Rumored Card for WWE Great Balls of Fire

Coming out of Monday’s episode of RAW, the following matches are expected to take place at the upcoming WWE Great Balls of Fire event:

WWE Universal Championship
Samoa Joe vs. Brock Lesnar

Ambulance Match
Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns

WWE Intercontinental Championship
The Miz vs. Dean Ambrose

WWE Tag Team Championship
The Hardy Boyz vs. Cesaro & Sheamus

WWE Cruiserweight Championship
T0zawa vs. Neville

Finn Balor vs. The Drifter

R-Truth vs. Goldust

In regards to the women’s match on the card, Dave Meltzer speculates that it will probably be another multi-persons match, presumably a three-on-three match.

WWE Great Balls of Fire takes place on July 9th. As always, we will be providing live play-by-play coverage of the event.

Carmella Reacts to Her Controversial Win at Money in the Bank

As seen at tonight’s Money in the Bank event, James Ellsworth injected himself into the first-ever Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match and captured the briefcase only to give it to Carmella. There was tons of backlash on social media regarding the finish to the match.

Carmella took to Twitter and responded to her victory with the following remarks:

Paige Reportedly Returning “Soon”

As previously noted, Paige mentioned on Instagram this week that she was going in for her last set of X-Rays and will hopefully be making a comeback soon. Later in that same day, she started posting photos of herself back at the gym training, indicating that the doctor possibly had some good news for her.

When asked about her return to Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer on Twitter, he replied in short fashion, “soon.”

With rumors of a potential sixth spot open in the Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder match tonight, there is always the possibility that “soon” could be earlier than you think.

Former WWE Diva Coming Out of Retirement for Mae Young Classic?

It looks like a former WWE Diva may be coming out of retirement for the upcoming Mae Young Women’s tournament.

Pro Wrestling Sheet reports that the company has been in talks with Serena Deeb about being part of the upcoming Mae Young Classic tournament. For those that don’t remember, Deeb was part of CM Punk’s Straight Edge Society group in 2009-2010. She retired from the ring back in 2015.

Possible Change to the Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

There may be plans to add a six person into the Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match at Sunday’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view event.

The official Twitter account posted a tweet proclaiming that six women will be vying for the briefcase at Sunday’s event. This may have been a blunder made by the social media team for WWE but they’ve accidentally given away things in the past by mistake.

While all the females are already in action at Sunday’s event, there is the possibility that they could bring someone up from NXT. Dave Meltzer hinted the possibility of someone being called up on a previous installment of Wrestling Observer Live but that was prior to WWE’s official announcement of the match.

Guess we will find out on Sunday… Hit up the comment section below and sound off on who you would like to see injected into the match.

New Match Added to Money in the Bank

WWE has announced that Zack Ryder will team with Mojo Rawley to take on Primo and Epico at Sunday’s Money in the Bank event in the kickoff pre-show. Here is the updated card:

WWE Title match
Jinder Mahal (c) (with The Singh Brothers) vs. Randy Orton

MITB ladder match
Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles vs. Baron Corbin vs. Sami Zayn vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Smackdown tag team titles match 
The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) (c) vs. The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston, and/or Xavier Woods)

Women’s MITB ladder match 
Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Natalya vs. Tamina vs. Carmella (with James Ellsworth)

Smackdown Women’s title match 
Naomi (c) vs. Lana

Kickoff match 
Zack Ryder and Mojo Rawley vs. Primo and Epico

Ranking the Candidates for the Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

To date, the WWE has held 17 Money in the Bank matchups, with 15 of the cash ins being successful and leading to major title reigns. This Sunday night the WWE will host its 18th Money in the Bank Ladder match and its first ever Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match as well.

The Women’s Revolution is at an all time high in the WWE right now and the decision to host the first ever female Money in the Bank ladder match is a massive one by the WWE.

The five women involved will all be hoping to deliver a belter of a match, cementing this match as just as must see as the men’s one. But who will walk out on Sunday as the first ever ‘Mrs. Money in the Bank’? Let’s take a look through each opponent and rank their chances of winning from worst to best.

Favorites to Win at Sunday’s Money in the Bank Event

Here are the updated Betting Odds for Sunday’s Money in the Bank event, courtesy of Best Wrestling:
(Note: The lower the number, the higher the chances of winner are)

WWE Money in the Bank Match
* Baron Corbin -190
* Sami Zayn +650
* Kevin Owens +650
* AJ Styles +750
* Shinsuke Nakamura +450
* Dolph Ziggler +1500

WWE Women’s Money in the Bank Match
* Carmella -145
* Becky Lynch +350
* Natalya +365
* Charlotte Flair +950
* Tamina +2800

WWE Championship Match
* Jinder Mahal(c) -250 vs. Randy Orton +175

WWE Smackdown Women’s Championship Match
* Naomi(c) -500 vs. Lana +300

WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship
* The Usos(c) -120 vs. The New Day -120

Length of Men’s MitB Match
* Under 24 Minutes -137
* 24 Minutes or More -110

Length of Women’s MitB Match
* Under 20 Minutes -137
* 20 Minutes or More -110

Length of WWE Championship Match
* Under 18 Minutes -120
* 18 Minutes or More -120

MitB Men’s Special Bets
* Rusev to Appear Ringside During the Match +400
* Briefcase to be Cashed in the Night of MitB +500

MitB Women’s Special Bets
* James Ellsworth to be Ejected from Ringside +110
* Nikki Bella to Appear at Ringside +300
* Briefcase to be Cashed in at Event +500

The Taz Show Recap – Calling Live Matches Vs. Taped, Asuka Needs A Challenge, Does Lana Deserve A Title Shot? More!

Blocks 1 & 2:

A listener calls into the show and presents an idea he has for the Mae Young Classic. He says that Asuka has been complaining about a lack of competition in NXT as of late, so perhaps she should be entered into the upcoming women’s tournament where she’d have to defend her NXT Women’s Title in every match.

Taz says thats a cool, unique idea, but WWE wouldn’t really be able to explain giving out multiple Title opportunities to women who didn’t earn it. Taz admits that WWE just did this by giving Lana a Title opportunity against Naomi at Money in the Bank, so perhaps they don’t worry about those types of details as much as we’d think.

Another listener calls into the show and asks Taz what your main goal should be as a colour commentator for a wrestling company. Taz says that first and foremost, you should never worry about getting yourself over. Your talking points should always focus on the story that the talents are telling in the ring, and your goal is to do everything you can to get those talents over with the audience.

Taz points out that a lot of commentators seem interested in getting themselves over more than the talents in the ring, and that should never be the case. He adds that colour commentators such as JBL or Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler can get away with that to a degree because they both had lengthy, successful in-ring careers before transitioning to the announce booth.

Jim Ross Reacts to Lana’s Title Shot

Jim Ross published a new blog entry on JrsBarBq.com. Here are a couple of highlights:

WWE’s booking of Jinder Mahal: “I’m a fan of the decision to make Jinder Mahal the WWE Champ, but I feel that his random utilization of his Singh sidekicks might be overdone. Nonetheless, the former Bollywood Boys take a helluva, ass whipping. Enjoying the villains getting success, which generally adds to the build of most storylines within the genre. If I were to err in booking, and I have plenty of times, I’d suggest erring on the side of antagonist angst more often than not. ‘Heat’ is good.”

Lana’s SmackDown Women’s Title shot: “Lana ‘earning’ a Women’s Tile match? Hmm….the pressure is on for her to deliver in front of a somewhat unforgiving and discerning fan base.”

Upcoming female MITB Ladder Match: “Arguably, today I’m more excited to see the women’s [MITB] bout than the men’s in a few weeks, essentially because of the unique nature of this match being the first ever Women’s MITB match ever. I see these athletic women perceiving this booking as very personal and one can only hope that they are discerning about whey they want to do in this match and remember that their safety should never be compromised, which is largely up to the talents in the match. The Gents in the their TLC bout better lace them up tight or they could be outperformed by the women here.”

You check out the full entry at this link here.

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Smackdown Analysis, Burying Jinder Mahal, Lesnar Turning on Heyman? More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.

He opens today’s show by saying that Smackdown Live simply isn’t for him. He has tried to review that show for three straight weeks now and it has been nothing more than six hours of wasted time. Next week Russo is going to switch back to watching and reviewing RAW because Smackdown Live just isn’t entertaining him.

Russo says that Smackdown Live is a ‘cookie cutter’ show. Every week it’s the exact same thing, and viewers are never given fresh looks or different programming. He points out that the opening segment with all the women in the ring was the exact same segment we saw with the men only two weeks ago.

He says that WWE has been hyping and promoting Lana’s debut for weeks, and when she finally came out the entire announce team no-sold it. He adds that they totally buried Lana by not selling her entrance, and it’s almost like they did it on purpose because it was that bad. He says that Tom Phillips is horrible because if he doesn’t sell something, the audience at home will never look at it as important.

Speculation on Lana Competing on SmackDown Live Before MITB

WWE confirmed on their website that Lana will not be competing before the Money in the Bank event in her match against Naomi for the SmackDown Women’s Championship. There was speculation online this week in regards to her facing in a match before hand but that obviously won’t be happening.

WWE wrote the following, confirming that her match at MITB will be her first official match on the SmackDown Live brand:

“At SmackDown LIVE’s WWE Money in the Bank pay-per-view, Lana will make her blue brand in-ring debut when she challenges Naomi for the SmackDown Women’s Championship in a match that was made following the turbulent events of the June 6 edition of SmackDown LIVE.”