Day: October 5, 2019

In my opinion, WWE has two options in terms of how they decide to book the Seth Rollins–The Fiend Bray Wyatt Universal Title match at Hell in a Cell. It depends on who the WWE creative team decides to put over at WrestleMania. Through my lens, the two options are for WWE to either double down on the push of Seth Rollins by having him beat Wyatt at ‘Mania (probably in the main event), or they could elect to put over a new babyface by having a returning Finn Balor take down The Fiend.

In the first scenario, The Fiend would squash Seth, causing Rollins to take a few months off from WWE to rehabilitate himself mentally. Rollins could most likely afford to be squashed without it hurting his credibility too much because he is so beloved and well respected by the WWE universe. It’s always at least a little bit of a risk to have a top superstar be squashed (it was even a risk to have John Cena be squashed by Brock Lesnar). The creative team can never be positive as to how this will be received. He could return in perhaps January, subsequently building to a WrestleMania main event match in which he takes the title from The Fiend. In fairness, this scenario would probably strengthen Wyatt’s new gimmick quite a bit.

The second option (and this is the one I like much better) is for Rollins and Wyatt to have a WrestleMania caliber match with Wyatt at Hell in a Cell, with Wyatt still becoming Universal Champion, and the two men simply go their separate ways afterward. This would open the door for Finn Balor to return to WWE in January, with he and Wyatt building to a match at ’Mania in which Balor ends The Fiend’s reign of terror. Balor is one of the few men who can say he has a history with The Fiend, as Wyatt debuted his new gimmick against Balor at SummerSlam a couple of months ago.

There are a few similarities in these two scenarios. The first is that The Fiend beats Seth Rollins and becomes Universal Champion at Hell in a Cell. The second similarity is that there is a big return in January, perhaps at the Royal Rumble, either Rollins or Balor. Finally, one of them wins the Universal Title from Wyatt at WrestleMania.

To a basic fan, it doesn’t seem like a big deal at all, but after seeing WWE operate with and without Pyro (fireworks), I can tell you it makes a serious difference in the overall production of shows. First of all, when fireworks go off at the beginning of Pay-Per-Views it sets the stage for large-scale events to transpire – it sets the stage. The second thing it does is that it enables superstars to change their entrances from time to time with outside-the-box entries rather than the same things all the time. By using Pyro, WWE will keep fans more engaged and eliminate boredom with current superstars; they will also be able to create distinct entrances for brand-new superstars.

WWE is surely reintroducing pyro now after having stopped using it in 2017 to eliminate unnecessary costs because of AEW. Since WWE’s competition with them on Wednesday nights will begin on October 2, and AEW won’t hesitate to use pyro to enhance the quality of its product, Vince McMahon is most likely reintroducing it to show he doesn’t fall behind the eight ball. This will begin on the September 30 episode of Raw.

Side Note: Paul Heyman also briefly mentioned Evolve’s use of pyro and how WWE didn’t have it at the Evolve event on the WWE Network back in July.

It’s being reported that Shane McMahon will most likely lose to Kevin Owens in their ladder match on SmackDown’s debut episode on FOX on October 4 so WWE can create a plausible scenario where they can write Shane McMahon off TV, at least as an authority figure, for a while. WWE would like to do this to create a more realistic atmosphere on SmackDown that makes viewers feel as though they are watching a weekly sports show.

This may mean acts more on the entertainment side will need to be moved to Raw in the draft. In order to foster this new culture, WWE intends to orchestrate “more conclusive finishes” and “fever interferences from non-wrestlers.”

FOX is doing an excellent job of promoting this new type of presentation, which has been Triple H’s vision for years, by having people like Colin Cowherd advertise the premiere of SmackDown during his daily sports radio show or having Troy Aikman advertise it during Thursday Night Football games.

WWE has the task ahead of them on October 11 and 14 of strategically planning the WWE draft. Vince McMahon amongst others will need to orchestrate which show various superstars are assigned so that it makes sense according to storylines. For example, Sami Zayn and Shinsuke Nakamura will need to be kept together on the same show since Zayn is managing Nakamura (which is working incredibly well by the way). The face-heel dynamic will also need to be balanced out. There cannot be an uneven amount of babyfaces or heels on a show. They need to be evenly distributed, and WWE needs to be aware of where they stand on the card. They cannot all be at the top or bottom of the card.

Finally, the company always does its absolute best to keep couples together. Because of this, the company will do everything in its power to keep all of the couples within the company happy by moving them respectively to the same brand, like Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins or Aliester Black and Zelina Vega. But it’s not quite that simple. Andrade is being managed by Vega in storyline, so he is a package deal to go wherever she goes. This also means Charlotte Flair would need to go with all of them, as she is engaged to Andrade.

The WWE draft will also be exciting not only because of the return of pyro along with lasers and flames to enhance the product, but entirely new sets will be introduced for Raw and SmackDown as well as new logos and new commentary teams for each show. WWE will have a brand-new look and style of presentation. Stay tuned!