Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins are essentially the only two top-tier main event caliber superstars who can carry SmackDown on FOX as well as doing all the media appearances and being the face of the brand in the immediate future. Many would also put Daniel Bryan in this category, but the reason I hesitate to do that is that the leader of the Yes! Movement is at the stage of his life where his wife and kids are the most important people in his life – which is extremely commendable. Whoever is in the position of being in the top performer in WWE is required to make certain sacrifices for their career, and Bryan is no longer in the face of his life where he feels he necessarily needs to do that.
Daniel is at the stage of his life where he feels he’s already achieved his fair share of success in WWE and doesn’t necessarily need anymore. He is already a five-time world champion and a former Money in the Bank when, so he has already experienced his share of success in WWE – now it’s time to let other guys and girls grab the brass ring.
There are about seven superstars currently in WWE who have the ability to consistently draw people’s attention to their storylines – the other five (other than The Big Dog and Seth Rollins) were all drafted to Monday Night Raw. Those guys are Drew McIntyre, Randy Orton, Braun Strowman, The Fiend Bray Wyatt, and Keith Lee. Orton has done the best work of his career in 2020, particularly on the microphone – Edge spring boarded him into this phase of his career during the first half of 2020. McIntyre has exploded in 2020 with a Royal Rumble victory in January and subsequently winning the WWE Championship from Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 36 and holding the title for well over six months to this point.
Strowman was told at the beginning of 2019 by Vince McMahon that he was not ready quite yet to hold a major title in WWE. Strowman’s vision came to fruition unexpectedly at WrestleMania 36 when Roman Reigns made the decision to put his family first and step away from WWE for several months until the world got a better grasp on exactly how to deal with this virus. Strowman was trusted to carry the Universal Championship for over four months before dropping it at SummerSlam to The Fiend.
The Fiend Bray Wyatt began 2020 as Universal Champion before dropping the title to Bill Goldberg in Saudi Arabia at Super Showdown in February – right before the pandemic. The Fiend participated in the first-ever Firefly FunHouse match with John Cena – and I guess won that match. The point is The Fiend had the momentum at the end of the match, so he redeemed himself after losing to Cena six years ago. Bray Wyatt then started a long-term feud with Braun Strowman right after this which lasted until SummerSlam when he won the Universal Championship – this title victory was essentially just to give The Fiend the accolade of being a two-time Universal Champion because he dropped the title to the returning Roman Reigns a week later.
Keith Lee is relatively new but has an enormous amount of potential if used correctly. WWE has already experimented with him at Survivor Series 2019 in which he pinned Seth Rollins and earned the respect of Roman Reigns. For the past two weeks, Lee has been working with Braun Strowman. The Limitless One has also gotten a pinfall victory over Randy Orton and interacting with his real-life friend Drew McIntyre on TV.
Going back to SmackDown, the fact that there are only two (maybe three) perennial main event superstars currently on the brand says that two, three, or maybe even four more will be established within the next year. Perhaps Kevin Owens and Big E (and maybe even Aleister Black to an extent) will be at the top of the priority list.