Hell in a Cell Predictions

WWE.com

One of the premiere baseball writers of my generation and fellow New Englander Buster Olney always mocks the fact that, every spring, he is asked to make his predictions for the playoff and World Series teams for the following October.   Being asked to project 6+ months ahead when there are so many variables that can change the fate of a franchise is ludicrous.  For proof, go back and look at how many “experts” accurately predicted a Giants / Royals World Series.  I imagine it’s zero, and that includes those writers who live in either San Francisco or Kansas City.

While we have similar problems in the sport of wrestling (Come on WWE and Kurt Angle, I still believe you can make my ‘Mania 31 main event dreams come true!), we have a much easier time when it comes to making PPV predictions.  To that end, it’s time to gaze 50 or so hours into the future and make my guesses as to the winners and losers for Sunday’s Hell in a Cell extravaganza.  Just for fun, I’ll also add who I believe SHOULD win (which often is different from who I predict WILL), and throw in my assumed match order for good measure.

In fact, let’s go even further, and start with the…

Pre-Show

The Teacher's Lounge: Why the best match of Sunday's PPV WON'T be in a Cell.

Quickly, without thinking, who is the best wrestler in WWE?

Right off the top of your head, who you got?

Time is ticking away, hurry up!  Who is it?

. . .

You picked Ziggler or Cesaro, didn’t you?  I’m willing to bet most of you did.  Oh sure, some of you MAY have said Seth Rollins. . . I bet even a small few of you picked Randy Orton.  And we all know that one guy who said “John Cena”, just to be a jackass…

But if we picked a random sampling of 100 fans and asked them who the best wrestler was - not their favorite, per se, but just the most talented between the ropes, Dolph Ziggler or Antonio Cesaro would be the top names mentioned.

Now, while I could spend quite a few lines bemoaning the lack of solid direction or push that Cesaro, Ziggler or the IC belt itself has received over the last 12 months, this is not what this column is about.  Being The Teacher, I’m all about #PromotingPositivity, so if you don’t mind, I’m about to make a very bold statement of optimism.

Ziggler and Cesaro are going to steal the show this Sunday.

Rapid Reflections (a working title) - Thoughts on the week in wrestling.

Ahhh. . .  Nothing like a random stomach virus mixed with a head cold, resulting in a 13 hour sleep session Friday night to totally screw up your grand blogging plans for the weekend.  However, we here at Number Two Contenders are not long swayed.  Fresh off our “restful” few days away from long-form wrestling writing, let’s ease back in with a new segment, in which we take a look at some of the major stories from this world we love so much and break them down in short, poorly thought out paragraphs.

But before we start, a “quick” aside. . .  As previously mentioned, I’m not just called The Teacher; I play one in real life.  In my class last week I was doing an activity with the youngsters I have been charged with educating.  In said activity, I wrote a paragraph with no capital letters or end punctuation on the board and they had to tell me where to put said grammatical notations.

So I wrote, I displayed, I read it to them, and yet they were finding it difficult to do as I had asked.  As I pondered why, a thought overtook me.

“I write ridiculously long sentences.”

Seriously, go look at that first paragraph I just wrote.  Three sentences, but two of them are mighty lengthy.  In fact, one might easily find a home inside a Faulkner novel.  (Note: I have no idea what Faulkner is credited with penning, except that he wrote very long sentences.)

Anyway, the next day I retaught the lesson with shorter sentences and lo, the children had a much easier time with their task.

Why do I mention this, dear readers?  Well, I’m curious if you have the same troubles or frustrations that my 7 year olds do.  Dost my sentences of depth dismay ye?  Let me know.

Alright, on to the rapid reflections. . . Hey, that’s a good title. . . I might stick with that.