SmackDown

The New Day flooding after basically six years; bittersweet!

The first major piece of news is the splitting of The New Day after nearly 6 years together. Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods returned from injury right after Big E defeated Sheamus – virtually guaranteeing his position in WWE as a future world champion by defeating a former four-time world champion, Royal Rumble winner, King of the Ring in The Celtic Warrior. The BootyO’s making an appearance during the match was a nice comedic touch.

Kofi was injured in July when The New Day lost the SmackDown Tag Team Championships to Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura and Cesaro powerbombed him through two tables. Woods sustained a ruptured Achilles tendon in October 2019 at a live event. Nearly a year later, it was great to see him return and look better than ever (he’s only 34 years old, so it makes sense that his body is still able to respond well to that type of gruesome injury).

Immediately after Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods won the SmackDown Tag Team Titles for the seventh time to become 9-time champions overall, it was found out that Kofi and Woods would be moving to Monday Night Raw while E will be staying on SmackDown. Mr. McMahon originally wanted to keep The New Day together until they broke The Dudley Boyz’ record of nine Tag Team Title reigns, but things can change on a dime in WWE. At least this plan was almost seen all the way through.

The Monday Night Messiah is no more; he will be moving to Friday Nights

Seth Rollins will be moving to SmackDown for the first time in his career. The first brand split that took place during his career was in 2016. Rollins was drafted to Monday Night Raw then and has stayed there during each Superstar Shake Up since then and during the 2019 WWE draft. It’s nice that he will finally get to experience a change of scenery.

It’s a positive that Rey and Dominik Mysterio were also drafted to SmackDown so the Mysterio family – including Aalyah – can continue their storyline with Seth. One would reasonably assume that Rollins’ disciple Murphy will also switch brands so those two men can engage in a feud which the Messiah will lose in order to be written off TV for paternity leave (because Becky Lynch is due to give birth to their child in December – congratulations Seth).

Round 2 of the draft; AJ, Naomi and Bianca Belair switch brands

It’s funny because AJ Styles was moved from Raw to SmackDown in June because he had major disagreements with Paul Heyman. That worked out well for a short while – he put over the incoming Matt Riddle and became Intercontinental Champion after returning to The House That AJ Styles Built.

Well as it turns out the Wobbly Walrus (as Bray Wyatt referred to him in the Firefly FunHouse) also moved to SmackDown coinciding with the return of Roman Reigns. As a result, back to Raw AJ goes.

Bianca Belair will be a welcome addition to the blue brand after not finding much of a niche on Monday Night Raw. One has to wonder if The Street Profits will also be switching brands given that WWE typically likes to keep couples together on the same brand whenever possible – Belair and Montez Ford are a couple.

Lars Sullivan was also introduced to the SmackDown fanbase. Vignettes began airing at Survivor Series 2018 to promote his debut, which was scheduled to take place in January 2019 before he left the company for a while due to an anxiety attack. Sullivan got his mental health in order and debuted after WrestleMania 35 – everything seemed to be going smoothly until Sullivan sustained a severe knee injury in June. After spending most of the past 16 months recovering, Sullivan is finally healthy and mentally ready for his push on the main roster to begin.

Miz & Morrison to Raw after a great year on SmackDown

It was announced in December 2019 that John Morrison would be returning to WWE. He made his debut after 8.5 years away from the company and helped his buddy Miz through his time recovering from the emotional wounds The Fiend put him in his family through. Miz & Morrison fit like a glove as a tag team after not being together for over a decade – with some relationships, time doesn’t matter, you pick up where you left off.

Miz & Morrison have become SmackDown Tag Team Champions for a short while, released a rap album, and even wrestled for the Universal Championship in 2020. They were involved in a storyline with Otis once upon a time, but that has apparently dissolved now that they are on separate brands – unfortunately, Mandy Rose is now also on a separate brand as she was moved a couple of weeks before the draft.

Roman Reigns may be the man in WWE and the cornerstone of the entire company, but that also comes with the responsibility of knowing that it means the company is flourishing and all of the other superstars are doing their part very effectively if Roman does not need to be used as much as the primary focal point of the show. That was the case on this episode of SmackDown as some Roman Reigns was definitely sprinkled in and he did his thing – being crowned The Tribal Chief and all – but other superstars were highlighted for most of the two hours so Reigns ’presence was not too heavily relied upon.

This also makes perfect sense for Kevin Owens and his character direction because he’s a perfect example of the phenomenon I am talking about that occurred in 2002 when WWE was transitioning from The Attitude Era to The Ruthless Aggression Era. People like Triple H and The Undertaker were heavily relied upon to carry the company in its time of struggle. Fortunately, John Cena emerged as the man in WWE for about the next decade plus.

Back to this edition of SmackDown – it was a great night of in-ring action, with great matches at the end of the night in the main event and to open the show. Let’s start with the latter, as the night was kicked off with Roman Reigns giving Jey Uso another Universal Championship match at Hell in a Cell. AJ Styles would subsequently enter, claiming that Jey had not earned another title match and so would give it to someone who has – AJ. Jey went on to defeat Styles, cementing his position at the top of the card for right now – he has genuinely earned that spot.

A match between Roman Reigns and The Fiend is the endgame for Roman’s Universal Title run – The Big Dog’s fifth world title overall. This will not happen for several months – most likely at WrestleMania 37 (where there can hopefully be fans in attendance), and in the meantime, it looks like The Fiend will be busy embroiled in a feud with Kevin Owens (this means Kevin Owens will need to be drafted to SmackDown next week as part of the WWE draft).

He has engaged mostly in other people’s storylines over the past several months since defeating Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 36. This will give Owens something to sink his teeth into – there is also another layer to the story with the possessed Alexa Bliss.

Because Jeff Hardy lost an Intercontinental Championship rematch to Sami Zayn, Hardy has lost nearly all momentum in that particular storyline so it might be time for him to move on to a bigger title such as the Universal Championship. Right now there are two men who are most likely going to challenge Roman Reigns for SmackDown’s top prize (after Jey Uso of course) which are AJ Styles in the Jeff Hardy. No one, however, stands a chance of taking the Universal Title off of The Tribal Chief, except, maybe The Fiend.

Styles is simply one of the best wrestlers of this or any other generation – plus he has a little bit of history with Roman being back to 2016. WWE is very keen on keeping the push of Jeff Hardy going to keep him happy with WWE and so he doesn’t get the inclination to join his brother Matt in AEW. Jeff will also debut his entrance music from 2009 during his most recent singles run with the company “No More Words.”

Bruce Prichard did an excellent job of orchestrating SmackDown so the events at the end of the program could be traced back to what occurred at the beginning – which is the ultimate goal of every great movie or TV show. This episode featured an outstanding thread of continuity.

The Tribal Chief’s Mob Boss Storyline is Brewing

Roman Reigns, WWE’s Tribal Chief and Universal Champion, may be laying the foundation for a potential “Mafia-style storyline (according to Paul Davis of wrestlingnews.co) with his family in which he is a sort of “mob boss” type figure at the “head of the table” (Reigns used that terminology this week on SmackDown). This storyline will most likely get in full swing when Jimmy Uso returns from his torn ACL he suffered at WrestleMania 36 in the first-ever singles match for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships (he suffered the injury back in April, so it might be reasonable to guess that he will be able to return in December/January).

Paul Heyman, meanwhile, recognizes that his purpose in this storyline is to aid The Big Dog in the process of becoming comfortable as a heel by creating a forceful and commanding presence. It not only makes for a good story, but it’s unselfish of Roman to push for his cousin to receive a title match after approximately a decade of competing in the tag team division (which has not gotten as much love in the last decade).

Speaking of that, Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Gran Metalik in singles competition as his partner Cesaro has also done recently. This, along with the fact that Metalik’s partners Kalisto and Lince Dorado are arguing with each other and seemed to have disagreements regularly, is a giveaway that the champions will most likely retain their titles at Clash of Champions Gold Rush.

Unfortunately, the women’s tag team division is not receiving a high level of permanence either. This division was thrown together as somewhat of a last-minute thing, with not very much prior planning. As a result, Mr. McMahon is building this division as he goes.

The Fiend is the end game of Roman Reigns’ universal title Reign; the Foundation for this Match is being laid right now with Alexa Bliss

The Fiend’s presence was once again felt despite the fact that he did not make a physical appearance. He can seemingly control Alexa Bliss’ behavior by selectively invoking the screeching noise at certain times. The WWE universe is fully aware that the end game of Roman Reigns’ Universal Title reign is a match with The Fiend (most likely at WrestleMania 37, hopefully in front of live fans).

Alexa is already mesmerized and somewhat possessed by The Fiend. It might be feasible to imagine that she will become a mouthpiece for The Fiend (because she is so naturally gifted on the microphone). It is easy to envision her creating memorable moments with Paul Heyman on the stick each week. Another reason this is so easy to envision coming to fruition in the coming months is that Alexa was staring down Roman Reigns this week as he made his entrance – foreshadowing things to come.

Riddle’s Feud with Corbin Extended

King Corbin defeated Matt Riddle in what was easily the best match of the night – Corbin has earned major praise for being an extremely safe worker and protecting the body of whoever he is working with on that particular night. This result should serve to extend the rivalry between Corbin and Riddle. The Bro got the victory over Corbin at Payback on August 30, so it would be very feasible to figure that there will be a third encounter between the two men since Corbin got the victory in the second meeting this past Friday.

Matt Riddle is on an upward trajectory since debuting on the main roster in June. Other than defeating AJ Styles in his first match on the main roster, the victory over Corbin is Riddle’s biggest victory. The Original Bro should be a key component of the WWE main roster for years to come.

The storyline between Bayley and Sasha Banks Marinating

Sasha Banks may return to set up a Hell in a Cell confrontation with Bayley, but for now, the story needs time to breathe and marinate in the minds of the WWE universe. This will serve to make the story have more impact on each competitor when it finally does come to ahead. For now, Sasha might want to stay away to further the storyline and give it an adequate amount of time to simmer.

Cesaro possibly a Potential Top Star

Cesaro has clearly emerged as the top star of his tag team with Shinsuke Nakamura. This can be seen dating all the way back to WrestleManiia 36 when Cesaro defeated Drew Gulak in a singles match on the pre-show on Night 1 of the event. Cesaro, one half of the current SmackDown Tag Team Champions, participated in yet another singles match with Gran Metalik of Lucha House Party this week.

Cesaro and Nakamura became champions at The Horror Show at Extreme Rules in July 2020, and Cesaro should be expected to continue his momentum as the leader of this tag team because he resonates more so with the WWE universe. On a personal note, I felt several years ago he had earned a WWE Championship match. Let’s hope he gets one in the near future before The Swiss Superman exits his prime years.

Alexa’s Transformation is Imminent

The Fiend didn’t make an appearance this week, however his presence and influence could absolutely be seen and felt when Alexa Bliss hit Sister Abigail on Lacey Evans after doing the same to Nikki Cross the previous week. She had the same faraway look in her eyes that the WWE universe would see in the eyes of Bray Wyatt from time to time when he was fully embodying the persona of a cult leader. Based on these events, a logical inference might be that Alexa is becoming infatuated with the demonic presence of Sister Abigail, so this storyline might be taking a rather sinister direction.

The Fiend has drastically changed the character of every superstar he has ever worked with (other than the poor booking decision of inserting Bill Goldberg into The Fiend’s storyline and winning the Universal Title from him, which did not make much sense). Finn Balor left the main roster after SummerSlam 2019 and after serving as The Fiend’s very first opponent to introduce the character to the WWE universe, returning to NXT (like Broadway as The Prince calls it) as a heel and becoming NXT Champion about a year later.

Seth Rollins turned heel and turned his back on the WWE universe, who was not particularly happy with some of Seth’s tweets in 2019, becoming effective as the Monday Night Messiah. Daniel Bryan did change the direction of his character, but for the better as he became a babyface once again (which is clearly the leader of the Yes! Movement’s niche). Whenever John Cena decides to return to WWE (that is assuming he will), one has to imagine he will also be a completely changed character. About the only thing John has not done with WWE is turn heel, so he could very conceivably portray this change in attitude. Finally, Braun Strowman has just crossed brands from SmackDown to Raw for a fresh start, so it’s very likely that Alexa will undergo some sort of rapid transformation within the coming weeks (possibly becoming the human embodiment of Sister Abigail).

A Modern-day Version of HBK vs. Razor Ramon with a Slight Wrinkle

In the Intercontinental Championship picture, WWE is rehashing a storyline the company executed in the early 1990s. Shawn Michaels won the title in what I believe was 1992 and left WWE for personal reasons, so Razor Ramon was awarded the title. When Michaels returned and laid claim to the fact that he was still the champion, it was ultimately settled at WrestleMania in the first ladder match at the biggest show of the year.

This is almost identical to what going on right now in the Intercontinental Title scene. Sami Zayn won the title on March 8 at Fastlane and successfully defended it at WrestleMania 36 against Daniel Bryan before leaving the company for personal reasons – he would fall in the same boat as Roman Reigns. He decided not to perform for a few months during the pandemic, which is completely respectable. Zayn relinquished the IC Title and AJ Styles won a tournament to crown the new champion. However, AJ still had disagreements with Jeff Hardy. Hardy would win the title from Styles right before SummerSlam 2020 and Zayn returned the following week.

This somewhat chaotic storyline will likely conclude with a triple threat match between all three of these men for the Intercontinental Championship (and if the events of this week were any indication it might be a ladder match – Jeff Hardy’s favorite). This is essentially a rehash of that old storyline I mentioned, but with one extra wrinkle of a third man being involved – AJ Styles is the third man.

The Foundation for Big E’s Singles push has been laid with Sheamus. This rivalry might end with a blow-off match between the two men at Hell in a Cell on November 1 (since Clash of Champions Gold Rush is reserved for title matches). It’s great to see E finally reaping the rewards of what he has earned over the last several years. Once upon a time this guy was one of the two men – along with Roman Reigns – Mr. McMahon was making a choice between to become the face of WWE.

The Tribal Chief Celebrating with his Family

It was Mr. McMahon’s decision to portray The Big Dog as a heel for a number of months – and ultimately the WWE universe would revert to chairing him as a babyface because of his likability. I was not quite sure originally if this strategy would pan out, but after the first night of seeing Roman in a legitimate match since becoming Universal Champion it might actually work exactly the way Mr. McMahon planned it. Roman is being given the freedom to be his authentic self in front of the WWE universe, which is something, which Chris Jericho has been an advocate of for years. Seeing Roman embrace his family in the middle of the ring is simply priceless and one cannot help but resonate with that.

King Corbin was much more productive in 2019 than 2020. He retired Kurt Angle at WrestleMania 35 and won King of the Ring in 2019. He is merely coasting off his accomplishments in 2020. Corbin’s biggest highlight of 2020 came in January when he lost a Falls Count Anywhere match to boot Roman Reigns as part of a rivalry that lasted far too long. There are ebbs and flows to anyone’s WWE career. Corbin could be a world champion in 2021.

Heyman’s Mastery

Paul Heyman is an absolute master of ring psychology. There is a major difference to how he behaves as Brock Lesnar’s advocate (with a much more free-flowing, confident authoritative tone in his voice) and the way he conducts himself as the “special counsel” for Roman Reigns (with a more subservient attitude and he pulls back on the reins of his level of authenticity). The reason Paul is doing this is very strategic; it is Mr. McMahon’s primary goal to orchestrate a scenario where Heyman can do some of the talking while Roman acclimates and becomes comfortable with the idea of cutting heel promos.

Hopefully, this will evolve to the point where it can be more of a 60:40 split in favor of Reigns doing the bulk of the talking (this is the ultimate vision – so The Big Dog can one day captivate the WWE universe in the same way John Cena did on a regular basis not too long ago). Jey Uso is currently serving as a placeholder as Reigns opponent in order to buy time for The Fiend, as this is somewhat of an incubation time right now in order to transition The Fiend into the top babyface on SmackDown.

WWE fans might have to imagine that the company will look to keep The Fiend out of Hell in a Cell simply to avoid stirring up negative memories for the WWE universe of The Fiend’s debacle inside the Cell in 2019 against Seth Rollins. Personally, I thought the match was solid, but it was horribly received by nearly everyone else. As wrestling fans, we need to remember and respect the fact that the performers are always busting their asses to entertain us – so we need to be appreciative of that. We couldn’t do any better, so we need to simply appreciate what they have on any given night – it’s going to fluctuate some nights and not be as good, and the performances will be fantastic other nights. This is an unpredictable phenomenon happening in real-time, which is one reason it is so appealing.

In other news, even though WWE just started the ThunderDome presentation format for SmackDown on FOX less than a month ago, Mr. McMahon is reportedly already preparing for the future of WWE after ThunderDome. WWE is currently preparing for the WWE universe to return for live shows around early November (right around the time of the Hell in a Cell Pay-Per-View on November 1).

 McMahon is currently looking at finding an outdoor venue in the state of Florida to hold all WWE events for the foreseeable future (possibly a minor-league baseball stadium). WWE would begin with about 10 – 20% capacity of fans and increase the number by a small amount every week to acclimate the WWE universe to having fans in attendance at every show again. The end goal is by WrestleMania 37 (which is scheduled to be held at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, home of the Los Angeles Rams) in late March 2021, the general public in the United States will be fully comfortable moving on from this pandemic.

Bayley and Sasha Banks are finally starting their Breakup Storyline after it was Postponed Twice due to the Pandemic

Bayley and Sasha Banks have finally started their breakup storyline which was originally planned to start right before WrestleMania 36. That was pushed back due to the pandemic hitting, so Mr. McMahon and everyone else involved in WWE’s creative process decided to do it for SummerSlam (the second biggest show of the year for WWE). Mr. McMahon wanted fans to be president when this storyline came to fruition. When it became apparent that the WWE universe would not be able to be in attendance for SummerSlam, Mr. McMahon again decided to push this back.

Shortly after the second biggest show of the year, WWE made the decision to finally go ahead and set the storyline in motion a couple weeks later (Mr. McMahon most likely thought to himself “we cannot suspend our storylines forever because of this pandemic, so we should just go ahead and do it.” It completely makes sense from a business standpoint why Mr. McMahon would ideally want to have the WWE universe present to witness this storyline unfold (because this would mean a significant amount more revenue for the company), however it probably would not make as much sense within the framework of the story if WWE were to push it back several more months. It’s therefore a smart decision to start this breakup scenario now between Bayley and Sasha Banks while it is still relevant to viewers.

The Big Dog’s Familiar (and familial) Next Challenger for his Universal Championship

The next challenger for Roman Reigns was determined on this episode. It originally would have made the most sense for Big E to win the fatal four-way match for a few reasons. First, he is a former NXT Champion, so people in the company have seen that E is capable of leading a brand and being a workhorse. Second (and most importantly), he was one of the two men Mr. McMahon was deciding between to lead WWE into the future along with Roman Reigns in 2014 as the successor to John Cena. Big E has also been a former Intercontinental Champion on the main roster in WWE back in 2013-14.

Sheamus is also portraying a heel right now, so it would not make much sense for WWE to do a heel vs. heel match. Matt Riddle and King Corbin both appeared to be busy with their own subplot, so all that was left was Roman’s own cousin Jey Uso. Jey’s brother Jimmy is currently out nursing an injury he suffered at ‘Mania in April (torn ACL), so it’s a massive positive to see the company still electing to incorporate Jey into a storyline. No one expected it to be quite this big, but it makes perfect sense considering Roman Reigns is Jey’s cousin.

Paul Heyman put it perfectly when he stated that one of the core values WWE is built on is a sense of family. From the perspective it is so poetic for a family member of the Universal Champion Roman Reigns to become the number one contender on the same night. This storyline along with the breakup of Bayley and Sasha Banks will give WWE some very compelling stories to tell with some primary competition coming in the form of the NFL (which has its first Monday Night game on September 14).

The week of 8/23 – 8/28 was arguably the greatest week of Roman Reigns’ WWE career. He returned at SummerSlam on August 23, followed by some extremely significant character development on the following episode of SmackDown. Many fans on the Internet have speculated about Roman possibly becoming a Paul Heyman Guy for a couple of years now given his history at WrestleMania with Heyman’s client Brock Lesnar.

Reigns was in the main event of WrestleMania 31 in 2015 and WrestleMania 34 in 2018 with Brock Lesnar (and lost both matches) before The Big Dog finally won the Universal Title from The Beast Incarnate at SummerSlam 2018. Reigns would have to relinquish the championship unexpectedly in October 2018 to deal with his leukemia which had returned for the first time in 11 years. Roman was out for about four months before he made his extremely emotional return in February 2019.

This change in attitude for The Big Dog means a whole lot more now as opposed to the possibility of WWE setting this in motion a couple of years, so the timing was perfect. This is the payoff of long-term storytelling – the only problem is, no one wants to wait to get to the conclusion of the story. However, the reward is so much greater if you wait for the right time and take the necessary time to build anticipation. Fortunately, Mr. McMahon understands this perfectly and has executed it many times over.

In my humble opinion, Roman Reigns’ promo on August 28 was the best promo he has done since the one he cut the night after he won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship from Triple H at WrestleMania 32 (I believe the date was April 4, 2016). His promo that night read “I’m not a bad guy, I’m not a good guy, I’m The Guy.” The energy Roman brought with this recent promo a little over a week ago felt extremely authentic and like WWE finally trusted him to bring out his personality.

Triple H has hinted at the possibility of WWE doing another draft in the Fall of 2020, so it would be conceivable to assume that Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar will be moved to the same show to make the travel easier on Heyman whenever the company does start traveling again. Reigns could very possibly win the Universal Championship at Payback on August 30 (giving The Fiend an opportunity to turn his attention to the storyline he started a few weeks ago with Alexa Bliss).

What could be an interesting story to tell is if, after Roman going through leukemia amongst other things to finally secure the Universal Championship for an extended period (because, unbelievably, The Big Dog has never held a world championship for more than about 2 ½ months consecutively), he could lose the Universal Title to Brock Lesnar (who Roman thought he was done with). WWE could then proceed to tell the story of how Roman cannot get rid of The Beast (with the subtext of how Paul Heyman betrayed him. Originally, Reigns may have been of the thought, “If I struggled this much to finally beat Lesnar and Heyman, I don’t want to waste years of my career doing it again. This go around, rather than fighting against them, I will join them.”

WWE moved its tapings from the WWE Performance Center – which is essentially a glorified gym for WWE superstars – to the Amway Center (also in Orlando). This is a much bigger arena, so it will simply give superstars more room to be able to spread out and have more of their own space. The virtual experience with fans is also extremely cool. WWE took the idea from the NBA to project people from home in front of the cameras on their computer screens and then projecting those images into the stands for a live, engaged audience. WWE is taking that idea a step further by doing this on a much bigger scale in a larger arena. This will hopefully usher in a new era of pandemic programming.

WWE’s next potential step with this could be to have fans compete to see who has the best background at home, and the winner could be projected onto the largest screen in the arena on the Jumbotron. Another possibility is that the winning fan could get a special discount on WWEshop.com. These are a few ideas that could make the experience even more interactive for the WWE universe.

Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon, Bruce Prichard, and everyone else involved with WWE creative has done an excellent job of generating exciting storylines between WrestleMania 36 and SummerSlam 2020. In the last several weeks, extremely compelling cliffhangers at the end of each episode of WWE TV have kept the universe tuning the following week to see what happens.

Several superstars have conceivable scenarios right now where their respective characters could undergo a heel or babyface turn at the second biggest show of the year to shift the direction of their character.

Big E’s new perspective on not being named “The Guy” – WWE Superstar Sagas

Big E seems to have a great amount of perspective on the idea of WWE choosing Roman Reigns back in 2014-15 to lead the company going forward. As the event happened, Big E took it in and internalized it. Maybe he came up with the idea that, “I was not ready for that level of responsibility – to put a company on my back and carry it on my shoulders.”

We could all learn something from this – to respond rather than react to events in our life. Instead, we could maybe internalize them and derive new meaning from them that serves us best. Any given event in life has essentially no fundamental meaning other than the meaning we give it. The event has the importance a person decides to give it in other words. Back to Big E – his perspective on his situation back about five or six years ago is very similar to Drew McIntyre’s perspective regarding being fired around the same point in time and having McIntyre’s situation come full circle with him being crowned WWE Champion at WrestleMania 36.

Everything definitely comes full circle now as Big E is getting his hard-earned singles push after well over five years of winning over the WWE universe with The New Day (the group started teaming together back in November 2014). Teaming together with this group helped E to begin feeling comfortable showing his authentic self for the WWE universe to see and be able to connect with. He has now earned several victories in a row against The Miz, John Morrison and now Sheamus.

Bray Wyatt clearly has the most creative character in WWE; there are so many different facets and layers to it. There is a cult leader Bray who resides in a swamp, the entirely separate saga with Sister Abigail, who has taken on a mythical presence of her own; and then there is The Fiend – probably the most genius creation ever in WWE. One can sense that Wyatt puts a significant amount of creativity and thought energy into his character, which is very respectable.

What I would take away from the conclusion of Friday Night SmackDown when The Fiend gave the Mandible Claw to Alexa Bliss is this: Bray is planning to turn Alexa into the living embodiment of Sister Abigail – because she has a look akin to the way Sister Abigail has been portrayed to look like in the past (articles have been written about how this might happen in the future – with Liv Morgan playing Abigail. Morgan would be good, but Alexa is absolutely perfect for this character in the next stage in her evolution with WWE).

There was a hint that this was the direction in which WWE was going at The Horror Show at Extreme Rules on July 19 when Braun Strowman had a vision of Alexa – who he’s always gotten along with – and she was telling him to come home. Perhaps Bray/The Fiend had already gotten a little bit in her head by that time. There is significant depth to this story, and that has to be appreciated – well done, Bray Wyatt/WWE creative. (who I’m still thinking is Universal Champion – and will wrap up a program with The Fiend at SummerSlam by dropping the title to him)

To add yet another facet to this story, the fact that Alexa might become the living embodiment of Sister Abigail may contribute to her disbanding her team with Nikki Cross. This could segue toward Nikki becoming a singles wrestler and ultimately winning the SmackDown Women’s Championship.

So Alexa Bliss becoming the human embodiment of Sister Abigail with The Fiend would benefit not only she and Bray Wyatt in the immediate future, but it would also to further the careers of several other superstars like Nikki Cross, Braun Strowman and maybe even Roman Reigns down the line. This is exactly the type of long-term storytelling with significant depth that the WWE universe has been clamoring for in the last several years. It simply takes several of years long-term stories to pay dividends.

The Fiend is similar to The Undertaker in the it’s never a bad idea to put a major world title on him, but his character is so compelling by itself that he doesn’t ever necessarily need a WWE or Universal Championship. Someone else could have their career be impacted much more by having a title.

This is finally Big E’s time to shine as a singles competitor after 8.5 years of grinding on the main roster, and almost 6 years with The New Day (although E has been Intercontinental Champion before). This man has taken a very unselfish route in WWE and has absolutely earned the right to be a champion. This was a good way to get the train rolling by getting a victory over The Miz (by using the submission that has quietly become his signature).

AJ Styles put over Gran Metalik in a huge way by just being in the ring with him. AJ is still easily one of the best wrestlers in the world at 43 years old, and he has to be significantly respected for carrying the “workman’s title” at this age when he has already done virtually everything.

First Vince McMahon reportedly loved the promo Matt Riddle cut on July 3 – we can expect to see more promos like that with anecdotal storytelling from Riddle. Vince McMahon sees some similarity between Matt Riddle and a young Shawn Michaels – because they both have a little bit of a “rebel” attitude that does not sit well with everyone – that’s what Vince told a source back in November 2019. Maybe Mr. McMahon sees the makings of a polarizing star in Matt Riddle. With his level of physical ability, he should absolutely be a future world champion in WWE.

What could be appreciated even more with Riddle is his in-ring ability. Matt Riddle simply moves at a different speed than almost anyone else in WWE. There are only about two guys who I envision that could consistently keep up with his movement – Seth Rollins and AJ Styles.

It’s unbelievably thrilling to see Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura being featured so prominently in storylines by creative right now (for Cesaro, this is the most prominent position in which he’s been featured since he was a member of The Bar with Sheamus). Cesaro in particular is coming across in a much more natural and authentic way in terms of the energy he is putting into his character. He appears more comfortable than he ever has in his 8 years in WWE on the main roster. Cesaro is certainly going to need that level of authenticity in his character if he is going to one day be WWE Champion before he retires. One might expect he and Nakamura to challenge for the SmackDown Tag Team Titles once again at The Horror Show at Extreme Rules on July 19, given that they have momentum right now in the storyline by putting The New Day through a table.

It’s also extremely encouraging to see that Shinsuke Nakamura slowly but steadily improving his English. It has taken several years for him to get the English language down, but now that he has it there is an opportunity for more depth to be added to his character. This is huge because when Nakamura was arguably the biggest star in New Japan Pro Wrestling behind Hiroshi Tanahashi (who is like John Cena in Japanese professional wrestling).

It’s evident at this point that WWE does not yet have quite enough faith in Nikki Cross to make her SmackDown Women’s Champion. Bayley pinning Nikki on July 10 in their tag match was sufficient evidence. It totally makes sense because Cross is still fairly new to the main roster – she was moved to SmackDown right after WrestleMania 35 – just a little over a year ago.

Side Note: Alexa Bliss has an energetic look/feel about her right now that is very palpable. The WWE universe can feel off of her that she is putting on a good amount of energy into her character – and it’s paying off. She seems to be in a very positive state in life at this point in time (even though I don’t know the intricacies of what’s going on in her personal life).