This past week in pro wrestling was one of the greatest weeks in probably 20 years since the fateful week in January 1999 when Mick Foley won the WWE Championship. WWE never looked back, as WCW never beat them in TV ratings again and wound up being bought out by Vince McMahon in 2001. This week was headlined by WWE of course and the premiering AEW on October 2. Wednesday nights will definitely be the most competitive night of the week in wrestling, as NXT goes head-to-head with AEW Dynamite.
WWE is clearly entering a new era in which they are treating SmackDown as the Flagship A show of WWE. Raw is the B show with the new set, logo, and the younger and experimental announcing team of Vic Joseph, Dio Maddin, and Jerry “The King” Lawler. Lawler obviously serves as the veteran presence, and they did a rather excellent job on Monday night. SmackDown will have veterans like Michael Cole, Corey Graves, and probably either Byron Saxton or Renée Young.
It is very telling as to what WWE thinks of Rey Mysterio’s son Dominick if they are letting him get in the ring at this young of an age with Brock Lesnar, obviously a top guy. Lesnar’s quite clearly very upset that he lost his title to Seth Rollins.
I don’t think this will necessarily happen, but I could see a scenario playing out where The Beast challenges The Fiend in say January and wins the Universal Title. Seth could then challenge him for the title at WrestleMania and win it, retiring him for good. The only reason I mention this is because Brock Lesnar has discussed the possibility of officially retiring at WrestleMania 36 in 2020.
It’s safe to say that Alexa Bliss is officially a babyface after she received major cheers from the WWE universe on Raw.
Bobby Lashley also returned to WWE about a month earlier than expected and shocked everyone by making out with Rusev’s wife Lana right in front of him. This has caused much more speculation and interest surrounding the WWE product. Is Lana cheating on Rusev? It always brings a lot of eyeballs to the WWE product when Vince McMahon incorporates love into storylines.
Hell in a Cell this Sunday almost seems like an afterthought because of the fast-paced booking style which was reminiscent of the way Vince Russo went about pacing the show during the Attitude Era. So many major events that happened so close together that the audience barely had time to process what had just happened before another major event went down.
This was a great strategy to keep audiences interested in the product. It will be much more difficult to consistently duplicate that strategy of booking because Monday Night Raw now is a three-hour show rather than just two back in the late 90s. For that reason, it will probably be much easier to embody this style of booking on SmackDown since it is only a two-hour show.