her popularity has seemed to carry over from NXT to Raw. So, in a match that will probably have a good dose of returning legends and nostalgia, I’ll go with the up-and-coming star to win.
STEPHANIE VAQUER
ADAM: Terrible pick from Mike here because when I used Google Gemini and asked “What Female French Wrestlers are on the WWE roster?” It returned a result of “Drew McIntyre.”
They announced a bunch of NXT Wrestlers for the match, and I don’t have a clue who some of them are, so I’ll go with one I do know.
LASH LEGEND
WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Match: Raquel Rodriguez & Roxanne Perez (c) vs Alexa Bilss & Charlotte Flair
ADAM: The most interesting part of this will be the Alexa Bliss/Raquel Rodriguez storyline here. My only real hope is that Dirty Dom ends up in a situation where he has to choose between the two and decides to give the win to Charlotte instead (yes, I know that would mean choosing Bliss, but come on, let’s root for more people involved in this Dom Mysterio shtick).
RAQUEL RODRIGUEZ & ROXANNE PEREZ
MIKE: What are we doing here? This match makes no sense to me. Bliss is obviously en route to join the silly Wyatt Sicks universe, and Charlotte is above being in a throw away tag match on a PLE. You know what they should do? Change the match, add dirty Dom to Rodriguez And Perez’ team, and make it three on one. Have Charlotte beat them all, stack them on top of each other, and pin them. These colors don’t run! I will always make irrational predictions in favor of my queen. Wooooo!
ALEXA BLISS & CHARLOTTE FLAIR
NXT Women’s Championship Match: Jacy Jayne (c) vs Jordynne Grace
MIKE: I’m a Jordynne Grace mark. It’s not often that she’s in a match, and I won’t think she should win just because. However, does she really need to be in NXT still? I know it’s only been roughly five months, but that’s more than long enough. Grace knows what she is doing, she’s good in the ring, and carries herself like a star. She came into the company pretty much ready to go, do we really need to continue with her being stuck in NXT on the CW Network so she can have the token NXT title run? To quote Karl Havoc, “What’s that do for the greater good?”. For that reason alone, I’m hoping she loses, leading to this being her swan song on the black and gold brand.
JAYCE JANE
ADAM: I swear to god I’ve been hearing about Jordynne Grace and how she’s destined to be the Rafael Nadal of women’s wrestling for 15 years now. She’s now pushing 30 and it’s time for her to prove she can do what Nadal never did, have a short but convincing run with the NXT Women’s Championship before going to the main roster.
JORDYNNE GRACE
WWE Women’s Championship Match: Tiffany Stratton (c) vs Trish Stratus
ADAM: Fuck this match.
Okay… who… settle down, buddy.
So they rope Trish Stratus into this and while Trish is an absolute legend, she can barely be bothered to show up to set up the match? Dwayne Johnson Ass Build.
TIFFANY STRATTON
MIKE: How does the creative conversation to set up these kinds of matches?
“Hey what if Stratton faces Stratus? That would be cool because they’re both blonde and have big..um..assets.”
“Yeah but everybody knows that this is going to be a one off and Stratus isn’t coming back for a long period of time.”
“…Get the fuck out.”
This match is just to give Stratton a win over a notable name. Nothing more. Oh, and to also help sales for the event by having a Trish on the card.
TIFFANY STRATON
Women’s World Championship Match: Iyo Sky (c) vs Rhea Ripley
MIKE: Listen, I’m a big fan of Iyo Sky, she’s super talented and has one of the best moonsaults this side of Christopher Daniel. Unfortunately, it’s time to put the belt back on Rhea. The twist of having Sky win the belt after Ripley vs Belair seemed all but certain was interesting, but also felt like doing something shocking just for the sake of doing it. They almost had to double down on it by having her win the triple threat at mania to avoid the move looking pointless. In the end though, it just didn’t work. Lets go ahead and get things back on track. The past year or so has been a little awkward for Ripley. She suffered an injury, the Liv Morgan feud upon her return went on too long, and as I mentioned, her booking was wonky leading up to WrestleMania. Despite all of that, there are still a few things that remain true. She’s still the most over women in the company, no one has aura like she does, and most importantly, Mami’s always on top
RHEA RIPLEY
ADAM: Mike seems relatively disrespectful of Iyo Sky who has a case to be one of the best workers on the roster right now. Ripley has been in a bit of no (wo)man’s land since returning from injury and having something for her to do would be good but I think Iyo has earned some runway and I’d rather see Rhea in a story than with a belt if I have to pick between the two.
IYO SKY
MIKE: Okay, first you poo pooed Jordynne Grace and now you poo poo Rhea Ripley. Well now I’m going to poop on someone you really like. Quick, somebody get me 30 dollars worth of Taco Bell and Christopher Nolan!!
Seven predictions and five disagreements. Between Evolution and All In Texas, that’s 10 total disagreements on the weekend, with Mike sitting 4 correct guesses (they’re just guesses when he does them) over me. Come Monday, we could be in real trouble, or we could have the best comeback story since James Gunn came back from all those tweets that Bautista warned you not to Google.
