Alex MacQuoid
Night of Champions 2026 arrives from Riyadh on June 27 with six matches, three championships at stake, and two tournament finals that carry guaranteed world title shots into SummerSlam. The full match card is locked, the betting lines are live, and the results on Saturday will dictate the shape of the entire summer. Below are the Tips.GG predictions for every bout, grounded in storyline trajectory, recent TV developments, and the latest available odds.
Two tournament finals with SummerSlam title shots attached. A Triple Threat for the Undisputed WWE Championship that the go-home SmackDown turned into a brawl involving half the roster. A steel cage that WWE held back from WrestleMania because the feud was too big to rush. And buried underneath all of that, a connecting thread between the King of the Ring result and the cage match that most people are not talking about yet. We will get to that.
Betting lines referenced throughout come courtesy of BetOnline (updated June 24, via F4WOnline). Odds are converted to decimal format. As with any entertainment betting market, lines reflect anticipated storyline direction rather than competitive uncertainty, so reading the booking tea leaves matters more than crunching raw numbers.
Iyo Sky vs Liv Morgan: Queen of the Ring Tournament Final
Odds: Iyo Sky 1.11 | Liv Morgan 4.50
The line is this lopsided for a reason, and that reason is The Judgment Day disintegrating in real time. Dominik Mysterio spent the June 22 Raw visibly pulling away from Morgan, removing her hand from his shoulder when cameras cut to the wide shot. Finn Balor has distanced himself from the core group entirely. Roxanne Perez has been fighting backstage with JD McDonagh. What was once Liv Morgan’s private enforcement squad is fracturing into a situation where every member is looking out for themselves, and according to the New York Post, the faction is officially on the road to its final dissolution.
Stephanie Vaquer operates as a separate pressure point. On Raw, Vaquer has been systematically targeting Raquel Rodriguez, Morgan’s last line of physical defence. A six-woman tag earlier this month (Morgan, Roxanne, and Raquel against Ripley, Vaquer, and Iyo) saw Vaquer go directly at Rodriguez, stripping away Morgan’s protection before the tournament final even begins. By Saturday, Liv may walk into the ring without anyone willing to take a bullet for her.
For Iyo this goes beyond a tournament. Morgan destroyed Damage CTRL last year, and Sky has been saying as much in promos, reminding audiences in Japanese with subtitles that this is a reckoning for her own legacy. That personal edge, combined with a collapsing Judgment Day and a Vaquer-weakened support system, creates a situation where the in-ring outcome feels almost secondary to the faction drama erupting around it.
The most likely finish involves the Judgment Day falling apart during the match itself: Dominik hesitating, refusing to intervene, or actively walking away. Iyo capitalises. Morgan loses her crown, her faction, and her aura of invincibility in one night. And the Queen of the Ring stipulation does the rest: the winner earns a guaranteed world title shot at SummerSlam. Iyo will not challenge her close ally Rhea Ripley, which means the crown points her directly back at Morgan and the Women’s World Championship. Saturday’s loss becomes the setup for a rematch where the real prize is on the line.
Predicted Winner: Iyo Sky
Trick Williams (c) vs Ricky Saints: United States Championship
Odds: Trick Williams 1.03 | Ricky Saints 9.50
The widest line on the entire card. Saints earned his shot by beating Carmelo Hayes on SmackDown through an exposed-turnbuckle spot, and his heel work over the past month has pulled genuine reactions from crowds that were lukewarm on him not long ago. The go-home face-to-face in London delivered a small but telling moment: Hayes’ logo flashed on the Titantron mid-segment, Trick turned to look, and Saints cracked him with a dropkick in the corner, posing with the US title. Saints is not afraid, Hayes is playing his own game from the shadows, and Williams has more than one problem to manage.
None of that changes the outcome. Williams is too popular, too central to SmackDown’s identity, and too early in his reign to be dropping the belt at a bridge show. The real story is what happens around the result: whether Carmelo Hayes makes his presence felt and whether the Joe Hendry thread, which started with a parking lot attack on Saints in a social media exclusive, bleeds onto the PLE broadcast. The destination is a triple threat at SummerSlam, and Saturday is a stop along the way.
Predicted Winner: Trick Williams
Tiffany Stratton (c) vs Jade Cargill: Women’s United States Championship
Odds: Jade Cargill 1.77 | Tiffany Stratton 1.91
The closest women’s line on the card, and the one where our pick goes against the betting favourite. This is the first time the Women’s United States Championship has ever been defended on a PLE, a milestone that speaks both to how neglected this title has been and to how much star power it takes to get it onto a major show.
The case for Jade is familiar by now. Cargill vs Charlotte Flair has been teased for months, the attack Jade laid on Flair before the Queen of the Ring semi-finals was a signpost, and SummerSlam is the logical stage. On SmackDown, Jade has formed an alliance with Michin and B-Fab that has gradually stripped Stratton of any numerical advantage. There was a sequence on the June 19 episode where Jade caught Stratton mid-Prettiest Moonsault Ever and transitioned directly into Jaded; only Chelsea Green pulling Tiffany out of the ring prevented a finish. Jade has Stratton’s moveset completely scouted, and Stratton knows it.
Here is why we still lean Stratton. Sixty days is not enough time for a title reign to mean anything. Stripping the belt this quickly turns her into a transit champion, a warm body between real contenders, and that is not what Tiffany Stratton is being built to be. The Chelsea Green storyline has not paid off yet. Green has been used as a human shield, screamed at backstage, and forced into matches to weaken Jade’s allies, but the turn has not happened. A Stratton retention on Saturday, scrappy and chaotic and probably involving Green in some capacity, keeps that pot simmering while Jade reloads for the rematch. And when the rematch comes, closer to SummerSlam, Jade takes the title. The first fight establishes the rivalry. The second one pays it off. Always gamble responsibly when you are tempted to back a favourite this close on the line.
Predicted Winner: Tiffany Stratton
Cody Rhodes (c) vs Gunther vs Sami Zayn: Undisputed WWE Championship
Odds: Cody Rhodes 1.17 | Sami Zayn 4.00 | Gunther 7.00
The storyline entering this match is better than anything the Undisputed Championship picture has produced since WrestleMania, and Sami Zayn is the reason. His transformation over the past two weeks has been the best thing on WWE television. The promo on Raw where he walked out without his entrance energy, sat cross-legged in the middle of the ring, and told the audience that if the system wants a monster then it will get one, landed with the kind of weight that only years of accumulated goodwill can generate. Before that, on SmackDown, he served as guest referee for Rhodes vs Gunther, fast-counted the pin in Cody’s favour, and then attacked both men with a steel chair when Rhodes tried to restart the match. Nick Aldis dressed him down backstage on camera. Cody, in a gesture that reveals everything about his character, convinced Aldis to add Zayn to the Night of Champions match anyway.
Gunther occupies a colder position. His line to Cody after the chair attack (“Your biggest weakness is your stupid heart. You trust rats like Zayn”) was excellent, and it frames him as the calculating pragmatist who benefits while the other two tear each other apart. But his booking in 2026 has eroded his aura, and the 7.00 odds reflect how far he has drifted from the title conversation.
There is a wrinkle the market may be undervaluing. The show is in Riyadh. Zayn, of Syrian descent, is enormously popular with Saudi audiences. If there were ever a moment to put the title on him, this is it: the crowd reaction alone would produce a clip WWE could market for years. The triple threat structure gives Rhodes a clean exit; he does not need to eat a pin to lose the belt.
That said, the safer road leads to Rhodes retaining. The question of Randy Orton looms over this entire championship picture. A punt kick at WrestleMania started a thread that has not been resolved, and the post-Mania storyline around Rhodes has looked increasingly like a holding pattern waiting for that resolution. The expectation was Orton back by Backlash. That did not happen. Then Clash in Italy. That did not happen either. The return kept getting delayed, and at this point nobody can say with confidence when or how Orton comes back, or whether his comeback fits into the SummerSlam picture at all. What we can say is that WWE’s creative pattern in 2026 has been to protect the status quo at every checkpoint, and a Rhodes retention fits that pattern cleanly.
The most likely finish sees Rhodes pinning Zayn while Gunther is down outside the ring, protecting the Ring General from another direct fall and sending Zayn deeper into his spiral. But this result does not exist in isolation. It directly shapes the King of the Ring final, because whoever wins that tournament gets to choose which world title to challenge for at SummerSlam.
Predicted Winner: Cody Rhodes
Jey Uso vs Oba Femi: King of the Ring Tournament Final
Odds: Jey Uso 1.77 | Oba Femi 1.91
The tightest tournament line, the hardest match on the card, and the one whose result is most dependent on what happens in the Triple Threat before it. The winner walks out with a guaranteed world title shot at SummerSlam, and the value of that shot changes depending on whether Cody Rhodes is still champion when the King of the Ring final ends.
In isolation, Oba Femi should run through Jey Uso. The man steamrolled Penta, Solo Sikoa, Carmelo Hayes, and Dominik Mysterio to reach this final. He is positioned as an unstoppable force, and the booking has not constructed Jey as someone who can overcome that force on his own merits. On the go-home SmackDown in London, Oba powerbombed Jey in the closing brawl and stood tall heading into Riyadh. On Raw, in a face-to-face segment, Femi told Uso: “You are not the member of the family I need to worry about.” Everything on screen points to Oba.
The variable is Brock Lesnar. They are locked at 1-1: Oba scored the WrestleMania 42 upset, Brock took revenge at Clash in Italy. Femi has continued provoking Lesnar on Raw, calling him a broken animal, refusing to let it rest. And Lesnar did not appear on the go-home SmackDown, which saves his return for the bigger Saudi stage and lets the tension build for one more week.
This is where the conventional theory and the reality of match rules collide. The King of the Ring final is a standard singles match. Lesnar cannot walk into the ring mid-match without causing a disqualification, and a DQ finish in a tournament final in Saudi Arabia is not something WWE would book. And Brock is not the type for subtlety anyway. He does not sneak onto the apron, he does not create distractions, he does not play mind games from the crowd. Brock Lesnar either comes out and destroys someone, or he does not come out at all. So if he is involved on Saturday, the most likely timing is before the bell: an attack during Femi’s entrance or backstage, leaving Oba compromised before the match even starts.
But there is a version of this match that subverts every expectation. Lesnar attacks Femi before the match. Femi, battered and furious, drags himself to the ring anyway and wins. Not despite the beatdown, but almost because of it: the rage carrying him through a shorter, more violent match than anyone anticipated. WWE has spent months building Oba as a force that absorbs damage and keeps coming. Having him prove that against Lesnar’s assault, in front of a Saudi crowd, would be the single most powerful image of the night.
And if Oba wins, what follows could be just as compelling. He holds a guaranteed title shot for SummerSlam, but Lesnar just made the fight personal beyond any championship. There is a version of this story where Oba voluntarily sets aside his title opportunity to pursue Lesnar instead, choosing the deciding third match of their series in Minneapolis over a world championship shot. That is not a wasted crown. That is a character statement: a man so consumed by the need to settle a rivalry that he treats a King of the Ring victory as secondary. It elevates the Lesnar programme from a scheduling obligation to the most important feud in the company.
But if Oba walks away from his title shot, it raises an obvious question: who fills the gap? Who challenges for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam? Keep that question in mind.
Jey Uso winning remains a live outcome. He has declared on SmackDown that if he takes the crown, he is going after Cody Rhodes. The crowd in Riyadh would erupt for his coronation. But Jey’s path to a world title match depends on Rhodes still being champion and not occupied by someone else, and the downstream logistics are messier than they appear. Understanding how the betting lines shift in the hours before bell time can tell you which way the smart money is leaning.
Predicted Winner: Oba Femi
Seth Rollins vs Bron Breakker: Steel Cage Match
Odds: Bron Breakker 1.83 | Seth Rollins 1.83
A dead-even line, no titles on the table, and a stipulation that exists to settle a personal grudge. On paper, this is the simplest match on the card. In practice, it might be the most consequential one.
WWE considered this feud too important to rush onto WrestleMania. The cage strips away every external variable: no Heyman, no Vision, no excuses for either man. The detailed scenario breakdown, covering interference probabilities, escape finishes, and the Bronson Reed factor, is available in our full Rollins vs Breakker steel cage prediction.
Here is where it connects to the bigger picture. If Oba Femi wins the King of the Ring and chooses Lesnar over his title shot, the World Heavyweight Championship is left without a SummerSlam challenger. Someone has to fill that space. The winner of this steel cage match, fresh off a definitive victory in the highest-profile feud on Raw, is the most natural candidate on the roster. That makes Saturday’s cage match something more than a blowoff: it is quietly a qualifying bout for the world title picture, even if nobody on screen is framing it that way. The King of the Ring final may carry the crown, but this match carries the real path to a championship.
Rollins has the resume, but Breakker has the trajectory. At 28, Breakker has every physical tool in the company, a spear that looks like it could end careers, and zero defining singles victories in 2026. He lost the World Heavyweight Championship to Punk in January. He got nothing at WrestleMania. The booking has denied him at every turn this year, and each denial has made the eventual payoff more necessary. A clean win over a six-time world champion inside a steel cage is not just a feud-ender. It is the result that restarts his entire championship trajectory.
The asymmetry here is what settles it. If Rollins wins, Breakker stalls completely, a 28-year-old monster with no momentum and no direction heading into the summer. If Breakker wins, Rollins loses nothing. He is established enough to absorb a cage loss, pivot to Roman Reigns or another main event programme, and remain exactly where he has always been on the card. One man needs this win to move forward. The other can afford to give it away. WWE held this match back from WrestleMania because they wanted it to carry weight. If it carries the weight we think it does, the winner walks out of Riyadh as the next challenger for the World Heavyweight Championship, and suddenly the cage match nobody put at the top of their watchlist turns out to be the most consequential bout of the night.
Predicted Winner: Bron Breakker
If you want to know where to watch all of this play out live, Saturday’s card streams from Riyadh starting at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN Unlimited in the US and Netflix internationally.