WWE Announces The Triple Threat World Title Match Will Open No Mercy

Just hours before Sunday’s No Mercy pay-per-view in Sacramento, WWE announced that the expected main event — a Triple Threat Match for the WWE World Championship — would instead open the main card when it begins at 8 p.m. ET. This opens up a wide range of possibilities for a new main event, but the likely candidate to close the show is the Intercontinental Championship vs. Career match between The Miz and Dolph Ziggler.

This comes on the heels of reports that Smackdown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch is injured and may be unable to defend her title against Alexa Bliss on the PPV. Perhaps as a means to make up for the loss of that title match, WWE also announced on Sunday that they were adding an eight-man tag team match to the card, with The Vaudevillains and The Ascension taking on American Alpha and The Hype Bros.

This shuffling of the card may be an attempt for WWE to more aggressively counter-program both the second Presidential debate and Sunday Night Football, but it may also be a nod to how predictable it has seemed that AJ Styles will retain his title against challengers John Cena and Dean Ambrose.

There has been far more interest in the outcome of the Miz vs. Ziggler match, with many people actually believing Ziggler might lose tonight’s match and either leave WWE television for a time, or transition into a behind-the-scenes role with the company. So it would make sense for the match with the most interest to go on last. For what it’s worth, Ziggler is the slight Las Vegas betting favorite to win at No Mercy, and those Vegas odds tend to be very on the mark.