Booking Battleground

The beast is back. The champ is in trouble.

WWE's next pay-per-view will give wrestling fans a glimpse at the possible SummerSlam card, and with Battleground being the site of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship bout between Brock Lesnar and the champ, Seth Rollins, the main event of the biggest wrestling show of the summer hangs on the outcome of the match. So how will Battleground shape SummerSlam's main event? Allow me to explain.

As we all know, Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank contract at Wrestlemania 31 and turned the main event title bout between Roman Reigns and Lesnar into a triple threat match before pinning Reigns and walking out as the new champion. The following night on Raw, Lesnar went on a rampage and destroyed everybody in his path, which resulted in him being "suspended" by WWE. Since then, the arrogance of Rollins has escalated, and he has stepped on the toes of the Authority multiple times. As a result, they brought back Lesnar and named him as the number one contender for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

I believe that Lesnar will defeat Rollins and regain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. This will allow for WWE to set up two intriguing storylines that could lead to a SummerSlam pay-per-view with two main events: Rollins vs. Triple H and Reigns vs. Lesnar.

Let’s start off with why I think Rollins vs. Triple H will happen. In the summer of 2014, Triple H picked Rollins to be his protégé and the former member of the Shield has become WWE’s top heel. He became arrogant, won matches in dirty ways, and has managed to squirm his way out of big title defenses with his hands still on WWE’s biggest prize. He has essentially become very similar to the Game and in the Authority, there can only be one Triple H. Following his defeat to Lesnar at Battleground, the Authority, tired of Rollins’ attitude and inability to retain his title without their help, will turn on Rollins, resulting in a SummerSlam bout between the Cerebral Assassin and his former student.

Now let’s move on to why I think Reigns and Lesnar will take place at SummerSlam. At the Royal Rumble, Reigns won the Royal Rumble match and earned a main event title shot at Wrestlemania 31 against Lesnar. Fan reception to this booking decision was horrible as Reigns was booed every week leading up to Wrestlemania. This poor reaction is perhaps what prompted WWE to have Rollins cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase at Wrestlemania and steal the title from Reigns and Lesnar. Since then, Reigns has been garnering better reactions from the crowd and all the boos have seemingly vanished. A combination of having Reigns constantly team up with the insanely over with the crowd Dean Ambrose and WWE gradually feeding Reigns to the crowd instead of forcing him down their throats has allowed Reigns to finally be put in a position to be crowned champion without receiving a terrible reaction. This allows WWE to stage a Wrestlemania rematch between Reigns and Lesnar in the main event of their second biggest event of the year. I think Reigns will then defeat Lesnar and win the title only to suffer a loss to the new Mr. Money in the Bank, Sheamus. This allows Lesnar to stay off TV until Wrestlemania season, and it keeps Reigns busy as he once again tries to capture the WWE Championship.

That is how I think Battleground will shape SummerSlam 2015. It should be an entertaining main event between Lesnar and Rollins and knowing how WWE likes to do things, expect a few surprises throughout the match. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for my “Battleground 2015 Thoughts” video.