INQUISITR.COM / Sports

Seth Rollins Favored To Defeat Finn Balor At ‘SummerSlam’

By Aaron Sass
Published on: 12:48 PST, Aug 9, 2016

Former NXT champion Finn Balor is set to make his WWE pay-per-view debut at SummerSlam on August 21, where he’ll be taking on Seth Rollins to decide who will be the first ever WWE Universal Champion. So far, WWE has been doing a great job with Balor, and there have even been reports that the company is considering making him the face of Monday Night Raw. But, according to the early odds, he won’t be winning the WWE Universal Championship next Sunday night.

The odds, which were recently released by 5 Dimes Sportsbook, have Rollins listed as a slight favorite over the ex-NXT champ. You can check 5 Dimes‘ odds for all the big matches at SummerSlam below.

  • Brock Lesnar [-320] vs. Randy Orton [+240]
  • Finn Balor [+155] vs. Seth Rollins [-195] [WWE Universal Championship]
  • Dean Ambrose [-490] vs. Dolph Ziggler [+330] [WWE World Heavyweight Championship]
  • Sasha Banks [-1050] vs. Charlotte [+550] [WWE Women’s Championship]

It’s expected that Brock Lesnar will challenge the winner of the Balor vs. Rollins match at the Royal Rumble in January, so whoever becomes the Universal Champion will likely hold onto the title for quite a while. Of course, Lesnar and Rollins have already wrestled, and it was pretty much a complete squash match before The Undertaker appeared, which caused Lesnar to not regain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

Balor and Lesnar have never been in the ring together, and a match between the two would be somewhat of a dream match. But, according to the odds, it doesn’t look like WWE is going in that direction, and it’s unclear what they’ll do with Balor after SummerSlam if he doesn’t win the Universal Championship.

The current odds are subject to change however, and they could shift drastically on the weekend of the show. In fact, they almost always do change on the weekend of the show, so there’s a chance that Balor could end up as the favorite going into SummerSlam.

WWE has been trying to find a replacement for John Cena as the company’s new top babyface. Of course, they’ve been trying to make Roman Reigns that guy for the better part of the last two years, but they haven’t quite been able to figure out how to get the fans to accept him in that spot, and they’re hoping that the fans will begin to accept him now that he’s out of the main event picture.

As previously mentioned, some are hoping that Balor ends up replacing Roman Reigns as Vince McMahon’s pick to be the new face of the company; however, he has a few things going against him, one of which is that he’s small by WWE’s standards, and historically, Vince McMahon doesn’t like to have a small guy be the face of the company.

During a recent podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair said that he doesn’t think Balor could be the top man in WWE because of his size. He also said that he thought Roman Reigns should be in the Universal Title match at SummerSlam instead of Balor.

“I think Finn Bálor is great too. I just think you’ve got a legitimate heavyweight in Seth Rollins, a legitimate heavyweight in Roman Reigns, and I don’t think we’ll ever see the day, and I could be totally wrong, that a cruiserweight will ever main event a WrestleMania.”

Finn Balor’s “Demon” persona will be making its debut at SummerSlam, and WWE has done a great job at hyping it up as something epic. Of course, it will lose its luster if Balor loses on August 21, which is why most are predicting that the former NXT champ and New Japan star will become the very first WWE Universal Champion at WWE’s biggest event of the summer.

[Image via WWE]

Share this article: Seth Rollins Favored To Defeat Finn Balor At ‘SummerSlam’
News wrestling Sports brock lesnar summerslam NXT roman reigns Finn Balor Vince McMahon John Cena Ric Flair
More from Inquisitr