Sami Zayn vs. Baron Corbin
Predictions & Winner: SD Live is the perfect brand for Superstars who might not have flourished on Raw. The Blue Brand has proven that it can take talent such as The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, Bray Wyatt etc. and give them more of the spotlight they deserve. Sami Zayn’s a guy who had a few memorable moments here and there while on Raw, but he never truly got above the lower to upper mid-card rankings. Now that he’s on SD Live, we think Sami’s going to go even higher on the card. His 1st roadblock comes in the from of Baron Corbin, a giant of a man who’s been enjoying a nice push as of late. Both these guys deserve a big win on PPV right now, but we think Baron Corbin’s the one who’s still getting more attention these days. Sami will pull out another hard-hitting contest against a worthy opponent here, but Corbin will eventually trounce him and move onto some sort of title match in the future. We totally think he’ll make a more viable (and believable) opponent for Randy Orton’s WWE Championship.
Luke Harper vs. Erick Rowan
Predictions & Winner: The Wyatt Family is no more. To make matters even harder to fathom, Erick Rowan actually pulled off a win against his former stablemate. Luke Harper has way more upside than Rowan, so it makes a whole hell of a lot more sense for him to win. Sooooooooooo, yeah…LUKE HARPER FTW HERE! Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah…
The Usos (Jimmy Uso and Jey Uso) (c) vs. Breezango (Tyler Breeze and Fandango) (WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship)
Predictions & Winners: YESSSSSSSSSS! Breezango’s finally getting a tag team title shot! We’ve been huge fans of Tyler Breeze ever since his fashionista days on NXT. And we still do our best Fandango finger dance from time to time. It’s still pretty shocking to us that they’ve been set up as the next challengers for The Usos’ SD Live Tag Team Championship. Jimmy and Jey have been immensely entertaining as the twin badasses who blurt out the wildest promos and dish out the most vicious beatdowns. So we’re very much looking forward to watching both of these teams put on a good to great bout. It seems like Breezango is really just going to be your usual “challengers of the month” team that The Usos will knock down. The Usos will win here and move on to their next batch of monthly rivals.
Randy Orton (c) vs. Jinder Mahal (with Samir Singh and Sunil Singh) (WWE Championship)
Predictions & Winner: Jinder Mahal. “Don’t Hinder the Jinder.” A former job guy turned #1 contender for the WWE Championship. It’s pretty obvious as to why this is happening – Backlash 2017 is considered one of the least important PPV’s, so WWE is more willing to take a risk with setting up its match card. Plus, WWE’s looking to expand its reach within India and Jinder’s one the international Superstars who can make that goal easier to fulfill. So now Randy Orton will be the man to defend his WWE Championship against one of the most unlikely challengers to the title in years. We’ll be completely honest with you guys, here – Jinder hasn’t shown any signs of deserving his new position within the company. His match quality hasn’t gotten any better and he still doesn’t exude that #1 guy aura that Orton has. This bout won’t knock anyone’s boots off, which is a safe bet. Orton will take the victory here and move on to bigger and better things. At least Jinder will be established as a bigger Superstar thanks to this opportunity. India will finally have a WWE Superstar to really believe in. Sure, it’s someone who took plenty of L’s when he was a member of the Three Man Band. But still, Jinder’s in a much better position these days.
