
What do the Beatles and SummerSlam have in common?
Two (k)nights!
WWE’s second most important pay-per-view premium live event of the year is here and we have a lot of matches to cover in our year-long prediction contest. Coming off the double Evolution and All In, Mike is sitting at a score of 18-9, and Adam with a respectable 13-14, with me making the executive decision to count the Naomi cash-in as a loss for both of us and the TNT Title match as disqualified from competition. Don’t like it? Go back to your Grok and tell her about it. Nerd.
We are onto SummerSlam, though, and 11 matches on the card mean that I can easily take a 6-match lead on Mike come Monday Morning.
With that, let’s get to night one.
SummerSlam Predictions - Night One
WWE Women’s Championship:
Tiffany Stratton (c) vs Jade Cargill
ADAM: I’ll admit I’m biased here. Jade Cargill will always get me more excited for a match than Tiffany Stratton. Jade could bring a different energy to the top belt, and I, for one, am excited to see that.
JADE CARGILL
MIKE: I’ll be honest, I don’t get the Stratton hype. Her gimmick is kind of bland and the whole “Tiffy Time” thing feels very corporately produced and programmed into people’s brains. With those criticisms out of the way, she’s still consistently better in the ring than Cargill and, while I called it bland, her character at least has more substance to it than Cargill does right now. I’m not a Jade hater btw, I’m still holding onto a lot of my stock in her being a big star for the company. It just feels too soon for a world title run at this point.
TIFFANY STRATTON
Randy Orton & Jelly Roll vs Drew McIntyre & Logan Paul
MIKE: Do I like celebrity matches on my wrestling show? For the most part, no. Have I accepted that it’s something you just have to deal with when it comes to WWE? Yes. Just like when Vince ran things, the company gets off on the idea of all the social media posts and clips from tv shows where dead eyed hosts let out fake amusement at the images of a mainstream celebrity taking part in the wacky world of wrestling. The rationale for this is two fold. One, it’s good for business. Which is short sighted and naive. Most of the people who like jelly roll, but don’t watch WWE, still aren’t going to watch Summerslam. It’s also highly unlikely that the small fraction of people in their trailer homes who do part with 7 bucks for a peacock subscription to see their hero Jelly Roll in the ring will be turned into long time viewers. The other reason why the company does stuff like this is because they like to swing their metaphorical dick in desperation by bringing in big celebrities to show the world that they are a legit worldwide entertainment company. Not just some dumb wrasslin company. I don’t care that the person calling the shots has changed, its the same family tree and matches like this reek of the same desperation under the guise of business. It’s even worse when the guy calling those shots should know how dumb it’s going to look when Jelly Roll pins Logan Paul. A guy who was an outside celebrity but has busted his ass and put in the effort to make this a legit thing for him, is going to get beat up and pinned by a diabetic country singer who’s wrestling his first match. It’s okay though, right? Because wins, losses, and credibility don’t matter…
Anyways, like I said, it’s just your typical silly celeb match. It doesn’t bother me.
RANDY ORTON & JELLY ROLL
ADAM: Mike nailed it. No notes
RANDY ORTON & JELLY ROLL
World Heavyweight Championship:
Gunther (c) CM Punk
ADAM: The big shoe waiting to drop on this match is if Seth’s injury is a work or shoot. If it’s a work, I would go Punk, if it’s a shoot, I think Gunther. Either way, I’m going to go with the guy who is the best in the world and has done more for wrestling in the last 5 years than Hogan did for his last 30.
GUNTHER
MIKE: Gunther losing here does not make a lot of sense, as a matter of fact, I’ll be shocked if he actually does, but I just don’t care. Maybe I’m being cocky and carefree since I have the season lead in the competition, or maybe I’m just in denial over the fact that we’re not going to get another great heel Punk title run. All I do know is that these colors don’t run and CM Punk is THE BEST IN THE WORLD! If I was in charge, I’d book CM Punk the way Bob Holly would book himself.
CM PUNK
WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship:
The Judgement Day (Raquel Rodriguez & Roxanne Perez) vs Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss
MIKE: I like Bliss, I’m a massive Flair mark, and I’m digging the dynamic between the two. To sum it up, they are entertaining. Meanwhile, the team from the faction that should’ve retired its name a year ago puts me to sleep.
CHARLOTTE FLAIR & ALEXA BLISS
ADAM: The big clash between Bliss and Roxanne Perez…. Again I guess. For whatever you think of Judgement Day, there is still a direction to go there where as Flair and Bliss are two good singles stars working together. However, I’m throwing all that out the window. Her name might be Flair, but she’s booked like its Hogan.
CHARLOTTE FLAIR & ALEXA BLISS
Roman Reigns & Jey Uso vs Bron Breaker & Bronson Reed
ADAM: Poor Bronson Reed. Guy finally made it, big storyline, big SummerSlam match against YEET, and here he is, getting set up to eat a pin from Roman Reigns.
ROMAN REIGNS & JEY USO
MIKE: I’ve seen speculation online about Jey potentially turning heel on Roman. I gave it some thought, and I’ve decided that would suck. Just because there’s history and the men have turned on each other in the past, doesn’t mean we should do another version of it again. Going back to it would not only be lazy, it would be an attempt at adding a chapter story when there’s really nothing else to tell. As for the winner, I would prefer they find a way to not have the heels take a clean L here, but I think it’s inevitable.
OOH AAH & YEET
Sami Zayn vs Karrion Kross
MIKE: I have to give Kross credit, I actually find his character entertaining and somewhat humorous. If I enjoyed watching his matches, then I would really be pushing for him. The contract rumors swirling for Kross going into this match, and I’m on the side of those rumors being true. They’ve been playing into the Zayn/Kross issues for months now, so this seems like a way to put a bow on that before he and Scarlett head out.
SAMI ZAYN
ADAM: Generally, most people love Zayn and are somewhere between anti and ambivalent towards Kross. That would lead to the idea that this is one of the “give ‘em what they want” matches; however, there is one man who has more Karrion Kross stock than anyone else, and that man is calling the shots.
KARRION KROSS
SummerSlam Predictions - Night Two
Street Fight for the Undisputed WWE Championship:
John Cena (c) vs Cody Rhodes
ADAM: The professor of Thugenomics is FROM THESE STREETS. What does Cody Rhodes know about the streets? Cena is WWE Kendrick Lamar. Cena moves like Drill. Cena is more comfortable with a fo-fo on his hip than a belt. Cody thinks he can win a street fight against the man who is so street that they call him Asphalt? Give me a break.
JOHN CENA
MIKE: Between my feelings on Cena’s heel run and the terrible finish back at WrestleMania, my excitement for this match is a lot lower than it should be. Nonetheless, now that we have reached Summerslam with the expected Cody Cena 2, I am intrigued to see if this story is going where my mind thought it would at this point in time. When Cena won the belt, I felt confident he would drop it with a few months left on his retirement tour. I also still don’t expect him to be a heel up until his last match. Once again, I expected the last chunk of his run to be him seeing the light and returning to being the real John Cena. Speaking of the “Real John Cena”, that’s exactly who Cody said he wanted to beat at Summerslam in his promo on last week’s SmackDown. That version of Cena that Rhodes is alluding to is essentially a superhero. What kind of character would come out and challenge a hero to a fight? The answer, a villain.
CODY RHODES
Women’s World Championship:
Naomi (c) vs Rhea Ripley vs Iyo Sky
MIKE: I’m not a big Naomi guy. I don’t mean that in the “she’s a good heel” kind of way, I mean it in a “I’m going to scroll Twitter on my phone until she’s no longer on the TV screen” kind of way. However, I can live with her being champ for a while longer. The main reason is that I’d rather we didn’t have the MITB winner drop the belt immediately after successfully cashing it in. A heel cashing in on a weakened champ gets heat, but you have to commit to it for a little while or else it doesn’t even matter. No one gets anything out of it. The heel who cashed in looks less credible than they did going in, and the person who beats them for the title gains nothing because it looks like they just beat some lucky Jabroni who had no right winning the thing in the first place.
NAOMI
ADAM: I think Naomi is overdoing it as a heel, but in opposition to my co-writer, I think she’s improved a lot as a character and talent since her whole gimmick was neon. Mike is right that you need to not just brick the belt off the MITB cash in like it’s Franz Wagner shooting a jumper, but it seems hard to put Naomi in this situation and find a reason to keep the belt off Rhea or Sky.
RHEA RIPLEY
No Disqualification Match for the WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship:
Becky Lynch (c) vs Lyra Valkyria
ADAM: Lyra, Becky, please let me just talk to you for a second. I have picked every match you two have had against each other wrong. I need y’all to call the match for my prediction here.
This match has the stipulation that if Valkyria loses, she can’t challenge for the belt, so conventional thinking tells you Valkyria will win because, well, what the fuck else are you supposed to do with her?
The No DQ element makes some kind of sense for the length of the feud, but doesn’t move the needle on my thinking here. If Mike were smart, he would short me.
LYRA VALKYRIA
MIKE: Joke’s on you, Adam, I’m not smart. I am also taking the Baddest Bird on the Block, Lyra Valkyria. This just feels like the natural endpoint of this story. A current star beats a new up-and-coming wrestler for the title. The new wrestler chases after the title, fails twice, and wins it back on one of the company’s biggest shows.
LYRA VALKYRIA
Steel Cage Match for the WWE United States Championship:
Solo Sikoa (c) vs Jacob Fatu
MIKE: The match stipulation for this one 100% guarantees that there is absolutely no way one of Sikoa’s stooges will get involved. Seriously, there is a ZERO percent chance that someone like Fatu or Tonga will interfere. It’s just not possible. That’s the whole point of the cage. To keep people out. Duh.
SOLO SIKOA
ADAM: Don’t bring up Jacob Fatu’s rap track, don’t bring up Jacob Fatu’s rap track, don’t bring up Jacob Fat- Hey folks, what the fuck is Jacob Fatu doing on that track?
SOLO SIKOA
WWE Intercontinental Championship:
Dominik Mysterio (c) vs AJ Styles
ADAM: AJ had a really nice moment with the TNA match and is having a minor moment as a result.
However, the thing about this match is YOU GOT ME FUCKED UP IF YOU THINK I’M PICKING AGAINST MY BOY DIRTY DOM.
DOMINIK MYSTERIO
MIKE: I got serious goosebumps when Styles came out at Slammiversary to his old TNA theme. That song is both a banger and terrible at the same time. As for this match, YOU ARE! YOU ARE!…going to lose to Rey’s kid.
DIRTY DOM
That’ll do it for our two-night, eleven-match prediction marathon. Mike and I disagreed on five of the eleven matches, so the smart money is we both go 6-5. Leave a comment below with your predictions or email us at talentalonepodcast@gmail.com, an email I just checked for the first time in 9 months to find that people had emailed us, with your thoughts on Gunther and only Gunther. See yall next time.