As we digest what we saw in this past week’s episodes of Monday Night Raw and SmackDown LIVE, we can’t help but think that the WWE made quite a few mistakes on the final shows before the first pay per view after WrestleMania 33, Payback.
The creative team wasted a number of great opportunities to build up some strong storylines heading into the Raw exclusive PPV. Well, I say Raw exclusive, but there are actually a few SmackDown LIVE superstars scheduled to make an appearance on the show due to the Superstar Shakeup held earlier this month.
So, with Payback just around the corner, let’s take a look at this past week’s WWE programming and analyse what major mistakes were made. So, without any further ado, here are 5 mistakes committed by the WWE this week: 25th April 2017:
#5 Making Bayley look weak
Alexa Bliss cut a great promo this week where she owned the fans in attendance and shut them up for good and followed that up by appearing strong in front of the Raw Women’s Champion, Bayley.
That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Bayley wasn’t afforded the opportunity to make an emphatic statement of her own. She cut a short promo that seemed pretty decent but then Sasha Banks turned up out of nowhere to take Bayley’s side.
Not only is this weird because they’re supposed to be the babyfaces in this situation, but it also undermines Bayley’s credibility as a champion. All the good work her WrestleMania 33 victory achieved will be undone very soon if they continue to make it look like The Hugger needs The Boss by her side every time she steps foot inside the ring.
#4 Poorly planned SmackDown Women’s Championship match
Look, I get it that it could be difficult to build a program around Naomi and Charlotte when the next SmackDown LIVE pay per view is still weeks away. But, that’s no reason to take this weird, predictable route that helps absolutely nobody.
They should’ve kept the two away from a title match before the next PPV, and there a thousand different angles they could’ve taken instead of the interference angle that throws the whole division into disarray.
Is Charlotte a babyface now? Why create a team when there are so few top contenders in the division anyway? It made absolutely no sense, and it will be difficult for SmackDown’s usually excellent creative team to deal with this mess and make a coherent storyline out of it where everyone comes out looking stronger.
At the moment, it doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen.
#3 Telegraphing the result of a big match at Payback
Chris Jericho slyly hinted at his impending hiatus from the WWE when he said this would be the last Highlight Reel on Raw, but he followed up by saying that was because he was going to beat Kevin Owens for the US Championship at Payback and switch over to SmackDown. Not too subtle but not terrible.
Also read: 5 things we wanted from WWE this week and what they delivered
But, the next night Kevin Owens decided to randomly take out AJ Styles. Sure, Styles is the No 1 contender for the US Title but that only matters to KO if he wins the match against Y2J. Needless to say, this makes it pretty damn obvious to everyone watching that Owens is walking out of Payback with his title intact.
Sure, we can’t wait for the AJ vs. Owens feud, but it doesn’t help to cheapen a pretty exciting match on the first PPV after WrestleMania.
#2 The Shinsuke Nakamura segment
Shinsuke Nakamura is from Japan. He does not speak fluent English. His best abilities as a professional wrestler are his in-ring skills, natural charisma, and body language and not his work on the microphone. So, why on earth would you put him in the kind of scenario he was forced into on this past episode of SmackDown LIVE? It makes zero sense.
Add to this the whole Artist business replacing his moniker as The King of Strong Style, the weird new t-shirt being used to boost merchandise sales, and the overall terrible segment with Dolph Ziggler, and you can’t help but wonder if the WWE can truly do Nakamura justice.
Stop messing around and let Shinsuke do what he does best, SmackDown creative. Beat people up with his Strong Style.
#1 Braun Strowman losing
I said after WrestleMania 33 that the WWE destroyed a lot of Braun Strowman’s credibility by not making him the winner of the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and that it would take a lot of effort to rebuild said credibility.
They had actually managed to do that over the course of the past few weeks until they had him lose a Dumpster match. To Kalisto. Mere days before he is due to face Roman Reigns at Payback. Sure, he beat Kalisto to a pulp after but what was the purpose of him losing? It just makes him look bad.
Why do you repeatedly fail The Monster Among Men, WWE?
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