WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross has posted a new blog entry over at his website where he gives his thoughts on this weekend’s WWE events.
With NXT Takeover: Brooklyn II taking place this Saturday night on the WWE Network, Ross believes that the main event NXT Title match between current champion Samoa Joe and challenger Shinsuke Nakamura is the most anticipated main event of the weekend.
“Saturday night in Brooklyn at the Barclay Center WWE brings NXT to town for Take Over headlined by, arguably, the most anticipated main event of the weekend when Samoa Joe faces Shinsuke Nakamura on the WWE Network. I’ve been waiting on this particular booking for a while now and have high expectations for it. Both Joe and Nakamura are potential Wrestlemania main eventers in my eyes.”
“At no time this weekend in all the wrestling product that you might watch will you see a roster of more passionate and hungry talents as Saturday night with the NXT team. If I were to have my choice of calling matches for a ‘one off’ with WWE again, aside of Wrestlemania of course, I’d likely pick NXT as my destination.”
For the second year in a row, WWE has made an effort to make the SummerSlam PPV event the second biggest event of the year and this card has some big matches featured. Ross gave his predictions for the top three matches on this card. Dean Ambrose defending the WWE Title against Dolph Ziggler, Finn Balor vs. Seth Rollins for the Universal Title and Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Orton in a singles match. Ross believes that Lesnar and Orton should close the show as it has been the most hyped match on the card.
“Summer Slam has a huge card that seemingly will be a super-sized production of four hours or so one has to assume. There are too many advertised bouts for this show to be contained in a three hour window and still do all the matches justice.”
“I see Dean Ambrose likely retaining the WWE title against Dolph Ziggler but not before Ziggler pushes Ambrose to Dean’s best match thus far in WWE. This match could go a long way to remove the less than ideal taste in the mouths of many after Ambrose’s sit down with Steve Austin after RAW last week. Ambrose did not have an ideal night with Stone Cold but can right any perceived wrongs by tearing the house down Sunday night. For the record, anyone can have an off night as I’ve had an abundance of them in my career.”
“The Seth Rollins vs Finn Balor bout for the first ever Universal title could be the show stealer on Sunday as both men have excellent skill sets, instincts and fundamental soundness. I see Rollins retaining but Balor having an eye-opening performance in a losing effort and, yes, that is possible. I hope that we see some established ‘villain’ traits from Rollins to help him facilitate where WWE seemingly wants him to travel. If I was starting a wrestling territory I’d be ecstatic to have both Balor and Rollins on my roster.”
“I’d close Summer Slam with Lesnar vs Orton as it features a star from both the RAW and Smackdown Live brands in a extremely high profile bout. I figure that Brock wins this one but if Randy wins with a RKO I won’t be shocked but admittedly will be surprised. Some can make an argument that Orton should win because he’s a full-time talent while Lesnar is not and I won’t debate that point but this card is loaded with matches that could go either way and as the old adage goes there are multiple ways to do something right and that prevails up and down this card IMO.”
Ross also talked about ROH and more. You can read the entire blog here. In you haven’t, you can listen to the latest episode of the Ross Report here: