December 14, 2020 - Evan Luebbe

WWE SmackDown 12/11/2020

December 14, 2020 by Evan Luebbe

Carmella may be a viable threat to the SmackDown Women’s Championship several months down the road but putting the title on her now would be way too early since this was her first match back after quite a while away from the ring

Carmella is in the process of establishing herself as a legitimate threat to Sasha Banks’ SmackDown Women’s title and positioning herself as a major presence in the collective consciousness of the WWE universe, and it’s largely working. As for now, keeping the title on Sasha Banks is absolutely the right way to go. Carmella is on the right path, although Sasha – for right now – is the much more established superstar. Banks may very well end up defending the title against Carmella in a rematch at TLC in nine days, but the right decision was made for the time being.

A second run with the Intercontinental title could be exactly the thing Big E needs to ultimately be propelled to WrestleMania main event status

In theory, Big E will most likely challenge Sami Zayn for the IC championship at TLC to give his renewed singles push momentum after the splitting of The New Day despite losing a match this week to The Great Liberator. E winning the IC title for a second time in his career (he won it seven years ago when he was doing the five-count gimmick) would provide a nice plateau for him to springboard off and be launched into the next tier of superstardom in WWE.

As for Zayn, there are similarities between he and The Miz in the way each of their characters are presented on WWE programming. Both are cowardly heels who will do just about anything (absence of moral compass) to retain the title. Zayn getting the victory this week will serve to make it so that the WWE universe will be wanting The Great Liberator to lose the Intercontinental championship even more come December 20 at the Pay-Per-View. If he becomes an even bigger heel right before he drops the title it will serve in the long run to make E into an even bigger star. This is exactly the reason I am a bigger fan of heels – because they have the ability to put over faces much more often and make someone’s career – which is extremely rewarding both personally and professionally.

Chad Gable and Otis are both finding their Way

Chad Gable has been an extremely underrated superstar since he first started in NXT tagging with Jason Jordan. Gable is somewhat reminiscent of a smaller version of Kurt Angle – primarily because he is also an Olympian (2012) – with a rather decent amount of charisma. He was able to shed the Shorty G moniker given to him by King Corbin in 2019, and hopefully this run with Otis goes somewhere. Meanwhile, Otis dropped the Money in the Bank briefcase to The Miz because WWE made the decision to rely on established superstars (this makes sense during the pandemic era). Otis is obviously still in the process of establishing a presence in the company.

It’s a miracle – Dolph Ziggler actually got a victory over Montez Ford for the first time in seemingly a half decade. Expect Angelo Dawkins to get the pin over Robert Roode next week on the Go-Home edition of SmackDown before TLC to create some suspense for the tag team title match.

Disagreement between two creative teams

December 14, 2020 by Evan Luebbe

Disagreement between two creative teams in WWE on the finish to the NXT Women’s Championship match at WrestleMania 36

Fightful Select is reporting that there were disagreements between the creative teams for RAW and NXT (RAW overruled) as to how to book the NXT Women’s Championship match at WrestleMania 36 this past April between Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley. Sean Ross Sapp is reporting that the idea of NXT creative was to book Ripley to retain the title and add Bianca Belair to the mix so Ripley could pin Belair and that way Flair wouldn’t have to take a loss.

This would have made sense for two reasons.

Belair was called to the main roster the very next night – and evidently she has been drafted to SmackDown (even though she made her debut on RAW with her husband Montez Ford of The Street Profits) and is on pace to become a women’s champion in 6 – 12 months.
She was featured in a match in March with The Queen. This was a hint after looking back on the situation in hindsight – which is always 20/20 – that one booking team was pushing for Belair to be in the match.

The RAW creative team ended up winning this battle and they got their singles match between Charlotte and Rhea, with The Queen – the established star – going over.

Not to say I’m upset about that. I like Flair, but Ripley would have used the victory a lot more – a brand-new main event star in the women’s division would have been made instantly – and before she even hit the age of 25. Charlotte is only 34 years old and still building her legacy to hopefully one day catch her father with 16 titles.

WWE RAW 12/7/2020

December 14, 2020 by Evan Luebbe

Congratulations to Becky Lynch on giving birth to Roux – she and Seth Rollins are parents! This means neither of them will be able to be quite as committed to WWE as they have been over the last several years – I’m guessing

Don’t be surprised at all to see The Fiend take his storyline back up with Roman Reigns at some point in time, even if that point is not for another year. This is the feud in WWE right now – and for the next several years – that most likely has the potential to make the most money for the company, so it is definitely on the back burner. Mr. McMahon is simply waiting for the time to be right and for everything to line up perfectly. One could make the argument, however, that the time is right now. Randy Orton got the upper hand in his story with The Fiend last week, so it only made sense for Him to get the upper hand this week.

The best part of the event involving Bray Wyatt this week is what did not happen rather than what did happen. Alexa Bliss was kept off the show this week so The Fiend had the ability to stay true to his character and do what he does best – be menacing by delivering Mandible Claws (this time to Randy Orton).

A potentially interesting idea is for WWE to orchestrate an entire episode of Monday Night RAW in which Randy Orton abducts Alexa Bliss early in the go-home edition before the TLC Pay-Per-View and some sort of event involving the abduction can occur as RAW goes off the air to set up the build for TLC. This would take up an entire edition of the program (Vince Russo suggested the idea last week. He is no longer a WWE writer and hasn’t been for quite some time, but this idea might have validity).

WWE might finally be on the verge of having established two top guys who are almost completely accepted by the WWE universe and have the ability to carry the company through difficult times (right now might qualify as a difficult time with the pandemic) in the form of WWE champion Drew McIntyre and a heel Universal champion Roman Reigns (who is primarily focused on ensuring the future of the business). The fist bump at Survivor Series 2019 between Keith Lee and The Big Dog was a precursor to what was to come in 2020 with Roman Reigns’ character after looking at the event in hindsight.

The writing is on the wall for Drew McIntyre and Sheamus to collide in the future (most likely before Mania) – whether this is an extended storyline lasting several months or just a one off, it will be an absolutely fantastic match. Sheamus hit McIntyre with a Brogue kick this week but the two friends quickly made up by putting WWE official Pat Buck through a table – this storyline will intensify next week.

Drew McIntyre appears to be on a collision course with Sheamus, while AJ Styles (Jackass and The Beanstalk as The Scottish Warrior coined them – AJ and his bodyguard Omos) is serving as a filler between Drew’s match with Roman Reigns and The Celtic Warrior (which might take place at the Royal Rumble. If this is indeed the case, then the feud might commence as soon as right after TLC. There is a Feasible Way, Keith Lee could also be added to this story down the road as The Limitless One has also been established as a friend of Drew McIntyre. Even Jinder Mahal could ultimately be included as the fourth man in a battle of friends (assuming he returns from injury within the next few months).

Big future for Elias potentially under a new Gimmick

Jeff Hardy took a loss to Bobby Lashley this week (not exactly sure right now what WWE is planning to do with Riddle – book him to begin a verbal go-around with Lashley or tag with Hardy). Jeff Hardy got a victory against Elias last week in a Symphony of Destruction match. This makes sense for WWE to book Hardy strong, because at least as far as I know the company is still planning on changing Hardy’s entrance music back to “No More Words” which he had back in 2009.

However, on the surface it seemed a really perplexing finish as it hurt Elias (who is about a decade younger than Jeff Hardy and needed the momentum more), but this might be the start of a gimmick change for him. Elias claimed on social media that when he got electrocuted by the amplifier last week, his ability to play the guitar was saved but he had an epiphany as to what his purpose in life was. He also referred to himself as extraordinary Elias.

New Day – Hurt Business RAW Tag Team titles will likely be booked for TLC next week; it’s quite possible we could see new champions crowned and The Hurt Business could add more titles to their collection in addition to the United States championship; MVP has experienced a pretty good amount of success since returning to WWE at the Royal Rumble

Kofi Kingston had two matches – one against Shelton Benjamin and a second match against Cedric Alexander, and it made sense because Kofi has incredible stamina. Xavier Woods got the win on November 30 over Cedric Alexander. Kingston beat the 45-year-old Benjamin this week and also lost to Alexander. That means The Hurt Business has won two out of three singles matches against The New Day, all the more reason to think they might become RAW Tag Team Champions come TLC (the match hasn’t been made official yet but it’s only a matter of time before that changes).

This was very strategic booking by WWE to give Cedric Alexander both victories over each member of The New Day over the past two weeks considering he is so much younger than Shelton Benjamin and is clearly one of the primary pillars of the future.

Braun Strowman injured his knee at WWE Survivor Series 2020. The injury comes at a rather unfortunate time as he was scheduled to challenge WWE champion Drew McIntyre for the title at WWE TLC. Fortunately, the company was able to successfully pivot and slot AJ Styles into that position. This shows evidence of the depth of the WWE roster – Drew McIntyre and AJ have unbelievably never had a match, and it’s rather unbelievable this rivalry has not been explored in the past. Thankfully it is now that McIntyre is WWE champion because this match is almost guaranteed to be a classic

Another theory is that Samoa Joe might make his return to the ring in 2021 – possibly even at Royal Rumble after being an excellent member of the commentary team on Monday Night RAW for the past nine months to date. He might return on SmackDown to challenge Roman Reigns for the Universal championship, because Joe has stated in the past that he has no familial connection to the Anoa’i family despite being Samoan.

Joe could tell Roman that he does not view him as the Head of The Table – very simple beginning, but even John Cena made his entire career off of extremely simple stories like that. Samoa Joe is 41 years old and, based on his work in the ring in the last couple years, he has at least four or five more excellent years ahead of him in which he will be capable of giving more than adequate performances (this is speaking objectively, maybe he has an injury no one knows about yet).

Assuming WWE books Reigns to hold onto the Universal championship through ‘Mania 37 and hold the title for a full calendar year, maybe WWE could book Joe to make his return to in-ring action the night after ‘Mania and begin a long-term feud with the Head of The Table through the summer of 2021 – culminating at SummerSlam. Another option is to book these two men to face each other at WrestleMania 37 – possibly in the main event. Big E would be another possibility as Roman Reigns’ opponent for WrestleMania 37 – two years after his New Day brother Kofi Kingston took the WWE championship from Daniel Bryan at the Showcase of The Immortals in 2019 at MetLife Stadium.

NXT Takeover: Wargames 12/6/2020

December 14, 2020 by Evan Luebbe

2020 is the first year since 2015 that NXT will go through with a Takeover event in August on SummerSlam weekend followed by two more – one in October and one in December. In 2015 there was Takeover: Brooklyn – the first one – followed by Takeover: Respect in October and Takeover: London in December. Bayley and Sasha Banks headlined the first two and Finn Balor was defending his title in the main event in London with Samoa Joe (we were missing the NXT champion Balor in this year’s Takeover: Wargames). In addition, Sunday night had to be a proud moment for Wade Barrett professionally as it was his first Takeover as a member of the NXT announce team.

The Undisputed Era reminds Everyone of why they are the Leaders of NXT

The Undisputed Era proved exactly why they are the best and most over act NXT has to offer right now – and likely the greatest four-man group in WWE since Evolution:

Triple H – the man who runs NXT with Shawn Michaels and has done so since the brand’s inception in 2010
Batista – Hollywood movie star nowadays
Randy Orton – one of the greatest WWE superstars to ever do it and is having one of the best years of his career in 2020, and;
Ric Flair – living legend and 16 – time world champion.

Adam Cole is the undisputed leader of The Undisputed Era – that’s not up for debate – but Kyle O’Reilly has established himself as the clear-cut No. 2 in this group. His most notable, preset accomplishment is how he was pushed recently and received an NXT championship match two months ago at Takeover: 31. He had an outstanding performance in that match. Meanwhile, Roderick Strong and Bobby Fish (the oldest member of The UE) are on the back burner – not forgotten about, just not at the top of the priority list right now.

Pat McAfee is so incredibly captivating as a character in wrestling – as such a supremely arrogant heel, but at the same time he is so good at everything and you can’t help but like him. He comes into his second ever match and the first thing he does is land a perfectly executed moonsault which looked somewhat reminiscent of Kurt Angle (how he would seemingly hang in the air). McAfee was strategically paired with three other superstars who could use a slight boost in the charisma department.

All three of them are great in the ring – Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch (particularly the former) are extremely hard-hitting and go at 100% speed with everything they do, and Pete Dunne was in need of another dimension to his character rather than just “the guy who breaks fingers.” In addition to Io Shirai earlier in the night, Pat McAfee got the honor of being trusted to perform the high spot of the match off the top of the cage as there has been one in every Wargames match over the past four years.

Damian Priest is almost guaranteed at this point to become a main event caliber superstar after hitting the two-year mark since he was signed by WWE in October 2018

Damian Priest might be in the clear now to become a top-level main eventer in WWE – possibly one day rivaling Roman Reigns – if he continues on his current path. I have a theory that, when a superstar gets signed by NXT, if he or she is not at least a massive superstar in the eyes of the NXT audience after two years – they don’t even need to be promoted to the main roster after two years, just be over with the NXT universe – they probably won’t ever become a major star in WWE. Take Tommaso Ciampa for example, he is still in NXT after four years, but it took him less than two to get massively over – same with Johnny Gargano.

Keith Lee and Riddle were called to the main roster earlier this year after signing with NXT in 2018. Damian Priest is at the point where he was signed to NXT about two years ago, and he is massively over, so this bodes well for his future in WWE. His breakout moment in NXT came at Takeover: In Your House in a match with the current NXT champion Finn Balor.

Johnny Gargano is a 3-time North American champion – the only multi-time North American champion in NXT history to date – he might have been a little better as a babyface but he is being portrayed as a pretty decent heel too. The story of Johnny Gargano’s character is somewhat similar to the transition WWE is making right now with The Fiend Bray Wyatt on RAW. Triple H did such an excellent job establishing Johnny Gargano as a face and did a complete 180 with Johnny’s character earlier this year. Now Mr. McMahon is seeking to do the same character flip with The Fiend by turning him face and showing a more human side after establishing him as a supernatural heel.

Austin Theory was also introduced as one of the three Ghostface characters that helped Johnny win the title after not doing much of anything for a couple months in NXT. Maybe Theory could possibly become a lackey of sorts to keep the North American championship on Gargano for the foreseeable future, before ultimately turning on Johnny and beginning a championship program.

Despite being so undersized, Leon Ruff did not look out of place at all in the North American championship match with two men much bigger. He was nearly injured during the match by Damian Priest (albeit unintentionally). The former Evolve superstar might have a legitimate future with NXT.

The NXT women’s division is easily the place where the women in WWE are flourishing. Triple H and Shawn Michaels are handling the character development of all the women in NXT extremely well by giving them lots of wiggle room to be their authentic selves. If you ask me, the storylines involving the women on the main roster are just a little too dramatic (that’s purely an opinion, not a fact).

Io Shirai was responsible for creating the biggest moment of the Wargames match for the second straight year, this time by jumping off the top of the cage with a trashcan over her head this year (she did a moonsault off the top of the cage last year). The 2020 women’s Wargames match was perhaps missing a shocking character change like the NXT universe experience last year when Dakota Kai turned heel on on Tegan Nox.

The heels winning instantly paves the way for four potential challengers to Io Shirai’s NXT women’s title, with Raquel Gonzales being firmly planted at the front of the line by pinning the champion Shirai (Dakota Kai has earned some of the credit for helping to be the established superstar that has assisted Gonzales in getting over in the last several months). All four of the heels would theoretically make sense as challengers to the title within the next few months, but Raquel Gonzales is the newest start to emerge onto the scene at Takeover: Wargames. The result of this match showed that the booking team clearly had the future in mind when they were considering the finish.

Ciampa wins (he needed some momentum as an established star on the brand), but Thatcher gets over and establishes a reputation similar to the one that Sheamus has developed over the years

Tommaso Ciampa faced Timothy Thatcher in what was without a doubt the most physical match of the night. Thatcher is beginning to develop a reputation for being the hardest-hitting superstar in NXT. An idea is that – whenever he gets promoted to the main roster – he could ultimately engage in a feud with Sheamus. The Celtic Warrior’s physical in-ring style would mix perfectly with Thatcher (or Sheamus could even show up out of the blue on NXT TV one week and engage in a brief story with Thatcher – maybe he could interest and an episode of Thatch-as, Thatch-can. Food for thought).

Timothy Thatcher is getting over in a big way for his wrestling style – at least in my book. He has taken losses in his last two Takeover matches – losing to Finn Balor at Takeover: XXX and Ciampa at Takeover: Wargames. We all know what to expect from Ciampa as he has been a massive superstar in NXT for several years now, but Thatcher is still relatively new as he was just introduced earlier this year, so this is a huge step in the right direction for him.

Poetic match because Cameron Grimes and Dexter Lumis have come up together

Dexter Lumis getting the victory over Cameron Grimes was definitely the right call. Lumis quite possibly could have gotten his name from the WWE creative team based on the character Dr. Loomis (Michael Myers’ psychiatrist in the Halloween films) because he presents that same sort of creepy vibe – similar to Kane.

This was Cameron Grimes’ first legitimate Takeover match. Grimes has spent the past year and a half trying to find his position in NXT, and he may have finally found it. Grimes has a loudmouth character with a very distinctive look, and it’s hilarious. Dexter Lumis is in the same boat because he signed his NXT contract about the same time as Grimes, so these two guys have come up in WWE together.

The vulture at Takeover is a foreshadowing of things to come. Karrion Kross may very well be next in line to challenge NXT champion Finn Balor at the next Takeover, or perhaps even sooner if he is indeed good to go. He won the NXT title from Keith Lee at Takeover: XXX but suffered a shoulder injury during the match and had to relinquish the title on the very next edition of NXT TV. Now he is returning to claim the title he never lost (similar to how Balor suffered a shoulder injury during the match in which he became the first ever Universal champion in 2016).

King Corbin has new Protection, and Big E has a new Entrance

December 14, 2020 by Evan Luebbe

King Corbin was accompanied last week on SmackDown by the returning Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler (the former Forgotten Sons). Originally this group started in NXT, and Blake and Cutler were the tag team accompanied by Jaxson Ryker. However, Ryker tweeted his support of Donald Trump for a political stance he took earlier this year, and he received some pushback from some members of the WWE locker room. The Forgotten Sons’ initial push to introduce them to the SmackDown audience was brought to a halt as a result, so WWE is in the process of starting over with the introductory push of Steve Cutler and Wesley Blake – and branding them as the backup to King Corbin in his rivalry with Murphy and the Mysterio family.

Ryker is still under contract with WWE for now, but he may or may not work more shows for WWE under that contract. It should be interesting to see the direction the company decides to take with Blake and Cutler, because they appeared to be headed for a SmackDown Tag Team Championship feud with The New Day. They were receiving a rather large push before they were taken off TV – they might have even become the team to take the titles off The New Day rather than Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura.

For the first time since wrapping up a singles feud with Sheamus on SmackDown a couple months ago, Big E participated in a singles match honoring the late Pat Patterson. He also debuted a brand-new entrance song (rapped by Wale) as well as the chalk he used during his pre-New Day stint as part of the five-count gimmick (which – one could probably imagine – is where he pins his opponents for a count of five instead of three). Speaking of this match to honor Pat Patterson, it was extremely poetic that all six men who participated in this match were former, or current, Intercontinental champions – Sami Zayn (current), Dolph Ziggler, Shinsuke Nakamura, Daniel Bryan, E, and Rey Mysterio – because Patterson was most famous for being the first ever Intercontinental Champion in 1979.