One storyline proposal surrounding the WWE Championship that Paul Heyman could implement on Raw until SummerSlam involves:
- Brock Lesnar losing the title at WrestleMania for the second straight year, and
- Drew McIntyre walking out of SummerSlam as WWE Champion.
The era of part-timers being major champions in WWE will be over in the foreseeable future. And, the man who Monday Night Raw will be built around for seemingly the next several years in McIntyre could finally be coordinated.
So Lesnar lost the Universal Title last year at WrestleMania 35 to Seth Rollins. This year he could face The AOP, who are directly affiliated with Rollins at the moment. The AOP could defeat Lesnar in a heel vs. heel match to become Co-WWE Champions (kind of like Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn attempted to accomplish over WWE Champion AJ Styles at Royal Rumble 2018), terrorizing the entire men’s locker room on Raw.
I am fully aware that heel vs. heel rivalries are not the norm in WWE. But it has clearly been established over the years that it’s going to take a major force with a very aggressive demeanor to dethrone Lesnar. The AOP just might be the perfect match for the job, unleashing violence for the sake of violence.
Following ‘Mania, Seth Rollins could develop some deep-seated resentment towards his teammates because they would be holding the title he feels should be his by right. This could precipitate a face turn for Seth. He could cautiously form a tag team for a short time with Samoa Joe, who also has history with The AOP since they put him through the announcers’ table at Christmas time.
This alliance between Rollins and Joe could go on from say May – July, when the two men have a No. 1 contender’s match to see who faces the dominant tag team for the WWE Championship. Samoa Joe could beat Rollins to become number one contender and subsequently win the WWE Championship at the July Pay-Per-View event. He could subsequently use the catchphrase that he brought Christmas in July to the WWE universe.
However, Joe would only be a transitional champion considering his age (he would be 41 years old, which is a little advanced for wrestling). He’d be perfect to put over the 35-year-old Drew McIntyre at SummerSlam 2020 in Boston. There are few things in this business that McIntyre can’t do. He is clearly the future of the business, and Joe deserves the spotlight that would come with main-event-ing SummerSlam.
He and McIntyre could also cut some fantastic promos in a rivalry together since they are both such great mic workers. Going back to Drew McIntyre, another way the WWE universe could know without a doubt that he is the future of WWE is that Paul Heyman – Raw’s Executive Director – is extremely high on him.