WWE Clash of Champions 2019
September 15, 2019
Spectrum Center
Charlotte, North Carolina

Watch: WWE Network

Meet our previewers

• Jeff Hawkins: Co-Host of @ShakeThemRopes, Snarkmaster General, creator of the Ice Cream Anti-Social, my boss was Mr. McGee
• Lee Malone: Co-host of @WCWThunderPod, writer of WWE previews, massive NXT UK fan

WWE United States Championship
AJ Styles © vs. Cedric Alexander

Hawkins: I am tempted to think they’re going to turn the U.S. Title into the “Good Little Worker” title and ping pong it amongst a certain class of guys like Ricochet, Samoa Joe, AJ, and Cedric.  Cedric’s come up short a few times, and one would think this would be a “reward” for that ridiculous “janitor in a mask” angle of a few weeks back. But I fully suspect Cedric will do his best, and come up short and that will be put over on commentary. The OC need something to matter, and the US Title is in good hands with AJ.  Prediction: AJ Styles

Lee Malone: I miss AJ Styles. He was my favourite wrestler for the majority of the last 15 years, I’ll never forget seeing him live for the first time in 2004. God he was so great. Now watching him just makes me sad. He’s still good and maybe even capable of great with the right opponent on the right night but my hopes of that night lessen every time I watch him wrestle now. Cedric is most certainly capable of greatness in 2019 and with the draft upcoming he is an ideal candidate to take the US Title from AJ freeing Styles up to make a jump back to Smackdown with his OC mates. Prediction : Cedric Alexander 

WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship
Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross © vs. Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville

Hawkins: One might think Mandy Rose was built in a Kevin Dunn/Vince McMahon “create a face of the Women’s Division” workshop, which is what makes her almost two years on the main roster without holding one of the two brands’ singles titles somewhat amazing.  Other blondes have been given bigger pushes, and it feels like they waited so long to pull the trigger that the time has passed. Sonya Deville has the unfortunate combination of having a skill set overshadowed by the celebrity du jour of the women’s division in Ronda Rousey and a compelling real life backstory that the blunt instrument that is Vince McMahon would have no idea how to market. I think a lot of this match depends on the big picture story of Sasha and Bayley, who could very well be right back in the tag team title picture as early as Monday.  The Alexa/Nikki story has taken an interesting turn where it almost feels like they’re friends now, so it might be time to make one or both pure babyfaces in a division that needs it and take the titles off them. Nikki got the win on Smackdown, and their story goes nowhere without losing the titles. I’m not entirely sure on this call, but it feels like the Women’s Tag Team titles are participation trophies, so we need to keep rotating them.  Prediction: Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville

Lee Malone: These titles mean less than the IWGP 6 Man Tag Team Titles. Just like the aforementioned titles it feels like everyone must get a reign with these Womens Tag Team Titles so yeah why not give them to Mandy & Sonya. I will say I do like the Fire & Desire name. At one point it felt like Alexa was going to get a huge push as the face of the women’s division but prolonged injury issues seems to have put paid to that and she is just another person on the show Prediction : Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville

Roman Reigns vs. Erick Rowan

Hawkins: What started as an interesting out of the box concept lost its way early and never got its footing again.  Erick Rowan, not Daniel Bryan as previously thought, has been trying to kill Roman Reigns. A red herring in Buddy Murphy who has since disappeared into “Creative Has Nothing For You” territory; a Rowan doppleganger never mentioned again whose reveal went over like a fart in church; an attempt to make a patsy out of Daniel Bryan but not followed up on to then get to the go home promo where all is explained. Rowan, a surprisingly eloquent speaker starts to explain his motivations only to be cut off after two words, so the joke is on all of us for being intrigued in the mystery. I don’t think this story is deep enough to warrant a second cycle. A Superman Punch, a Spear, and we forget about this. Prediction: Roman Reigns

Lee Malone: This feud has been awful. Between awfully shot backstage skits, to attempted vehicular homicide and worse again a dramatic reveal of an Erick Rowan lookalike that nobody had noticed up until 3 weeks ago. Roman Reigns has been made to look like a dick for constantly attacking Daniel Bryan, Daniel Bryan has been made to look like an idiot for not knowing Rowan was behind this all along and Rowan well Rowan is still just Erick Rowan and nobody can give a literal fuck about him. Just make this quick and we can all move on to Reigns vs Lesnar part 78 except this time it’s on Fox  Prediction : Roman Reigns

WWE Raw Women’s Championship
Becky Lynch © vs. Sasha Banks

Hawkins: Looking at the schedule, we still have Hell in A Cell prior to any drafts or roster solidification which makes the Sasha/Bayley/Becky/Charlotte interactions all the more intriguing. Sasha Banks making the grand return only to lose the title match seems like uninteresting storytelling. Sasha winning the belt is needed, but it feels like Becky is the star so to then lose in her first defense continues the on air in-joke about her not being able to defend the title, so that feels like an odd call. Becky continues to be the face of the upcoming video game and the central focus of advertising crossovers, so taking the title off of her seems counterintuitive, but the story calls for it to make the feud. The interest right now is in the Sasha/Bayley heel alliance, which is what’s going to drive this division for the next couple of months.  Prediction: Sasha Banks

Lee Malone: Like Jeff above I am very much torn on the result of this match and the potential fallout for the division as a whole because of it. I have quite enjoyed Sasha’s return and the continued alliance with Bayley is for once in WWE some consistent storytelling. Becky has been champion since WrestleMania so I don’t think it would be a disaster if she were to lose the title here. I would look for some interference from Bayley to assist Sasha in getting the win and continue this four way feud including Bayley and Charlotte all the way up to the draft Prediction : Sasha Banks 

WWE Intercontinental Championship
Shinsuke Nakamura © vs. The Miz

Hawkins: Miz is going to try real hard. This is his G1. Prediction: Shinsuke Nakamura

Lee Malone: Sami Zayn as Nakamura’s mouth piece has actually been quite good. I want to see more of this pairing. I want to see less of The Miz  Prediction : Shinsuke Nakamura 

WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship
The New Day © vs. The Revival

Hawkins: An absolute afterthought with no build. It will probably be a fantastic match given the two teams. As the Orton/Revival partnership seems to be burgeoning and making the New Day be more interesting by being in peril. In old times we’d be doing this angle for the better part of a year, but it’s been compacted into a month, injuring Woods and taking out Big E. This feels like the revenge match. The interesting choice would be to belt the Revival and Orton, and have the New Day get revenge. I can’t bring myself into this many big title changes on a smaller show, but the possibility remains Prediction: The New Day

Lee Malone: This match should be really great. WWE have teams to rival those of the much talked about AEW tag team division but WWE insist on “telling stories” and they refuse to get out of the way and just allow two great teams to go out and have a great match. The Revival & Randy Orton alliance works for me and I hope to continue as a group going forward and no better way to cement that alliance than by all three taking out The New Day  Prediction : The Revival 

WWE Cruiserweight Championship
Drew Gulak © vs. Humberto Carrillo vs. Lince Dorado

Hawkins: The general rule of someone being added to a match to make it a three way is that they don’t want to pin the other two. Lince Dorado’s past couple weeks have been great for him in terms of showing real charisma on the microphone. Drew Gulak in this incarnation has been a great heel champion. Humberto Carrillo is the first young white meat babyface they’ve developed in a long time, and certainly the first they’ve developed in the 205 division. The standard thinking is Humberto loses by Drew stealing a pin on Lince, thereby protecting him and saving the big win for one on one. I would love for them to put the belt on the kid and see if they have a real star and damn the formula as they never build on the anticipation quite as well as they think they will.  Prediction: Drew Gulak

WWE Championship
Kofi Kingston © vs. Randy Orton

Hawkins: Kofi is the “Employee of the Month” Champion. That’s his story. Since winning the title, he hasn’t been the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, he’s been Kofi of the New Day with a title. Randy Orton’s lethargy and nonchalance lends a certain “been there done that” to his heel character that works for this feud especially. This should be a blood feud, with Kofi enraged week after week at what happened to his friends, and with Randy Orton involving his family. We should be dying to see these two in a big blow off, and yet, here we are with just another match. Kofi beat down Orton rather well on the go home show, which screams title change. I think that’s stupid without a tag title change. Everything logical says you should go with Orton, but I don’t see a lot of interest in Kofi trying to get his title back. If they take the title off of Kofi, Orton’s keeping it for a while until a better babyface takes it from him, so I’m defying logic again. Prediction: Kofi Kingston

Lee Malone: This has gone on long enough, Kofi Kingston has been an all time bad WWE Champion. His winning moment at WrestleMania was great, a moment nobody will ever forget. Everything since then has been average at best. Kofi as a character hasn’t developed he’s still pancake tossing happy go lucky Kofi. The big go home angle for this show was a move for move recreation of an angle we saw 10 years ago. There is zero reason for Kofi to remain as champion so putting the title on Orton until Roman or Brock or somebody else is ready to take the reigns on Fox is the logical move IMO  Prediction: Randy Orton 

WWE Raw Tag Team Championship
Seth Rollins & Bran Strowman © vs. Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler

Hawkins: Roode & Ziggler scream “Transitional Champions,” to the point that should be their name when they lose these titles to the War Raiders or Street Profits.  Strowman wants the title too much to stay a good partner. This one seems easy. Prediction: Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler

Lee Malone: Why did they take these belts off Anderson & Gallows? They have actually built a feud between The OC and the Viking Raiders without attempting to and that match would make much more sense than this thrown together shit. Vince loves a wrestler abandoning his partner so I see Strowman stepping off the apron when Rollins reaches for a tag but Seth will overcome the odds and when it appears he has Roode and Ziggler beaten Strowman will powerslam Rollins  Prediction: Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode

WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship
Bayley © vs. Charlotte Flair

Hawkins: They turned Bayley heel because that’s what they do when they can no longer justify having good people act like idiots. In the world of McMahon, friends are people to be used, and it’s better to be an honest bad person than a dishonest good person. Bayley and Sasha as a Two Woman Power Trip seems the right call, but with Bayley, she and Sasha could be on the same brand or not. They could be tag champs, but singles titles seems best to really get this division going. Hell Bayley could be sent to NXT to give it more starpower and because she’s a “wrestler” rather than a woman Vince finds attractive who can wrestle. Charlotte’s getting more title wins in the future.  Sure it’s her “hometown” but look what they’ve done to Bayley in San Jose, the coronation waits another month and Charlotte gets this title at the next event prior to moving to Fox. But WWE needs to make Bayley full heel instead of disingenuous or this whole thing is going to die fast Prediction: Bayley

Lee Malone: Who’d have thought a heel turn alongside Sasha is exactly what Bayley needed to give her career some life. Charlotte is stuck in the unusual role of being the lesser heel taking on the newly turned champion and it being her hometown she will probably get the majority of the cheers. Run ins from Sasha and Becky could make this very unpredictable but like Jeff I want to see Bayley and Sasha rule as Women’s champions on both shows even if it is only for a month  Prediction: Bayley 

WWE Universal Championship
Seth Rollins © vs. Braun Strowman

Hawkins: Seth will get his revenge after being slammed by Braun earlier in the evening. The Fiend will show up and take out both of them after Seth gets his revenge. Prediction: Seth Rollins.

Lee Malone: The whole Seth and Braun uneasy friendship/rivalry has felt very thrown together and something to just get through this ppv. I can see this one ending with The Fiend standing tall over both Rollins and Strowman leading to a triple threat match at Hell in A Cell Prediction: No Contest