Following a packed weekend in Saudi Arabia, WWE was right back at it, building the cards to their next big weekend of show’s, July’s Saturday Night’s Main Event/Evolution II doubleheader on July 12 and 13 respectively. With just under two weeks until these shows and not much having been announced prior to Night of Champions, WWE wasted no time during its Raw/SmackDown double taping in starting to build out these upcoming WWE cards.
Saturday Night’s Main Event Card
- World Heavyweight Championship: Gunther vs Goldberg
- Seth Rollins vs LA Knight
- Randy Orton vs Drew McIntyre
Going into the final WWE card of June, the only match announced for July’s Saturday Night’s Main Event was that Goldberg would be challenging Gunther for the World Heavyweight Championship in what will be the former champ’s retirement match. WWE continued to build to that match on Monday when Gunther came out to address a hype video package of Goldberg’s streak that played earlier in the night. Gunther said the video package was like much of Goldberg’s matches, over in under three minutes. Gunther said he could beat Goldberg in three minutes but he didn’t want to. He wanted to outclass, outwrestle, and embarrass Goldberg in front of his friends and family in Atlanta. Ouch.
As Gunther posed the question of who would be next for him after he dispatched Goldberg on the SNME WWE card, he was met in the ring by Seth Rollins. Rollins reminded Gunther that his Money in the Bank briefcase was an all-out assault on both champions before CM Punk arrived causing the Visionary to retreat. As Rollins taunted Punk, he was met by LA Knight and the two brawled through the crowd and into the concourse. Turns out this was a precursor to set up Saturday Night’s Main Event second announced match, Rollins vs Knight.
Credit: WWE
Rumored Matches
- Intercontinental Championship: Dominik Mysterio vs AJ Styles – Mysterio showed Styles a doctor’s note saying he wasn’t yet cleared to give him his title match but could that change in two weeks time?
WWE Evolution II Card
- NXT Women’s Championship: Jacy Jayne vs Jordynne Grace
- Raw Women’s Championship: IYO SKY vs Rhea Ripley
- SmackDown Women’s Championship: Tiffany Stratton vs Trish Stratus
- Women’s Tag Team Championship: Raquel Rodriguez/Roxanne Perez vs Charlotte Flair/Alexa Bliss vs mystery team from Raw vs mystery team from NXT
- Women’s Battle Royal: winner receives world title match at Clash in Paris
Rumored Matches
- Women’s Intercontinental Championship: Becky Lynch vs Lyra Valkyria vs Bayley – Bayley and Valkyria drew in a match to determine the #1 contender for the IC title, which seemingly means, we’re headed to a triple threat.
Much like Saturday Night’s Main Event, there really hadn’t been much movement on the Evolution II card save for the NXT Women’s title match and a few teases in recent weeks. That all changed during the double taping as WWE announced four matches for the all-women’s PLE. It started in the opening moments of Raw as Rhea Ripley kicked off the show only to be interrupted by IYO SKY. Adam Pearce had granted SKY champion’s advantage letting her choose her opponent and SKY chose Ripley. SKY said she wanted to compete against the best and believed that to be Ripley. Respect was exchanged between the two competitors as Ripley told SKY whatever happens at Evolution II, she asked for it.
Turns out champion’s advantage was the theme of the evening as Nick Aldis had granted Tiffany Stratton the same. And much as the rumors heading into the night had suggested, Stratton challenged WWE legend Trish Stratus to a one-on-one match following their tag team victory at Elimination Chamber. Should Stratus win, she’ll become an eight-time women’s champion.
Credit: WWE
Pearce and Aldis weren’t done however as the two teamed on an announcement of a battle royal with the winner receiving a title shot at Clash in Paris and a women’s tag team match involving all four brands as it was made official on Raw that Roxanne Perez will be taking Liv Morgan’s spot as champ alongside Raquel Rodriguez. On SmackDown, the two learned of one of their challengers as the unlikely duo of Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss defeated the Secret Hervice and B-Fab and Michin to be the SmackDown representative in the match. Tuesday will likely see the NXT representative chosen with the final spot being determined on next Monday’s Raw.
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