Rest in Peace
There is nothing I can say about The Undertaker that hasn’t been said a million times before other than how it affected me personally to learn that the Boneyard match with AJ Styles at WrestleMania 36 will officially be Taker’s last (no one knew that at the time).
It truly makes my heart happy to finally see The Undertaker in a peaceful state of mind regarding how his career finished. He has been attempting to find that peace of mind for years. I thought Kane put it best when he said, “The Undertaker is by far the greatest character in the history of WWE” (honestly, I would rank him as the second greatest in-ring performer ever behind only Shawn Michaels). To immerse oneself that deeply into a character in order to preserve the integrity of the business and himself is truly amazing. The legend of The Undertaker will become a mythical character, if it is not already.
The match between Jeff Hardy and King Corbin had no legitimate storyline implications; although it did get Corbin more over as a heel. Jeff Hardy is a veteran who has worked with Taker, so it made sense from this perspective (although it felt a little redundant because Jeff Hardy beat Corbin about three months ago on SmackDown – just a couple weeks before ‘Mania). It is definitely an interesting potentiality, however, to imagine the possibility of Corbin working a non-title feud with the newest addition to SmackDown – Matt Riddle.
Wyatt Challenging Strowman Once More in a Swamp
The segment with Braun Strowman also went over very well. This was largely due to the fact that “The Monster Among Men” showed more personality than he has on camera in quite some time. He seemed very comfortable doing so. This is a very encouraging sign for the Universal Champion. It is evidence that he has settled into a perfect niche in WWE after several years of hard work and immersing himself in the energy of the business.
It came to light that Strowman and Bray Wyatt were going to work together one more time before SummerSlam about a month ago. By that point in time, build for Backlash had already begun, so that left Extreme Rules as the only possibility.
New No 1. Contender
A huge congratulations goes out to Nikki Cross on becoming the No. 1 contender to Bayley’s SmackDown Women’s Championship. Smart fans probably knew it would be either Nikki or Alexa winning the fatal four way – because Bayley and Sasha won the Women’s Tag Team Titles from them. Lacey Evans challenged Bayley for her title as recently as Royal Rumble in January, and Dana Brooke is still a little too new in the eyes of the WWE universe to be receiving a push quite that big; some might not be too familiar with who she is yet.
8-Man Tag Action
While it is true that AEW might in fact have a slightly superior tag team division (which by the way does include one prominent team that just came over from WWE), WWE has a pretty hefty amount of talent in terms of tag teams. It was on full display on SmackDown on June 26. On the face side, there are teams like The New Day and Lucha House Party (this team in particular performs moves constantly and consistently that require a ridiculous amount of athleticism). And on the heel side, you have Miz and Morrison (MC M.I.Z. and Johnny Drip Drip) along with Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura.
I am all for Cesaro and Nakamura being number one contenders to the tag titles like they are right now. They are both two of the greatest wrestlers in the world (I love Cesaro in particular). In my own personal opinion, it would be an absolute shame if Cesaro was not WWE Champion at least one time before he retired. Whatever accolades he happens to achieve before that is absolutely fantastic, WWE would need to get on it if this is going to happen, because the man is already almost 40 years old.