WWE is giving us six matches this weekend at Night Of Champions, and upon first glance, the card seems pretty good. Roman Reigns isn’t working the event, nor is CM Punk or Rhea Ripley, but plenty of other big names are involved including Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, Gunther, Oba Femi, Liv Morgan, Iyo Sky, Jade Cargill and Yeet Man Jey Uso. There’s enough here for a really fun second tier premium live event. That being said, something feels off.
If six matches sounds like a lot, it’s probably because it is, at least for Triple H. Vince McMahon loved getting a high volume of wrestlers on the card. He’d think nothing of booking seven or eight matches at a random Backlash. Thanks to an increase in commercials and changes in booking philosophy, however, we almost always get five matches now. In fact, you have to go all the way back to Evolution in July of 2025 to find a non-Mania, non-SummerSlam card with more than five matches, and the Evolution thing was clearly because Triple H wanted to get as many women on the card as possible since it was a special event.
So, what does that mean from a practical standpoint? There are a few options. It could mean one of these matches is going to be a squash or some kind of double DQ or goofy ending that’s over quickly. It could mean a couple of these matches are just going to have a few minutes shaved off to accommodate adding another one. Or it could mean we’re going to get a longer premium live event that we’re normally used to seeing. I’m not really sure, but it’s something to look out for.
Regardless, there’s a lot to talk about here. I expect we’ll see at least one title change, maybe two, and I have some big thoughts about what WWE should do with rising mega-star Oba Femi, who is in the King Of The Ring finals. Before we get to that though, here’s a quick look at how my predictions have been going. I’ve made guesses for every PLE since WrestleMania 38, and let’s just say my winning percentage is a little higher than Bayley and Lyra Valkyria as a tag team…
Event |
Wins |
Losses |
'26 Royal Rumble |
2 |
2 |
'26 Elimination Chamber |
2 |
2 |
WrestleMania 42 |
11 |
2 |
'26 Backlash |
5 |
0 |
Clash In Italy |
3 |
2 |
Overall |
230 |
88 |
Jey Uso vs Oba Femi In The Finals Of The King Of The Ring Tournament
Oba Femi is not going to lose a straight up match to Jey Uso. As hard as WWE might want to push the Yeet Man, he’s not beating Oba straight up. They let him kick out of about six Brock Lesnar finishing moves and a sneak attack before his last defeat. He’s not losing clean to Jey Uso, but it’s unclear whether we’re actually going to get a clean match here.
WWE is being really obvious that we’re going to get Brock Lesnar vs Oba Femi III at some point, probably as Lesnar’s retirement match, and rumors have been claiming for months that it’s going to happen at SummerSlam. The winner of the King Of The Ring tournament is going to face one of the WWE World Champions at SummerSlam. So, if Oba wins, that means the Lesnar match either isn’t happening at SummerSlam or he’s wrestling twice.
I don’t know. If it were me, I’d push Oba to the moon. He has the potential to be the biggest new WWE star in a long time, but I just have this feeling that Lesnar is going to show up and cost Oba, paving the way for Uso and Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam. This could really go either way, but because I’m so confident that the right storyline move here is to push Oba as hard as possible, I’m going to choose him. And not only am I going to choose him, I’m going to make a bold prediction. I think he wins King Of The Ring, retires Brock Lesnar and beats Roman Reigns to win the World Heavyweight Championship.
Predicted Winner: Oba Femi
Iyo Sky vs Liv Morgan In The Finals Of The Queen Of The Ring Tournament
What is WWE doing here? They’ve left themselves with two bad options. If Liv Morgan wins, it’ll set up a match to unify the Women’s World Championships at SummerSlam, presumably with Rhea Ripley if she’s not hurt. That sounds appealing, but I don’t really get why WWE would want to unify the championships when there’s a ton of main event level women right now who need big prizes to wrestle for. Besides, as much as I love Liv Morgan, she’s not exactly the sort of Roman Reigns or Hulk Hogan-type generational talent who would ordinarily do something so massive. Maybe Rhea Ripley is, but if she was going to be the one to unify the belts, it should probably be her quest, not something Liv does all the work to set up.
Then again, if Iyo Sky wins, we’re probably just going to turn around and run Liv and Iyo back at SummerSlam. That’s a great match, but it’s odd to make one of your marquee matchups at SummerSlam a rematch we just saw. Iyo could, of course, always win Queen Of The Ring and then challenge Rhea Ripley, but it feels like the breakdown of their friendship would warrant a much longer storybuild than that.
I don’t know. It’s been kind of fun watching Morgan brag about how she’s going to unify the belts, but I still don’t understand how this entire pitch got approved to start with.
Predicted Winner: Iyo Sky
Trick Williams (Champ) Vs Ricky Saints For The United States Championship
Unlike those first two matches, this one is really simple. Ricky Saints has a ton of potential and his crowd reactions are improving. He’s not, however, particularly over with the crowd. He’s certainly not over enough to be winning championships, and he’s nowhere even close to over enough to be beating Trick Williams, who is one of the most popular superstars in the company.
The goal here for Saints is to work a good match and continue to endear himself to the fans. The more he shines in the ring and perfects his character work, the more likely it is that he’ll become over enough to be a real threat to Trick Williams or whoever else down the road. Until then, he can, to paraphrase Trick, step aside while grown folks are talking.
Predicted Winner: Trick Williams
Seth Rollins vs Bron Breakker In A Steel Cage
I was kind of leaning toward Seth Rollins winning this match until Monday Night Raw this week. During the episode, Rollins interfered in Breakker and Austin Theory’s tag team title match against the Street Profits and cost the team their belts. Since I think this collective feud is going to continue long-term, that makes it more likely Breakker is going to win this match so the score stays relatively close.
I also think there’s a chance we’re finally going to see the return of Bronson Reed, who has been out for months with an injury. He could tip the scales back in the Vision’s favor after Logan Paul’s unfortunate injury and maybe set up a six man tag between Rollins and the Street Profits and Breakker, Theory and Reed.
Predicted Winner: Bron Breakker
Cody Rhodes (Champion) vs Gunther vs Sami Zayn for the WWE Championship
After Gunther retired AJ Styles and John Cena, I thought there was a legitimate chance he might not lose a single match in 2026. I thought he would just mow down every single person put in front of him. Instead, he just keeps losing. He lost to Cody Rhodes. Then he lost to Cody Rhodes again. Most people think he’s about to lose to Rhodes and Zayn for the third time at Night Of Champions.
Personally, I just can’t believe that. I can’t believe WWE would take the dude who has been the most unstoppable monster for the last several years and give him three straight Ls to Cody Rhodes (even if each one has been heavily protected). The long-term damage to Gunther’s aura would take way too long to recover.
Unfortunately, WWE isn’t making the most logical choices right now. I’m confident Sami Zayn is not going to win so he can continue his heel turn, but Cody Rhodes is certainly in play here. He’s already beaten Gunther twice, and WWE has repeatedly shown that it prefers to keep its main belts on its biggest stars. They may just keep the belt on Cody again and make us all wonder what the entire point of this feud with Gunther was.
Whenever I'm stuck between two outcomes, I always go with the one I think helps the characters most in the long run. For me, that's Gunther winning here.
Predicted Winner: Gunther
Tiffany Stratton (Champ) vs Jade Cargill For The Women’s United States Championship
I’m a big believer that more often than not, if you want to keep someone’s momentum going, you need to support that progress with wins. I’d argue Jade Cargill is doing the best work of her WWE career right now. Her faction with B-Fab and Michin allows a bit of the mic pressure to be taken off her, and the visual of the three together just fits. It lets Jade focus on being a monster.
With questions lingering about Rhea Ripley’s injury status, I think Triple H and company need to pull the trigger here and just let Jade run with the United States Championship for awhile. I’d like to see her stack up victories for awhile and remind everyone that she’s Jade Cargill. Sometimes it’s better to see someone dominate the midcard than continually take losses in the main event. Just ask LA Knight.
I wouldn’t write off Stratton off though. She’s been stuck in the mud for awhile, but she’s still pretty over with the crowd. She won’t beat Cargill clean, but there’s definitely a chance that Charlotte Flair could get involved, as she’s been feuding with Cargill’s faction. That might set up a match between the two at SummerSlam, but if it were me, I’d just have that match be for the United States Championship.
Predicted Winner: Jade Cargill
