Predicting the winners of the first round matches of WWE King of the Ring

WWE has announced the first round matches for the 2019 King of the Ring tournament, kicking off on Raw and SmackDown Live next week.

Below are all the first round matches, and the tournament will culminate at WWE Clash of Champions in September.

WWE Raw first round matches:

Cesaro vs Samoa Joe
Ricochet vs Drew McIntyre
Cedric Alexander vs Sami Zayn
The Miz vs Baron Corbin

WWE SmackDown Live first round matches:

Kevin Owens vs Elias
Ali vs Buddy Murphy
Chad Gable vs Shelton Benjamin
Apollo Crews vs Andrade

Given the above, let's predict who will emerge victorious next week and advance to the second round of the tournament.

Cesaro vs Samoa Joe

Cesaro vs Samoa Joe is an interesting first round match pairing as both WWE Superstars cannot afford key losses on television at the moment.

Samoa Joe picked up some steam following his participation in the current Roman Reigns storyline, but he needs to pick up key wins in order for fans to take him seriously once again as a top contender in the company.

As for Cesaro, he is another consistently underutilized talent in WWE who needs to pick up a big match win, however, I don't think luck will be on his side come Monday, and I predict The Swiss Cyborg will be eliminated from the tournament in the first round.

As for Samoa Joe, I don't expect him to advance further than the second round in the tournament, where he will face the winner of the Drew McIntyre vs Ricochet match, but I do predict The Samoan Submission Machine will make it beyond the first round of the tournament.

At this point, Cesaro might be hoping Sheamus returns to TV soon so the two can reunite as The Bar.

Match winner prediction: Samoa Joe