Welcome to another edition of WWE Heat Index, wherein we discuss the interest level for the various feuds heading into the pay-per-view events. This time around, we’re focusing on Stomping Grounds 2019 coming this Sunday night.
The way this works is a pretty simple three-way breakdown of Hot, Lukewarm and Cold. If you like something and you’re very interested in how WWE is setting up the program, it’s Hot (aka Good). If you’re a bit on the fence about it and see some problems, but it’s not awful, then it’s just Okay or Lukewarm. The ones that are the most problematic that you have no interest in are Cold (aka Bad).
Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments section to let everyone know what your thermometer reads for each feud as I tell you what my thoughts are below!
Without further ado, let’s get started!
Universal Championship Match: Seth Rollins (c) vs. Baron Corbin = Cold
Hey WWE Universe, did you like the match from Super ShowDown? No? Not really? It was just okay maybe, at best? Well, how about if we did it again two weeks later?!!
What do you mean, you now care even less about it because you’ve already seen it recently and there isn’t anything else added to this to spice it up? What were we supposed to do, have them fight with a stipulation or something?
Oh…we could have? Or, maybe, we could have booked something else for Super ShowDown or Stomping Grounds instead, like to have Sami Zayn get a title shot for something different?
Ugh, well, now you’re just thinking logically, and that doesn’t fly here. Now eat your cold leftovers for dinner and if we scream at the top of our lungs that it tastes fresh, nod your head in agreement.
Talking exercise over. I like Rollins and I actually like Corbin, but this does nothing for me, and with Brock Lesnar hovering the title scene, I care even less.
Prediction: Seth Rollins retains, possibly with some help from AJ Styles.
WWE Championship Steel Cage Match: Kofi Kingston (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler = Hot
WWE could certainly try harder to avoid the copy/paste than slapping a steel cage around these two, but considering the rest of the card, I’ll take it.
Kingston and Ziggler are great in the ring and I was so checked out of Super ShowDown that I mentally missed their match. I didn’t actively pay attention to any of it, as I was too busy writing up how annoyed I was about Lesnar. So this match gets the benefit of me not feeling like I just saw these two wrestle and not wanting to see a rematch happen again.
Steel cage matches are often better on paper than they are in execution, and it’s weird that we’re getting another one so quickly after Money in the Bank, but just because I feel like I could have done a better job making this more intriguing doesn’t mean I should nitpick this.
Prediction: Kofi Kingston wins.
Raw Women’s Championship Match: Becky Lynch (c) vs. Lacey Evans = Cold
Again, this is just a rematch. There’s nothing new to it at all. WWE literally just took the match that they had at Money in the Bank and said “that, again.”
I like Becky Lynch, but I’m feeling underwhelmed with her as champion. I feel like she was more about the chase than the actual reign. Sadly, I’m losing faith in Lacey Evans, too, as I went from someone who was a big supporter of her in NXT who thought she had an insanely bright future to someone who flat out doesn’t enjoy her promos in the slightest bit.
This feud could have been better, and I feel they’ve been given a problematic setup to work with and were unable to turn shit into gold, so it’s underwhelming all around.
Prediction: Becky Lynch retains.
SmackDown Women’s Championship Match: Bayley (c) vs. Alexa Bliss = Lukewarm
I like Bayley, even though I feel she’s grown stagnant. I’m a bigger fan of Alexa Bliss, and I’m happy she’s still able to wrestle.
But why can’t I shake the feeling like this is going to be overbooked? Is it because of her injury status and the Nikki Cross stuff? Is that going to get in the way and turn this into some kind of “run around the ring and waste time for 15 minutes” type thing?
I hope I’m wrong, and that I’m just worried about this for no particular reason, but to no fault of either woman involved, I’m not able to get this to a Hot level of excitement.
Prediction: Bayley retains.
United States Championship Match: Samoa Joe (c) vs. Ricochet = Hot
I’m a big fan of both of these guys, I haven’t really seen them wrestle (unlike how this card seems to be filled with rematches) and I think they could gel well together by telling the story of the quick and smaller guy against the powerhouse brute who happens to not be as immobile as you’d normally think.
Compared to the rest of this lineup, I’m more excited about the potential of this match’s in-ring quality than pretty much anything else scheduled to happen on this show.
Prediction: Samoa Joe wins.
SmackDown Tag Team Championship Match: Daniel Bryan and Rowan (c) vs. Heavy Machinery = Lukewarm
You know what? This isn’t the biggest match in the world, and it hasn’t had the most grandiose build to it, but it’s at least been something that has had a little bit of lead-up, and it’s showcasing two newer guys who haven’t had much to do in recent months.
This is something fresh. I dig it. It’s not going to be the best match on the card, nor will it be something particularly memorable, but it’s still got more going for it than a lot of other matches on the card, so it gets a thumbs up from me.
Prediction: Daniel Bryan and Rowan win.
Cruiserweight Championship Triple Threat Match: Tony Nese (c) vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Drew Gulak = Hot / Lukewarm
On paper, this could be one of the better matches of the show, if given enough time to really let everyone loose.
I’ve spoken before about how I feel Tony Nese does not fit well as a babyface champion, and I don’t think at this point that Akira Tozawa comes off as a viable threat to the title, whereas Drew Gulak should not only be the next champion, but I think he should just win it here.
But Mike Kanellis re-signing with WWE is making me doubt that prediction. I used to be pretty set on that, and now, I’m torn between two different scenarios, which also have two different sub-scenarios.
Basically, if WWE wants to put the title on Kanellis, then Gulak isn’t winning it, which means Nese retains here either by pinning Tozawa to drag out the Gulak thing for a little while longer (wherein he’ll beat Gulak one-on-one down the line). Alternatively, if Gulak is set to win the title, he can beat Tozawa here to set up a one-on-one with Nese to follow that.
I’m intrigued about those scenarios, I’m hoping for Gulak to take the title here, and I think the match itself could be fun, so it gets a higher Hot/Lukewarm than some other matches.
Prediction: Either Tony Nese or Drew Gulak wins, but I’m 50/50 on it.
Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre = Cold
I’ve already seen it at WrestleMania, when it was rushed and didn’t need to happen, and they had already fought before during the Shield feud. What was supposed to be the hook to make me interested this time? Shane McMahon?
Well, that certainly wasn’t the answer, as Shane’s promos have been absolutely horrible to sit through, and some of the most frustrating programming in recent shows. That’s a massive fail, and while I’m a fan of both Reigns and McIntyre, and I want to see them in better spots and in matches I actually care about, I can’t apply that to this one.
If this weren’t my job and if I didn’t have to watch this, I would much rather prefer this not being on the card and me saving 20 minutes of my time.
Prediction: Roman Reigns wins.
Big E and Xavier Woods vs. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn = Cold
“Mr. McMahon, it seems as though we haven’t done enough to entice people to buy tickets for Stomping Grounds. I guess we spent all our focus on the Wild Card rule and Super ShowDown and, like anybody could have predicted, we ignored Stomping Grounds, and lazily copied and pasted previous matches we’ve had a bunch of times and tried to pass that off as something other than a rerun show. What do we do to win back the fans?”
“I don’t know. How about we just have a completely inconsequential tag team match that we’ve seen a bunch of times over the past few months?”
“Well, sir, that sounds like exactly what we shouldn’t do.”
“Damn it, everyone is complaining that I don’t like the tag team division, but I give them recycled pointless tag team matches all the time and they still hate it? I don’t get it!”
Ugh. This is stupid. I’m a BIG fan of all four of these guys, but this is some SmackDown-only B-level pay-per-view type card nonsense, not a Wild Card rule co-branded thing that people are supposed to care about in a “new era” that wants to prove that AEW doesn’t have the momentum.
WWE should feel bad for this. These four guys deserve better, the fans deserve better, and for some reason, the people calling the shots are blind to what these mistakes are, and matches like this will do nothing at all to further entice viewers, and WWE will probably then blame it on the performers themselves for not being able to make gold out of the garbage they were given to work with.
Prediction: Owens and Zayn win, I guess.
Those are my thoughts, but how do you feel about these particular feuds? What’s hot and what’s cold in your mind? Fill us in on your point of view in the comments below!
