Randy Orton is the current WWE World Champion. (WWE.com)
With the WWE superstar shake up having been officially completed, we’re now beginning to learn more about the plan for the World Championship.
According to the newest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Randy Orton will defeat Bray Wyatt at Payback, therefore retaining the WWE World Championship. This also means that the World Championship is staying on SmackDown Live, as if Wyatt had won that match, he would have brought the title to Raw.
From there, the next WWE pay-per-view is Backlash on May 21st. The Wrestling Observer reports that the current plan is for Randy Orton to face Baron Corbin for the World Championship at that event. The Observer notes that it is considered to be too early for Orton to face Shinsuke Nakamura; on Tuesday, Nakamura began a feud with The Miz.
That Orton vs. Wyatt match at Payback is going to be something called a “House of Horrors” match. We still don’t have a clue what that is, and the Wrestling Observer reports that the WWE doesn’t know yet, either. The company did, however, send out a survey to fans recently asking what they want to see in the match, and the options provided can give us some indication of what the WWE is thinking. Some of the choices on the survey were “mirrors,” “fog,” “projected images,” and “a match set outside the arena.”
After this week’s SmackDown Live, some WWE fans are actually more excited about the United States Championship title picture than the World Championship title picture. On April 11th, AJ Styles emerged as the number one contender for Kevin Owens’ United States Championship. Owens will now defend his title against Chris Jericho at Payback. If Owens wins that match, as he is expected to, he will remain on SmackDown Live with the U.S. title, and Owens will go on to defend the belt against AJ Styles.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter notes that this match between AJ Styles and Kevin Owens for the United States Championship has been set for Backlash in May.
This new set of spoilers unfortunately confirms the fact that Bray Wyatt will be coming out of this Randy Orton feud the loser. Although Wyatt is portrayed on screen as a scary villain with literal superpowers and who can teleport across rooms, he rarely actually wins matches. According to Cagematch, Bray Wyatt has lost 64 percent of all of the matches that he has been placed in.
So what’s next for Bray Wyatt? Based on this past week’s Monday Night Raw, it seems that he will be feuding with Finn Balor after he’s done with Randy Orton. Wyatt appeared over the TitanTron talking to Balor on Monday, although he ended up mainly talking about Randy Orton and the upcoming House of Horrors match.
Payback will be broadcast on Sunday, April 30th on the WWE Network.