This Sunday July 20th, WWE will present Battleground live from the Tampa Bay Times Forum. The PPV card features a 20-man battle royal for the Intercontinental title, a Fatal Fourway for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, a Cold War rematch as well as the return of Y2J.
Needless to say, this will be an action-packed show. Let’s take a deeper look at Sunday’s card.
John Cena vs. Randy Orton vs. Kane vs. Roman Reigns (WWE World Heavyweight Title Match)
Talk about star power. The main event of the night features the face of the company (Cena), a monster heel (Kane), a guy everyone loves to hate (Orton), and a metor-fast rising superstar (Reigns).
For weeks, WWE has been teasing that it may already be time for Reigns to take the titles and begin his ascent to the very top of the company. For what feels like the last two months, every Monday Night Raw has ended with some variation of this happening.
Having Reigns close out every show looking stronger and stronger is a clear sign that WWE has a lot of faith in the rising star as we move to the future. But would the company really put the titles on Reigns so soon? It’s hard to find a situation where this makes sense, especially with the likelihood that Brock Lesnar returns and challenges for (meaning wins) the WWE World Heavyweight Titles.
So seeing the WWE give the straps to a young star after Battleground is probably out of the question, so what options are left?
First, we could see an unlikely turn from Kane or Orton. With both Authority lackeys in the match, it is expected that the two would work together to take out Cena and Reigns and then figure out who between them will win the title and be the Authority Champ. There has been some dissension between the two however the past few weeks, and seeing them turn on each other would be about as surprising as seeing another John Cena title win. The real surprise in play here? That one of them turns on the Authority and takes the title home.
Speaking of John Cena wins, the most obvious (and likely) choice is having Super-Cena overcome the odds, defeat three opponents and retain his titles. Yay! Unfortunately, this is probably the direction we’ll be seeing WWE go. There are a few scenarios we could see play out if Cena does indeed win. For one, we could finally get the oft-teased Seth Rollins cash-in on Cena, also known as the Authority’s ‘Plan B’ which is seemingly always in play.
Or, we could get a whole new plan. Paul Heyman mentioning a ‘Plan C’ to Triple H during last week’s Monday Night Raw and this recently-leaked SummerSlam poster seems to indicate where the title story-line is likely headed next.
Yup, looks like we’re going to see Cena-Lesnar 46 in Los Angeles next month. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
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