Special Note: With the recent Coronavirus outbreak in WWE ranks, it’s been rumored that most of the advertised show, including this match may be removed for a two hour tribute to the Undertaker.
AJ Styles and Drew Gulak set for Intercontinental Championship clash
After the match of the year against Daniel Bryan to win the vacated Intercontinental Championship. AJ Styles remained true to his heel persona and had the entire locker room gather around the ring so he could rub in his victory and prove he’s the best on the roster.
This is where we could point out he’s the IC champion and not the Universal, but we’re all for letting the guy toot his own horn. There aren’t many as good at it as Styles is, so we decided to sit back and enjoy this for all it was worth, and it didn’t disappoint.
It can be argued that it was a mistake on his part and that’s not wrong, but Styles is the type to take an inch and then a mile. So, humiliating Daniel Bryan was the natural next step. Follow that up with Matt Riddle’s debut on the show, which resulted in Riddle getting a win over Styles, and it’s easy to see the entire first segment was geared to introduce Riddle.
Drew Gulak’s turn
While there’s plenty of room to argue that Riddle should get a title shot following his win (in an awesome match, btw) over Styles last week, Bryan did point out Gulak deserved a shot since he previously beat Styles and someone in charge agreed with that.
With two awesome matches in a row, the pressure is on for Styles to have another one, but given his experience and Gulak being an awesome young talent (another Daniel Bryan in our opinion) , we’ confident they’ll produce.
The question is, who will pull out the win?
Our prediction
We’d love to see Gulak as Intercontinental Champion, but we doubt it’s going to happen yet. Our thinking is that the IC title is slated for Matt Riddle (We believe the United States championship on Raw is slated for Keith lee when he gets called up), and there’s few if any on the Smackdown roster that can put over young talent like Styles.
For that reason, we expect AJ Styles to beat Drew Gulak and retain the Intercontinental Championship.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see Riddle or Gulak win the championship at Extreme Rules, with Riddle being the smart pick. The problem is current accusations about Riddles conduct, and though it appears the WWE is standing by him, putting the belt on him could be a public relations nightmare Vince McMahon and the WWE don’t want right now and they’d rather wait until everything is settled.
Of course, now that we say that, Riddle will probably win at Extreme Rules because unless more evidence comes out, Vince will stand by his guy. He almost has to given the way the company’s been suffering this year, but will everything work out in Vince’s favor?
Looks like we’ll have to wait and see.
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