WWE BattleGround Preview and Predictions: New WWE Champion will be crowned

Hello everybody and welcome to FanSided’s WWE BattleGround preview!

Now finally after a couple weeks of waiting, a new WWE Champion will be crowned after tonight’s Main Event between Daniel Bryan and the “Face” of the WWE, Randy Orton.

This card is really going to live up to it’s name with a card line up that includes Ryback and CM Punk, Alberto Del Rio taking on Rob Van Dam and the Rhodes brothers fighting to get themselves back into the company as they take on The Shield.

This whole build up between Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton is starting to take some familiar turns. After Summer Slam, I said that Triple H’s turn somewhat resembled Vince McMahon’s turn on Mick Foley (Mankind at the time) back in 1998 at Survivor Series. Triple H’s decision at Summer Slam made me believe it was another run of ‘Corporation’ or ‘Evolution’ run. Even Stephanie McMahon got involved as Shane McMahon stood by his Father’s side alongside The Rock like she is with her husband and Randy Orton.

The deal at Night of Champions reminded me of when Chris Jericho defeated Triple H for the WWE Championship on Monday Night RAW on April 17th, 2000. Just like that match up, a referee give Jericho a fast-count which shortly reversed with a little help of Triple H.

So I figured the next night the same thing would happen and sure enough, it did. The only difference is, the WWE Championship didn’t go back to Randy Orton, it became vacant. Which sets up our Main Event for tonight’s pay per view event. But first, let’s take a look at the rest of the card that will lead up to that match up.

YouTube will have Damien Sandow vs Dolph Ziggler for the kick-off. I’m surprised this match up isn’t on the card, but I guess it makes sense not to overload the show.

We have WWE Divas Champion A.J. Lee taking on Daniel Bryan’s wife Brie Bella. It could be the second match up on the card.

Bray Wyatt takes on Kofi Kingston in a match up that could end up becoming a squash match. Wyatt sent out a tweet talking about taking down the machine or something like that and he was referring to this Sunday’s pay per view. I absolutely love the Wyatt Family and appreciate the mic skills of Wyatt and can’t get enough of those promo’s.

Curtis Axel puts his Intercontinental Championship on the line against R-Truth. Truth has been picking up a lot of momentum as of late after stepping up for Daniel Bryan a couple Monday’s ago. He set himself up with a championship match last Monday after he defeated the champion. I honestly think Truth may walk away from this match up and Axel may no longer be a Paul Heyman guy. After having Brock Lesnar and Ryback in his corner, Heyman has been looking frustrated with how Axel has been performing. This should be interesting.

CM Punk vs Ryback is yet again another match up that could end up stealing the show. I’m a complete fan boy of CM Punk and Paul Heyman and clearly everything that they have going on involving the two of them is always entertaining. It once again puts the strongest heavyweight this company has against a man determined to “break” the face of Paul Heyman. This feud between Punk and Heyman is far from being over and could last up until Survivor Series of Hell in a Cell. This match up could possibly be another match of the year candidate, but would have to surpass the Brock Lesnar and Punk showdown.

The Rhodes vs The Shield of course doesn’t involve the Tag Team Championships but the futures of the Rhodes family all together. This isn’t just a tag team match for these two brothers, it’s a fight for their lively hood. Their Father Dusty will be in their corner and could play a part in this match up. The whole deal between The Rhodes and the McMahon’s in my opinion is brilliant and is the best “Best for Business” idea this creative team has come up with. Rhodes is far from done with this company and should win his job back tonight.

Alberto Del Rio puts his World Heavyweight Championship on the line against Mr. Pay Per View Rob Van Dam. Van Dam’s 90 days is coming to an end so I don’t expect him to win the title. I do expect Ricardo Rodriguez to somehow get back in Del Rio’s corner. This more than likely won’t go before the Main Event, but it will have somewhat of a Main Event feel too it. The previous match ups between these two have been entertaining and so I expect tonight’s to be exactly that.

Finally we have our Main Event, the topic of the beginning of this article. Daniel Bryan will try to once again win the WWE Championship back for the second time since Summer Slam. But there’s still one problem, Triple H and Stephanie still believe he’s not suitable to be champion and will do everything in their power to make sure Orton remains the face of this business. Their last match up at Summer Slam was a hard fought battle which resulted in Bryan picking up a fast count victory to make him the champion. This Main Event to determine who will pick up the vacant championship will truly be a war or ‘Battle’ if you will.

With a night full of action packed matches from start to finish, this could be a pay per view that keeps itself in the lineup with the rest of the yearly events.

Will Bray Wyatt bring down ‘the machine’? Will CM Punk get one step closer to finishing off Paul Heyman? Will Cody, Dustin and Dusty still be employed by the company after tonight? Who will be the NEW WWE Champion after it’s all said and done?

There’s only one way to find out and that’s to tune in. You can either watch the pay per view or make sure to come back to FanSided as I’ll be covering the entire pay per view match by match.

Thank you for reading and I hope you’ve all had an amazing weekend that gets topped off with an amazing pay per view!