Carmella may be a viable threat to the SmackDown Women’s Championship several months down the road but putting the title on her now would be way too early since this was her first match back after quite a while away from the ring
Carmella is in the process of establishing herself as a legitimate threat to Sasha Banks’ SmackDown Women’s title and positioning herself as a major presence in the collective consciousness of the WWE universe, and it’s largely working. As for now, keeping the title on Sasha Banks is absolutely the right way to go. Carmella is on the right path, although Sasha – for right now – is the much more established superstar. Banks may very well end up defending the title against Carmella in a rematch at TLC in nine days, but the right decision was made for the time being.
A second run with the Intercontinental title could be exactly the thing Big E needs to ultimately be propelled to WrestleMania main event status
In theory, Big E will most likely challenge Sami Zayn for the IC championship at TLC to give his renewed singles push momentum after the splitting of The New Day despite losing a match this week to The Great Liberator. E winning the IC title for a second time in his career (he won it seven years ago when he was doing the five-count gimmick) would provide a nice plateau for him to springboard off and be launched into the next tier of superstardom in WWE.
As for Zayn, there are similarities between he and The Miz in the way each of their characters are presented on WWE programming. Both are cowardly heels who will do just about anything (absence of moral compass) to retain the title. Zayn getting the victory this week will serve to make it so that the WWE universe will be wanting The Great Liberator to lose the Intercontinental championship even more come December 20 at the Pay-Per-View. If he becomes an even bigger heel right before he drops the title it will serve in the long run to make E into an even bigger star. This is exactly the reason I am a bigger fan of heels – because they have the ability to put over faces much more often and make someone’s career – which is extremely rewarding both personally and professionally.
Chad Gable and Otis are both finding their Way
Chad Gable has been an extremely underrated superstar since he first started in NXT tagging with Jason Jordan. Gable is somewhat reminiscent of a smaller version of Kurt Angle – primarily because he is also an Olympian (2012) – with a rather decent amount of charisma. He was able to shed the Shorty G moniker given to him by King Corbin in 2019, and hopefully this run with Otis goes somewhere. Meanwhile, Otis dropped the Money in the Bank briefcase to The Miz because WWE made the decision to rely on established superstars (this makes sense during the pandemic era). Otis is obviously still in the process of establishing a presence in the company.
It’s a miracle – Dolph Ziggler actually got a victory over Montez Ford for the first time in seemingly a half decade. Expect Angelo Dawkins to get the pin over Robert Roode next week on the Go-Home edition of SmackDown before TLC to create some suspense for the tag team title match.