We’ve to the end of an action-packed week of WWE programming that involved some of the most shocking scenes ever seen in professional wrestling. Starting off with WWE Backlash – Smackdown Live's first exclusive pay per view after Wrestlemania 33 – and then the usual weekly television of Monday Night Raw – where the build up to Extreme Rules started. Smackdown Live had the fallout from Backlash as well as getting started on the road to Money in the Bank.
While there was definitely enough shock and excitement to go around following Jinder Mahal's surprise victory over Randy Orton to capture the WWE Championship, all three shows weren't free of mistakes. In fact, there were quite a few things that the WWE should have done better.
Now that things are heating up with the upcoming Extreme Rules and Money in the Bank pay per views, we can only hope that the creative team is able to build on the good parts and start cutting out on the mistakes.
Let's get to our list of 5 mistakes committed by the WWE for the week of 23rd May 2017:
#5 Fillers everywhere
This has been a long-standing problem with Monday Night Raw. There just isn’t enough interesting content to fill three hours of television time unless you make everyone on the card feel important and give them stories that matter. They accomplished that this past week with some great heel turns.
Unfortunately, this week, it was back to more of the same old useless content. Kaliso was boring as ever; there was no interesting progression for Apollo Crews’ heel turn. Nobody cares about the Cruiserweight Division.
The only shining light was Goldust showing why he’s been in the business for as long as he has with a good segment and a mildly interesting case of “Who dun it?” featuring Enzo and Cass where the smaller man was attacked. The most exciting thing about all this was when eagle-eyed fans spotted The Revival during a Sasha Banks segment.
Even Backlash wasn’t free of filler as the Luke Harper vs Erick Rowan match felt like it belonged on the undercard rather than a prelude to the main event. And, don’t even get me started on the Women’s Divison on both shows. Actually, that brings us to our next point...
#4 The Women’s Division on both shows
One of the saving graces of the mid card was an interesting Women’s Division on both Monday Night Raw and Smackdown Live. Unfortunately, both divisions seem to have gone off the rails recently.
The blue brand’s women have been embroiled in a terrible storyline featuring The Welcoming Committee – the team of Natalya, Tamina, and Carmella with James Ellsworth added in for good measure – vs Naomi, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte.
They put on a below average match at Backlash and hopefully things will improve now that the Smackdown Women’s Championship has been made the focus once again. Hopefully.
Raw isn’t as bad but two major elements are ruining things on that show. The kendo stick angle is just plain nonsense while Alicia Fox vs Sasha Banks is a stupid feud for someone as talented as The Boss.
#3 Still no Rusev
Is Rusev out of WWE? After all, he threatened to leave the company if he wasn’t given a WWE Title opportunity at Money in the Bank and now the WWE Championship match is set up for Randy Orton vs Jinder Mahal.
This is completely bizarre and gets even worse when you think that The Bulgarian had promised to be on last week’s episode of Smackdown Live in order to confront Shane McMahon.
Instead, all we got was The Viper invoking his rematch clause. And, speaking of The Viper...
#2 Where’s Randy Orton?
If I was Randy Orton, I would have been itching to get my hand on Jinder Mahal after losing the WWE Championship. Instead, Shane McMahon said at the start of the show that Orton had invoked his rematch clause for Money in the Bank.
After that, we got to see The Maharaja strut down to the ring and do his own thing with absolutely no sign of The Viper or any sort of retribution. It seems unusual that the WWE kept Orton off TV after his shocking loss.
Orton was indeed backstage and wrestled a dark match against Jinder Mahal after the show went off the air. WWE didn’t find it necessary to include The Viper in the scheme of things, which frankly, was a big mistake.
#1 The Nakamura booking
Shinsuke Nakamura won his first two matches on the main roster so what’s the problem, you ask? Well, the problem is that Nakamura didn’t look like The King of Strong Style in either of those matches.
He took too much punishment and didn’t dish out too much himself. The creative team needs to start booking him better inside the ring and make him look more dominant. Nakamura’s less than stellar English means that the only place where he can get himself truly over with the WWE Universe is in in-ring competition.
Start booking him like the dominant fighter he is, WWE.
