Evan Luebbe

The remainder of August, as well as the entirety of September and October, will be slightly slower-paced months for WWE and there will be more time given for each individual match, or segment. If one pays close attention, this is not difficult at all to see. It seems to be a very good idea for WWE to choose this time of the year to begin the King of the Ring tournament, as this event is always known for producing quality matches. Perhaps WWE may want to consider doing a tournament like this in the future for women.

It will be very interesting to see how WWE goes about creating conflict between Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman; they will surely get the Raw Tag Team Championships involved. It’s been quite a while since WWE chose to make its premier champion, and the challenger to it, tag team champions (the last pair of superstars I can remember who were placed in this role were John Cena and Shawn Michaels back in 2007). This will be a great change of pace, and Braun Strowman looks to be moving at full speed again. He doesn’t look hindered in the slightest as he did about a month ago. It should be very interesting to see how the match goes between Rollins and Strowman due to the size discrepancy, but Seth can make anything work. If I were running things, however, I would look to build this story for a month or two and maybe have the two men clash in October’s Hell in a Cell.

Believe it or not, this is Strowman’s first legitimate title reign on the main roster since his debut about three years ago (no, I’m not counting his tag team championship victory with 10-year-old Nicholas at WrestleMania 34).

Roman Reigns should definitely be given credit for his indispensable versatility in the ring which enables him to have a great match with almost anyone. This ability should never be undervalued, and this is definitely one of the major reasons why Vince McMahon values Reigns so highly.

The Fiend attacked Jerry “The King” Lawler (another legend). A pattern is now starting to develop with Bray Wyatt, first attacking Mick Foley and stealing his Mandible Claw, and now Jerry Lawler. In reality, this was excellent planning by WWE to give King a plausible reason to be off TV for the night and to give Vic Joseph an opportunity to do commentary for Monday Night Raw (which he took full advantage of). The body of work he has put together on 205 Live and NXT UK has been quite impressive.

Becky Lynch also seemed to make more of an emotional speech and statement with her promo on Raw that resonated more with the crowd than Sasha Banks did. This very well could be different next week, as both women are excellent on the mic.

Side Note: It is very encouraging to see that Randy Orton is well on his way to accomplishing his goal in his rivalry with Kofi Kingston. His main goal is clearly to provide some credibility to Kofi’s WWE Championship reign so he will be taken seriously in the main event scene. It is extremely unselfish of Orton to be willing to do this, and this should be appreciated (of course Kofi absolutely deserves it). It’s also very encouraging that WWE is prioritizing The Revival by including them in the Orton-Kingston feud by orchestrating an alliance between them and Orton. This alliance is working well too because it’s generating a decent amount of heat.

One other thing to mention is that WWE will have some work to do in the coming weeks in terms of finding suitable challengers to Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross for the Women’s Tag Team Championships since Bliss and Cross have pretty much exhausted all competition in a matter of just two weeks.

It is a very big deal that Stone Cold Steve Austin, one of the greatest of all time, publicly gave Seth Rollins his approval as Universal Champion while Monday Night Raw was on the air. Seth’s confidence has clearly risen because of this as evidenced by the promo he cut right before his match with AJ Styles. His confidence level and energy level are simply different in a very positive way. Now his mentality is truly that “I definitely deserve to be champion and I’m going to set the tone for the rest of the company.”

It’s fantastic to see Sasha Banks returning for the first time since ‘Mania. She was sorely missed because she is one of the best female performers in the company. The heel turn was expected and is welcomed because she is a better heel than babyface as evidenced by her NXT days. She will make for a great challenger for Becky Lynch and I guarantee there will be more eyeballs on the women’s division because of her return. The new hair color is also a refreshing change.

I’m unsure whether to be excited about the King of the Ring tournament to begin considering that it hasn’t been all that exciting the last few times WWE has done it (remember King Barrett). A perfect winner of this tournament would be Buddy Murphy, because he doesn’t have any other major championships or accomplishments on the main roster. This could serve in storyline as the accomplishment that gets the attention of WWE management. That is only assuming WWE doesn’t choose to go with the obvious choice, Drew McIntyre.

You’ve got to wonder if Rey Mysterio’s cryptic and emotional promo and his reference to his family is foreshadowing at the in-ring debut of his son Dominic, who is signed to WWE. He and Andrade can churn out great matches like it’s nothing. Also, Keep an eye on Drew McIntyre. A big push for him could be in the works to start very soon. He was protected at SummerSlam and not made to look weak by serving as backup for Shane McMahon.

Side Note:Maybe, since Elias has grounds to argue for a rematch against Ricochet (who has major support from the company), perhaps this could start a slightly more serious push of Elias. It’s also worth noting that Samoa Joe seems to be in the process of a gradual face turn after showing concern last week for Roman Reigns. He still seems to be untrusting of the WWE universe, however.