How about that, Brrrrrrock won at UFC 200! Does that make WWE more legit? Will they welcome more UFC fighters to their ranks? Does UFC feel let down? Will Brock continue his UFC career? Will Brock continue his WWE career? He’s scheduled to take on Randy Orton at Battleground, and no way he’s going to be booked to lose. Does he feel he’s proved himself, like he did when he tried out for the Vikings?
Does this give CM Punk momentum, or is UFC going to make him a target? “Make an example of this faker.” Will WWE completely spoil the momentum by booking a Trump lookalike vs Hillary lookalike match?
Well, Brock did what nobody expected him to do last night and beat Mark Hunt by unanimous decision, which is probably making WWE regret their decision to announce that he’ll be fighting Randy Orton (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) at Summerslam.
They actually do a lot of subtle things like that in both the RAW and SD openings. When the singer hits a high note or screams, they’ll sync it with one of the wrestlers opening his mouth wide. When the first line of the music completes, it shows Bray blowing out the lantern.
Many moons ago, they synced up wrestler action spots with Billy Ocean’s “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going.” There’s a spot where Ocean sings “Ooo-ooooh,” then his backup singers sing “Ooo-ooooh,” and they timed it with Roddy Piper bellowing in the ring. I always thought that looked funny.
So which teams are they going to break up in the draft? I predict the Vaudevillains, Lucha Dragons, and the former Matadors. Maybe they’ll separate Luke Harper from the other Wyatts, and possibly break up the Usos since they don’t seem to be contenders for the titles anymore. The Dudleyz were separated before, so they’ll probably do it again since they’re now enhancement talent anyways. Separating The Club would kill their momentum. ND were nobodies before they united, so separating them would send them back into obscurity. Rowan and Stroman should stay with Bray, since an individual angle didn’t work for Rowan, and Stroman’s still too green. Enzo & Cass are way too hot together to break apart.
I would say the Dudleys and Usos are the only ones.
The rest are still too new (Jerseys and the Vaudes), too into the title picture (New Day I hope, The Club), or just needed to be around to fill time and space (Breezango, Social Outcasts).
Unless, of course, they call up American Alphas and the SuperHappys.
I predict that they’ll split up whatever ‘less successful’ tag teams contain individuals they think they can do something with. Which teams those are, eh. I don’t know how you can split up any of the good ones except for a bit of manufactured “controversy”.
Like putting Xavier on the same show as the Wyatts for a couple of months before reforming New Day on the other show, or some such.
My guess: I expect most tag teams to get broken up initially, as Stephanie and Shane try to undercut/outmaneuver each other. Then come the “trades” that restore the teams.
You break up a team like the Hart Foundation or the Rockers because you think that one of the guys can be a star, and you want to give them a singles push. You break up a team like the Usos when you think that one of them still at least has value as an “enhancement talent,” and you don’t want to pay the other guy anymore.
Mainly because their star power is worth more to the company than their ability/thought of getting titles.
Think of it as the Ziggler effect. You can put an uso in a match and immediately the audience thinks better of the other guy because “Well, Jey is a good wrestler and was a tag-team champ for a long time, this should be a good match!”
This is all regardless of the fact that individually they won’t actually pose a threat.
Well, judging from the New Day/Wyatts vignette last night, someone in WWE Creative has been watching Lucha Underground lately. (Which I’m like 7 or 8 episodes behind on - I’m gonna have to catch up over the off-season.) I hope this leads to a 3-on-3 tag titles match with hardcore rules that’s completely balls-to-the-wall out there and has blood and weapons and Xavier Woods doing an Angelico suicide dive from 20 feet up. (It probably won’t, though.)
Steph and Shane are now the “Commissioners” of Raw and Smackdown respectively, but they still need to appoint General Managers next week, because apparently having one authority figure isn’t good enough when you can have five. I’m reading rumors that Daniel Bryan is going to be GM of Smackdown, which would be a brilliant idea for so many reasons. I’m gonna guess Steph makes Trips GM of Raw.
There’s no point to breaking up tag teams. Just wait, eventually they all turn on each other. They’ve purged tag teams before, stupid idea, tag teams make better matches, more action, they don’t need to stall, and again, they’ll eventually get mad at each other and we’ll see the grudge match come out of that. Now there are tag teams where one member is much better than the other, but then the lesser member is on his way out of town anyway, best done by pitting them against each other so the loser can come back some day for revenge. Their tag teams now are good mainly good pairings, some whole teams could go, but breaking them up will be bad for business.
Yeah, I’m sure that’s exactly what they’re thinking every time they see Goldust, R-Truth, Zach Ryder, Curtis Axel and Heath Slater wrestle.
Ziggler is a multiple-time world champion, and has arguably reached that Sheamus/Randy Orton level where he can be sent down to the lower card/midcard to put guys over for an extended stretch, and then push him back up to the upper midcard/main event, and still be thought of as credible.
Speaking of Y2J, just want to throw out a word about Rusev here. He’s got a simple gimmick, the mad Russian monster is one of the oldest characters in the game, there’s no depth to it, it can be downright boring. I’ve seen Koloffs and Volkoffs do it, I’ve seen Koslovs and Smirnoffs and Jerkoffs play the part, but none of them have done it as well as Rusev, week in and week out. He doesn’t need a storyline, he can just stand in the ring and bellow to get the job done. That Chris Jericho, is what being the best in the world at what you do is all about.
I was using that solely in reference to the Usos, not ALL the tag teams.
And in reference to your Ziggler paragraph, I think, to a lesser extent, that the Usos can do the same thing. They can ride solely on their star power/past championships/audience reaction and put guys over. Maybe not to the same extent as Ziggler, but they can do it nonetheless
I did like the Wyatt Compound segment, as it makes them more mysterious and foreboding. I doubt their upcoming war with the ND will be on LU’s level, but if they had an Ambrose Asylum type match that involves Kofi or Xavier making a death-defying dive from the top, that might work. Brawn’s good with the King Kong growls, and having him rip down a wall or two would look awesome.
I think Steph’s GM should be a doe-eyed flunkie like Brad Maddox, who will get all nancy when she yells at him. Let Hunter stay at NXT and quit trying to relive the past.
I don’t really like the idea of splitting up the Usos, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it happened. Maybe if they make a SD version of the tag titles, none of the teams will get separated. They have roughly 11 tag teams now, with American Alpha making 12 if they get called up, so that would be 6 per show.
I am one of the few “smarks” I know who like the Usos, and I don’t see it. Or, perhaps more accurately, I can see it as a tag team; I am decidedly less convinced that them putting wrestlers over means anything as singles wrestlers.
I see the Usos’ best use in the near future is as a team that’s used to put over other teams, ala the Killer Bees, circa 86-88. You can even occasionally have them be, like, the sole survivors in a Survivor Series match, to remind fans that their rub actually means something.
Tonight is the first episode of the Cruiserweight Classic! (yay) It’s going to be airing after NXT every Wednesday for the next (10?) weeks, and I think the finals are going to be a live special.
It’s being called by Mauro Ranallo and Daniel Bryan, which should be interesting. Mauro is hands-down the best wrestling commentator out there (sorry, JR), and while Bryan hasn’t done much commentary, the few times he’s been on the mic have been highly memorable.