Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens dominate SmackDown at the beginning and at the end; KO wraps up the night by taking a terrible beating from The Tribal Chief
Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens dominated the beginning and the end of the night. The Head of The Table delivered a beating to KO (with the assistance of Jey Uso) because he would not acknowledge Roman as the Head of The Table. This may or may not lead to a potential feud between Uce and Owens beginning immediately after TLC. There is also the possibility that Daniel Bryan will begin a rivalry with Jey Uso after TLC. This might be a smaller-scale rivalry which takes place on SmackDown for several weeks if WWE decided to go this route, because there are reportedly plans in place to have Daniel Bryan challenge Roman Reigns for the Universal title at Royal Rumble.
Back to TLC, one other possibility is that during the match at Pay-Per-View between Reigns and Owens is the possible return of Bill Goldberg to cost Roman the Universal championship. Rumors have been circulating that Goldberg might make his return at TLC to set up a WrestleMania 37 encounter with the Head of The Table. This would obviously be a rematch of sorts – Reigns and Goldberg were originally scheduled to headline the 36th edition of this event in 2020, but those plans were put on hold when Reigns made the decision to put his family first and take several months away from WWE to care for his newborn twins (which is extremely commendable because Roman gives so much of his life to WWE. It’s nice to know he has his priorities straight).
Sasha Banks is the face and The Standard in the women’s division for right now, but it won’t be long before Carmella takes over that role at least for a little while
Carmella is an absolute star in the making with her new character that is extremely authentic to her. Personally, I don’t resonate with it a whole lot, but that doesn’t matter. I respect her character, because it’s authentic to her and that’s the reason it’s going to get over. If she can become a champion with an inauthentic character, she’s virtually guaranteed success with an authentic character.
She will most likely not win the SmackDown Women’s Championship this Sunday because Sasha Banks still has too much momentum on her side, not to mention at only 28 years old Sasha still has much more to accomplish in her WWE career. However, it won’t be a very long time before Carmella is champion yet again.
Perspective on the Bayley – Belair result.
It seems over the past several months, WWE has had a propensity to book 1 or 2 rivalries that seem like they will only at show up at the next Pay-Per-View event, and the match occurs on the go-home edition of SmackDown; this week was no exception.
The Street Profits retained their SmackDown Tag Team Championships against Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode. The challengers do have some momentum on their side, but maybe not quite enough yet to challenge for the titles. However, Montez Ford’s wife Bianca Belair was not so fortunate against Bayley. This might have been the most interesting match of the night, because it was somewhat of a perplexing finish, but it can be understood with perspective.
Bayley is still relatively young (even though she has been on the main roster for several years now), so she will most likely be turned into a massive star in WWE, and she is already one of the top stars in the women’s division – on any brand. On the other hand, Belair will also have a similar fate to Bayley and become one of the cornerstones of the women’s division in WWE, but she has many more years ahead of her to make this happen. Bayley does also, but she is already a pretty darn big star in the company and WWE has decided to use this opportunity to make her an even bigger superstar.
Results like this in WWE are sometimes nice because they give fans an impetus to think about what the company is thinking in the booking process and it gives one the opportunity to put oneself on the same wavelength as far as thought patterns go. The result is perplexing at first, but you think about that enough and it starts to make sense because you put yourself on the same wavelength.
The intention of the pairing of Chad Gable and Otis might be to formulate Gable into a bigger star and gradually assimilate him into more of an integral role in WWE – because this alliance certainly is not doing Otis any favors. The big man was much better off with Tucker and Mandy Rose earlier in the year, so this may be a way to subtly integrate Chad Gable into the mix while his presence is on the back burner in the collective minds of the WWE universe.
The fact that Otis is not being spotlighted is the primary phenomenon being focused on, but the booking might have the intention of getting Gable over. In life, oftentimes when things go one way the universe pulls something completely out of left field that is totally unexpected (and much better), and maybe that’s what the company has planned for this storyline. Just a thought to move on.