As unfortunate as Seth Rollins’ injury is, there is a silver lining for WWE. A suddenly vacant WWE World Heavyweight Championship should draw interest. A 16-man tournament to determine the champion should draw interest. The fact that only four of the 16 have won the top title before, and three of them were eliminated in the first round by wrestlers who’ve never won it, should draw interest.
However, ratings aren’t getting any better. Hopefully, WWE realizes this and does something unexpected in the tournament. The matches will be good regardless, but the odds of a surprise seems slim.
Here are my picks, and unlike the Best Bets, these are straight-up picks. There are no jellybeans to be found in this column.
Quarterfinals
Roman Reigns vs. Cesaro
Like I wrote last week, it’s lining up for Cesaro to look impressive in the tournament but fall short. Facing Roman Reigns in the quarterfinals basically guarantees a good showing in a loss. This should be an entertaining match between two athletic guys that have only met once in singles action before (at an FCW taping four years ago). Unfortunately, it’s the one with the least amount of intrigue because we already know who’s going to win.
Pick: Roman Reigns
Alberto Del Rio vs. Kalisto
Kalisto topping Ryback in the first round was a nice surprise (and unfortunately the only one of the first round). It’s a little trite to pair Del Rio, the former masked luchador, with a masked luchador, but this is a new pairing between two solid wrestlers. Kalisto has impressed in his short run on the main roster so far. That said, there’s no way Del Rio is taking his first pinfall against Kalisto.
Pick: Alberto Del Rio
Kevin Owens vs. Neville
These two wrestlers have very different styles, but they’ve meshed well in the past. Both are former NXT champions that have the in-ring ability to get the crowd behind them in a high-stakes match. Neville will likely do a lot of selling here, but ultimately won’t be able to hit the Red Arrow and Owens will take advantage.
Pick: Kevin Owens
Dolph Ziggler vs. Dean Ambrose
Ziggler is the kind of guy who should be destined for success in a tournament like this. He’s a longtime face who has the crowd behind him but is also struggling because he’s a one-dimensional character who’s not moving up the card. He’s a prime candidate for a mega-heel turn that shoots him up the card, especially since there’s a Seth Rollins-sized hole that should be filled by a cocky, loudmouth heel. Unfortunately for the Show-Off, he’s already involved in a feud with Tyler Breeze, and he happens to be facing the most over active man in WWE. Ambrose won’t get eliminated before Survivor Series.
Pick: Dean Ambrose
Semifinals
Roman Reigns vs. Alberto Del Rio
This matchup is not as lopsided as it seems. WWE brought Del Rio back because they felt he had enough stature to take the U.S. Championship from John Cena. Reigns certainly won’t lose clean, but it wouldn’t be totally surprising if Del Rio find a way to win via nefarious means. On the other hand, this provides a good opportunity for Reigns to defeat a good worker with a strong kayfabe pedigree.
Pick: Roman Reigns
Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose
Two indie darlings who, oddly enough, never faced each other until both were in WWE. Just about everyone is hoping to see Ambrose win this one, pitting best buds Roman and Dean against each other. That could go in plenty of different ways. Either could win clean, win dirty, or turn heel. They’ve never been in any sort of matchup against each other besides Royal Rumbles and the main event of this year’s Payback. But with Rollins out for the near future, it seems like WWE may be holding off on any Shield feud for now. Owens will sneak his way into the main event.
Pick: Kevin Owens
Finals
Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens
This is the matchup that people want right now. The staredown between these two was the most exciting moment of the now-irrelevant No. 1 Contender’s match from Raw three weeks ago. Reigns pinned Owens in that match, but that’s not a reason a singles match can’t happen – Owens had taken a lot of offense in that match from Del Rio and Ziggler as well. As badly as WWE seems to need a swerve or heel turn to inject some life into the story, I don’t see it happening here. Reigns will win, he will not have to worry about Sheamus, and we’ll trod on to TLC.
Pick: Roman Reigns
Wrestledelphia.com columnist Evan Cross can be reached at . Follow him on Twitter .
Evan Cross
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[…] picked Owens to win this straight up earlier in the week, so of course I’m going to take the great odds here. Although there were no […]