If you have been following my WWE Pay-Per-View previews (and you should be), you already know that along with setting the scene for the event, I add in my own predictions for who I think is going to win each match. Thinking back on it, it feels like I have done fairly well for myself at predicting the winners of each match, but we can’t know for sure unless we look back at the year and see how successful the predictions have been. Let’s look at each Pay-Per-View of 2016, chronologically.
January
In January, the only prediction I made for the month as a fairly new Get More Sports contributor was for the Royal Rumble match. After looking at all of the options, I thought that Roman Reigns would win the Rumble and retain his WWE World Championship. Instead, Triple H won the Rumble and Reigns would regain the title at WrestleMania 32. Prediction Results: 0/1
Feburary
This brings us to Fastlane, also known as the last Pay-Per-View before WrestleMania. This featured Kalisto defeating Alberto Del Rio in a 2-out-of-3 Falls Match, Charlotte retaining the Divas Championship for the last time, and of course, Curtis Axel vs. R-Truth Roman Reigns defeating Brock Lesnar and Dean Ambrose to become the #1 Contender for the World Championship. Prediction Results: 6/7
April
March didn’t have any Pay-Per-Views, and the first weekend of April hosted NXT TakeOver: Dallas and WrestleMania 32.
NXT TakeOver: Dallas featured the debuts of Shinsuke Nakamura and Austin Aries, Asuka dethroning Bayley for the NXT Women’s Championship, and the only match I got wrong, Finn Balor retaining the NXT Championship against Samoa Joe. Prediction Results: 4/5
The WrestleMania 32 Kickoff Show featured only one match I got correct: The Usos defeating the Dudley Boyz. Kalisto retaining the United States Championship against Ryback and Team Total Divas defeating Team B.A.D. and Blonde (what a terrible name) were predicted incorrectly. Prediction Results: 1/3
Looking back at the WrestleMania 32 results, it did its job at doing the unexpected (other than Roman Reigns winning the main event). Zack Ryder won the Intercontinental Championship, Chris Jericho defeated AJ Styles, and Baron Corbin won the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal (I was really hoping for Shaq here). Let’s not also forget the the League of Nations somehow defeated the New Day in a non-title match before losing a championship match the very next night on Raw. Prediction Results: 3/8
May
Maybe I’m not as good at predicting as I thought. Payback was the Pay-Per-View that followed WrestleMania, and the results surprised me, at least. Kalisto yet again retained the United States Championship against Ryback, Dean Ambrose defeated Chris Jericho, Kevin Owens defeated Sami Zayn, and Roman Reigns retained the WWE World Championship against AJ Styles. Prediction Results: 3/7
The month of May also gave us Extreme Rules, which would have one of the best matches of the year when The Miz retained his Intercontinental Championship against Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and Cesaro. To top it all off, Roman Reigns retained the WWE World Championship against AJ Styles for the second time, Seth Rollins returned at the end, and I got every prediction correct. Prediction Results: 8/8
June
In June, we had NXT TakeOver: The End as well as Money in the Bank. At TakeOver: The End, the Revival would shock the world to become the first-ever two-time NXT Tag Team Champions, Shinsuke Nakamura would defeat Austin Aries, and Samoa Joe would retain the NXT Championship against Finn Balor in a steel cage match. Prediction Results: 3/5
Money in the Bank was another rough Pay-Per-View for predictions. It doesn’t help that the ladder match had several men, so the odds were pretty low there. The most notable part of the night was that all three members of the Shield were the WWE World Champion in about a five-minute span. Prediction Results: 4/10
July
Battleground was the last Pay-Per-View before the brand split (which has done wonders for WWE). We saw the surprise main roster debut of Bayley as she teamed up with Sasha Banks, and Dean Ambrose retained the WWE World Championship against his former Shield brethren to bring the belt to SmackDown. Prediction Results: 5/9
August
Here is another “Big Four” month for WWE, and perhaps the second biggest week of the year. NXT went back to Brooklyn, and SummerSlam also took place in the Barclays Center.
NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II featured the beginning of the Revival/#DIY saga, as well as Shinsuke Nakamura winning his first NXT Championship from Samoa Joe. Prediction Results: 4/6
SummerSlam was a decent show, with a terrible ending. Finn Balor became the first-ever WWE Universal Champion while injuring himself in the process, but the show ended after Brock Lesnar bludgeoned Randy Orton so badly that the match had to stop. Prediction Results: 6/9
September
In September we start seeing brand-specific shows, with Raw hosting Clash of Champions, and SmackDown hosting Backlash.
Backlash was a huge show. AJ Styles won the WWE World Championship, Heath Slater and Rhyno became the first SmackDown Tag Team Champions, and Becky Lynch became the first SmackDown Women’s Champion. Prediction Results: 6/6
Clash of Champions featured champions that still hold the belts today, except for the New Day and TJ Perkins. Roman Reigns captured the United States Championship here, and everyone else retained their titles. Prediction Results: 5/7
October
Before the brands would meet again at Survivor Series, they host one more show each with No Mercy and Hell in a Cell.
No Mercy featured Dolph Ziggler keeping his job, the return of Luke Harper, and the WWE World Championship match starting the show because of the presidential debates. Prediction Results: 4/6
Hell in a Cell featured the first match of its kind involving women, where Charlotte would win the Women’s Championship for a third time. Roman Reigns, Kevin Owens, and The New Day would all retain their gold. Prediction Results: 6/8
November
Survivor Series brought us the last Big Four show of the year, combining the brands for one night and topping it off with Brock Lesnar getting wonderfully destroyed by Goldberg. Raw would win two of the Survivor Series tag matches, but SmackDown would get the upset by winning the mens match. While it was a good show, it wasn’t very predictable. Prediction Results: 1/6
NXT took its last TakeOver of the year to Toronto, which featured the best tag team match in recent memory when #DIY won the NXT Tag Team Championships from The Revival. In a huge surprise, Samoa Joe would become the first two-time NXT Champion, losing the belt back to Shinsuke Nakamura a few weeks later in Japan. Prediction Results: 3/5
December
This brings us to this month. For SmackDown, we had their gimmick themed show with TLC, and Raw hosted the second Roadblock show of the year.
TLC was fairly predictable for the most part, other than Nikki Bella defeating Carmella in their subpar NO Disqualification match. AJ Styles was predicted to win, but it was a huge shock that it was because of the help of James Ellsworth. Prediction Results: 5/6
Roadblock: End of the Line ended the year in Pay-Per-Views, and it was pretty anticlimactic. It was almost certain that Sasha Banks would finally retain the Women’s Championship on a Pay-Per-View, but instead, Charlotte won the belt for a fourth time. The show would end on a good note, however, with JeriKO reuniting to help Kevin Owens retain the Universal Championship against Roman Reigns. Prediction Results: 4/7
Totals:
81/129 = 62.7%
For the year of 2016, I predicted most matches correctly, but there were clearly some shows that I could not predict at all, like WrestleMania 32 or Survivor Series. What to learn from this is that while their less important shows seems to go as planned, expect the unexpected for the big shows. Thank you for reading my previews and predictions for the year, and hopefully 2017 can be even better for predicting match results correctly.
