This was another week in WWE where fans would be forgiven for forgetting that two PPVs are just around the corner. Smackdown was building up to its Backlash show on Sunday night, while NXT was preparing for Takeover Chicago.
However, it was RAW, a show with not much on the line at the moment, that stood out above its rivals.
The action was pretty lacklustre, but nevertheless, here is what we learned from WWE this week:
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#1 This is the best IC Title feud in years
The years of disrespect shown towards the Intercontinental Championship in WWE’s recent history are a genuine cause for confusion and irritation in equal measure. For older fans who remember some of the great IC Champions and Championship feuds, this is difficult enough to swallow.
The real tragedy, however, is that if you’re a younger fan – say 12 and below – you’ll be forgiven for asking what the big deal about the belt is, and why the rest of us go on about it all the time. There were days when the IC Title meant more to fans than the world title, and holding that belt genuinely meant you were a star.
Over the years we may have seen the odd rivalry or match that we liked, but things were never really able to stick. It seems the title is destined to have these isolated moments of glory amidst a sea of irrelevance. Currently, however, we are definitely going through a high point.
The feud between The Miz and Ambrose is my favourite thing about the show right now. They work well together, both being able to perform comedic roles where necessary, but at the same time knowing when to turn it on in the ring. 2016 wasn’t a terrible year for the belt either, The Miz and Dolph Ziggler told a pretty interesting story, but ultimately that was more about Ziggler’s character than about the prestige of the belt. This feud feels different. This week we even got a Championship match between the two of them that felt special.
Now, you might say that having the match in the middle of the show was a tad disrespectful enough, seeing as though the main event could have easily been lower down the card. But that aside, there was something about this match that made you take notice. Maybe because it was announced a week earlier, or perhaps it was down to having a proper championship match introduction, with the names being read out in the ring with the title held aloft.
This was better than some throw away match on PPV that formed part of some forgettable feud between two random competitors. The match itself ended perfectly too, Ambrose retained but under dubious circumstances, and we’re all set for a rematch at Extreme Rules. I hope these two can continue feuding until Summerslam.
#2 Nobody is ready for The Beast
Long term wrestling fans will know all about the feeling when something just doesn’t feel realistic. This is a pretty bold statement when talking about Pro Wrestling – a world in which an old lady can give birth to a hand. Even though the secret is out and everyone accepts wrestling is a ‘work’ with pre-determined winners and losers, sometimes buying into the kayfabe reality of it all just doesn’t do the trick. This is how it feels at the moment with the Universal Title picture.
This week we had the announcement of a fatal five-way match at Extreme Rules to determine who gets to face Lesnar. In theory, this is a very clever move. Not having the champion on the show every week is actually doing the product a world of good. Normally if this match was announced and the winner was going on to face somebody like Kevin Owens or Randy Orton, we wouldn’t be that enthralled.
When the champion is Brock Lesnar, however, a man we haven’t seen compete since that epic showdown with Goldberg at Wrestlemania, the result of the five-way suddenly feels that much more crucial and intriguing. The winner isn’t just going on to have a title match, they are facing somebody who is portrayed as almost unbeatable.
That being said, it’s quite possible that the WWE have gone a tad too far with the unbeatable angle. If we’re honest with ourselves, does anybody on that roster look and feel like they could win against the Beast? Perhaps the closest person to that right now is Roman Reigns, as his victory over The Undertaker at Wrestlemania is still fresh in our minds. But wrestlers like Seth Rollins, Samoa Joe and Fin Balor are all doing a fine enough job on RAW, but are all struggling to beat even each other.
All three have been victims of WWE’s 50/50 booking over recent months whereas they continue to portray Lesnar as this unstoppable monster. True, his feud with Goldberg last year did make Brock look slightly more vulnerable than usual, but this is Bill Goldberg we’re talking about, a man who squashed Owens in less than five minutes. Those two are on a different level in the WWE’s eyes, and it gets more and more difficult to take anyone seriously when they say they’re getting ready to face Brock Lesnar.
Things get even worse when we consider Bray Wyatt. The very thought of this match taking place is a joke right now. Bray is coming off the back of one of the worst WWE Championship reigns of all time, and couldn’t even beat Randy Orton – in his own match idea – without the help of Jinder Mahal. This may not be a popular thing to say at the moment, but Reigns is really the only one to be taking seriously at this point.
#3 Bayley’s main-roster career is disappointing
When you think about it, it’s quite strange how WWE management always feels the need to mess around with a superstar’s character after they received a promotion from NXT to the main roster. Surely the reason why they were called up is because they have proven themselves worthy of entertaining crowds and holding championship belts just as they are.
If there’s still a need to re-think them, maybe they shouldn’t have been called up initially.
Sometimes the change is fairly extreme, as was the case with Bo Dallas, but mostly it's pretty subtle. Enzo and Cass, for example, have gone from having a fresh, off-the-leash gimmick where they could freestyle their way around the microphone, to becoming a bit of a novelty act that says the same thing each and every week. But perhaps the most interesting case recently has been Bayley.
Bayley is now written into NXT folklore. Her matches with Sasha Banks, in particular, will always be remembered, and her title reign helped cement the NXT Women’s Championship as a belt worth having. Part of the reason for her success down on NXT was her likeability factor.
Bayley comes across as a genuine fan of the sport and is able to connect with fans of all ages – not something a lot of people can brag about in 2017. But her transition to RAW hasn’t been an easy ride. It’s almost like Bayley has gone from being endearing because of her genuine, at times, innocent nature, to basically just playing the role of a 12-year-old child.
It makes sense for her opponents to play off her childish persona, but most of her feuds with Alexa Bliss, and Charlotte before that, look like some kind of scene from a school-based drama where the bigger girl is bullying the smaller one. It doesn’t help that Bayley’s mic skills are almost non-existent. It was never her mic skills that brought over in the first place, but sooner or later wrestlers do need to be able to string a sentence together without fluffing your lines.
This week, the feud between Bayley and Alexa revolved around whether Bayley is ready for an extreme rules match. Again, on the surface at least, this narration makes sense. But Bayley just ended up coming across as somebody who shouldn’t be in the WWE. It’s absurd to be saying this, considering we’ve seen the woman go through iron man matches and take hard-hitting bumps from Asuka and Charlotte.
Things got really strange when Kurt Angle came to visit Bayley in the trainer’s room like a concerned headmaster, asking whether she wanted it to just be a regular wrestling match. Thankfully, this will probably lead to some kind of evolution of the Bayley character when she gives it her all in a kendo stick match, because lord knows she needs something right now.
#4 Apparently, Jinder Mahal is now able to hang with AJ Styles
The problem with suddenly giving one of your superstars an unexpected push is that it really distorts our ability to buy into the kayfabe storylines of WWE. Jinder Mahal has come from pre-Wrestlemania obscurity, but at the time of writing this, is getting ready to take on Randy Orton for the WWE Championship on Sunday. It still feels very strange and hard to swallow, and none of this is Jinder’s fault.
This week, the realisation of what is happening with Jinder really hit home. It’s fair enough to have the Singh Brothers help him to pin Randy Orton and steal the WWE Championship for a couple of weeks. But what really stood out on Tuesday night was the fact that a guy who had a drink thrown in his face in the middle of a Wrestlemania pre-show battle royal, is now able to hang for nearly 15 minutes against AJ Styles.
Styles has a reputation as being one of the greatest wrestlers alive today and we’ve seen him beat John Cena on multiple occasions. Just a few months ago, if you’d have seen this match being billed on an episode of Smackdown, you’d just assume it was a squash match.
The problem wasn’t that Jinder won, as thankfully he needed help from the Singhs, as well as Kevin Owens. But sitting there watching the two of them exchanging near falls just struck me as a step too far in the fantasy land of professional wrestling. If Jinder does win on Sunday, the WWE have their work cut out to make it palatable.
#5 Dolph and Shinsuke could be on for a classic
Apart from the fact that a better first opponent could have been found for Shinsuke Nakamura, the feud between him and Dolph Ziggler so far has been great. The crucial thing was not having either of them wrestle at all in the build up. You don’t want to give away Nakamura’s first main roster bout for free, and you want to make watching him feel like a big deal. Not having Dolph in the ring has in a way worked too, as we can better build up a mental picture of what this match is going to look and feel like.
On paper, this should be an instant classic. It is a genuine clash of styles, with Nakamura’s strong style taking on the athleticism of Ziggler. We all know how good of a ‘seller’ Dolph can be as well, which I suspect was part of the reason for throwing him at Nakamura for his debut.
Dolph needs to dig down deep and find some of that in-ring magic that has been slightly absent in recent years. He is more than capable of telling a great story just with his in-ring work, and this match needs to tell a believable and captivating story.
While this match should, by no means, be a squash match, I think the tale they most want to tell on Sunday should be that Nakamura is still very much an enigma that the rest of the roster aren’t quite ready for.
I would have Nakamura on the offensive for at least 70% of this match, getting into the mind of Dolph and working a style that Ziggler just can’t respond to. There’s no point in having all this build, calling him the ‘Artist’ and then just having a traditional 50/50 match where everything just feels the same as the rest of the card.
It’s up to WWE to make this work, but so far they’ve been doing a fine job.
#6 NXT’s roster now might have more depth than Smackdown
A few weeks ago I made the case that NXT was back on form after a small period of stagnation last year. The promotion of guys like Balor, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens hurt the product quite dramatically and left a lot of weight for Bobby Roode, Nakamura and Asuka to carry.
But in recent weeks, NXT has grown from strength to strength, and this Sunday’s Takeover Chicago show is shaping up to be a classic. This week, while watching the Wednesday night product, it became apparent just how loaded the NXT roster is. You can legitimately say that NXT now has a mid-card division, as opposed to an NXT Championship scene with a lot of developing stars underneath – like it used to be.
The main event of Chicago will see Bobby Roode and Hideo Itami go at it, but there is currently a plethora of superstars that could legitimately challenge for that title, whoever wins it. For Drew Mcintyre, after his fantastic run on the independent scene, this could well be his time for a WWE run. He makes you take notice with his stature and strength, and it really shouldn’t be very long before we see him as champion.
In addition to that, guys like Kassius Ono and Cien Almas put on a very impressive main event match this week. Either of these two could be in contention one day. There is even a heel faction including people like Eric Young and Nikki Cross, who are legitimate singles stars in their own right already.
Cillian Dane is another to look out for, as well as a few in the NXT tag team division like Johnny Gargano. This NXT era might not have the star power of some of the previous generations, but we’re definitely seeing NXT at its most stacked.
#7 And the Superstar of the Week is... Dean Ambrose
I have been one to criticise Dean Ambrose fairly harshly over the past couple of years. There is something not quite right when you go from being a member of The Shield to competing in the feud of the year for 2014 and going on to win the WWE Championship, and doing it like you don’t really care that much.
It’s quite apparent that Ambrose doesn’t fit in very neatly to WWE. His background in the more extreme wrestling promotions is probably to blame. But there have been times when he’s looked totally out of place in the upper echelons of WWE.
Since his transition to RAW, however, he seems to have put a spark back into his work rate. He’s currently involved in probably the best feud in the company right now with The Miz, and put on a great Intercontinental Championship match on RAW – when’s the last time you heard somebody say that?
Hopefully, the lunatic can keep this up, if he’s given worthy opponents to feud with over his IC title, in order to keep the belt prestigious. Congratulations, Dean Ambrose.
