Return Planned for Raw, NXT Tag Title Match, Royal Rumble #30

WWE’s TLC pay-per-view will be taking place this Sunday night, and one of the featured matches on the show will be Braun Strowman vs. Baron Corbin. If Strowman ends up winning the match, he will earn a Universal Championship match against Brock Lesnar, and Corbin will no longer have any authoritative power on Raw. However, if Corbin gets the victory, he will become the permanent General Manager of the Raw brand. Interestingly enough, PWInsider says that WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle will appearing on Raw the night after TLC. Angle has not appeared on the show ever since he tapped out to Drew McIntyre back in November. Given the power struggle that has transpired between Angle and Corbin this year, this supposed return could signal that Baron may be losing at TLC.
The Undisputed Era is still going strong as the NXT Tag Team Champions, and the group has run through just about all of the teams on NXT. However, the faction has not put their titles on the line against the hard-hitting fan-favorite team known as Heavy Macinery. NXT General Manager William Regal announced yesterday that Otis Dozovic and Tucker Knight will take on Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong for the NXT Tag Team Championships very soon. Heavy Machinery has been hungry for a shot at the titles lately, and both teams have been calling each other out on NXT television for weeks now. William Regal says that the title match will be going down in two weeks on the December 26th edition of NXT.

The Undisputed ERA’s @KORcombat and @roderickstrong will defend the NXT Tag Team Titles against Heavy Machinery @TuckerKnightWWE and @WWEDozovic in TWO WEEKS!
— William Regal (@RealKingRegal) December 13, 2018
As seen during this week’s season 2 finale of the Mixed Match Challenge, Mahalicia (Alicia Fox & Jinder Mahal) and The Fabulous Truth (R-Truth & Carmella) advanced to the finals of the tournament. These finals will be taking place during WWE’s TLC pay-per-view this Sunday night, and the winning team will earn the 30th spot in their respective Royal Rumble matches this January. Fans have pointed out that both it was a bit surprising to see both of these unlikely teams make it to the end of the tournament, but the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer speculates that WWE may have a plan. Meltzer believes that there will be a swerve of some sort that will end up preventing either R-Truth or Jinder Mahal from entering the Royal Rumble last.