Confirmed and Potential Matches for WWE Battleground 2014

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP, FATAL 4 WAY:
John Cena (c) vs. Kane vs. Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns


WWE INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP, BATTLE ROYAL:
Rob Van Dam vs. Alberto Del Rio vs. Fandango vs. Ryback vs. Curtis Axel vs. Big E vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Cesaro vs. Bo Dallas vs. Sheamus vs. Kofi Kingston vs. The Great Khali vs. Diego vs. Sin Cara vs. Titus O'Neil vs. Zack Ryder vs. Heath Slater vs. The Miz vs. R-Truth vs. Xavier Woods


WWE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP, 2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH:
The Uso's (Jimmy & Jey Uso) (c) vs. The Wyatt Family (Erick Rowan & Luke Harper)


WWE DIVA'S CHAMPIONSHIP:
AJ Lee (c) vs. Paige


Chris Jericho vs. Bray Wyatt


Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins


Jack Swagger vs. Rusev

Kickoff:

Cameron vs. Naomi

Dear WWE,

You have done too many battle royals recently. Please stop.

Best

I love Battle Royals, but this does seem like overkill. My guess is they probably didn't want to do a tournament, since they've done quite a few of those as well recently. Plus, they get more wrestlers on the show this way.

This is definitely going to be a filler show. However, with the WWE Network, it won't matter, as more people will likely watch it than if WWE was still doing these shows strictly as PPVs.

I really hope Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins happens on this card. The angle has been really hot so far, and they could steal the show.

I like battle royals ok, but one or two a year is more than enough for me. They don't usually have much re-watch value. you aren't getting quality in the ring. You get some spots, sure. Plus, the WWE sells the royal rumble as this elite even and then has 3 battle royals in the following 6 months. And yes, it gets people on the show, but you can still only really showcase one or two. Just seems silly. Tournaments are far better options. They love using twitter, why not have fans vote on who gets into a triple threat match for the belt?

I completely agree that Rollins vs Ambrose should be on this show. It could really save what might be a pretty lackluster show because of transition booking. It is honestly the only compelling storyline currently playing out (Jericho/Wyatt is on the way though)

Card updated with a week to go.

On paper, this looks to be a very promising ppv. The bottom four right now are enough to put my ass on the couch on a Sunday night.

Final card for Sunday is available. Actually doesn't look too terrible tbh.

I am fairly excited for this.

I am not super excited about the main event or the battle royal. The main event is predictable and no one in it makes me think "must watch match" for quality. The Battle Royal is anyone's guess really, I just don't care about another battle royal. I would maybe be more excited if they just said they were going to announce a new champion.

Naomi vs Cameron should suck. I would rather just watch Naomi go through the motions of a match without having to drag Cameron along.

Honestly, the rest of the card should be really entertaining. I am particularly excited about Rollins/Ambrose (even though it likely isn't a blowoff match) and the Tag Title Match.

And the ppv felt like a major bummer. ugh

This was a really strange show, the tag title match was great, the main event was good, swagger/rusev and jericho/wyatt felt disconnected, that battle royal was all kinds of weird, the divas didn't have a good showing at all, and they killed the best potential match on the card

overall very weird

While the show wasn't god awful, it was definitely odd and felt almost thrown together despite everything being semi-built. I'd honestly tell anyone interested in the replay to just watch the tag title match and walk away from it after that.

I thought the tag title and world title matches were good enough to watch, you don't really have to watch the world title match but it was good.

When they decided to take Rollins/Ambrose off the card they really threw the show into a frenzy, especially since they couldn't fill that time with anything apparently.

Overall a bad show that I thought was going to be good.

I have to disagree. I felt like this was a really solid show. THe results were strange and a let down, but it was overall entertaining to me.

The Tag Titles match obviously stole the show. I was really hoping they were going to put the belts on the Wyatts, but I don't dislike the Ussos so its fine.

The Ambrose Rollins thing I actually love. I think this is the kind of thing that they will feel more comfortable doing with the network (lets hope they don't overdo it). Rollins/Ambrose is the hottest blood feud they have had since mania and by giving the fans a few little segments rather than an all out match, they built it even more. Be it at Summer Slam or Night of Champions or whenever, when these two finally have their match it will be electric. I personally don't mind because it was good wrestling TV and I didn't pay extra for the show. Like I said, as long as they don't overdo this kinda thing, I don't mind them swerving a match out of a big show for good build-up.

Divas Title match was a bit of a let down, but it was more build up. I am just hopeful that those two get on the same page for a good match down the road. To be clear though, it wasn't TERRIBLE.

Swagger vs Rusev was a bit better than I expected. Rusev is growing on me for the short term. At first I didn't understand what they were doing with this monster, but now I am starting to like that he is in trouble each time. He is getting better at selling. I don't really know what the plan is for him and figure they will eventually hit a dead end, but this match was fine. If they run this back, they should do something new with him. I quit match or something.

Jericho vs Wyatt was odd. It is clearly not over. I really like Wyatt, but I am beginning to suspect he NEEDS to be in there with certain kinds of wrestlers who will work a certain pace to have a really good or great match. The pace of this just seemed tough to follow at times. The problem - as was stated by others - is that they are sort of in the same place with a bunch of different feuds, first of probably a few matches. They need to start staggering things better so there is a little more payoff. This matched seemed to provide the least payoff of a bunch of matches that provided no resolution.

I was really down on the battle royal before hand but I liked about 75% of it. There were down spots and a predictable start, but there were some fun little high spots. They put people together to show off their skills. They let guys stick around that fans wanted to see and that they wanted to push. Sandow looked funny. The end was.... again.... disappointing. There just wasn't much going on there.

Main event was exactly what I expected it to be. No surprises, no twists. If anything, it was maybe slightly more entertaining than I expected.

Overall it just didn't bother me. It didn't seem that poorly paced to me I feel like they knew they were pulling the rollins/ambrose show a while ago, probably when they added rusev/swagger. The payoffs weren't great, but the overall execution was good as far as I am concerned. They were in a tough spot not having a ton built for this and they kept some feuds with a lot of potential moving.

The Sad part is everyone on the show botched last night. WWE is extremely lucky no one was seriously hurt due to the botches.

I don't know what you guys are talking about. This was a great Clash of the Champions.

I think that is really what you can start to expect from most of the "ppvs" now that they are shifting to the WWE format. The big ones will likely deliver more payoff, but think the rest of the shows are going to slip into something a bit more like CotC.

Even the Clash of the Champions/In Your House shows felt more important than a lot of the B ppvs they put out now. I really want to like these shows, but it really feels like they're going "well, they're already subscribed to the Network, we already have their money. Whatever happens, happens!"

As you may have guessed, they're getting shit for the MH17 reference.

The WWE has gotten some media backlash off alluding to the MH17 disaster in Lana's promo last night at Battleground.

The company at this point has not responded to the publicity. There have been two prior incidents historically, and both went poorly for the company. One was involving Sgt. Slaughter, which led to slow ticket sales for a match with Hulk Hogan and plans for a show at the Los Angeles Coliseum having to be moved indoors. The second was with the Mohammad Hassan character (Mark Copani), and an angle shot on July 4th weekend where supposed terrorists choked out Undertaker with wire, taped on a Tuesday and there was a major tragedy on a Wednesday. While WWE did edit the angle off the U.K. broadcasts, where the incident was sensitive, they let it play in the U.S. and the result was a major backlash. WWE's broadcast partner at the time, UPN, refused to allow the Hassan character and the company had to blow him off with Undertaker ending the character at the next PPV, and Copani never worked again for the company. Even with all the publicity, the Undertaker vs. Hassan PPV drew poorly.

History has shown this type of publicity hurts fan ticket buying, or at least has in the past. As far as what happens next, that will likely depend on WWE's reaction tonight, and if the story becomes big enough to concern sponsors.

Some stories
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2699766/Blonde-WWE-star-slammed-using-MH17-tragedy-tasteless-storyline-grudge-match-Russian-American-wrestlers.html


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/early-lead/wp/2014/07/20/wwe-alludes-to-malaysian-airlines-filght-17-during-battleground-and-it-did-not-go-over-so-well/

http://nypost.com/2014/07/21/pro-wrestlers-stun-audience-with-tasteless-schtick-about-flight-mh17/


The Drudge Report has picked up the U.K. version of the story as well.

There is also an article on Deadspin.

This show was just kind of there. After a very hot start (meaning the actual PPV and not the forgettable Kickoff show) with that great Usos vs. Wyatts tag title match, things went downhill with the lackluster Divas title match.

Swagger vs. Rusev was actually very well done. Rusev & Lana are a hot act right now, and Swaggie's face turn has been going over surprisingly well. The finish allows this feud to keep going, without completely killing off the momentum of Swagger's recent turn.

Wyatt vs. Jericho hasn't been clicking at all. As much as it pains me to say it, Jericho looked blown up and quite rusty in the ring. Considering that they had a pretty good match in NXT last year, that has to be one of the main reasons why their match wasn't as good as it could've been.

The cancellation of Ambrose vs. Rollins sucked. However, they did just kind of throw the match on the card without the proper TV buildup (it was announced on WWE.com after last week's SmackDown), so I had a feeling something screwy was going to happen anyway.

The IC Title Battle Royal was fun. The finish sucked, not only because Miz, but also because that the "heel hides outside the ring" bit has been done to death. Also, it was really bad because Miz kept popping back in the ring and was constantly in plain sight of the camera as well when he was supposed to be hiding.

Main event was much better than I expected it to be. The finish was never in doubt because the main purpose of this show was to build towards SummerSlam.