The Sheamus Cash In & More

We're now a few hours removed from Sheamus' WWE World Heavyweight Championship title win over Roman Reigns at the close of Survivor Series and I'm still trying to figure out why Roman Reigns' odds to win the tournament weren't backed when the favourites' odds shortened heavily in the hours leading into the event.

When the significant odds changes were made between 10 and 11pm GMT, the prices for the overall tournament winner were more or less left alone. This lead me to surmise that Sheamus was going to leave the event as champion.

However - I cannot pat myself on the back for calling it. My prediction, based on the lack of action in the tournament market, led me to believe that Sheamus was going to insert himself into the final to make it a three-way and win the title in a similar fashion to how Seth Rollins cashed in at this year's WrestleMania.

And even if that did happen, I still would have had to credit a visitor to this blog - Sam Parkes - who suggested the idea in a comments post over a week ago.

It'll be interesting to see what becomes of Sheamus' title run and whether he now makes it all the way to WrestleMania.

Before Seth Rollins' injury, I was banking on Sheamus cashing in the Money in the Bank titleshot at the close of WrestleMania in a spot where - after Reigns claims or successfully defends the title - he is forced to take on Sheamus. Only for Sheamus to fail. My reasoning in this idea was so the crowd would cheer Reigns over the Irishman.

This thought is apparently something the people at WWE is applying to attempt to sound out any negative reaction to Roman Reigns. Albeit, my idea was a quick reaction. WWE is going all-in.

According to Dave Meltzer on this morning's episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, the company's aim is to make Sheamus a go away heat kind of champion so that - when Roman Reigns finally secures the title - the fans will be glad to see a new champ in Reigns.

Good luck with that one.

Another peculiar odds shift took place in the Dolph Ziggler versus Tyler Breeze market.

Breeze had been favoured from the moment the odds went live. However, in the period when the heavy bets came in, he started to drift out and went from -160 to +250 forcing yours truly to predict a Dolph Ziggler win.

Despite being an outsider at the start of the PPV, Breeze's odds did start to come down during the show and was +190 by the time he entered the ring.

I obviously cannot explain what happened here. It's speculation on my part, but I would guess there was a change in plan somewhere along the line.

Either that or misinformation was sent out.