This week’s Monday Night Raw is taping over in Manchester, UK, and the spoilers are already landing online. It was expected that the WWE World Heavyweight Title tournament would begin this week after Seth Rollins’ injury, and it officially has. Raw isn’t scheduled to air in the United States until Monday evening, but the tournament bracket and first round matches have already been revealed.
If you don’t want to be spoiled or don’t want to know what’s going on before Monday Night Raw airs this evening, then stop reading now.
As reported by WrestleZone , Triple H starts off Raw by telling the crowd about Seth Rollins’ knee injury and how the WWE Title had to be vacated. The tournament has been set up to crown a new champion at Survivor Series , and then Triple H calls out Roman Reigns.
He asks Reigns to join The Authority and be his “new man,” but Reigns declines. That sets up the very first opening round match of the WWE Title tournament as Triple H puts Reigns in a match with Big Show.
Tonight’s #Raw tournament bracket #WWEmanchester contains spoilers pic.twitter.com/lv37a8HEao
— Faryad (@bookert2003) November 9, 2015
Roman Reigns ended up winning his match so he has now advanced onto the second round. Here are the other opening round matches.
- Cesaro vs. Sheamus
- Alberto Del Rio vs. Stardust
- Kalisto vs. Ryback
- Titus O’Neil vs. Kevin Owens
- Neville vs. King Barrett
- Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz
- Dean Ambrose vs. Tyler Breeze
First round matches are continuing on Raw and expected to also take place on this week’s SmackDown which will be taped on Tuesday and air on Thursday. Next week will probably see the second round matches take place with the semifinals and final match expected to happen at Survivor Series .
WrestleZone is continuing to update their spoilers for Raw which does include other matches happening. As of this writing, Kevin Owens has defeated Titus O’Neil to advance to the second round of the WWE Title tournament.
As everyone knows by now, Roman Reigns was set to take on Seth Rollins at Survivor Series in two weeks for the WWE Title. Rollins seriously injured his knee and will be out 6-9 months which means he had to vacate the title.
Looking at the brackets, things are rather interesting as it is kind of easy to determine what the results of some of the opening round matches may be. Then again, WWE could always do the unexpected and swerve everyone.
For instance, one may think that Dean Ambrose would defeat Tyler Breeze and make his way through every round to the final. This could set up a final match between the former brothers in The Shield and light the way for the long rumored Dean Ambrose heel turn .
Then again, the feud has been building between Ziggler and Breeze. The way the WWE Title tournament bracket is set up, those two could meet in the second round with wins over The Miz and Ambrose respectively.
UPDATE : Ziggler defeated The Miz to advance in the tournament. Alberto Del Rio will be facing off with Stardust on SmackDown this week. Cesaro defeated Sheamus to advance in the tournament. Dean Ambrose defeated Tyler Breeze to advance as well.
A lot of theories will be thrown out the window shortly as Monday Night Raw is still going on over in the UK and the spoilers keep trickling out. Currently, The Miz and Dolph Ziggler are having their match to see who advances to the next round.
Seth Rollins’ injury couldn’t happen at a worse time for WWE as a number of other injuries to main event stars just happened as well. Also, other stars such as John Cena and Brock Lesnar are taking time away so they’re off television as well.
Either way, the WWE World Title tournament has officially started with the release of the bracket and first round matches taking place on Monday Night Raw . Spoilers will have everything available by the time it airs in the U.S. tonight, but who will be the next champion?
[Images via WWE]