Evan Luebbe

R-Truth Push & That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbed for Shinsuke

As for SmackDown Live this week, the first thing I would like to mention is how excited I am that R-Truth is getting a sizable push compared to what he normally gets, as he got a notable victory against Shinsuke Nakamura. I am also happy that Nakamura and Rusev appeared to be forming a tag team, as I was not sure which direction either of their careers were headed. WWE just wasn’t sure what to do with Rusev after the whole Rusev day thing. And let’s be honest, Nakamura has been losing traction for a year and a half since he earned a WWE title opportunity against John Cena and dropped him awkwardly on his neck after attempting a reverse exploder suplex. I think that left a bad taste in the mouth of Vince McMahon since John is Vince’s Golden boy. I am not being judgmental, that’s just my opinion. Unfortunately, that’s just the way the cookie crumbled for Shinsuke (Thank you very much Bruce Almighty). Shinsuke will still need to drop the United States championship at some point here soon. It’s also extremely encouraging to see that the rivalry between Rey Mysterio and Andrade looks like it will continue well into 2019. There will no doubt be some jaw-dropping matches.

I would be a little remiss not to discuss the new title belt that Daniel Bryan unveiled. To me, it looks a little more consistent with the universal championship since it is red too. Some people complain about the look of the universal title, but there are always going to be critics that are just trying to nitpick and find something wrong with what the company is doing.

Shocking News: Dean Ambrose is unhappy with the creative direction of his character and is planning to leave the company when his contract expires after WrestleMania. This is very reminiscent of CM Punk’s circumstances surrounding his departure. I wonder if the next time WWE comes to Cincinnati if the crowd will chant Dean Ambrose’s name. it makes me kind of sad to see him go since he’s my hometown boy, but who knows—maybe he’ll get signed by AEW or something and become the champion.

Exactly What I Expected to Happen

As for the first match of the Royal Rumble, what happened was exactly what I expected to happen. In order for Becky Lynch to challenge Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania, she needed to lose this match. As for the match between The Bar versus Shane McMahon and The Miz, I knew there were plans of at least somewhat big proportions when WWE decided to prepare Shane and Miz as a tag team. The match between Ronda Rousey and Sasha Banks was actually a surprisingly good one. Not that I expected a bad performance, but it was better than I thought, and I was pleasantly surprised. I will never ever complain about a Styles-Bryan match. I honestly wouldn’t mind if WWE elected to do it one more time at the next pay-per-view. I’m glad Daniel Bryan won too, as he is really gaining traction as a heel.

And what in the “blue hell” (Thank you Rock) was Erick Rowan doing there. I haven’t seen him in a full year, probably more. Brock Lesnar is looking slightly thinner and more muscular, probably just a side effect of age, considering he is 41. Finn Balor looked really good in the ring as well. I have no real praises or criticisms about this match because it was exactly what I expected it to be – all good showing from Balor in a slightly better performance than we usually get from Lesnar, but still a quick match overall.

Now I will go on to discuss the Royal Rumble matches, starting with the women. I was really glad to see Rhea Ripley entered the match, as she deserved. I also think Corey Graves’ infatuation with Mandy Rose is absolutely hilarious and how he calls her God’s greatest creation. The final two women in the match were exactly the two that should have been the last two standing, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch. I am a little surprised that Becky won instead of Charlotte, but WWE could have easily had either one of them wins. It’s very clear that they are building them to a triple threat match at WrestleMania between Charlotte, Ronda, and Becky for the Raw women’s championship. I couldn’t be happier for Becky Lynch as she deserves this victory arguably more than anyone else.

As for the men’s Royal Rumble, the first thing I was happy to see was the young guys like Johnny Gargano, Aleister Black, Pete Dunne, Mustafa Ali and Andrade all give good showings. It makes me very optimistic about the future of the business. I also can’t believe that Nia Jax entered in place of Truth. I absolutely loved seeing her in there and it was a huge surprise. Seeing her take a super kick, a 619 and an RKO was awesome.

Opinion: In my humble opinion, WWE should look to book more male versus female matches. It’s something different and I would be thoroughly and entertained by it. Now onto Seth Rollins. I figured that Seth would win and go on to challenge for the universal title at WrestleMania, but what I did not see was Lashley getting involved. I assume that since Seth won the Royal Rumble, He will go on to face Lesnar and Lashley will be inserted into the match to make it a triple threat, since Lashley put Seth through the announcers’ table after he only eliminated him. I think Kofi Kingston also deserves an honorable mention for his impressive physical feats to stay alive in the Royal Rumble match. Overall, I thought this was a really well-done pay-per-view – the best one in quite a while. The only thing that slightly disappointed me was that neither Kevin Owens nor Sami Zayn returned, and I anticipated they both may.

Flabbergasted by the Things he Could Do

Phoenix – To start with, the tag team title match was probably one of the greatest tag matches that I have ever seen. The War Raiders will be excellent champions. The second match of the night was Matt Riddle and Kassius Ohno. This was an excellent match, except the only part of it that I was disappointed with was that it had somewhat of a disappointing ending with the disqualification. I thought Johnny Gargano and Ricochet absolutely tore the house down. The evolution of Johnny’s character has been top-notch, and as for Ricochet, this is exactly why I wanted him to come to WWE. I first saw him wrestling in Lucha Underground, and I was utterly flabbergasted by the things he could do.

As for Bianca Belair and Shayna Baszler, it was a good showing from Bianca, but Shayna is turning out to be a pretty darn good champion. As for the final match of the night, I’m very happy that Tommaso Ciampa retained his title. Not that Aleiser Black would have been a bad choice to be champion again. It was really a choice between pretty good and great, as Ciampa is proving to be a very dynamic heel character.

I also love the idea of a DIY reunion, but this time with Gargano and Ciampa as singles champions other than tag team champions, and as heels as opposed to babyfaces. It adds another step in the evolution of what was already a brilliantly told story. This is easily the best

Seth Rollins Does Not Appear to be From this Planet

On this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw, we saw a rare appearance from “The Beast” Brock Lesnar, another great match from Seth Rollins, the debut of Heavy Machinery, and another message from Ronda Rousey that was lacking in entertainment to a certain degree. Now, regarding the segment featuring Brock Lesnar, despite the fact that it featured Vince McMahon and Paul Heyman was great as always on the mic, I wasn’t that entertained by it. It kind of took me back to the days just a few years ago when WWE was hopelessly trying to position Roman Reigns in the same role they are currently trying to position Finn Balor. I know the role works a lot better for Balor, but it just feels a little soon to me for them to be doing another story like that. Maybe I am just being a downer. All the hatred of Reigns from a few years ago really rubbed me the wrong way.

Seth Rollins does not appear to be from this planet. His stamina and pure wrestling ability is simply off the charts. I love the sheer passion with which he wrestles his matches. The suicide dives, superplexes and falcon arrows, bucklebombs, curbstomps and whatever else are quite a spectacle to watch. He has also improved a lot on the mic in recent times. Seth cut a brilliant promo this week relating himself with the WWE universe by telling them that he was from a town not much different than Oklahoma City, where they were at that night. He basically told the universe that he had the business in his blood and that it was deeply ingrained in every fiber of his being. I have really grown to resonate with him on a deep level in all aspects.

I’m not sure if my opinion matters much, but I have a strong inclination that Seth Rollins will add a Royal Rumble victory to his resume this weekend. I know I said a few weeks ago that it would be a cool idea for Ambrose to win, but he has now lost momentum and it is all on the side of Rollins. Ambrose will still last in the match for quite a while since he is a top-tier superstar, but he won’t be winning by any means. He doesn’t have enough momentum going. Don’t be surprised either if someone like Johnny Gargano enters the Royal Rumble. Switching topics again, I think that Heavy Machinery will be great for the tag team division. They strike me as being able to do for the tag team division what a person like Kevin Owens did for the singles system division in WWE, namely to provide comic relief and add humor into storylines.

Side Note: I am thrilled to see that WWE is starting to take serious notice of Apollo Crews. If he’s not at the point yet where he is winning matches, it’s a huge step in the right direction for him to be even getting matches against superstars the caliber of Bobby Lashley. Speaking of Lashley, Lio Rush has worked wonders for his character in terms of being taken seriously like he should be. I have also heard rumors of a third match potentially being added to the Wrestlemania card. In addition to Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar facing off for the universal championship, and Ronda Rousey defending her Raw women’s championship against Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair in a triple threat match, Lashley may defend his intercontinental championship against a returning Kevin Owens in a strong upper – mid-card match to help improve the depth of the Wrestlemania card.

Categories RAW

Can Rousey Really Become a Superstar?

I know that Vince McMahon and the entire WWE creative team view Ronda Rousey as their biggest draw, but I just don’t buy it. Not that I don’t like her, I really do. I really want to buy her wrestling persona, but something is holding me back from doing that. Maybe it’s her terrible entrance music, or the fact that she is always punching the air when we all know that she is not a boxer. I just don’t buy her wrestling persona as much as I buy that of Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch or Alexa Bliss.

He has Finally Found his Niche

This week’s episode of NXT really got me excited for Takeover this weekend. I am really excited to see the development of Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel as a tag team. I first saw Aichner wrestle in the cruiserweight classic in the summer of 2016 and I was really impressed with his ability. I saw him wrestle a few matches here and there over the past two years on NXT, but I am thrilled to see that he has finally found his niche. I am not as familiar with Barthel, but he has proven that he’s more than capable of being a suitable partner for Aichner.

I also wanted to add that the storyline between Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa is phenomenal. The idea of having them compete as a tech team first as faces, and then having them ultimately reunite as heels is genius. This storyline has been so well done over the past couple of years. Bravo, Triple H.

Categories NXT

Alexa Bliss Can Talk, Even When Naked Backstage

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.

Categories RAW

Otis’ Protein Shake Potion for Becky Lynch

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

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.

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Disclosure: This site is not affiliated with WWE – just a diehard fan writing commentary on events.
 
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