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Man, what a whirlwind of a ride WWE Fastlane 2019 has been. We thought that it would be a throwaway show, but that's not the case at all.
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At the top of the show, during the Kickoff, Kofi Kingston was informed that Vince McMahon wanted to see him. And McMahon kept him outside his office for an entire hour.
And then Kofi Kingston was added to the WWE Championship match. Yet, when Kingston came out to compete, he was in for a rude shock that lay in wait for the underdog. He was booked to face The Bar in a handicap match instead of the WWE Championship match that he'd originally expected.
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It was a squash and little more, quite honestly. But why was the match made to begin with?
I will try and make sense of it all in this article.
#5 To keep Kofi Kingston looking like an underdog
The WWE Universe is quite fickle as Daniel Bryan likes to say. They can turn on any WWE Superstar at a moment's notice if they believe that he's getting more opportunities than they deserve, according to them. It's both the best and worst thing about the WWE Universe.
There's always the chance that the WWE Universe will turn on Kofi Kingston, even though they are fervently behind him now. To reduce the chance of this happening, WWE has decided to book Kofi Kingston as a sympathetic babyface. And for this to happen, he had to suffer a pinfall to Cesaro and Sheamus.
And now, when Kofi Kingston goes on to compete for and potentially win the Championship, the WWE Universe will be firmly behind him. It's a tactical move to get the New Day member more over than ever, as a babyface character.
#4 To put The Bar on the card
The WWE roster is more stacked than at any point in the company's history. The key challenge now is to keep both the new superstars and established ones happy. If they sit on the sidelines and are left out of the card, it is impossible to achieve keep the roster happy.
Cesaro and Sheamus are two of the best superstars not merely on SmackDown Live, but perhaps in the entire industry.
And there's no spot for them in the SmackDown Tag Team Championship right now. With the return of Matt Hardy to SmackDown Live and the reunion of the Hardyz, The Bar may have to sit out of the title picture for the moment.
The simple solution to this problem is to have The Bar participate in a non-title storyline of vital significance on the card. And this is why the match actually happened.
#3 To have every member of the McMahons become a heel
Earlier in the night, we saw Shane McMahon turn on The Miz in his hometown of Cleveland. While Stephanie McMahon is not technically a heel yet, she follows everything by the book and has been a heel for far too long to be taken seriously as a babyface.
Vince McMahon obviously receives the loudest pops when he comes out to address the WWE Universe, in the whole family. But he is often showcased as the bearer of bad news, as can be gauged from the fact that he replaced crowd favourite Becky Lynch with Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 35.
McMahon was the man who screwed Kofi Kingston out of his rightfully earned opportunity and it's just a continuation of the same storyline. The McMahons obviously all want to be perceived as heels going forward.
Triple H could be the only exception in the family.
#2 To kickstart a New Day vs. Rusev and Nakamura feud
So Big E and Xavier Woods took on Rusev and Nakamura during the Fastlane Kickoff show in a pretty fast-paced but unimportant match. The New Day picked up a win but it did not matter because it was a match with no real consequences. When they saw their brother getting kicked in the gut, The New Day stepped out to interfere.
But then Rusev and Nakamura attacked them from behind. It is clear that this will be the feud on SmackDown Live going forward in coming weeks. It will be interesting to see if The Bar will also be a part of this rivalry, effectively making The New Day the underdogs and eliminating their numbers advantage, in a four vs. three situation.
I'd be all okay with seeing these teams tear it up on the blue brand in coming weeks. They deserve the spotlight.
#1 To make WWE Fastlane 2019 feel like a big deal
There is no Universal Championship match at WWE Fastlane. Neither is there a gimmick match like a Hell in a Cell or Elimination Chamber. Everyone expected the pay-per-view to be a by-the-numbers, straightforward affair. After all, the WrestleMania 35 card is pretty much carved in stone for now.
But a match of this nature adds an air of unpredictability to the overall proceedings, getting fans invested in the product. I know a lot of our readers wanted to skip WWE Fastlane because they believed that the show did not matter. This move just shows that surprises can potentially happen at any time.
I may be completely off in my assessment. If so, I'd like you to leave a comment and let me know why you think this big match was made by Vince McMahon.
I'd be glad to read all your thoughts.
