Raw always puts me in a bad mood, but if anything can snap me out of it, it’s SmackDown Live. And because I’m negative like half the week I’m going to take this time to be happy, optimistic, and wishful. Or at least just wishful.
So here are my 3 wishes for Smackdown Live. And life in general, I guess. And a little hope on the last page. for funsies.
Wish Number One
I wish people on Smackdown Live would stop saying “the main event of Wrestlemania.”
We all know there is no way the Blue Brand is gonna get billing over the Red Brand, especially now that it’s Brock vs. Goldberg III, which was probably gonna be the last match anyway. Fine, I get it, this is how the company has been sold to us.
Red is super important, Blue is less important, and two big dudes that wrestled maybe six times all year COMBINED are the most important. I’m just really happy Yellow gets it’s own day that weekend in Orlando.
The winner of the Royal Rumble, by construct, is to go on and face whoever has the top belt in the company. That would be the WWE Championship. Not the Universal Championship, no matter what they say. It may be on the “flagship” show but I have Faygo in my refrigerator older than that belt.
So, no, actually, I don’t wish the cast of Smackdown would stop saying “the main event at Wrestlemania.” I wish they actually WERE the main event of Wrestlemania.
Wish Number Two
I wish Baron Corbin was literally anybody else.
I don’t get it. I should totally be into the metalhead jerk that likens himself to singular Lycans. But he doesn’t come off as cool or mysterious or badass. He seems like an insecure, whiny former geek who’s a former Golden Gloves boxer but uses forklifts as weapons.
His ring gear looks like a Hot Topic/Torrid crossover. On paper, this all sounds great. In practice, he's like The Wolf Of Mall Street.
See, I’m a big fan of Dean Ambrose, so honestly, I just want to see him have a rad opponent at Wrestlemania. Because Dean can thrive with the right opponent, but flounder with, unfortunately, almost everyone else. His style just doesn’t work with everybody, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
He was killing it in The Shield and fresh out of it, but the lack of competition on the Blue side exists, and he’s suffered the most. It wasn't until some of his recent matches with AJ Styles that it looked as if he was getting his spark back.
So sending him toward ‘Mania into a feud with an oddly dressed, pulsating mass of hairline issues seems like a bad idea. Well, not really bad, but really freaking boring. I can’t believe I am actively missing Mitch.
Wish Number Three
I wish I knew why Randy Orton is being a goober.
Look, I have always WANTED to really like Randy Orton. His promos just always make me turn against him no matter what. So I was pretty into him being a Bray Wyatt servant and just doling out RKOs and mostly being quiet.
So, cool, with him around Bray keeps getting gold and winning and looking like a true leader. I was even cool with Randy winning the Royal Rumble because I knew they weren’t gonna spoon feed us another Orton/Cena program, and it would probably end up with Bray being involved.
Then Randy said he wasn’t going to fight Bray because Bray was his master. Now the chances of an AJ Styles vs. Bray Wyatt at the top of the card at Mania skyrocketed and I was STOKED. That could be such an exciting match, seeing as how AJ is incapable of wrestling a bad match and Bray is one of, if the not the most, compelling and exciting characters in WWE today.
And we finally have a Wyatt family that seems effective and Randy is a large part of the reason. I was this close to really liking Randy Orton... But Randy had to reverse his decision which a) shouldn’t be legal, and b) makes him look really stupid for the past few months.
Not only that, but he’s actively, through actual wrestling at least, taking away a spot at ‘Mania from AJ, who absolutely earned it by wrestling better than anyone all year. Not by taking a dive for Lesnar to look strong against...forget it.
Poor Luke Harper gets zilch for being totally awesome, too. What the hell, Orton?
Him burning down Bray’s Love Shack was dressed up to look all spooky and malicious but came off more like Randy either forgot to do it last week or jumped the gun on how his plan was originally supposed to play out. I guess he’s the good guy. At least by WWE standards.
Maybe he recently found Daniel Bryan’s diary from 2013 and was all “How can I do this but also look like kind of a butthole?”
3 Hopes
I feel like hope is mostly wasted on pro-wrestling but still very much required, so I'll keep this section short.
1. I hope AJ gets a stellar opponent at Wrestlemania and steals the show from EVERYBODY.
2. I hope the only person that can unseat Alexa Bliss from her tiny ice throne is Asuka.
3. I hope Daniel Bryan wrestles Mick Foley in a brand crossover at Wrestlemania.
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