Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
Five male and five female WWE Superstars will be competing in the Iron Survivor Challenge matches set to take place tomorrow night at NXT Deadline. It’s one thing to say who you think is winning, but it’s another to try to predict the points each person will be scoring.
Let’s see how well we can guess what WWE has in store!
My question for you today is “Rank the 5 men and 5 women from the Iron Survivor Challenge matches either in order from least to most likely to win, and/or guess how many points each of them is going to obtain?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
I’ll be giving 2 separate breakdowns for each match, as I don’t think WWE will book these matches to be awarding points based on hierarchy. After all, only one person can win, so even if the runner-up scores a ton of points, it still doesn’t matter. Sometimes, there’s a better story to be told for a bigger name to earn NO points and an underdog to earn the second-most amount of points, even if the underdog had the least overall likely chance of winning the match. With that in mind…
Men’s Iron Survivor Challenge Match: Eddy Thorpe vs. Ethan Page vs. Je’Von Evans vs. Nathan Frazer vs. Wes Lee
In terms of how likely they are to win, I’d rank them:
5) Eddy Thorpe – He’s most likely going to be pulled from the match entirely. If he were set to win, I don’t think they’d have gone with that angle of him being attacked.
4) Ethan Page – While a bigger name than everyone else, we’ve seen Page against Trick Williams far too many times. Page isn’t here to win this; he’s here to fill out the lineup with believable contenders, having just been the previous champion.
3) Nathan Frazer – Maybe there’s a story to be told about Frazer getting the singles title shot, but I think WWE will go in a different direction with that storyline. Not to spoil my predictions for tomorrow’s EWN QOTD, but I think Frazer is wrestling this match, coming up short, and he’ll be so beaten down that he and Axiom will lose the tag titles.
2) Je’Von Evans – Since the winner of this match will get a match at New Year’s Evil, I could see the logic in giving it to Evans. He wouldn’t make as much sense for a pay-per-view, but he could very easily get a random title shot against Trick, come up short, and start a feud with someone out of it. The trouble with that, though, is he’s already been in the Fatal 4-Way, so they’d just be revisiting this for no real reason other than to have him come up short again. I think he’ll end up doing a great job in the match, but falling short of the points total.
1) Wes Lee – Outside of Thorpe being replaced by someone like Oba Femi or Hikuleo, Lee getting a one-on-one with Williams seems like the most logical outcome in my mind. Lee has been around long enough that he’d be a believable contender, having had such a solid run with the North American Championship before. He’s a heel fans would be invested in, and it’s about time he steps it up to that top level.
My prediction as far as points go is Lee (4), Evans (3), Frazer (2), Page (1), Thorpe (0)
Women’s Iron Survivor Challenge Match: Giulia vs. Sol Ruca vs. Stephanie Vaquer vs. Wren Sinclair vs. Zaria
This one is so much harder to predict. Any one of these women could conceivably get that next title shot and it wouldn’t shock me. Sinclair would have, but since I’m already over the shock of her even getting into this match, now, I have to admit that WWE might want to do the “fell ass-backwards into a win” scenario again.
Still, I’m going with 5) Sinclair – Going with the comedic finish might not go over so well. The shock of that victory is already over. Everyone would know that Roxanne Perez would retain over Sinclair, so if she were to win this, it would downgrade the others just for a gag.
4) Giulia – I was so certain WWE would give her the title when she had her match with Perez. Since then, she’s taken a step back as one of three (four if you count Jordynne Grace) rather than the standout like she would have been had Vaquer and Zaria not shown up. Since the other two haven’t had title shots yet, I don’t think Giulia will be winning this just to fail twice.
3) Zaria – If Zaria gets a one-on-one with Perez and doesn’t destroy her, that will hurt Zaria’s image. I do think she’ll be in contention for the title, but I think this is a perfect match for her to lose without actually losing anything, as she might go the whole match without getting pinned a single time, but just fail to score enough points to beat out some others.
2) Stephanie Vaquer – Curiously, why have they not just done this match already? Is it because they wanted to wait, or is it because they didn’t want to do the same thing as they did with Giulia, and have her fail to win the title? At any point, WWE could just pull the trigger, put Vaquer in the ring with Perez, have the title change, and it wouldn’t shock me. But for now, especially if the winner of this match will also get their opportunity at New Year’s Evil (as far as I’m aware, that’s not yet confirmed), then I think Vaquer still has to wait until a multi-woman setup or at least a pay-per-view, be it Vengeance Day (if they do that February 15th) or Roadblock or whatever they designate.
1) Sol Ruca – Sometimes, the simplest answer is the way to go. Ruca hasn’t had her title opportunity yet. She’s just as worthy of a match as the others and has been around longer. Ruca is also not treated as being as much of a featured attraction as the Giulia/Vaquer/Zaria triumvirate, so she’s better off having the television match where Perez can retain. WWE also went out of their way to have Ruca and Perez have that one segment on the beach, which could spell out that they plan on having them feud more, along with how Ruca was the first to come out to confront Roxanne at the end of this week’s episode of NXT.
When it comes to the points, I’m going Ruca (3), Zaria (2), Giulia (2), Vaquer (2), Sinclair (0)
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!
