January 19, 2019 - Evan Luebbe

Alexa Bliss Can Talk, Even When Naked Backstage

May 17, 2019January 19, 2019 by Evan Luebbe

I will begin by discussing how excellent of a talker of Alexa Bliss has become. She looks extremely comfortable doing any type of segment that WWE could possibly ask of her, whether that be in-ring or on the mic (or even being naked backstage). As a side note of that segment, the small piece where Otis of Heavy Machinery was absolutely hilarious. I like Otis significantly better than Tucker Knight. He just has a much more distinct look to him and personality as well.

It’s also great to see Bobby Lashley finally starting to be booked as the sheer powerhouse and champion that he should be. It took them nine months to figure it out after he came back, but better late than never. He is finally beginning to be booked like he was before he left WWE in 2008. Lashley winning a title will elevate the status of Lio Rush as a manager too. I am not happy that he elevated himself at the expense of Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose, but I guess he had to do it at the expense of someone.

The last thing I will talk about is Finn Balor becoming the number one contender for the universal championship at the Royal Rumble. First of all, it’s nice to see Vince McMahon himself acknowledge that he never truly believed in the abilities of Finn Balor, but Finn acknowledged himself that the WWE universe believed in him, which takes some self-awareness on his end. It’s also nice to see Finn finally, after nearly 2 ½ years, get a rematch for the title he never lost. Braun Strowman’s act is also becoming a little stale. Once one gets over the fact that he is so big and strong, they end up becoming aware of how limited he is in the ring relative to other superstars on the roster. It’s honestly not that I have anything against Braun, I can just only see him flip over four or five cars before I find myself wanting something a little different from him.

Otis’ Protein Shake Potion for Becky Lynch

May 17, 2019January 19, 2019 by Evan Luebbe

I will admit that this week’s episode of Smackdown Live wasn’t the greatest, but some Wrestling is a heck of a lot better than no Wrestling. And it’s not like the episode was horrible or anything, I would probably give it a C-. The segment when the show first opened was again awesome with Otis making some sort of protein shake or something and Becky Lynch drinking it. Even the New Day was grossed out by the scene. We also saw a great match between Andrade (I guess they decided to drop the “Cien” Almas from his name, just like a couple years ago when WWE dropped the “Samson” from Elias’ name).

Seth Rollins: Legitimization & Universal WrestleMania Proposal

May 17, 2019January 19, 2019 by Evan Luebbe

The character of Seth Rollins is being fully legitimized. The groundwork for his character was laid between 2012 – 2014 with the shield when they ultimately became major Babyfaces and Seth turned on his shield brothers in June 2014. WWE tried to build him up a little more by having him win the money in the bank contract shortly after that and pull off the heist of the century by becoming the first man to cash in the contract in the middle of the main event of WrestleMania. He would go on to hold the WWE world heavyweight championship for a little over six months before he tore up his knee with a major knee injury and would miss about seven months of action, before returning to start a short feud with Roman Reigns.

Rollins would then go on to be involved in the first-ever universal title match with Balor and feud over the universal title for the next several months, although never winning it. In my opinion, Seth had a relatively dismal 2017. The only thing of very much significance that I can recall him accomplishing over the course of that calendar year was getting a victory over Triple H at WrestleMania. He followed that disappointing year up with a fantastic 2018 though, staying very healthy throughout the entire year and having no real major injuries and putting together classic matches on a regular basis with just about everyone on the Raw roster. He also won the Intercontinental championship on two occasions. Okay, now that I have covered Seth’s history, I can now get into the meat of what I want to talk about.

Seth is clearly being built up for a universal title match with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania, but I have a different proposal for what WWE should plan for what I’m assuming would be the main event for WrestleMania, because we have already seen Roman Reigns face Brock twice in the main event of WrestleMania and get badly beaten up for most of the match. Also, the fans got easily bored with the match at last year’s WrestleMania, so it would be smart for WWE to mix up the main event this year and put some fresh faces in that spot this year. I get it, it’s a great way to put Rollins over and cement him as seemingly the top superstar on Raw, at least for now, and it’s also a great way to send Brock off to UFC and also potentially entice him to come back to WWE after he is done fighting. So this strategy fully makes sense from a business standpoint, I’m just going to point out that it might be cool to see something a little bit different.

Proposal: Seth Rollins meets Dean Ambrose for the universal title at WrestleMania. WWE could do this by having Dean Ambrose win the Royal Rumble match and go on to face the universal champion at WrestleMania. Rollins could have a match with Brock Lesnar at the elimination chamber pay-per-view in February for the universal championship and win it there and walk in to WrestleMania as universal champion. Seth made a good point earlier this year when he was asked about the Rock participating in the main event. He responded by asking how many of the current guys wrestling could be expected to elevate to the level of the Rock if they are never given the same opportunities as the Rock or others of the Attitude Era. This is an excellent point and I absolutely agree, that WWE should give its current superstars the opportunities to reach that level.