WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament

The World Heavyweight Championship Tournament commenced yesterday on Monday Night Raw. The breakdown of the tournament is each night (last night on Raw and this coming Friday on SmackDown) there will be two triple threat matches to determine the semi-finalists and the main event of the show will be the semi-finalists battling it out to be the finalist. The two finalists will battle at Night of Champions in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on May 27th. The initial bracket is below:

Last night on Monday Night Raw we had Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Seth Rollins vs. Damian Priest and The Miz vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Finn Balor. In the first match, our pick to win it all and pretty much the fan favorite to win the tournament, Seth Rollins took home the win with a frog splash on Shinsuke as he was trying to submit Damian Priest, followed up by a Pedigree for the pin. The second match of the tournament, pretty much happened as anticipated. Cody Rhodes was poised to win the match after hitting The Miz with a few Cross Rhodes and as he covered up The Miz a figure in a black hoodie pulled him from the ring. It was Brock Lesnar, who then laid into Cody and hit him with an F5 through the announce desk. Balor took advantage of the interference and hit the Coup de Grace on The Miz to advance to the semi’s vs Seth in the main event. Brock grabbed a mic and asked Cody what he wants to talk about and said to look at his face, it was pretty beat up to say the least, and challenged Cody to a rematch at Night of Champions.

The main event of night one of the World Heavyweight Championship Tournament culminated in a main event between Seth Rollins and Finn Balor. This isn’t the first time these two battled for a new title, as at SummerSlam 2016 they battled for the Universal Championship with Finn winning only to relinquish the title a mere 22 hours later. The match last night did not disappoint at all. It was a war between the two of them. Seth with an injured shoulder, worked out the win by hitting a stomp on Finn. Honestly, I would have loved to see a longer match between these two men as the finals at Night of Champions, which brings me back to my point in our last post that this should have been a Raw specific tournament. With Seth installed as the Raw finalist, lets take a look at SmackDown and play out the bracket.

Match 1 will be AJ Styles vs. Edge vs. Rey Mysterio. My gut is telling me that the winner is going to be AJ Styles of this one, Edge is a part timer and as I mentioned I dont think they want a part timer holding this title as well. The LWO is riding high right now, but I do not see Rey as the one to win this match or be the first champion. So let’s assume it is AJ moving on. Match 2 will be Austin Theory vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Sheamus. I am tempted to say that the winner would be Sheamus, because Bobby and Theory would be continuing their feud and have possible interference from Bronson Reed but……. I know that the powers that be are very high on Theory and could also see him squeaking this one out. So let’s assume it is Theory with the W, that leaves us with AJ vs Theory in the main event of SmackDown. The main event is a tough one to predict on the SmackDown side, if Theory is in it I am leaning towards him going to Night of Champions to go to war with Seth. If it is Sheamus, then I am picking AJ 100% as Rollins opponent.

What do you think about the bracket so far? Who do you think will face Rollins at Night of Champions to be crowned the inaugural World Heavyweight Championship in this Tournament. Let us know in the comments below or hit us up on our Twitter account by clicking here. As always stay tuned to Culture Splat for more content coming at you and some exciting things coming soon! Don’t forget to check out our shop where you can get gems like these: