It’s time once again for another look and the winners and losers in the world of pro wrestling (mostly WWE this week), I’m Scott Hammond, and yes, I did pop at Brock trying to moonwalk.
On The Way Up…
Bayley In The Bank
God I hate that expression. But I guess it does accurately depict the events of the Women’s Money in the Bank match and follow up. After an epic character built in NXT, with a payoff almost as good as the story, and then coming to the main roster, winning the Women’s title once, and seeing her Horsewomen peers swap championship reigns like Katy Price swaps careers, and then being thrown in the 50/50 booking abyss, and then winning a tag team title with her best friend, only to drop them to a comedy act, Bayley seems to have fallen on her feet. Yes I appreciate that last sentence was very long, but I abbreviated as much as I could. All it took was her best friend Sasha Banks leaving on what appears to be a permanent holiday with Kalisto and his wife for the company to see her worth. Wait a minute…they couldn’t be doing this to stick it to Sasha could they? They aren’t that petty. Well, a month after Sasha left, Bayley is SmackDown Live Women’s Champion so I’m going to focus on the positive. She’s far too good a character to not cash in on. She deserves a decent title reign, and a rebuilding of her on screen character, but time will tell. I don’t like her chances though.
On The Way Down…
Who Wants A New Title?
At this point, fans who bring replica title belts to shows will have to start defending them. Mick Foley introduced the WWE’s 11th title this week, because we need more of them. In the current PG environment, the term ‘hardcore’ is probably looked at by Vince the same was he looks at the word ‘war’, so there was never any chance of that happening. Thus, here comes the 24/7 title. Now I’m trying not to be too negative after one show, but the company’s recent history of introducing new titles is not good. They introduced a women’s tag team titles, gave them to a credible team, and then had them drop them to a glorified comedy act. When they introduced the Hardcore title to the WWE, there was a visible difference on how matches for that title were presented. People used weapons. The title was defended around the arena and event outside of it. This title could be defended on social media, which would be a very cool and very different presentation, but presenting it as a title that a group of lower card guys are fighting over, with this generation of wrestling fans is not going to go down well. Also the title has already had more holders in one hour than the Women’s tag team titles have had in five months. It won’t be long before it will be considered the ‘coveted’ 24/7 title.
Bore-Rock Lesnar!
Like a bad case of herpes, the most one dimensional character in the top tier is back. Don’t get me wrong, I get it, he draws. He does. Maybe not as much as he did, but he truly went past his sell by date by the time we got to WrestleMania. Then he retired from MMA, which should have made it pretty obvious that this would happen. After basically killing one another, the other seven men in the Men’s Money in the Bank match got nothing. None of the great characters that they had started to develop got the win, and instead an already established, over talent took the briefcase. This has been the criticism for quite some time, and it’s hard to argue against it with examples like this. He then proceeded to come out on RAW (hilariously trying a moonwalk), and had his mouthpiece bury both of the WWE’s top title holders. There is no quick fix here. But the good old folks at the WWE are on a quest for ratings supremacy because if they don’t, their TV overloads will reign down fire on them like a Targaryian dropping an entire city (there’s your Game of Thrones reference). Either way, Brock is here, and unfortunately he’s not going away any time soon.
Turn The Page You Bastard
Did you like my double pun in the title? That took me all of ten seconds to come up with. Good stuff. So at the weekend, at WrestleGate Pro in Nottingham, PAC was scheduled to have a match with Chris Ridgeway, but unfortunately, he couldn’t make the show. Enter Adam ‘Hangman’ Page. He came to the ring, he and PAC had a face off, and…had a match…that ended in a DQ. And then, PAC beat the tar out of Page before telling him in his mad Geordie accent that his work was done and that he wouldn’t be showing up in Vegas for AEW’s Double or Nothing Pay-Per-View. Right then, that’s that I suppose. It so turns out that wins and losses will matter in AEW, and with PAC being a champion in DragonGate, he wanted to remain a strong character whilst he carries their title, which is kind of admirable. Although it really does leave AEW up shit creek. This will either open the door up for a surprise that could make an even bigger impact for the promotion, or it’s the first in what I’m sure will be many issues with regards to the booking of talent who work with other promotions. And if we’re being honest, PAC isn’t the type of guy you want to piss off, he’s an angry Geordie with a chip on his shoulder, and whether its part of his mystique or it’s just his personality, I’d never have the balls to find out.
That’s been me for another week, if you disagree with anything that I’ve said, go watch an Al Snow match and calm yourself.
All photos and videos courtesy of WWE.com and allelitewrestling.com