Superstar Sagas

Joe is finally a champion on the main roster in WWE. He became prominent in the sports entertainment industry at about the same time that John Cena entered WWE in 2002 (Joe entered Ring of Honor, or ROH, followed by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, or TNA, in 2005). It took nearly two decades, but it finally happened. It’s great to see that the trigger is finally being pulled on a feud between Joe and Cena, as it was advertised in 2017 leading up to the No Mercy PPV. WWE decided to go with Cena versus Reigns, and Joe may have been hurt.

The writing is on the wall for this to be a match at WrestleMania, as the groundwork was subtly laid this week on SmackDown during Joe’s post-match promo. R-Truth helped this by mentioning in the weeks leading up how he idolized John Cena. Based on what I am aware of, John has wanted this feud for quite some time. It should be very interesting, and exciting, to see it come to fruition. It’s very good from the perspective of Joe too. He is one of the most believable superstars in the company today due to his unprecedented promo skills.

Finn Balor has had an extraordinary career in the wrestling/sports entertainment industry, traversing the world – mainly in Europe and Japan, and being most known in Japan for being a founding member of the Bullet Club. This was before being introduced in NXT’s lineup in 2014, and subsequently debuting on the main roster in 2016. He became the first-ever Universal Champion at SummerSlam in 2016 by defeating Seth Rollins. WWE had big plans for Balor. The plan was for him to hold the title for about the same length of time as Kevin Owens held it. That got derailed when Balor sustained a shoulder injury that would keep him out of in-ring competition until after WrestleMania 33. WWE proved that they never quite viewed Balor in the same light after his injury. His booking has been inconsistent to put it mildly. He came close to breaking that mold a few times. The first being at The Royal Rumble 2018 when he entered the match at number two and lasted all the way to be one of the final four in the match. The second was at The Royal Rumble 2019 when he gave Brock Lesnar a run for his money.

The WWE has never gained confidence in Balor, for whatever reason, to carry him as a main (or, an event superstar). Balor is the current Intercontinental Champion right now and does not have a WrestleMania opponent. He deserves to have a high-profile, singles match against another great opponent, maybe someone like Johnny Gargano. We all should be very hopeful that Balor brings out “The Demon” aspect of his character at WrestleMania. This would mark the first time The Demon has been introduced on a stage other than SummerSlam on the main roster. Personally, I think it would elevate him in a big way to bring some of the Sting element into his character.

I want to talk a little about Brock Lesnar before he either winds up leaving the company for UFC or retiring. A lot of people hate on Lesnar for being a lazy part-timer or for leveraging his relationship with Dana White and the UFC to get more money out of WWE. But let’s be honest, if any of us were in the same position, we would probably do something very similar. Brock is just using his God-given physical abilities to further himself in life. He is also then using the resources he possesses, his relationship with the UFC in this case, to make a better living for himself. No one can really justifiably get angry with him for that – he is just playing the hand that he was dealt with. People are just angry with him because the hand that he happened to be dealt with was a good one. Not even he knows why he was born into such favorable circumstances. I view it as being unjustified for people to get angry with him because of that.

People also get on Brock Lesnar for not being a people person and not dealing with them because he doesn’t necessarily have to, but I totally get it because I’m not a people person either. I’ll still easily talk to people if I need to, but it’s not my favorite thing to do. I could easily live on a farm with just animals. I’m not a massive fan or detractor of Brock Lesnar, but I do feel the constant criticism of him is bit much.

The character of Seth Rollins is being fully legitimized. The groundwork for his character was laid between 2012 – 2014 with the shield when they ultimately became major Babyfaces and Seth turned on his shield brothers in June 2014. WWE tried to build him up a little more by having him win the money in the bank contract shortly after that and pull off the heist of the century by becoming the first man to cash in the contract in the middle of the main event of WrestleMania. He would go on to hold the WWE world heavyweight championship for a little over six months before he tore up his knee with a major knee injury and would miss about seven months of action, before returning to start a short feud with Roman Reigns.

Rollins would then go on to be involved in the first-ever universal title match with Balor and feud over the universal title for the next several months, although never winning it. In my opinion, Seth had a relatively dismal 2017. The only thing of very much significance that I can recall him accomplishing over the course of that calendar year was getting a victory over Triple H at WrestleMania. He followed that disappointing year up with a fantastic 2018 though, staying very healthy throughout the entire year and having no real major injuries and putting together classic matches on a regular basis with just about everyone on the Raw roster. He also won the Intercontinental championship on two occasions. Okay, now that I have covered Seth’s history, I can now get into the meat of what I want to talk about.

Seth is clearly being built up for a universal title match with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania, but I have a different proposal for what WWE should plan for what I’m assuming would be the main event for WrestleMania, because we have already seen Roman Reigns face Brock twice in the main event of WrestleMania and get badly beaten up for most of the match. Also, the fans got easily bored with the match at last year’s WrestleMania, so it would be smart for WWE to mix up the main event this year and put some fresh faces in that spot this year. I get it, it’s a great way to put Rollins over and cement him as seemingly the top superstar on Raw, at least for now, and it’s also a great way to send Brock off to UFC and also potentially entice him to come back to WWE after he is done fighting. So this strategy fully makes sense from a business standpoint, I’m just going to point out that it might be cool to see something a little bit different.

Proposal: Seth Rollins meets Dean Ambrose for the universal title at WrestleMania. WWE could do this by having Dean Ambrose win the Royal Rumble match and go on to face the universal champion at WrestleMania. Rollins could have a match with Brock Lesnar at the elimination chamber pay-per-view in February for the universal championship and win it there and walk in to WrestleMania as universal champion. Seth made a good point earlier this year when he was asked about the Rock participating in the main event. He responded by asking how many of the current guys wrestling could be expected to elevate to the level of the Rock if they are never given the same opportunities as the Rock or others of the Attitude Era. This is an excellent point and I absolutely agree, that WWE should give its current superstars the opportunities to reach that level.

Don’t think I forgot about Brock. Then the question becomes “What would Lesnar do at his final WrestleMania for the foreseeable future?”

Idea: Brock could face the Rock at WrestleMania, assuming the Rock’s schedule cooperates, which it may not, I am just throwing it out there because I heard about it a few months ago. It would certainly be cool to see given that they have not met in the ring since 2002 and that is the match where Brock won his first WWE title, so there is history there. It would add major star power to the event and it would not hurt any of the current superstars because both guys already have an established reputation for themselves. I just think it would be really cool to see.

I love the idea of AJ Styles becoming the number one contender for the WWE championship. I will never complain about a Styles vs. Bryan match, especially since it was thought that we would never get it for the first couple of years that AJ was a part of the company. In my opinion, the only other viable option to win the match would have been Mustafa Ali, who is not yet ready for a title match. Yes, he does have a victory over the WWE champion, but there has not been any legitimate buildup to a match between those two.

It would be a great idea for WWE to capitalize on this in the future, but just not right now. If they were to do it now, they would risk fans not caring about the match. It would definitely be a great match, but fans may have no real reason to become invested in the match at all. The feud between Styles and Brian has already been built up and going on for a while now, and it’s been pretty good, so it would be smart of WWE to extend it. It is also a feud between two of the best performers in the entire company.