Allow me to first admit that I was absolutely wrong with my prediction that Brock Lesnar would interfere and ruin the fatal 4-way elimination match for Raw’s Universal Championship this past Monday night. Instead, Triple H returned after a near five month hiatus to ruin the match by helping Rollins eliminate Reigns, and then turning on Rollins to help Owens eliminate The Architect and win the Universal Championship!
As a fan, I can’t say I was upset by this move. Kevin Owens is a great in-ring performer, a great heel on the mic, and his bully persona makes him believable as Raw’s top heel and champion. I like this move as it opens the door for an Owens vs Jericho program at Night of Champions. The two of them have compatible in-ring styles, strong chemistry as characters, and they’ll do a phenomenal job of putting each other over in the weeks leading up to the September pay-per-view. It also provides a great segway to a feud between Seth Rollins and Triple H, the age-old battle between a pupil and his mentor. Though it may have been foolish to give this match away on free television, Monday Night Raw (the WWE) can salvage the situation by continuing with these feuds to produce solid television and a solid PPV.
Smackdown had been struggling since switching to a live format, and with the Ambrose-Ziggler feud. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of both of those guys, they’re great workers and have strong entertainment value. Having said that, their feud lacked chemistry and as a fan I found it hard to get behind as both superstars are baby-faced, which negates a hatred from the audience on either end and ultimately caused this feud to fall flat.
The WWE has attempted to rectify this situation by killing the Ambrose-Ziggler feud off at Summerslam, and building AJ Styles up to be Smackdown’s top heel at the moment. Thus we now have an Ambrose-Styles feud rolling towards the upcoming Backlash PPV, which appears to be more in line with what the fans want to see. And on Tuesday night’s episode of the show, we saw Styles attempt to get involved in Ambrose’s non-title match against the up and coming big man, Baron Corbin. This resulted in Ambrose bouncing Styles up and down on the ropes with Styles’ crotchal region taking the brunt of the beating while the crowd laughed their butts off at a handshake Ambrose gave to styles while bouncing him. For those who don’t believe in Dean Ambrose as the WWE champion, I ask you to open your ears and listen to the crowd reaction whenever his music hits. He is so over with the fans because of how entertaining his comedic, yet badass, persona has become since the breakup of The Shield.
Smackdown had at first appeared to be lacking in any real direction, but now appear to be slowly turning the tide in their favor. This feud for its championship has helped revive things and provides us with some pretty interesting avenues to go down. I for one have been calling for something that everyone else believes to be pretty improbable, and that is a John Cena heel-turn, which this feud actually gives us an opportunity for.
When Cena lost to AJ at Summerslam, he left his “Never Give Up” headband turned armband in the ring. I think it was in an attempt to foreshadow a heel-turn from the man at Backlash. I know I was wrong at least once before about interferences in title bouts, but I foresee Cena interfering in the Ambrose-Styles title match and instead of taking out Styles like we would all expect in the moment, he takes out Ambrose, costing him the belt. He then joins Styles and The Bullet Club as their leader. The turn would echo Hulk Hogan’s heel-turn in WCW when he went Hollywood and joined Nash and Hall in the nWo.
You want to boost your ratings, especially on Smackdown, give all of us adults what we’ve been begging for years now and turn Cena into the biggest heel this company has ever seen!
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