Pay-Per-Views

Roman Reigns walks out of WrestleMania 37 in Raymond James Stadium with the Universal Championship around his waist – exactly the way he came in

In his fifth WrestleMania main event, the Head of The Table walked into and out of the event holding a championship for the first time; and he did it in the most dominant fashion possible – sandwiching two steel chairs between Edge’s skull (which he is known for). That’s the way he defeated Randy Orton last year in a last man standing match and pinning both he and Daniel Bryan. Reigns may prove to be the most dominant Universal Champion in history when it’s all said and done and might surpass Brock Lesnar’s reign of over 400 days with the title.

The difference is that Roman is a full-time superstar and not as many people would have a problem. This Tribal Chief character is so much more authentic to him as opposed to a few years ago when Mr. McMahon was attempting to force feed him as a babyface to the WWE universe (and as a result they voiced their displeasure). Not to mention the Special Counsel Paul Heyman does not need to do the heavy lifting on the microphone as he did for Lesnar.

Roman Reigns has arrived at an ironic truth in life that I have also found to be true for me in my experience. The Tribal Chief received the most praise from others, mainly in the WWE universe, when he stopped caring so much and striving for others’ approval, and instead just giving that approval to himself. People respond best when a person is embodying their authentic self 100% – independent of anyone’s approval.

Ironically, Reigns, Edge, and Bryan have all endured health scares in their careers that have forced them to envision what a life without wrestling would look like – and live it for a short period. Edge was forced to retire exactly 10 years ago, and he thought he was finished with WWE for about five years. That was until he witnessed Daniel Bryan come back in 2018 from similar issues with his neck (as well as concussion issues on top of that throughout the years from his hard-core wrestling style). This gave Adam Copeland the motivation he needed to make a triumphant return. Roman endured leukemia in 2008, which returned unexpectedly in 2019, and he was able to return to WWE within just a few months and be back in time for WrestleMania 35.

Upon returning to WWE for the Royal Rumble in January 2020 (his first match since WrestleMania 27 in April 2011 after retiring immediately after said event due to neck issues) and being the third to last man in the match next to Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre, Edge developed a mindset in which he was just grateful to be back doing what he loved. The chronic neck issues required two separate surgeries (several years apart) to correct, not to mention that it was difficult to even get a good night of sleep.

Edge was forced to retire in 2011 due to complications that occurred during a surgery in 2002 (from when he broke his neck in a legendary match on SmackDown with Eddie Guerrero). Adam Copeland knew he was wrestling just temporarily and would need to retire whenever his neck decided to give out.

But back to the grateful mindset – The Rated-R Superstar was introduced back into the forefront of the collective consciousness of the WWE universe for six months, with the mindset of just being grateful to be back in WWE, until tearing his triceps in June of that same year. It’s worth mentioning that The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever was one of the greatest matches Edge has ever been involved in (at 46 years old). Both he and Randy Orton took pride in showing the younger NXT superstars at ringside how to go out there and execute a main event – style WWE match firsthand. This was the second match in the storyline at the time between Orton and Edge, which was finished the night after Royal Rumble 2021 on Monday Night Raw.

The storyline between these two men goes back a long way – they were a tag team, Rated RKO, around that 2007 timeframe. But more importantly, what really got this storyline off the ground was the fact that Randy Orton was brave enough to tell Vince McMahon that he was not necessarily feeling into the promo that was written for him on the night Randy RKO’d Beth Phoenix. Instead, Randy told Vince that the moment with Edge that really stuck out to him was in 1999 when Orton’s father was introducing his 19-year-old son to some superstars backstage, one of them just happened to be Edge. Adam Copeland told Randy that day that maybe one day they’d both be fortunate enough to step in the ring together.

Fortunately now that has turned into many times. Thanks to Stone Cold Steve Austin for that anecdote.

After a seven-month hiatus from WWE to repair a torn tricep, Edge was able to make his return in the Royal Rumble match for the second straight year. This time in 2021, however, Edge was able to win the whole thing and earn the right to main event WrestleMania 37 with Roman Reigns (which would become a triple threat a couple months later when Daniel Bryan was added to the match).

In March 2021, Edge began to adopt the mentality once again that originally made him into a main event caliber star in WWE from 2005 – 2011. He is not necessarily adopting a narcissistic mentality to the degree of a Roman Reigns, but Adam Copeland’s mentality is more goal – oriented. He feels he has more to do in WWE as a performer – and he is no longer concerned with the persona/mentality he needs to adopt to get there. Personally, I like it. The Rated-R Superstar has developed an edgier mentality once again that over additionally enabled him to main event WrestleMania 24 in 2008 with The Undertaker (this was obviously a loss for the World Heavyweight Championship for Edge, as we were right in the middle of The Undertaker’s undefeated streak at said event).

Edge is finally putting his head down ang going to work!

Daniel Bryan will be main eventing his second WrestleMania and his first in seven years (Bryan defeated Randy Orton and Batista for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of Mania 30).

Meanwhile, the heliocentric star around which all of this is orbiting is the Raising Defending Undisputed WWE Universal Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns. Roman chose to opt out of Mania last year to protect the health and safety of his newborn twins, which is extremely respectable for a father to do something so unselfish.

The Tribal Chief returned to WWE at SummerSlam in August 2020 and won the Universal title a week later at Payback. He returned with a new persona and character, as well as with Paul Heyman as his special counsel. It’s also worth noting that Heyman was also the advocate for one of Reigns’ most recognizable rivals – The Beast Incarnate Brock Lesnar.

Reigns might be expected to hold the Universal Championship for at least a year – which would put us at the end of August 2021. This is most likely Reigns’ extended run with a world title, not unlike what John Cena experience from August 2006 until October 2007 (the only reason Cena’s WWE Championship reign was no longer during this time was due to the fact that he tore a pectoral muscle.

Overall, with all that perspective all three men are becoming more and more transparent with the authenticity of their characters as time goes on – and that is the key to living a fulfilling life. Each of these men is dropping their façade and learning to present their true essence, independent of what others may think – each of them giving themselves the satisfaction of living according to their values.

Rhea Ripley defeats Asuka to win the RAW Women’s Championship

So WWE has chosen two younger stars in the women’s division to build the bulk of the product around; Monday Night Raw will build around Ripley and SmackDown on FOX will build around Bianca Belair. This was not Ripley’s first Mania match, but it was her first on the main roster and her first in front of a live audience. She opened Night 2 last year with Charlotte Flair (dropping the NXT Women’s Championship to her) and has competed in multiple Royal Rumble matches. She was also crowned the first NXT UK Women’s Champion and has competed in the Mae Young Classic.

Even though all of this is already behind her, she is only in her mid-20s and still has most of her career in front of her. Because of this, there is reason to be extremely optimistic about all she can accomplish.

Ironically, the rise of Asuka since being signed to WWE in 2015 is similar in a way to that of Bianca Belair. WWE was fully aware that it was bringing in a different kind of athlete who was already the top female wrestler in Japan. She became NXT Women’s Champion within a few months – that was expected. What was unforeseen was the degree to which she resonated with the WWE/NXT universe. She was quickly promoted to the main roster (after an incredible effort in a street fight with Nikki Cross – and Mauro Ranallo’s first action on commentary) in October 2017 and immediately won the first Women’s Royal Rumble match in January 2018.

Asuka went on to face Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania and subsequently engage in a compelling long-term story with Becky Lynch – which ended with Becky relinquishing her championship due to pregnancy in 2020 and handing it to her greatest rival Asuka. However, now that The Empress of Tomorrow has been in the spotlight at the top of the company for several years (and is almost 40 years old), it’s time to start thinking about putting over younger superstars – and that’s exactly what happened.

Apollo Crews wins the Intercontinental Championship and officially has an authentic character in WWE; Big E puts over Apollo before he himself is even established as a main eventer. Unfortunately, E was unable to retain his title in his hometown of Tampa Bay

Wale introduced Big E, who could prove to be a WrestleMania main eventer as soon as next year. This man has had star bricks in nearly all over him for almost a decade – it will happen eventually. There is too much money involved for the Tampa native not to become a massive star in WWE.

E got the opportunity to perform in the same stadium in which he played his High School all-star football game in 2003. From there he went on to the University of Iowa, where injuries ultimately ended his football career, but E found wrestling a few years later – he was signed WWE by 2011. The rest is history.

Let’s delve into that history. Big E became the second NXT Champion in 2013 by defeating Seth Rollins and won the Intercontinental title on the main roster later that same year. A few months later The New Day was formed toward the end of 2014 which led to the best six years of E’s career before the group peacefully disbanded. E even introduced The New Day on Night 1.

Sheamus was the first man to put Big E over in a major way following the dissolution of The New Day. The original event that served as the impetus for the splitting of the group was Kofi Kingston suffering an injury in July 2020 (going through two tables at the hands of Shinsuke Nakamura and Cesaro. Xavier Woods was already out due to injury – suffering a torn Achilles tendon in Saudi Arabia on Halloween night 2019). As a result, Mr. McMahon figured this was the perfect time to have E branch out on his own.

The New Day officially disbanded in October 2020 when Kofi and Xavier were drafted to Monday Night Raw as a tag team and Big E was drafted to SmackDown as a singles superstar. E won the IC Championship from Sami Zayn a couple months later on Christmas Day 2020 and unfortunately dropped it at Mania in 2021.

Big E’s future is secure, so WrestleMania 37’s primary objective was to get Apollo Crews over as a top level star in the mid-card. Apollo has been with the company for over a half decade and spent only about one year of the time in NXT before being promoted to the main roster in April 2016 right after Mania that year (in hindsight, he probably did not spend enough time in NXT to legitimately cultivate a character the WWE universe could resonate with – that’s why it took him five years on the main roster of doing odd jobs to find something authentic).

Titus Worldwide was the only gimmick that Apollo was involved in that truly resonated, and even that was largely because of Titus O’Neill – but Apollo finally broke through with an authentic character at WrestleMania 37. Not to mention the reintroduction of Babatunde. This man first appeared at The Greatest Royal Rumble in 2018, and also made appearances for Raw Underground last year (Shane McMahon’s brainchild that never quite stuck).

The storyline between Randy Orton and The Fiend is incomplete as of now; Orton won for now, but these two men will likely meet again at WrestleMania (maybe with Alexa Bliss)

Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt have an exodus of history together – which is most likely why WWE elected to conduct this experimental presentation of Alexa Bliss with these two men involved (the House of Horrors match between them at Payback 2017 was experimental and was not received well). Fortunately, this was received much better.

There is history between Orton and Wyatt dating back to 2016 when Orton joined The Wyatt Family. After Randy won the Royal Rumble in 2017, he burned down Sister Abigail’s cabin and subsequently defeated Wyatt for the WWE title at WrestleMania 33 (all before he became The Fiend).

Then The Viper burned The Fiend’s body in December 2020 (it was a dummy so no human being actually got burned). Perhaps The Fiend – at least in storyline – built Alexa Bliss up and empowered her a little too much and made her capable of overtaking the demonic spell he had over her. She finally had the wherewithal to question the dark rituals The Fiend was teaching her.

Bray Wyatt’s subtle tribute to the late Brodie Lee (who was one of his tag partners in The Wyatt Family for years) was extremely touching. Windham Rotunda was distraught after the unexpected passing of his friend. RIP to Jon Huber (one of the truly great human beings to grace the professional wrestling industry).

The WWE universe is not quite sure how to receive the events that transpired in this match. This entire match seemed more like it was a set up to keep fans intrigued with the character of The Fiend, even though WWE may not be entirely sure what direction to go in after this.

Mr. McMahon and Bruce Prichard (the longtime WWE executive dating back to the 90s. He conceptualized the character Kane, who was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2021 and currently serves as Executive Director of RAW and SmackDown) originally planned for The Fiend to get the victory over Randy Orton at Mania, but (as was reported by CBS) the plan was changed just a few hours before the event to have Alexa Bliss turn on The Fiend and ultimately help Randy Orton win.

The original plan for the match was to have The Fiend defeat Orton in convincing fashion, subsequently writing The Viper off television for a few months, but WWE decided a few hours (last – minute booking is not uncommon in WWE) before WrestleMania 37 to go in a different creative direction. The Fiend character may have run its course as the creative juice behind the character appears to be waning. The character made its debut to the WWE universe the night after WrestleMania 35 in 2019 and made its in-ring debut at SummerSlam that same year against Finn Balor (sending him back to NXT).

This present incarnation of Bray Wyatt has lasted for two years and won the Universal Championship twice. The Fiend has also been extremely instrumental in the evolution of Alexa Bliss. The WWE universe knew deep down that this incarnation of Wyatt would not last forever – it was such a big hit with fans that WWE stretched it out to last as long as possible, and the two – year mark might have marked the end. This run rebuilds Alexa into a women’s title contender once again, and she will most likely become a women’s champion within the next few months for the first time in three years.

Maybe Bray’s real-life brother Bo Dallas will get involved in the storyline between Alexa Bliss and The Fiend in the immediate future.

Sheamus defeats Matt Riddle in spectacular fashion and captures the third United states Championship in his career

The Celtic Warrior delivered the best Brogue Kick ever on Matt Riddle – interrupting an attended lionsault-esque move – and causing Riddle to bleed at the mouth. Sheamus captured his third United States Championship in his career, in addition to virtually every other accolade in WWE – four world championships, a Royal Rumble victory in 2012, Money in the Bank in 2015 (and a successful cash-in, and a King of the Ring.

Sheamus has not experienced a true Mania moment since defeating Daniel Bryan for the World Heavyweight Championship in 18 seconds in 2012 (I was in Miami for that one). It’s frankly a miracle that The Celtic Warrior is even still wrestling, as it appeared a case of spinal stenosis (which had bothered him for years at that point) had caught up with him after WrestleMania 35 in 2019.

It appeared Sheamus would need to retire then, but he was able to come back as a result of getting in the best shape of his life. He was able to return to WWE in January 2020 but missed Mania 36. After an extremely positive year for The Celtic Warrior, he was able to participate at the grandest stage this year in his first major event since returning to the company in 2020.

It was an intelligent decision by the company to orchestrate a friendly altercation between Matt Riddle and Rob Van Dam – because Riddle is essentially an updated but slightly dumbed – down version of RVD (the original template for Riddle’s character was Spiccoli from the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Matt Riddle elected to become a professional wrestler in 2014 after being ousted from the UFC due to multiple failed drug tests. He stuck with it and was signed to NXT in 2018 and promoted to the main roster not long after (defeating AJ Styles in his debut match on SmackDown. This was his first Mania, and just as Seth Rollins is remembered fondly for being on the receiving end of one of the greatest RKO’s ever at Mania in 2015, Matt Riddle will be remembered in the same light for being on the receiving end of one of the greatest Brogue Kicks at his first WrestleMania.

Matt Riddle will most likely be able to overcome this loss as this was only his first WrestleMania. According to reports, he was never intended to win the United States Championship. The only reason he won the title in February was because Keith Lee unexpectedly had to take time away from the company.

However, it was still viewed as being “integral” for WWE to orchestrate a triple threat match for the US Championship so it could take the title off Bobby Lashley (so he could be elevated to the WWE title scene) without the CFO having to take a loss clean. As a result, John Morrison was added to the match as a late substitute and Matt Riddle won the title courtesy of pinning Morrison.

Kevin Owens hopefully beat some sense into the conspiracy-minded Sami Zayn

Ever since losing the Intercontinental title on Christmas day, Sami has been on this conspiracy thing. This was a fun match with a celebrity to provide some extra buzz in the form of Logan Paul. The match went exactly according to plan, and KO got to do something reminiscent of Stone Cold Steve Austin and stun an innocent bystander in Logan Paul.

KO likened the relationship between himself and Sami Zayn to that of two brothers rather than friends. They both came up together in the International Wrestling Syndicate (IWS) in Montréal starting in 2002. From that point forward, the two men were latched together basically at the hip in terms of their wrestling careers – traveling 13 and 14 hours on the road together. They became close friends because they learned to lean on one another, not necessarily out of choice but more so out of necessity. They are essentially wrestling brothers.

Now Kevin got to beat some sense into his brother, as brothers to sometimes – it builds character. As far as I am concerned, WWE should be applauded for the fact that they were able to avoid orchestrating this match for as long as the company did, because it ended up being that much bigger because so much anticipation was built around it for several years.

Kevin and Sami have both competed on the main roster for several years. The first WrestleMania for both men was in 2016 when they both competed in a multi-man ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship. In 2017 Zayn did not have a match at the 33^rd edition of Mania, however KO participated in a match with Chris Jericho for the United States Championship which Mr. McMahon for whatever reason was not pleased (I thought it was pretty good).

At Mania 34 in New Orleans, Kevin and Sami both competed in a tag team match against Shane McMahon and the returning Daniel Bryan (who had just been medically cleared to wrestle a few weeks prior after three years of doing nothing in terms of wrestling). At WrestleMania neither man was used, but they both had permanent matches in 2020 at the WWE Performance Center – Kevin Owens got his first official WrestleMania moment by jumping off the WrestleMania sign onto Seth Rollins and Sami Zayn successfully defended his Intercontinental Championship against Daniel Bryan.

Kevin Owens also mentioned to Paul Heyman recently on Talking Smack a little idea about how much he enjoyed the Money in the Bank pay-per-view every year. There is an off chance that just maybe this could serve as the impetus for KO winning the Money in the Bank ladder match in either May or June 2021 and possibly using the contract down the world to win his second world championship in WWE – perhaps cashing-in on Roman Reigns.

There is always the possibility that Kevin and Sami could once again become a tag team for a couple months before that. The careers of these two men/brothers will be forever linked.

Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler retained in WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships

Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler are the most protected women in WWE who are not women’s champions. They both have extensive history of being protected as far as booking goes – with Nia looking dominant in every match and having captured a title at WrestleMania a few years ago, and Shayna being a former two-time NXT Women’s Champion (holding the title for over six months each time), as well as having challenged Becky Lynch in her first Mania.

Natalya and Tamina have both been overlooked by the WWE universe for much of their careers. Despite the fact that Nattie is widely regarded as the best female wrestler in the company, he has only been recognized as a champion a few times. In addition, this was Tamina’s first legit Mania match – at least to my recollection.

They got a victory in a tag team turmoil match on Night 1 to earn this opportunity. Mandy Rose should not be too embarrassed after falling down (it happened to Titus O’Neill at The Greatest Royal Rumble a few years ago so these things happen. At the end of the day this mishap served as unexpected and hilarious entertainment).

The Bella Twins make a Mania appearance right before Brie’s husband of seven years – Daniel Bryan – competed in the main event. This serves as a precursor for what is to come – and that is a WWE return in 2022 for the two mothers.

Tom Phillips was absent at WrestleMania (Michael Cole pulled double duty at Mania this year) and was replaced by Adnan Virk as the play-by-play commentator the following night on Monday Night Raw. Dave Meltzer has reported that Phillips may indeed be done with WWE. If so, he served as a great announcer for NXT, RAW, and SmackDown in five years with the company.

Vince McMahon likes to shake up the announce teams in WWE every few years. Effectively the only mainstays on the announce teams in the past 25 years are Michael Cole and Jim Ross. Mr. McMahon attempted to put down Ross on many different occasions and tried to oust him from WWE for about a decade. However, the WWE universe would not let him go very easily as the WWE universe resonated with his passion for wrestling at a deep level. McMahon proved to love JR like a brother over the years, and he also served as the head of talent relations in WWE for quite some time and did the payroll for much longer than that.

This current generation of WWE superstars that lived through the 2020-21 era may go down in history as the most mentally flexible generation of WWE superstars there has ever been because of the onslaught of sudden changes they had to endure. First the pandemic of 2020, in which Drew McIntyre emerged as one of WWE’s top stars. Because of this it was extremely fitting that McIntyre opened WrestleMania in 2021.

With such a strange year, it was characteristic that there will be yet another sudden change in the form of a Mania rain delay. WWE did an excellent job of conducting last-minute interviews with all the superstars. Fortunately Titus O’Neill and Hulk Hogan were able to get the show started within about 30 minutes. Fortunately

Bianca Belair captures the SmackDown Women’s Championship from Sasha Banks and cemented herself as the future of the women’s division

Bianca Belair took the next deep dive into the unknown in her career and cemented herself as the undisputed future of the women’s division in WWE by taking Sasha Banks’ title. When Bianca first came on the scene and arrived in NXT in 2016 it was apparent that she was a different kind of athlete. Charlotte Flair was the embodiment of that – an athlete just head and shoulders above all other women – and Bianca has simply taken it to another level.

Bianca made her Royal Rumble debut in 2020, briefly introducing herself to the WWE universe, and lasted for about half the match after entering at No. 2 (Alexa Bliss was No. 1). She made her first WrestleMania appearance last year with her husband Montez Ford, but this was her first legitimate match at the grandest stage. She made her official debut the following Friday night on SmackDown (after having finished her tenure in NXT in a match with Charlotte Flair, which promoted Belair’s move to the main roster while simultaneously promoting Charlotte’s upcoming NXT Women’s Championship match.

The EST immediately established herself as a main eventer in the women’s division, and it ultimately came to fruition in the form of a Royal Rumble victory in 2021 (after entering the match at No. 3) and the first women’s singles match in the history of WrestleMania main events. Belair won the SmackDown Women’s Championship in her first title match on the main roster against the top woman in WWE – or top three – in Sasha. These two women were chosen for the main event of the biggest show of the year completely independent of race or gender, they both earned it.

Sasha Banks makes the argument to Stone Cold Steve Austin a few months ago that she felt a couple years ago when WWE had Ronda Rousey full-time, that WWE should have been paying Sasha to do that job rather than outsourcing that level of star power from a UFC legend.

The Boss was finally able to extricate herself from the shadow of Bayley, after competing for the last two WrestleManias essentially latched at the hip. They lost the Women’s Tag Team Championships at WrestleMania 35 after which Sasha took a hiatus from the company to get her mental health in order, and last year they were in a Fatal Five Way match in which Bayley retained her championship. Sasha only has one legitimate Mania moment, and that was in a match with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair in AT&T Stadium in 2016.

The reason it made sense for Sasha to lose the title this year was because she was booked to lose championships without ever successfully defending them the first several times she was a women’s champion in WWE. This time, however, that narrative was erased as she has defended the championship several times since becoming champion (defeating Bayley) in October. Vince McMahon opted to keep the basic framework of the story of Sasha never having successfully defended a title at Mania going for at least another year.

Bobby Lashley retains the WWE Championship as he and Drew McIntyre kick off the show

Strangely, the retention of the WWE title at WrestleMania 37 was Bobby Lashley’s first Mania victory since his return to the company in 2018 (he returned on the night after WrestleMania 34 in April 2018). He dropped the Intercontinental Championship to Finn Balor in 2019 and took a loss to Aleister Black clean last year. Speaking of Aleister, he has not been seen in nearly a year on WWE programming, so it is possible that he may return after Mania. If so, he will be a valuable addition to whichever brand on which he appears.

Unfortunately, The Hurt Business was dismantled by Bobby Lashley a few weeks ago. According to Lashley, this decision “hurt my heart.” If reports are true, this faction will continue, just with different members (perhaps the former RETRIBUTION members T-Bar and Mace).

The group was created about a year ago, and the seeds were planted after the Royal Rumble match in January 2020. That was the night MVP made his return to the company, which was originally supposed to be a one off just so MVP could allow his son to see him wrestle. Lashley got to talking with MVP about a potential faction and one thing led to another from there (the ending of the stable may have been somewhat premature but not terrible by any means). However, Bobby is finally WWE Champion and successfully defended the belt on the grandest stage of them will all.

Because the All Mighty successfully defended his WWE title, a potential match with Brock Lesnar in the future is a very real possibility. It might even take place at SummerSlam 2021 (which will also likely take place in front of an audience). I was holding my breath to a degree in hopes that Lesnar would show up, but he most likely will make his presence known again very soon.

Bobby Lashley had a gradual rise to the top of WWE upon returning to the company in 2018. Drew McIntyre on the other hand was fired in 2014 before dusting himself off and going to work for another three years in efforts to get back. He has been grinding since he was about 17-18 years old. McIntyre became the face of the pandemic era in WWE when he won the WWE title from Brock Lesnar at Mania 36. In effect, Mr. McMahon was most likely hesitant to bring any other guy or girl to the main event scene in wake of the pandemic (because Mr. McMahon was likely nervous about just how many fans of what be able to get their eyeballs on the new superstars).

McIntyre, however, was adamant about taking on the challenge of becoming the face of WWE during the pandemic era. In addition, he and Lashley were both adamant about coming out first and setting the tone for the returning WWE universe.

One of Cesaro’s best friends – Seth Rollins – gives him a WrestleMania moment in his first singles match

After 10 years in WWE and being overlooked for most of that time, Cesaro delivered a fantastic singles Mania match the entire WWE universe knew he was capable of – with another one of the best in the world in Seth Rollins. The history between these two men goes back a long way to their days in Ring of Honor together in the mid-to-late 2000’s – they are legitimately real-life great friends.

Cesaro’s top WrestleMania moment before this was in 2014 at WrestleMania 30 in New Orleans when he won the first ever Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal (Jey Uso won it this year). He also participated in a few Mania matches with Sheamus as The Bar. This match may have been essentially a number one contender’s match for the Universal Championship and the one you may challenge whoever emerges as the champion on Night 2 of this event.

Seth Rollins, on the contrary, has been focused on putting others over and creating new stars in WWE for the last year and a half. Cesaro still needed to be focused primarily on establishing his own star throughout this past year – having split from his tag team with Shinsuke Nakamura – but The Visionary is already firmly established as a megastar, so he has been focused on building new talent within WWE since he lost the Universal title in October 2019 (that is also when Rollins began employing the Messiah gimmick).

Seth served as Drew McIntyre’s first challenger for the WWE title at Money in the Bank in May 2020. Rollins next used his own star to benefit that of Dominik Mysterio – a rising star in his own right – at SummerSlam 2020. Seth put one more guy over with the Messiah gimmick before taking paternity leave in November, and Murphy was the last beneficiary before this phase of Rollins’ career concluded by putting Cesaro over at the first Mania with the WWE universe in two years.

Seth’s best Mania moment might have to be at WrestleMania 31 in 2015 (even before the heist of the century) when he took probably the best RKO ever. He went for a stomp by elevating off Randy Orton’s head into an absolutely beautiful RKO. JBL immediately said “best RKO ever”. A close second would have to be in 2017 when he powered through a knee injury to defeat Triple H and become the Kingslayer.

Bad Bunny surprises the WWE universe with his unexpectedly great performance as he and Damian Priest defeat Miz and Morrison

Bad Bunny clearly took his preparation for this match seriously and put in the time. You never know quite how it will go when WWE brings in a celebrity to wrestle – but this was clearly the best celebrity performance in a match ever.

Damian Priest was the new star created in the match – even if he was not given that much time to get his moves in. According to Mr. McMahon The Archer of Infamy is adapting extremely well to the way things are done on the main roster in WWE since being called up from NXT in January 2021 (Priest signed with WWE in late 2018). MC M.I.Z and Johnny Drip Drip gave an entertaining musical performance.

This was the one gimmicky match I was unsure about, but the WWE universe was pleasantly surprised with Bad Bunny’s preparation and seriousness with which he approached this Mania match.

Braun Strowman throws Shane McMahon off a steel cage and elevates his own star in Shane’s first WrestleMania match in two years – McMahon unselfishly puts over Braun

Braun Strowman was innovative in his steel cage match with Shane McMahon by breaking through the cage and pulling Shane back in. Seeing a man that big standing on top of a steel cage is quite an anomaly – we had to figure that Shane McMahon was going off the top of the cage somehow. I figured it might be through the announce table, similar to Kevin Owens in July 2018 (ironically, that match was also with Strowman.

The Monster needed this victory to gain momentum again, because he has not been involved in anything meaningful since losing the Universal Championship last year at SummerSlam. He was originally involved with RAW Underground, which began in August 2020 and was the brainchild of Shane McMahon but unfortunately that did not go anywhere. The endgame was likely always a Mania match between these two men, Mr. McMahon just had to take a detour to get there in the form of this bullying storyline (which is somewhat ironic given that WWE used it to run an anti-bullying campaign not long ago).

Shane McMahon’s most recent WWE storyline involved Kevin Owens and concluded in October 2019 with Shane putting KO over.

AJ Styles and Omos win the RAW Tag titles from The New Day, creating a new team in the process

Omos looked utterly dominant in his debut match on the main roster. It’s a massive honor for a superstar to have their debut match at Mania. It’s a sign the company trusts you immensely. Omos’ debut match at WrestleMania was reminiscent of Big E’s WrestleMania debut in 2013 (he tagged with Dolph Ziggler to unsuccessfully challenge the WWE Tag Team Champions Team Hell No – Daniel Bryan and Kane).

AJ Styles is now a grand slam champion in WWE – capturing his first tag team title. AJ had been bugging Triple H about potentially doing a singles match at Mania this year but that never happened. Triple H’s contract as a WWE talent expires on March 30, 2022 (this is independent of his contract as an executive with the company), so this was the final opportunity to do a Mania match with AJ unless he signs a new deal as a talent. Styles probably hoped to do something a little bigger at WrestleMania 37 then a tag match, after coming off a main event spot at the event last year with The Undertaker.

Big E was able to accompany his boys and introduce them again for the first time in months. They are showing solidarity and following the original idea from six years ago by Xavier Woods to have The New Day always be about the team. It was an intelligent decision by WWE to orchestrate for The New Day to put over a new team – because they are already legends in the tag team division having held a record 10 tag team titles.

As great and dominant as The New Day has been since their inception in 2014, they have not had as many tag matches at Mania as one might think. They were just getting off the ground in 2015 so they were not featured on the main card that year. The only matches they have had as a team at the grandest stage of them all have been in 2016 and 2018 – in addition to this year. They hosted the event in 2017, KofiMania was in 2019, and there was a triple threat singles match for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships last year because The Miz became ill just before Mania.

NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver Pre-Show – Night 2: April 8, 2021

Kyle O’Reilly defeats Adam Cole in an unsanctioned main event

Any match that has the capability of holding the WWE universe’s attention for 40 minutes is a classic. Adam Cole has participated in a few of these 40 minute matches in NXT but this is probably the longest match in Kyle O’Reilly’s 15-year career. This was reminiscent of a petty disagreement between two brothers – it’s been done many times before (Triple H – Shawn Michaels, Seth Rollins – Dean Ambrose, Johnny Gargano – Tommaso Ciampa).

All of those rivalries manifested over a period of years, and this is the latest installment. The respective careers of Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly will be forever linked – even though they will be adversaries for much of it. This played out almost exactly like the unsanctioned match between Triple H and Shawn Michaels in 2002 – Michaels’ return match after a four-year hiatus with his back issues.

Karrion Kross takes the NXT title off Finn Balor – perhaps so Mr. McMahon could atone for a mistake he made years ago with Balor

Finn Balor’s character development, much like that of Io Shirai, works most effectively when he is carrying a title around his waist. Perhaps Mr. McMahon feels he made a mistake in not orchestrating for Balor to regain the Universal title upon returning from injury back in April 2017. The Demon tore his labrum at SummerSlam 2016 in a match with Seth Rollins to determine the first Universal Champion. Balor was able to finish the match but was forced to relinquish the title the following night on Monday Night Raw.

Similarly, Karrion Kross was forced to relinquish the NXT Championship in August 2020 immediately after winning it from Keith Lee due to a shoulder injury. Perhaps Mr. McMahon was determined to not make the same mistake twice by not letting Kross regain the title, so Mr. McMahon will most likely have the final call on making Kross NXT Champion (since Mr. McMahon makes all final decisions surrounding NXT as well despite the fact that Triple H and Shawn Michaels run the bulk of the brand).

Mr. McMahon lived and learned from the mistake of not booking Balor to regain the title in 2017. This takes a lot of humility – especially for a person with such a large ego.

It looks like Kross took Balor’s advice and tempered his emotions, using them in such a way that they would serve him. Maybe someone like Kyle O’Reilly could be the next person to challenge for the title. It will be interesting to see what The Prince does after losing the title. He could switch his focus to a rivalry with someone like Adam Cole or go a completely different route and return to the main roster. Maybe this time Mr. McMahon could put a world title (obviously not the Universal title since that firmly belongs to Roman Reigns) on Finn since he now has proof recently of that working extremely well.

Johnny Takeover defeats Bronson Reed, retaining his North American title

Johnny Gargano proved exactly why he is a Takeover legend. He is taking slow but steady steps to establish his character – which is similar to that of Seth Rollins on the main roster. Each of these men have the primary goal of putting over younger superstars, because they both recognize that they have established their own characters and are already major stars – so they want to use their own starpower to create new stars and preserve the legacy of their particular brand.

The NXT North American Championship is serving the same function on the black and yellow brand as the United States Championship does for Monday Night Raw or the Intercontinental Championship for SmackDown. Johnny Gargano and Big E (IC Champion) are similar in that they have both been in the game for a number of years and are currently trying to bring up younger superstars (E with Apollo Crews and Johnny with someone like Austin Theory).

Bronson Reed is working on establishing at this point the unique unspoken quality about his personality/character that the WWE universe can resonate with. Unfortunately it’s not enough to simply be physically dominant, as everyone can see by looking at him. What is the quality about Bronson’s personality that will reel everyone in and make them care about what he does or what happens to him? What will get fans emotionally invested in his character? Right now, he is making progress every week toward finding the answer, but he is not quite ready to carry a title. Just being in the ring with a Takeover legend will do wonders for his character development.

At their first Takeover, the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championships are successfully defended by Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart

Shotzi has already established a small connection with the NXT universe and is in the process of taking that next step of how much her character resonates, while Ember is beginning to experience exactly what she was brought back to NXT for six months ago. It didn’t work out so well for her in her first tenure on the main roster, but she is working very well once again in NXT (who knows? Maybe this is her niche). Some people work better in this environment – the black and yellow brand is no longer a developmental brand, but rather a separate entity under the WWE umbrella.

The two women who make up The Way – Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell – function best as a team when they are pursuing the titles for right now. They need a few more months of establishing themselves before becoming champions. When they do, they will serve the women’s division very well. Candice has found the role that serves her best in NXT, and Hartwell is a major beneficiary.

Santos Escobar and Jordan Devlin usher in a new era of cruiserweight wrestling; Escobar wins the undisputed Cruiserweight title

Santos Escobar and Jordan Devlin have established the cruiserweight division. It used to be just another gimmick, but now Triple H has opted to revert back to what originally made the cruiserweight so fun to watch back in the early 2000’s. Escobar and Devlin both understand that and that they are the perfect men to be the faces of this movement.

The Irish Ace has proven himself in classic matches with superstars like Tyler Bate among many others. Escobar is relatively new and has only established himself as a presence in NXT over the last year. This was the NXT version of the SmackDown storyline where Sami Zayn returned from hiatus and claimed to be the Intercontinental Champion (drawing on the original from the mid-90s between Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon).

NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver Pre-Show – Night 1: April 7, 2021

Raquel Gonzalez ends Io Shirai’s near year-long run with the NXT Women’s Championship

Some superstars are simply not built to be champions and function better when they are in the mindset of pursuing a time rather than holding it; but the whole point of being a professional wrestler is to be a champion. Io is one of those people of the latter mindset. She has functioned to maximum potential as champion for over 300 days. Only two other women have managed to hold the women’s title in NXT for over 300 days and they are both champions at the moment who are defending at Mania, so that is working in favor of Shirai.

Gonzalez rose to the top among the women’s division in NXT very promptly – so she was a major priority from the moment she was signed. She was immediately dubbed the enforcer for Dakota Kai and began being pushed hard as a contender for Shirai’s title starting back in November at Takeover: WarGames where she pinned the Joshi Judas.

Walter has been NXT UK champion for 2 years and shows no signs of slowing down as he retains again

Ciampa was a legit possibility to win the UK championship from Walter. He was the first person outside NXT UK to challenge for the title, not to mention the first American challenger. It was the first time anyone legitimately thought Walter could lose the title since he won it two years ago from Pete Dunne at Takeover: New York on the weekend of WrestleMania 35.

Walter needs to be respected as a champion now as he is the longest-reigning champion in the modern era. He has had zero hiccups in this title reign over the past two years. A title victory for Tommaso Ciampa would have been poetic, however, being exactly 2 years removed from neck surgery that the Sicilian Psychopath thought at the time could possibly end his career.

Now Ciampa has his health in order as well as his family and is in a very healthy place physically and mentally emotionally and spiritually. NXT’s gatekeeper was also singularly focused on winning the title.

MSK (formerly the RascalZ in Impact) are champions just four months after being signed by WWE

The NXT Tag Team Championship match had the exact same outcome as the finals of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic just a few months ago. MSK got the victory over Grizzled Young Veterans and MSK becomes NXT Tag Team Champions just four months after debuting in December 2020.

GYV has come extremely close to the titles on multiple occasions: Dusty cup finalists two years in a row and now this loss.

Pete Dunne defeats Kushida and continues his assent toward becoming a future champion

Firstly, Pete Dunne’s new entrance music is going to take some getting used to. His old music seemed to fit his Bruiserweight/digit-obsessed character so well. The Englishman’s character has evolved immensely within the past several months, and the primary reason for that, at least in my opinion, is his affiliation with Pat McAfee from August – November 2020. McAfee significantly helped advance the careers of Dunne, Oney Lorcan, and Danny Burch (who all needed a little extra boost in the charisma department).

Even after being a former NXT UK champion for well over a year it still seemed as though there was something missing from Pete Dunne’s overall presentation. He did not have the same allure as a legitimate champion typically has. He has developed that unspoken quality now, but a little more time is needed for him to adequately cultivate this new character wrinkle. The Bruiserweight is on the right track as of now to become a champion in NXT within the next six months – year.

Kushida’s first two years in NXT have essentially been the preliminary years in his WWE career. Some guys or girls are pushed very soon after their debut (Karrion Kross/Raquel Gonzales), however that’s not the way the cookie crumbled for Kushida. WWE is fully aware of the talent he has and hopefully he is not wasted.

Unfortunately this has happened before with Hideo Itami/Kenta, and to a much lesser degree Cesaro. For whatever reason, many foreigners have a tough time getting over in WWE – largely due to the company taking a somewhat formulaic approach towards the way it conducts business.

Bronson Reed emerges victorious in the gauntlet eliminator and will challenge Johnny Takeover for the North American title

The match started with Isaiah “Swerve” Scott officially turning heel by attacking Leon Ruff from behind, signifying that WWE is drawing inspiration from Swerve’s history as Killshot in Lucha Underground. If we are observing that enough to notice, there is a common theme over the last couple years that every character in WWE who has embraced his or her edgier side has been met with open arms by the WWE universe.

Dexter Lumis was finally able to compete in a match like this. He was scheduled to compete in a five – men ladder match for the North American title back in August 2020 before suffering an injury. Just the fact that he was involved in a gauntlet match to determine the number one contender raised his stock.

LA Knight is virtually guaranteed to be money in NXT, but for right now he is a little too new – he reminds me a little bit of Adam Cole with his mannerisms and the way he speaks. I thought for a couple years “why has WWE not gotten their hands on this guy” when he was doing the Eli Drake persona with Impact (calling everybody dummies and using the “fact of life” gimmick which he brought to WWE). I did not realize he was with WWE in 2013 – 14 but it just never worked out.

Triple H, however, was extremely high on him and always kept an eye out as his radar for talent is spot on.

At the end of the day Bronson Reed emerged as the number one contender for Johnny Gargano’s North American championship. NXT’s Resident Thick Boy has become familiar with his own personal flow state and has hopefully enjoyed the process – becoming a better overall person (hopefully) over the past two years since being signed to WWE and it has finally paid off with a title opportunity.

When looking at the context of the Fastlane event from a slightly larger perspective, in a way, this event is arguably unnecessary and WWE is simply orchestrating a Pay-Per-View for the sake of having one. Many of the matches appear as if they would be better suited on free television rather than being given away on a Pay-Per-View a few weeks before WrestleMania.

Personally, I romanticize back to the time in WWE right when I was growing up (2000 – 2015). The entire company moved at a much slower pace along with the rest of the world. As a result, much more importance was given to the events the company did have and the events were promoted in a stronger way as opposed to them being more spread throughout a given year as WWE has evolved.

The Tribal Chief – Roman Reigns – successfully defends his Universal title against Daniel Bryan, while Edge reaches a point of inner conflict as the Special Guest Enforcer

Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns may have indeed surpassed the quality of their epic singles match from Fastlane six years ago in February 2015. It was very complicated in the way we got there, but the money match between Edge and Roman Reigns is still intact, although one could easily make the argument that the match would be much improved if Daniel Bryan were to be added to the match to make it a triple threat.

It would be surprising if D-Bryan ended his full-time WWE career having only participated in the main event of WrestleMania only once, but that is the exact boat WWE is currently swimming in – assuming Bryan doesn’t main event this year. It is fully understandable why he is bringing his full-time WWE career to a close. Bryan recently did an interview with Bleacher Report and claimed the primary reason he was stepping away from full-time competition in WWE was so she could spend as much time as possible with his family.

Daniel talked about his daughter, who is now a toddler, telling him one day when he had to travel for work “Daddy, please don’t go”, and this caused him to reevaluate his work schedule about a year ago. Bryan currently travels for WWE three days a week consistently, and this would obviously go up in the future when the pandemic ends and WWE starts touring again.

Almost no WWE fan (or anyone who works for the company) would be able to conclusively say that the main event of WrestleMania 37 would not be significantly improved if Daniel Bryan was added to the match between Roman Reigns and Edge.

Edge looked excellent in his match on March 19 against Jey Uso (to become the special guest enforcer for this Universal title match. This entire scenario played out in order to create buzz surrounding the title match at Mania between Edge and the Head of The Table.

Daniel Bryan cut a promo on the March 5 episode of SmackDown stating how WWE conducted personality tests on the superstars at the time (this was in 2009 – 10, so right as Bryan was being signed to WWE). The results revealed that Daniel scored extraordinarily low in ambition, and when he was asked how he made it to WWE with such a low level of ambition, the only thing he said came to mind was that he loved wrestling and was so passionate about it (similar to the promo cut by Cesaro a couple weeks ago on Talking Smack).

Out came Roman Reigns to expose the more negative side of the coin. The Head of The Table insinuated that Daniel Bryan did not love wrestling because it was conditional love and based on him seeking validation. Maybe, from this perspective, this could have been the reason Bryan went into almost a depression when he was forced to retire in 2016, only to come back two years later. Roman insisted that he possessed unconditional love for the business because it was not based on need or obsession.

This is extremely important to not necessarily be needy of anything in life, be it a career, relationship, or anything else for that matter. Almost every truly successful person in life says this in their own authentic way, from Matty McCon (Matthew McConaughey, who claims in his recent book Greenlights that before making it big in acting he needed to take a trip to Europe with a couple friends to get his mind right and eradicate the neediness from his mind because Hollywood sniffs out neediness. Maybe all that naked bongo playing gives a healthy level of levity to Matthew’s consciousness – all natural).

This carries over to the Buddha, who claimed “desire and attachment are the root of all suffering.” The religion/philosophy of Buddhism was built out of this philosophy, and it combines ideas from the eastern part of the world with ideas from the West.

When examining the career of Daniel Bryan, this lower level of ambition is somewhat true if one looks through the appropriate lens. All we need to do is look at his five world title reigns (essentially four because he held two title belts in 2014, so that one counted as two). Bryan’s first world title in WWE came in December 2011 when he cashed-in his Money in the Bank contract on Big Show to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Bryan lost the title at WrestleMania 28 in 18 seconds to Sheamus. He won the second one from John Cena at SummerSlam 2013, after Cena chose Bryan as an opponent for the WWE championship. Daniel only held the title for a minute before Randy Orton cashed-in a Money in the Bank contract.

Daniel Bryan’s crowning moment in his career was the culmination of the Yes! Movement at WrestleMania 30 in which he defeated two other Hall of Famers in the main event to capture the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Even then, however, the only reason he was inserted into the main event was because the WWE universe essentially forced Vince McMahon to do that. He was scheduled for another Mania match with Sheamus until a couple weeks before the event.

As one can discern, a legitimate sense of ambition was never forcefully exerted by Bryan until 2018, when he turned heel and won the WWE championship after returning to WWE earlier that year after having been forced to retire due to concussion issues a couple years prior. Daniel held the title until WrestleMania 35 when he dropped it to Kofi Kingston. That level of ambition waned a little bit in 2019 and 2020, but fortunately it appears to be back in 2021 as a match for the Universal Championship was armed for the first time by The Planet’s Champion.

Drew McIntyre defeats Sheamus clean and will therefore challenge The All Mighty Bobby Lashley for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 37 at Raymond James Stadium

McIntyre and Sheamus may very well have delivered the best match of the Pay-Per-View, as McIntyre channeled his inner William Wallace with the face paint looking like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Every match Sheamus has participated in over the past decade plus in WWE has been extremely physical, and The Scottish Warrior is the exact same way.

This match was originally planned to be a last man standing match as of a few weeks ago, but it was abruptly changed to a no holds barred match – either way it worked beautifully in the form of brutal physicality. This was also essentially a number one contender’s match for the right to compete against Bobby Lashley at WrestleMania 37 (although not in the main event as that spot is saved for The Tribal Chief) for the WWE Championship. Drew McIntyre will now be challenging for the WWE title at Mania for the second straight year.

The rivalry between McIntyre and Sheamus finally came to a high point in the form of a one-on-one Pay-Per-View match nearly 3 months after the rivalry officially got started. These two men have had a couple singles matches on Monday Night Raw in recent weeks, but they have worked together and have been best friends for about 15 years. They both have the utmost trust in one another, and that’s the primary reason why this match was so good – they both just click and can communicate very well nonverbally.

The Fiend finally made his return after Randy Orton burned Him to a crisp (dummy; it was not a real person) three months ago to the day. Alexa Bliss no longer needs to serve as a conduit for The Fiend, although she probably will still be affiliated with Him. WWE can now focus more directly on building toward a Mania match between the Legend Killer and Bray Wyatt’s alter ego.

Big E retains the IC title – which he plans on holding for over a year – against Apollo Crews

This was a solid match until the last minute when it began to feel clunky and the superstars were explicitly trying to execute a formula which was unnatural to both men. Having said that, I admire both of them for powering through it and making the best of a bad situation. Big E has successfully kept his character development intact throughout this feud so far, which very well may not be over and come to a head at WrestleMania.

Starting on the March 12 SmackDown, Big E began bringing a more aggressive attitude toward his presentation of his character, which the WWE universe can most likely peel into as being more authentic to E. He received the impetus for this change in attitude two weeks prior to March 12 courtesy of an attack from the steel staircase from Apollo Crews. Speaking of Apollo, he is still finding his way in WWE and trying to find a character that is more authentic to him and harmonizes with his personality.

This Nigerian Prince gimmick – which is still relatively new – feels more authentic to Apollo to a certain degree, but there are still question marks – at least in the back of my own mind – as to whether this is sustainable because the WWE universe could very conceivably see right through this gimmick after a while. The accent Apollo is using is clearly forced – just looking at how Kofi Kingston’s original gimmick in WWE in 2008 did not work because the WWE universe saw right through the inauthenticity of his fake Jamaican accent – and I feel this fate could wind up trending in a similar direction for Apollo Crews.

Going back to Big E, he finally enacted the more aggressive attitude that The Miz was attending to extract from him on Talking Smack around that August – September time. The Powerhouse claimed that he would be very willing to undergo a shift in attitude, but he would not just do it randomly for no reason.

Essentially a superstar would need to do something to him that brought the aggression out to provide continuity in the story so that it made sense to the WWE universe – and they would therefore resonate deeper with Big E’s character. As it turns out, six months later that impetus was given, and this will not only benefit E but also Apollo – at least in the short term – hopefully for the long haul.

That same night on Talking Smack, Big E laid out a long-term plan to Paul Heyman for basically the next year. His plan is to hold the Intercontinental Championship until WrestleMania 38 in 2022. Not only that, but E’s ambitious goal is to win the Royal Rumble match in January 2022 and go on to challenge Roman Reigns or whoever the Universal Champion is at that time and emerge from the event in Dallas as a double champion.

This might be an interesting avenue for WWE to explore in 2022 – because this has never been explored previously in a storyline. No superstar has previously laid out a long-term plan for himself or herself like Big E has done. He is essentially exerting the effort to speak his own greatness into existence – from the perspective of a good chunk of the WWE universe, this will resonate profoundly.

Seth Rollins gets a victory over Cesaro’s former tag team partner Shinsuke Nakamura

Seth Rollins simply cannot get out of this head the idea of Cesaro (one of Seth’s extremely close friends in real life) swinging him 22 times a few weeks ago on SmackDown. This is most likely going to result in a high-profile Mania match between Rollins and the Swiss Cyborg, who refused to Embrace The Vision. For now, Rollins chose to target Cesaro’s tag team partner for over a year, Shinsuke Nakamura. Rollins himself has had multiple classic matches with Nakamura in the past (notably at Survivor Series 2018).

The Architect has never worked with Cesaro before, which is unbelievable considering the talent level of both men. This was likely done strategically so the rivalry would have more meaning when it finally did happen; now it’s time to put the most critical part of the plan into action in the form of a Mania match between them. Rollins has made himself into a huge star and really connects with the WWE universe, but unfortunately the same can’t be said for Cesaro.

He is not nearly as big of a star as he could or probably should be – not because Mr. McMahon doesn’t like him or anything like that, maybe it’s because he is European and the WWE universe doesn’t identify as much with him. Hopefully this gets turned around after the match with Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 37.

Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler remained the Queens of the Women’s Tag Team Division for right now with another dominant victory

Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair were unable to become the first champion-challenger WrestleMania duo since John Cena and Shawn Michaels (2007) to enter Mania as tag team champions. Banks and Belair will make plenty of history at the biggest show of the year (by becoming the first two black women to have a title match at WrestleMania) without also being Women’s Tag Team Champions; Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax are doing a fine job of holding down the tag team division on the women’s side and seemed to have found their niche in WWE. The only question Is the overexposure of Reginald right now (he is functioning as essentially the updated version of James Ellsworth).

Reginald even started his run back in December 2020 as the assistant to Carmella. This also (ironically) happened to be the role that James Ellsworth settled into in 2017 after about six months of fighting his footing with WWE.

Shane McMahon is following in his father’s footsteps by giving other superstars opportunities to further their own careers while simultaneously accentuating the meaning of his own WrestleMania storyline with Braun Strowman by extending it

Shane McMahon suffering an injury immediately prior to Fastlane (kayfabe or not) will work in WWE’s favor, as this will open the door for the rivalry between he and Braun Strowman on the much bigger stage of WrestleMania. Shane is following in the footsteps of his father Vince by wrestling into his 50s.

This also benefits the company in the short term by giving the young and rising star Elias an opportunity to shine on Pay-Per-View, an honor he has not experienced in about a year (Elias won his Mania match against King Corbin last year).

It is somewhat ironic that WWE ran an anti-bullying campaign years ago, and now Shane McMahon is doing the very same to The Monster Among Men storyline. From this perspective, this is an ill-advised storyline to be doing for the company, similar to the one in June 2020 between Jeff Hardy and Sheamus surrounding Hardy’s shadowed past involving his struggles with alcoholism. From another perspective, it’s a positive thing that WWE is choosing to highlight these issues in society; even though the company will undoubtedly get some negative feedback for it. The issues are being brought to the forefront of the collective consciousness of society so they can be dealt with.

It’s about the lens through which one chooses to look at an issue. People should ask themselves before reacting to an issue unconsciously, “which response best serves me?” to avoid undue stress.

This match essentially did nothing to help further the storyline of either Elias or Braun; we are in the exact same place in terms of the primary storyline between Shane McMahon and The Monster, so the match did not even need to take place. Shane is still making fun of Braun, but at the very least the bottom line of a Mania encounter is still intact.

RETRIBUTION is finished and WWE has admitted that it did not work; and Matt Riddle will walk into WrestleMania as United States Champion

RETRIBUTION was officially done away with as the storyline has been dragged out about five months too long. Matt Riddle is a much better option than Mustafa Ali at this point to carry the United States Championship into Mania as his Spiccoli-inspired character from Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) is more over with the WWE universe currently, whether Mr. McMahon fully understands the dynamics or not.

The booking decisions were very well done at Elimination Chamber as they were not the calls that were seemingly obvious to the WWE universe. The major matches all had surprising finishes which means fans will be talking about the results for weeks to come as the results to the two chamber matches both had WrestleMania implications.

The Miz becoming a 2x WWE Champion after a decade is short-term booking designed to draw more eyeballs to the WWE product heading into WrestleMania 37, and Miz will most likely lose the title within a few weeks (maybe even sooner)

WWE creative appeared to have thought through this plan very thoroughly. Creative prepared for Bobby Lashley to drop the United States Championship at Elimination Chamber and immediately get involved in the WWE Championship picture. Foreshadowing of this was seen a little earlier in the night before the match took place as MVP was shown having a discussion with Miz about cashing-in his Money in the Bank contract on whoever emerged from the chamber with the title, and that’s exactly what happened. MVP successfully talked Miz into it, even if it was manipulation.

This could have merely been a setup to make it easier for Bobby Lashley to win the WWE title. It is perfectly in line with Bobby’s character – as the CEO of The Hurt Business – to collaborate with the leader of the entire group (MVP) to get The Miz to cash-in on Drew McIntyre right after he successfully defended his title in the Elimination Chamber. Miz is almost guaranteed to be an easier opponent than McIntyre from whom Lashley can (will?) win the WWE championship very shortly, only to set up a massive WrestleMania encounter with The Scottish Warrior.

The WWE Championship has been Lashley’s primary goal for the last 15 years (I would guarantee it was in the back of his mind every day when he was fighting in Bellator). At 44 years of age, Bobby has improved his craft and gotten it to a point where it is about as good as it will ever be (which is excellent). Drew McIntyre vs. Lashley for the WWE Championship at Mania is easily the most box office rivalry Monday Night Raw has to offer right now.

As Daniel Bryan has said, Miz “wrestles like a coward.” It’s a very formulaic style designed to preserve Miz’s body – that cannot be denied, but you know what, it draws eyeballs to the WWE product. That is great for business as Mike is on many different networks and platforms on television and in the community. Both times Miz has become WWE Champion it has been a result of cashing-in a Money in the Bank contract. He cashed-n on Randy Orton to become champion in 2010, and now Drew McIntyre just last Sunday.

Miz is all but guaranteed to be a transitional and temporary WWE Champion as he will most likely drop the championship within a few weeks to Lashley, but this was well played for over a decade of diligence. To help elevate the WWE product into the mainstream. He has been a fantastic ambassador for the company and being able to call himself a two-time WWE champion will serve to make him an even bigger star.

WWE Championship Chamber Match from the Perspective of each Participant

Drew McIntyre’s Perspective – The Scottish Warrior got the opportunity to main event a Pay-Per-View over Roman Reigns for the second time since Roman’s return at SummerSlam. Unfortunately, McIntyre lost the WWE title and his second tenure with the belt is now in the rearview mirror. However, it gave The Miz a spotlight he was kind of needing after floating in obscurity for a couple months. It also gave Bobby Lashley the hard-earned culmination to his push which began over a year ago when MVP returned to WWE at Royal Rumble 2020.

AJ Styles’/Sheamus’ Perspective – The Phenomenal One was surprisingly one of the final two men in the Elimination Chamber with Drew McIntyre (of course after Omos ripped the door of the chamber).

It appeared to be a logical decision to orchestrate for McIntyre and Sheamus – the two one-time best friends – to be the final two participants. At least that was the story WWE was pushing, but the company’s 50/50 booking strategy typically abides by that because Sheamus got the upper hand on the go – home episode of RAW immediately before the Pay-Per-View, The Celtic Warrior would lose at the Pay-Per-View and draw the short end of the stick. This turned out to be exactly what happened.

Styles also had a WWE Championship match with McIntyre at TLC in December, but that match was interrupted by Miz attempting to cash-in his Money in the Bank contract (this was foreshadowing for what transpired after the match). Now 50/50 booking would dictate that AJ owes Sheamus a couple weeks of making him look strong because The Celtic Warrior did The Phenomenal One a favor last Sunday as well as back in December on an episode of Monday Night Raw. So a story between from Sheamus and AJ could be something to look out for leading to Mania.

Randy Orton’s/Jeff Hardy’s/Kofi Kingston’s Perspective – KofiMania part deux simply was not meant to be (at least not this year, maybe because Kofi was not replacing Mustafa Ali). WWE creative has the option to go wherever it wants right now with Jeff Hardy since his storyline with Elias was abruptly dropped without much explanation. On the contrary to Hardy, Randy Orton’s direction is being very intricately planned as it appears as of right now that WWE has decided to extend the storyline between Randy and The Fiend all the way until WrestleMania 37 in Tampa.

Braun Strowman will of course not be happy about being excluded from the chamber. This anger from The Monster could become the impetus for a major push heading into WrestleMania season.

Bobby Lashley drops the United States Championship to Riddle

From Lashley’s perspective, dropping this title needed to be done to place 100% of his focus on the WWE title as was seen later in the night. This is also huger from the standpoint that it puts Riddle over in a major way by giving him his first title on the main roster big things are in store for the Spiccoli-inspired character (even if Mr. McMahon doesn’t understand why it’s over 100%). For right now this is the best thing that could have happened for The Original Bro’s career.

February 15 – February 21 was not a great week for Johnny Drip Drip. Sure his tag team partner MC M.I.Z. Became WWE Champion, but personally, he failed to earn his way into the Elimination Chamber on RAW by losing to Kofi Kingston. Not only that, but Morrison failed to win the United States Championship, taking the pin from Riddle so Lashley didn’t need to take a loss. You are not going to look strong every night in WWE – it’s a team game to keep the machine as strong as possible.

Daniel Bryan emerges from the Elimination Chamber on the SmackDown side and is promptly defeated by Roman Reigns, and after the match Edge makes his WrestleMania intentions known by spearing the Head of the Table

It has been nothing but drama over the past month with Edge teasing the possibility of facing Drew McIntyre or Finn Balor at Mania. We all knew for the most part that the only logical opponent with whom Edge, who won the 2021 Royal Rumble, could main event the biggest show of the year with was Roman Reigns. The Rated-R Superstar made that choice abundantly clear in the form of delivery a spear to the Universal Champion with the mob boss persona after he defeated Daniel Bryan.

The Head of the Table is the quintessential centerpiece of everything that goes on in WWE, and he is not afraid to acknowledge it himself or demand that everyone else also acknowledges it.

A Bryan – Reigns match may have deserved a little more of a spotlight, because it absolutely had the starpower to warrant the company making a big production of this encounter. These two men met in a one-on-one match at Fastlane 2015 in an instant classic to determine who would go to WrestleMania that year to face Brock Lesnar (a match that Reigns one by the way).

WWE has considered multiple times since 2015 the possibility of revisiting this rivalry. The one instance the company came closest to pulling the trigger on this was the idea of doing it at SummerSlam 2019, but for whatever reason WWE decided against it and instead did not use either Bryan or Reigns at the second biggest Pay-Per-View of the year.

Each Man’s Perspective in the Number One Contendership Chamber Match to the Universal Champion

Daniel Bryan’s Perspective – it would have been cool if Daniel Bryan could have closed out his tenure as a full-time wrestler by becoming Universal Champion. A small preview was given on the go – home episode of SmackDown as to what the potential feud between Edge and Bryan would hone in on (I don’t want to spoil it because it’s still a possibility). The money rivalry right now, however, is undoubtedly Roman Reigns and Edge.

Cesaro’s Perspective – The Swiss Cyborg had earned this opportunity arguably more than anyone in the match, but again that was the result most of the WWE universe was expecting. Perhaps this nuance made it so Mr. McMahon couldn’t choose this because not very much talk around the WWE product would be generated in this scenario.

Cesaaro was named the best professional wrestler in the world by Sports Illustrated from an in-ring perspective 4x (2013 – 16). He has also never before received a major title match in WWE (which is almost criminal) as The Swiss Superman has been relegated to the tag team division for much of his time on the main roster.

Fortunately, Cesaro has been the hottest WWE superstar since 2021 began, splitting from his tag team with Shinsuke Nakamiura and turning babyface, as well as picking up pivotal singles victories over the likes of Daniel Bryan twice as well as Dolph Ziggler.

He added several more nuances to his character with the performance in the Elimination Chamber by talking about his love for plain old espresso before the match as well as doing pull-ups during the match to showcase how well – conditioned he is.

The simplicity and authenticity to Cesaro’s character is somewhat refreshing – it feels old-school as opposed to the over-the-top presentations WWE typically goes for. The Swiss Cyborg, on the contrary, has a very down-to-earth and process-oriented approach to his character and life in general. We can all learn a thing or two from this guy – in life, slow down your approach and focus on appreciating what is right in front of you.

One could have concluded that, since Cesaro was one of the two men to start the chamber match, he might become the iron man and outlast everyone. That unfortunately did not happen, but there is reason to be optimistic as he is getting hot at the right time after over a decade of being signed with WWE (not unlike Kofi Kingston finally getting to be WWE Champion after 11 years).

Jey Uso’s Perspective – Uce is essentially playing the character of an indentured servant to Roman Reigns. The past six months in WWE have been the best of Jey Uso’s decade-long career as he has broken out as a singles wrestler and a perennial main eventer. WWE has even gone so far as to give him two Universal Title opportunities in which he did not look out of place at all.

It is, however, unfortunate that this singles push for Uso only was initiated due to Jey’s brother Jimmy tearing his ACL at WrestleMania 36 last year (Jimmy has been out ever since). Jey has talked openly about the injury to his brother, and he has stated that he expects his brother to return to full physical health by January or February. We are there now, so WWE is currently just waiting for the correct opening in storyline to bring Jimmy back. Creative has the option at this point to put him in the same role as his brother or have The Usos return to the tag team division.

From my point of view, the first of these possibilities is the more intriguing of the two as Jimmy has earned the right over the last decade to prove to the WWE just exactly what he can do as a singles competitor – he should get the same opportunity as his brother and should not be punished just because he was injured (aside from this one incident, The Usos have proven to be extremely durable superstars for the past decade as neither of them have ever suffered a major injury before this).

Kevin Owens’ and Sami Zayn’s Perspective – Kevin Owens has received three Universal Title matches very recently, so he was out in terms of winning the match because The Tribal Chief needed a fresh challenger. It was great, however, that Owens was finally given a significant storyline to run with after waiting in no man’s land since WrestleMania 36 prior to the storyline getting going in December. KO was awarded his first legitimate WrestleMania moment in 2020 by jumping off the WrestleMania sign unto Seth Rollins.

Master Strategist Champion of The People – The Critic of Critics – The Great Liberator – Mr. Conspiracy. Sami Zayn can be a bit annoying at times, but no one can argue that he draws eyeballs to the WWE product and has displayed great character development. The latter part of that sentence has only been happening for the last two years as it began the night after WrestleMania 35 when Sami made his return from injury with a much more refined level of confidence. Since then, he has become a crucial part of WWE programming as well as a two-time Intercontinental Champion.

King Corbin’s Perspective – Corbin needs to perhaps drop the King gimmick and start using something else. Even Booker T only used it for about a year and ½ when he became King of the Ring in 2006. Corbin is right on the cusp of that now as he earned this distinction in September 2019. But creative is most likely giving this matter attention and ideas already.

Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler retain the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships against Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair

Sasha and Bianca have been teasing some sort of a cautious friendship over the past several weeks. However, as WrestleMania approaches, this friendship may begin to dissipate as the tag team title loss will open the door for one of the two women (most likely Sasha because she is already an aggressive babyface and was a heel just a few months ago) to turn heel on her partner out of frustration over not being able to win the women’s tag titles.

Meanwhile, it was an intelligent decision by WWE creative to keep the women’s tag titles on Nia and Shayna as both women have found a niche within the WWE system. The company originally had higher hopes for both of these superstars to find their niche higher on the card, but they have settled nicely into this role. The Irresistible Force and The Submission Magician were both portrayed as unstoppable in the NXT women’s division.

They have both received title matches at WrestleMania (against Alexa Bliss and Becky Lynch respectively), so this is evidence that each of them is on the minds of WWE creative. They will be heavily involved in whatever WWE plans in the future as these women are pivotal elements of the division that have significant value.

Asuka is unfortunately excluded from the Elimination Chamber card, a trend since she last became RAW Women’s Champion at SummerSlam 2020

Asuka has been the recipient of some poor booking recently even though she has been RAW Women’s Champion for most of the last year (essentially since Becky Lynch announced her pregnancy in May 2020). Elimination Chamber was the latest example of this as she was originally scheduled to defend her title against Lacey Evans in what would have been a very compelling match and storyline considering the addition of Ric Flair.

The Nature Boy added another level of intrigue surrounding the former Marine Evans. This was rather unfortunate for Asuka but that’s the way the cookie crumbled. Things appear to be looking up for her come Mania time with a second meeting with Charlotte Flair on the horizon.

The name of this Takeover brings back memories of the WWE Vengeance Pay-Per-View from 2005 when Triple H and Batista had one of the bloodier matches of the century so far over the World Heavyweight Championship (which no longer exists as of 2013. Batista came out on top over the 10-time World Champion The Game at the time). Good ol’ JR called it from the beginning “This match will not be for the weak at heart. That’s the grandfather in me.”

Every match at the 33^rd edition of NXT Takeover was unbelievable. This is a testament to the benefits AEW provides NXT by competing with the brand every week. Triple H is inspired each week to do absolutely everything in his power to make NXT as good of a product as it can possibly be. This is obviously the case anyway without any competition, however every business benefits significantly if it has some competition to make it, and its competitor, better. AEW and Tony Khan are motivated the same way by NXT: you take a few strategies from your competition that you like and implement them in your own unique way and throw out what you don’t like.

Finn Balor keeps a firm grip on the NXT Championship, and might set his sights next on feuding with Adam Cole for leadership of The Undisputed Era as subtle foreshadowing has been hinted on NXT TV over the past several weeks

Finn Balor is operating on a completely different playing field right now. Every movement in the ring is incredibly precise. It’s not super surprising that The Prince retained his NXT Championship against Pete Dunne – the more surprising term was that of Adam Cole. WWE is in the process of telling the story in which Balor is subtly forming a cautious alliance with The Undisputed Era – particularly Kyle O’Reilly, who has gained a great amount of respect for Finn over the past few months after engaging in a heated rivalry over the NXT title.

Adam Cole could most likely sense this, and maybe thought his leadership of The UE could potentially be in jeopardy a few months down the line, so the leader of the faction decided to let both O’Reilly and Balor know where he stood on the matter by superkicking them both. The night ended with a newly heel Cole at the top of the ramp and Kyle O’Reilly and Finn Balor in the ring confused over exactly what just happened.

A match for the NXT Championship could be orchestrated for the next Takeover between Adam Cole and Finn Balor for not only the title but also the undisputed leadership of the UE. This would be a rematch from the match on the September 8 in addition of NXT TV in which The Prince originally won the title.

In the meantime, Roderick Strong was caught in the middle and not sure whose side to take. Bobby Fish will also be caught in a similar predicament upon his return from injury (Fish is a great wrestler, but slightly injury prone. This makes sense considering he is the oldest member of The Undisputed Era. Unfortunately, this may mean that WWE might need to let Bobby Fish go in the not too distant future – not because of a lack of talent but because the company cannot afford to have him eating up a roster spot if he is constantly hurt and not helping better the product).

Pete Dunne delivered a great performance in his first NXT Championship match. Dunne may not have quite as much chemistry with Balor as he goofed with Tyler Bate in 2017, but it was still a great match. The addition of Pat McAfee to the presentation of Dunne, Oney Lorcan, and Danny Burch has significantly benefited all three men in the charisma department – even if it only lasted a couple months.

Pete Dunne is one of those smaller guys who has done an excellent job of honing his craft over the past number of years. This story is similar to that of a Daniel Bryan, so perhaps in the future Dunne could be called up to the main roster and Daniel Bryan could collaborate with the writing team on SmackDown –of which he is already a member – to give Dunne a rub and help get his career jumpstarted by hopefully getting him over with the WWE universe.

Io Shirai remains dominant as NXT Women’s Champion and will likely hold the title for at least a year, that being until June 2021

It was undoubtedly the right decision to keep the NXT Women’s Championship on Io Shirai. She is consistently excellent in the ring and has been for years. The Genius of the Sky is clearly head and shoulders above every other woman in NXT at the moment.

This stage felt somewhat big for Toni Storm. It seemed like a bit of a stretch at this stage of her career, however it was not too much of a stretch and it will still serve her on her career path. Mercedes Martinez, however, has been ready for a stage like this from a wrestling standpoint for probably at least several years. She has just not found herself from a character standpoint until recently.

Martinez was called to the main roster and put with RETRIBUTION on RAW. She was not necessarily resonating with the product she was putting out on a weekly basis, so she used this self-awareness to go back to NXT where she felt she would be happier and deliver a better television product for WWE. Martinez’ breakout moment so far was back in October in a steel cage match with Rhea Ripley right before she was called up to Monday Night Raw.

MSK could become a pivotal part of the tag team division in both NXT and the main roster in the future – winning the Dusty Cup just two months after being signed by WWE

The company decided to go with a pair of rookies to win the seventh edition of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. MSK debuted in NXT just a couple months ago and the first thing they do is win the Dusty Cup after having already made a name for themselves in Impact! Unfortunately, the Grizzled Young Veterans lost in the finals of the Dusty Cup for the second straight year. This team was off TV for months on end in 2020 because they were stuck in the UK because of travel restrictions due to the pandemic.

The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic is getting bigger by adding a women’s version this year for the first time as well as the men

The decision to have Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzales come out on top in the first ever Women’s Dusty Rhoads Tag Team Classic was probably the most interesting decision of the night. Gonzales and Kai both appear to be on the path to becoming NXT Women’s Champions in the near future no matter if they got the victory. From this perspective, one could have developed the notion that it might have been more beneficial for all involved If Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart got the win.

Moon has been treading water since she returned to NXT in October 2020 after about 2 ½ years on Monday Night Raw (1.5 if you take away the time it took for her to heal from our Achilles injury). One could make the argument that a victory like this was exactly what she needed to get some momentum going again. Blackheart has done several different things in NXT and is still searching for a role that suits her best within the company.

It is hard to envision a scenario where Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzales dethrone Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax, but they make for interesting challengers that legitimately have a chance to win – maybe even on an episode of NXT TV.

Gargano retains the North American title but the Japanese Kushida impresses; Gargano once again proved why he is Johnny Takeover as this was far and away the best match of the night

Johnny Gargano’s current storyline in NXT may seem a bit childish and geared more toward the inner entertainment side of the company – therefore one could make the argument that he will be better suited on Monday Night Raw. But no one can argue that the three time North American Champion is fantastic between the ropes. The right call was made in terms of keeping the title on Gargano as he is more relatable right now due to the simple fact that he is American and Kushida is Japanese.

However, Kushida is working on this. He wrestled his best match to date as a member of NXT (after signing in April 2019). He is gradually developing more of a character and tailoring it from the very polite and respectful Japanese wrestling culture to the more outspoken American culture. He is not quite there yet, but Kushida has the potential to evolve into a champion within the next couple months – assuming he has done the work necessary to improve his English because this helps so much as far as relatability – because we all know it’s no question that he has the skills between the ropes.

The new draft class at the WWE Performance Center in 2021 is rather exciting, particularly two names. The first is LA Knight (Eli Drake). Personally, I have been hoping for the last couple years that WWE would get their hands on this guy because he fits the mold that Vince McMahon typically goes after perfectly. He has already made a name for himself in TNA/Impact! As a former World Champion as well as the NWA. He will be a massive star in WWE assuming he does not have attitude issues. Knight was with WWE previously from 2013 – 14 and Triple H has explicitly talked about how he was always a fan of LA Knight, but it just did not work out with WWE – no one’s fault.

The second star out of the 2021 draft class that is worthy of talking about is Taya Valkyrie, who has been wrestling for over 10 years and is a former Impact Knockouts Champion and is a current champion in AAA (in Mexico). The last part of the last sentence is a big deal because normally when superstars have signed with WWE, they have been required to drop the titles they hold in other promotions. It’s a good thing to see WWE relaxing a little on this policy, probably because they see AEW, WWE’s main competitor, working so much with other promotions and collaborating to get a better product.

Edge wins the men’s Royal Rumble 11 years after winning it in 2010 and 10 years after a career-threatening injury; Adam Copeland can finally end his career on his terms

Edge main-eventing WrestleMania at 47 years old does essentially nothing to make him into a bigger star; Adam Copeland the human being is finding meaning in this journey through finding vindication in the idea of writing his own ending to his wrestling career, and that level of consciousness is working for him at this stage of life.

This year it was only a seven-month absence for The Rated-R Superstar due to a torn triceps as opposed to a 9-year hiatus as it was last year chronic neck issues (which required two separate surgeries). Another core moment in the men’s Royal Rumble was the return of Christian after being punted by Orton several months ago. Edge and Christian are real-life the best friends and former tag team partners, so it brings continuity to the story that Christian returned in the Rumble to help his friend achieve vindication.

Daniel Bryan announced he was entering the 2021 men’s Royal Rumble match on Christmas Day 2020. This marked Daniel’s first Royal Rumble appearance since 2015. The WWE universe was firmly behind Daniel Bryan to win the entire thing that year, but that was the year Roman Reigns got the nod from WWE. Reigns and Bryan had a match the following month by main-eventing the Fastlane Pay-Per-View to see which one of them would go on to main event WrestleMania 31 against Brock Lesnar.

The leader of the YES! Movement missed the Rumble the following three years because he was forced into retirement due to medical issues with his head and suffering many concussions over the years. He was active for Royal Rumble in 2019 and 2020 but was featured in a major title match both years, so Bryan was not featured in the men’s Royal Rumble match.

Daniel Bryan has a lot more influence backstage than perhaps any other superstar not named Roman Reigns because he is a member of the writing team on SmackDown. As a result, he can give his own creative input for storylines – not just his own but for every other superstar as well. Bryan’s ideas are not met with question marks but are legitimately considered.

A perfect example of this is the losing streak Daniel Bryan went on prior to the Royal Rumble. His intention behind this idea was to put over other underutilized superstars in need of major victories to establish themselves before getting a massive spotlight himself. Cesaro was chief among the men who benefited from this losing streak – getting by far the biggest victory of his WWE career to date over Daniel Bryan on the January 15 SmackDown (Claudio Castagnoli got a victory over Bryan Danielson in Ring of Honor over a decade ago but this was the first time in WWE).

Perhaps since Cesaro’s partner Shinsuke Nakamura recently underwent a face turn and seems to be beginning another singles run on the main roster, a victory over someone as established as Daniel Bryan will provide The Swiss Cyborg with the necessary momentum he needs to get over and sustain it with the WWE universe. Otis and Chad Gable are two other guys who have benefited from being associated with someone as established as Bryan, not in the form of matches but being DB’s trainers in the Alpha Academy.

Seth Rollins returned at Royal Rumble from paternity leave; he left right after Survivor Series, where he sacrificed himself “for the greater good” and he and Becky Lynch had their baby, Roux in December. The Messiah was scheduled to return on the New Year’s Day edition of SmackDown, but that idea was scrapped for whatever reason. Maybe Seth would make for an interesting challenger to Roman Reigns for the Universal title before Mania in Tampa.

2021 for WWE may likely be built heavily around Braun Strowman, who became a perennial main eventer in 2020 because Roman Reigns decided to prioritize his family first by skipping out on WrestleMania 36 and being present with his newborn twins during the first few months of the pandemic.

AJ Styles seems to be one of the standards in WWE’s booking strategy, as he should be as arguably the greatest in-ring for format of this generation. A slightly more novel idea is the thought that his bodyguard/bouncer Omos could begin his in-ring career in 2021. Evidence for this stems from the fact that he eliminated Rey Mysterio and Big E himself and engaged in a confrontation with Braun Strowman.

One last nice surprise was that Riddle had a fantastic performance. It was reminiscent of Cody Rhodes back in 2012 coming in at No. 4 and he one of the final men eliminated. Mr. McMahon is very high on Riddle in his Spiccoli-inspired character even if McMahon doesn’t fully understand it. Riddle did have a legitimate argument with Brock Lesnar last year that nearly resulted in a fight. Over what? Probably nothing important.

One other somewhat disappointing event in the men’s Royal Rumble was that Keith Lee, after defeating Randy Orton just five months ago, was not featured in the match after being in the Rumble with Brock Lesnar last year and getting a WWE Championship match with Drew McIntyre four weeks ago on Legends night.

Bianca Blair wins the Women’s Royal Rumble after entering at No. 3

The result of the Women’s Royal Rumble was exquisite from a booking standpoint – the WWE creative team nailed it. The top two young superstars were the final two women in the match in the form of Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley. Ripley defended the NXT Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 36 for the first time ever (or any NXT title), and Belair was easily the woman who would benefit most from winning the Royal Rumble on the women’s side.

WWE made the right choice in having the EST get the victory. After watching her documentary on WWE Chronicle, one cannot help but root for her in her effort to capture a title at Mania. Wrestling has allowed her to rediscover the inner child within her.

Alexa Bliss was not in the Rumble for very long this year after entering at number one last year and lasting for about half the match before being eliminated by Bianca. This was extremely smart on WWE’s part because, at this stage, she should be treated by WWE creative exactly the same as The Fiend. They are both supernatural characters that function better if they are kept away from any sort of title picture and fight for causes that “mean more” to them.

It was never a legitimate question of if Roman Reigns was going to retain the Universal Championship, but it was a question of how he would defeat Kevin Owens in this title defense; the match may have exceeded expectations which were set extremely high from their last match at TLC last month

Roman Reigns – from a character standpoint – has used the “mob boss” aura to surround himself with people like Paul Heyman and his cousin Jey who will tell him whatever he wants to hear, mainly that he is right in his thinking that he has transcended Kevin Owens’ “just to keep fighting” level of consciousness. The Head of The Table has essentially created the illusion that he is operating on a higher mental paradigm than everyone else, according to Kevin Owens. This is somewhat of a metaphor for the relationship between Jim Ross and Vince McMahon – at least one facet.

Good ol’ J.R. painted the picture that Vince McMahon surrounded himself with people who would tell him nothing but what he wanted to hear, and it was not like that when he first bought WWE from his father. People learned the art of how and when to talk to Vince in order to have the best chance of getting their way. For example, if someone wanted to push a certain agenda, the best way to ensure it happened was to be the last person Mr. McMahon talked with so the boss had your voice ringing in his ear the loudest.

The Reigns-KO storyline is essentially a mirror for the McMahon-Ross relationship. But as I alluded to earlier, this was just one facet. McMahon loved Jim Ross (and still does) like a brother and it reminds me of the love I have for my own brother. Jim broke his back for WWE and put himself through a lot of unnecessary personal anguish, but he is now doing his thing with more freedom (subjective) and a much lighter work schedule with AEW.

In terms of tangibility, the match between Roman Reigns and KO quite possibly exceeded the quality of the last match between the two men, which was awfully hard to do because last month, Kevin Owens went through about five tables. This month at the Royal Rumble, it appeared as though Kevin went into the match by simply asking himself over the past month “what can I jump off of?” The answer was a forklift and the platform in the arena that he was thrown off of by Roman a few weeks ago.

Goldberg puts over The Scottish Warrior Drew McIntyre and unselfishly makes him an even bigger star

This was also undoubtedly the right call in the WWE Championship match for Bill Goldberg to put over Drew McIntyre – he checked one opponent off his list of men he wanted to work with before he retired. WWE has invested the last year in building McIntyre as a credible main eventer by winning the Royal Rumble in 2020 and winning the WWE Championship from Brock Lesnar in the main event of WrestleMania 36. McIntyre was also given the nod from WWE management to engage in an extremely compelling storyline with Randy Orton (which included by far McIntyre’s best promo work) from August – November, which included Orton taking the WWE title off McIntyre for a few weeks before McIntyre defeated Orton again to win the title for the second time.

Goldberg used his box office appeal to make McIntyre an even bigger star and cement the future of the business. WWE learned from last year that The Fiend taking a nod to Goldberg took a step backwards in terms of his character development. It worked well to have Goldberg take the Universal championship off Kevin Owens four years ago and drop the title a month later at WrestleMania 33 to Brock Lesnar (kickstarting a historic title reign of over a year), but last year was a different animal because Goldberg was dealing with a supernatural character in the form of The Fiend.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I flinched when Goldberg lifted McIntyre to do a jackhammer. I had flashbacks to Super Showdown 2019 and that horrible botch in which The Undertaker’s neck was nearly broken. In fairness, it was because Goldberg was concussed earlier in the match; he had to feel awful for putting another life in jeopardy. But anyway, the jackhammer on McIntyre was well-executed. I give Bill credit for having the strength to get that done because McIntyre is a big guy – and 19 years younger.

Carmella is steadily raising her stock within WWE as a potential credible champion as she has been once before; Sasha Banks is the face of the SmackDown women’s division right now

The Boss is still SmackDown Women’s Champion for now which is the right booking decision at this point in time. Not to say Carmella will never get there, but right now Sasha is most likely the top women’s star not named Charlotte Flair. She will probably hold the title until WrestleMania 37 and be challenged by someone like a returning Becky Lynch or Ronda Rousey.

WWE takes some of the spotlight off its top two female stars (which can certainly be afforded) to essentially elevate the Women’s Tag Team Championships by giving them more focus

It was absolutely the right call by WWE to put the Women’s Tag Team Titles on an actual women’s tag team rather than just lazily putting the championships on the company’s top two singles stars in the women’s division in the form of Charlotte Flair and Asuka – guess they are both embroiled in their own singles stories. Asuka is involved in a storyline with Alexa Bliss over the RAW Women’s Championship, and Charlotte Flair is involved in a storyline with Lacey Evans beginning a romance with her father Ric Flair (kind of disgusting given the fact that there is almost of 40-year age gap between he and Lacey).

Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler had a pretty decent amount of momentum on their side back in December when they lost the titles, so it might have been in ill-advised decision to take the titles off them in the first place. The Women’s Tag Team Championships would have received a bigger spotlight over the past month if they were on an actual women’s tag team as opposed to the entire WWE universe nearly forgetting who the champions were. It was absolutely the right call to put the titles back on Jax and Baszler.

Randy Orton won the first ever Firefly Inferno match by setting The Fiend on fire and proceeding after the match to burn The Fiend’s carcass. This event will most likely write Bray Wyatt/The Fiend off WWE television for the next six weeks until he pops up again at Royal Rumble on January 31 and could possibly win the whole thing.

Bray Wyatt has been involved in an Inferno match before with Kane in his debut match on the main roster at SummerSlam 2013, but no one was set on fire in that match. Randy Orton stayed completely true to his character throughout this rivalry with The Fiend so (not to say it’s over because it’s probably not thankfully) by wholeheartedly embracing the heel role.

Fortunately, WWE got creative and found a way for Orton to be able to embrace the creative role he is most comfortable portraying while simultaneously leaving the essential core elements of The Fiend’s aura alone and adding another element of supernatural appeal. WWE has earned some serious applause for this creative because it’s working to absolute perfection.

This was reminiscent of the 1998 inferno match between The Undertaker and Kane – because no one had ever seen anything like that back in the day, and similarly, no one has ever seen anything like someone being set on fire on WWE television. This is another example of innovation from WWE during the pandemic. The way the company decided to orchestrate this would not have ever been possible with fans (because the stands were on fire). The company has found numerous innovative ways to do things in the past year.

Bray Wyatt is an extremely creative dude, so he functions best when the proverbial creative shackles are off and he is free to explore the nuances of his character. He is always several steps ahead of his audiences in terms of his character development, so the next step could mean the end of The Fiend – it certainly looked to be the end – if someone is set on fire, it might not be very believable to bring that character back. Wyatt was sending out a couple tweets emphasizing the circular nature of life, perhaps signaling a potential return to his original cult-leader character. Bray provided a little bit of foreshadowing to this – if this is in fact the case – in the Wyatt Swamp Fight with Braun Strowman back in July at The Horror Show at Extreme Rules (this is also when Wyatt aligned with Alexa Bliss).

Alex McCarthy of TalkSport is reporting that USA Network (WWE’s longtime cable partner) has made the higher-ups in the company aware that they would like WWE to present a slightly darker and more violent product, similar to the way things were done back in the Attitude Era. The event on Sunday with Randy Orton and The Fiend but have been a precursor to that more edgy product and what it might look like in 2021.

WWE experienced its lowest total in viewership for Monday Night RAW for 2020 a couple weeks ago, and a few years ago the viewership number was nearly twice as high. Cable as a whole is probably dying, and it most likely will not exist in a decade, but this number is still concerning. Nearly all cable programs have experienced a decline in viewership in the past few years – and COVID is not a factor in that because ratings were declining even before.

The Viper was definitely the right man to do this little experiment with as he has seen the WWE product at its best and at its worst, when the product was edgier back in the day and when it was at its most PG – so he has a significant amount of trust to be intuitive enough to know what will work and what won’t. WWE is also in a ratings War right now with AEW, and the latter company appears to be winning having beaten NXT on Wednesday nights pretty regularly for the past year – and even beating all three hours of RAW in terms of viewers one week several months ago.

Roman Reigns walks out the same way he walked in; with his cousin at his side and his Universal championship raised over his head. It was a brilliant and brutal match with great storytelling

The result of the Universal title match was rather predictable, but the way WWE decided to go about it was interesting to say the least – primarily because it was so brutal (and uncomfortable at times). Just another testament to how spot-on Roman Reigns is becoming as a heel and the undisputed Head of The Table. Kevin Owens still has to be sore a week later.

These two men are plenty used to main-eventing Pay-Per-View for the Universal championship. Who can forget their Royal Rumble 2017 encounter when KO was champion (with Chris Jericho locked in a shark cage above the ring) right before the Festival of Friendship. Roman has a plethora of experience taking bumps from Kevin Owens, so he knew full well that he was in for a physical match (Seth Rollins also proved this firsthand by taking a bump from Kevin off the WrestleMania sign earlier this year to give the Prizefighter his first WrestleMania moment). The promo work between Kevin and Roman has been off the charts – I would have absolutely zero problem if this rivalry continued.

The very beginning of the match was nostalgic because of the fact that KO snuck behind Roman to start the match – you know who else used to do that often was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Owens is obviously not nearly as big of a star as Austin was, but he gives off a similar vibe with that “crossing the boss” mentality – the rivalry not too long ago with Shane McMahon was a great example.

I was hoping in the back of my mind that someone would interfere in the match to give Owens the opportunity to win because he never stood a chance against Roman Reigns in a one-on-one contest. It could have been Goldberg? There have been rumors in the wrestling world that Roman Reigns may be booked to face Bill Goldberg at WrestleMania since it was originally planned to happen at the same event this past year, but those plans were canceled with Roman deciding to put his family first and take care of his newborn twins. Bill Goldberg potentially interfering in the match at TLC could have provided the perfect impetus to get the rivalry going again between the Head of The Table and Goldberg – but again, this might not be the route WWE is going.

To continue the thinking, this would have made sense for another reason – Goldberg defeated Kevin Owens for the Universal championship a month before WrestleMania 33 in 2017 (where Goldberg would ultimately drop it to Brock Lesnar who held the title for over a year). Now to prove to Kevin that Bill Goldberg never truly had any hard feelings, assisting Owens to win the title after a somewhat disappointing latter half of 2020 would have been a rather poetic way for these two superstars to finish their story.

Drew McIntyre retains the WWE championship and continues to provide stability in an unstable time

Miz cashed-in his Money in the Bank contract unsuccessfully – this WWE title match between Drew McIntyre and AJ Styles was Phenomenal until then. The Miz cashed-in to make it a triple threat match – the only time I can recall a Money in the Bank cash-in occurring that turned the match into a triple threat was at WrestleMania 31 when Seth Rollins executed the Heist of The Century by cashing-in on Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns, ultimately winning the WWE championship. Roman was originally scheduled to win that match and become champion, but the decision was reversed due to the negative reaction he was getting in 2015.

The Miz became the first superstar in WWE history to successfully become WWE champion by virtue of the Money in the Bank contract and to also unsuccessfully cash-in (10 years apart). Miz won the contract for the first time in 2010 and held the contract until December, ultimately cashing-in on Randy Orton to become WWE champion, holding the title through WrestleMania 27 where he defended the WWE title against John Cena. The unsuccessful attempt was this Sunday.

As a result of this, the WWE championship will stay on Drew McIntyre for the foreseeable future. He has earned it as he has provided the company with some semblance of stability in this unstable time of the pandemic. McIntyre has become very relatable to the WWE universe and cemented himself as a main eventer during the most unique time in WWE history – he revealed his authentic personality on Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions.

For one topic, Drew discussed how Randy Orton helped him along in his career in a similar way The Rock did for Austin (obviously not the exact same way because The Rock was 26 years old when he started working with Austin – Stone Cold was the older one). In the case of Drew McIntyre and Orton, Randy was five years older so this most likely benefited McIntyre exponentially because Randy had the ability – and finally the willingness – to teach him the ropes and nuances he has learned over the last 18 years in WWE that make a match great. The Scottish Warrior has an extremely gracious attitude toward the business in general, and he has the mentality to go with his gut more than ever when he is in the ring (talking or wrestling).

Sasha Banks and Carmella are thriving on SmackDown in terms of storytelling and the opportunities are being spread around, while Charlotte Flair’s return and the continued presence of Asuka (now as a double champion) monopolizes RAW

It’s a great thing that Sasha is so inspired by Eddie Guerrero. Eddie was a truly special human being – he embodied the two primary qualities I try to exhibit every day. He always gave his all to be 100% present in everything he did and also to give 100% of his energy to it. He devoted all of his time and effort towards getting the absolute most out of life for himself as well as everyone else – at the end of the day that’s all anyone can ask of themselves in this life.

Carmella is not necessarily ready yet to carry the women’s division on SmackDown because she just returned to TV two months ago. However, that is the trajectory she is on, so it won’t be long before that is a reality if she continues on this path (with assistance from Reginald, or James Ellsworth 2.0). On the other hand, Sasha Banks can now be considered a real champion – because not only has she successfully defended her title on TV but now she has defended it on Pay-per-View which she has never previously done. She will most likely hold the SmackDown Women’s Championship until Mania.

Another interesting thing that happened at TLC in the Women’s Division was the return of Charlotte Flair. WWE could have waited on this until Royal Rumble, but it makes perfect sense to bring The Queen back now. She teamed with Becky Lynch last year at this event to challenge for the Women’s Tag Team Championships – who did they challenge? One member of the champions was Asuka. So she defended a title against Charlotte last year and is her partner this year – continuity. It does feel like WWE is monopolizing all of the title opportunities – at least on RAW – to the top two or three women.

Maybe another superstar ShakeUp is in order because the opportunities feel more spread out on Friday’s. Lana is unfortunately injured, and there don’t appear to be any legitimate plans for Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler. More than anywhere else, the women’s division is thriving in NXT.

New RAW Tag champs – The New Day is established in their careers to the point where they can put other teams over and create new stars

The Hurt Business finally won the RAW Tag Team Championships from The New Day after trying unsuccessfully to take the titles several times. It’s smart that Cedric Alexander is the member of the team spending most of the time in the ring because he is still young enough to where he has the potential to be molded into a bigger star at only 31 years old. On the other side of the coin, we already know what Shelton Benjamin is for the most part at this point since he is in his mid-40s. The reason The New Day is still together is because there needs to be at least one team who is established enough to put other teams over to continue the division.

Before the main show even started, there was an eight-man tag match featuring Daniel Bryan (just a filler for the night, but this is his final singles run in the company. It’s almost guaranteed WWE has big plans for Daniel Bryan for Mania – starting with a possible Universal title match at Royal Rumble with Roman Reigns), Otis and Chad Gable (they still have a weird partnership that gets harder to read every week. Gable wants Otis to be intuitive, but he’s not telepathic). Big E (this is a small step In the right direction – his singles push has taken a long time to get going but he just needs to let go and trust the process a little longer. E has done exactly that for 8 years. He made his debut at TLC 2012 helping Dolph Ziggler defeat John Cena in a letter match for the Money in the Bank briefcase – so I am very confident he has the ability to be patient).

Against King Corbin (with his knights Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler), Cesaro (needs to become WWE champion before retiring), Nakamura, and Sami Zayn (always something to say! Don’t be surprised if he gets involved with Kevin Owens again sometime soon as their rivalry will probably never end until they retire – they just work so well together).

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).