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After just four months as the Executive Director of SmackDown, Eric Bischoff has departed WWE and been replaced in the role by Bruce Prichard.
Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp is reporting that Bischoff’s exit had been “building for weeks”, while Sportskeeda’s Tom Colohue tweeted shortly after the news broke that the former WCW executive’s position was already “practically vacant” as he was not given the backing that he expected to receive.
Moving forward, Prichard will take on the Executive Director role on SmackDown, meaning he will oversee the creative direction of the blue brand’s storylines and report directly to Vince McMahon.
We have already seen plenty of changes on WWE's other main-roster brand, RAW, since Paul Heyman became Executive Director on Monday nights, with Superstars including Cedric Alexander, Montez Ford, Angelo Dawkins and all three members of The O.C. receiving lots of television time.
Now that the SmackDown roster has been finalised following the 2019 draft, let’s take a look at five Superstars who could realistically be viewed as the face of the brand under Prichard’s new regime.
#5 “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt
WWE confirmed this week that “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt will have another opportunity to win the Universal Championship when he challenges Seth Rollins for the title at Crown Jewel on October 31.
Despite Wyatt’s move to SmackDown in the draft, this rivalry is likely to continue on the red brand over the next two weeks, especially after Rollins burned down his rival’s ‘Firefly Fun House’ on Monday’s episode of RAW.
Many fans would probably like to see Wyatt as the face of SmackDown in the new Bruce Prichard era on FOX. However, it is difficult to see him remaining on the blue brand if he wins the Universal Championship – RAW’s top male title – in the near future, and that is the main reason why the former Wyatt Family leader appears so far down in this list.
If he does not win the Universal Championship, then we can still expect Wyatt to cement his status as one of the most compelling characters on Friday nights after his rivalry with Rollins is over.
#4 Braun Strowman
Braun Strowman recently revealed on the Notsam Wrestling podcast that he was “miserable” with his position in WWE following the 2019 Royal Rumble, so he interrupted a meeting before RAW to ask Vince McMahon for clarification on his future with the company.
“He [Vince] kicked everybody out of the production meeting two hours before Raw was about to start – the show wasn’t even done – and talked to me for 45 minutes, heart-to-heart, man-to-man conversation, and it opened my eyes to the big picture of, ‘Wow, why am I worrying about this?’”
Fast forward nine months and it no longer feels like Strowman is being lost in the mid-to-upper card shuffle. Granted, his latest Universal Championship defeat to Seth Rollins at Clash of Champions did not exactly help his character, but at least the former strongman now finds himself in a major mainstream storyline with heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury ahead of Crown Jewel.
Regardless of the quality of their match in Saudi Arabia, this high-profile encounter will get a lot of eyes on “The Monster Among Men” for the first time, and that can only be a good thing when it comes to his future WWE storylines on SmackDown.
It is also worth noting that Strowman failed to win the Universal Championship from Brock Lesnar on multiple occasions during their three years on RAW, so perhaps we could see WWE reviving their rivalry on SmackDown, with the former Wyatt Family member finally overcoming “The Beast” to win the WWE Championship.
#3 Daniel Bryan
Sportskeeda’s Tom Colohue reported in July 2019 that Eric Bischoff, who had just been appointed the Executive Director of SmackDown, was keen for Daniel Bryan to return to the main-event scene.
The former WWE Champion then ended his alliance with Erick Rowan and moved away from the SmackDown Tag Team Championship picture, and it now looks as though he is set to be one of the top babyfaces on the blue brand following the conclusion of the ‘Whodunnit?’ storyline involving Roman Reigns.
Eighteen months ago, Bryan likely would have been placed first on a list of Superstars who could be the face of SmackDown. He had just returned after being cleared by WWE’s medical team and a whole host of dream matches looked to be on the horizon.
Nowadays, it seems less probable that WWE will position “The Leader of the Yes Movement” as their top guy, simply because the man himself has stated that he only plans to compete as a full-time in-ring competitor for another two years.
We can still expect to see plenty of Bryan storylines on SmackDown over the next few months, but don’t be surprised if he moves into a new role where he becomes the guy who helps make the guy.
#2 Roman Reigns
Roman Reigns has been positioned as the next face of WWE ever since he became the breakout member of The Shield in 2014.
Fans may not have liked it at the time, but the former Shield star’s 2015 Royal Rumble triumph kick-started a four-year run where he main-evented WrestleMania against Brock Lesnar (x2), Triple H and The Undertaker.
Although he failed to defeat Lesnar in either of their WrestleMania encounters, Reigns was still able to pick up statement-making wins over Triple H in 2016 and The Undertaker in 2017, while he went on to defeat John Cena at No Mercy 2017 in what many people perceived to be another torch-passing moment.
The likes of Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Braun Strowman and Seth Rollins have stepped up over the last two years to stake their case to be WWE’s top Superstar, but it is difficult to say that any of them have been more successful than four-time WrestleMania headliner Reigns.
Since returning from his battle with leukemia in February 2019, we have not seen the former Universal Champion challenge for a World Championship. However, now that his rivalry with Erick Rowan is over, it would not be at all surprising if he worked his way back into the WWE Championship picture in the coming months.
#1 Brock Lesnar
Brock Lesnar grabbed the headlines after the first episode of SmackDown on FOX when he defeated Kofi Kingston in nine seconds to win the WWE Championship.
Following the match, Cain Velasquez – Lesnar’s former UFC rival – was introduced by Rey Mysterio and began to brawl with “The Beast”, setting up a WWE Championship match between the two men at the Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia on October 31.
It initially looked as though Becky Lynch would be presented as the face of SmackDown after she appeared in a segment with The Rock on the show’s FOX premiere. However, with Lynch now confirmed as a member of the RAW roster, Lesnar vs. Velasquez is the main story on Friday nights as SmackDown heads into a new era under Bruce Prichard.
Moving forward, some of the top names on the blue brand (Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns, Sasha Banks etc) are not yet involved in storylines ahead of WWE’s next two pay-per-views, Crown Jewel and Survivor Series, so there is no reason why, at least in the short-term, Lesnar should not be considered as the top Superstar on the blue brand.
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