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We’re just a few nights away from one of the biggest wrestling events in the history of Saudi Arabia, and WWE is trying its best to ensure that not just the Saudi viewers are interested in it.
To make this possible, they’ve been trying to build some storylines for weeks, while overlooking others, making sure that we are aware of the men they want us to focus on at the event. This has led to the WWE making many mistakes on both Raw and SmackDown this week and has possibly taken much away from the matches which will play out at the event.
Apart from that, WWE has made many other mistakes this week too, which has impacted the overall quality of the show and the superstars involved.
In this article, we will take a look at the 4 major mistakes that the creatives made on SmackDown Live this week.
#4 A face for Raw, a heel for SmackDown
Wait, does the wild card instructions book state that the superstars can also change the character they play?
On Monday Night, Alexa Bliss looked like the perfect face on the Raw roster who was trying to be a good friend to the recently called up Nikki Cross and stay by her side. She was also attacked by the heels in The IIconics and lost her cool after the match between Nikki Cross and Peyton Royce ended.
The coffee addict showed on SmackDown just 24 hours later and held her Moment of Bliss segment for the viewers of the blue brand. Her guest, Bayley, was not impressed by her treatment on the show, as Bliss surprisingly portrayed a heelish character on the show.
WWE made the mistake of not continuing the storylines on the two brands, and it looks like the writers of Raw wanted to see Bliss as a babyface, while the writers of the blue brand remembered her as the heel.
#3 Lars interview before Super ShowDown
When Kayla Braxton last tried to interview Lars Sullivan, she was interrupted by The Lucha House Party, who tried to launch an attack on The Freak.
This week, however, she was able to get the words out of Lars’ mouth. The Freak stated that he hurt people because he had accepted the role he had been given - as a monster everyone feared. Judging by his response, Lars is a much better man on the mic as compared to many other monsters WWE had tried to build in the past few years.
What was wrong about this segment was that WWE shouldn’t have had the interview before his first match on Friday Night. Since we’d already gotten used to Lars letting his destruction do the talking, it was unnecessary to put the words in his mouth.
The segment sort of gives away the obvious winner for Friday’s clash too.
#2 Another Roman Reigns and Shane McMahon encounter
Is this match going to be the main event of Super ShowDown? It sure looks like it, considering the amount of build-up, storyline, and screen time this feud has gotten in the past month.
On Monday Night, Shane set up a match between the teams of The Usos and Roman Reigns and The Revival and Drew McIntyre. Roman and The Usos managed to defeat the heel team but didn’t do much to build on the match for Friday.
Last night, Shane called out Reigns with The Revival by his side. While The Big Dog managed to wipe out both Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder, Drew McIntyre took down Reigns with a Claymore.
Judging by what’s going on, it seems like WWE is heavily building towards McIntyre and Reigns’ match for Stomping Grounds as they know there isn’t much interest for Shane and Reigns’ clash for Friday.
After the segment on Raw, it was a mistake to once again bring out this combination to further build on the clash.
#1 The Balor-Andrade chemistry
Finn Balor is not just an extraordinary athlete, but also an extraordinary worker of the crowds and a decent man on the mic.
To build a feud, WWE can use the man in many ways to sell whatever they’re trying to sell. They used him effectively in the build-up to the WrestleMania 35 match which saw him win the Intercontinental Championship.
Andrade, on the other hand, is another great athlete. The superstar has Zelina Vega by his side, who is both an extraordinary talker and manager. Combined, they lack nothing that the wrestling world is built around.
With all that said, WWE had the perfect chance of building this clash to the perfect boiling point before Friday and ensuring that the match between Balor and Andrade turns out to be one of the most anticipated ones.
Instead, they did very little this week to build on the clash and instead kept pushing the Shane and Roman match down our throats.
The only final blow the creatives could have come up with was a brawl between the two men which makes us believe that the creatives have their priorities all wrong, and therefore the ratings of the shows are falling.
