John Cena defeated AJ Styles in the main event of Tuesday night’s episode of SmackDown Live from the Staples Center.
The outcome of the non-title match sets up Cena being added to the WWE title match at Fastlane on Sunday, March 11th in Columbus, Ohio at the Nationwide Arena.
The new main event of Fastlane will now feature Styles defending the WWE title against Cena, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Dolph Ziggler, and Baron Corbin.
Again trying to add get fans attention by adding more and not just giving us a match that has a story built in. If this was the first addition and it was a 4 way, I might be open to this but they’ve already added Baron & Dolph (who shouldn’t have been added at all). In the span of a month Cena would have been in 2 PPV matches with a total of 11 guys! If they don’t add any more that is.
I’m ok with it, because Cena seemed to lift the vibe on SD last night and he had a great main event with Styles. Did we already forget in 24 hrs it was good? I can separate what I like and what I don’t care about with WWE, I think we forget to do that week to week.
The story is there: Cena is desperate to return to prominence at Mania. He’s wrestling aggressively. He’s showing vulnerability while stating he needs to prove it.
Also there is the bigger story EVERYONE WANTS TO GET THE TITLE and go to Mania
That’s just sort if forgotten. That bothered me but not enough to walk away from last night’s SD feeling a lot more intrigued about Fastlane. It reminds me of the bump that the Gauntlet Match on Raw gave to ride into Elimination Chamber.
For me, any John Cena title match where THE story isn’t John Cena looking to break Ric Flair’s record is a waste.
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Also, a quick pop quiz for the last day of February: How many times in total have the two main men’s titles (WWE and Universal) and two main women’s title been defended (on TV or PPV) in one-on-one matches in 2018?
Zero. I don’t know if that’s rare for this time of year, given the company’s overall booking structure from Rumble to Mania, but I stumbled on that fact today and it didn’t sit well with me.
At least is right! Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, multi woman brand vs. brand tag team match, ladder match for the IC or US title, and multi team cluster for the RAW or SD tag titles.
It’s that time of year again, when WWE attempt to cram the entire roster onto one show.
That’s not even counting the possibility of a multi man cruiserweight tag just to get those guys on the show.
Maybe we’ll get the Fabulous Moolah Battle Royal. It’s great that they want to give everyone a pay day, but if you’re not on the show (like a Zack Ryder) then maybe you don’t need to be. It feels like the 80s, except back then they crammed everybody in by having 18 matches that lasted 60 seconds.
Serious question: can’t they just give Mania payouts to people that don’t work the show instead of overloading the thing? Sort of a “Sorry you’re not on the show but we recognize that you’re an important part of the company” thing?
Sure they could. WWE can do whatever they want. They could pay every wrestler a flat salary year round. But it’s almost the antithesis of WWE’s business model to do so. They actively encourage the backstage competition to get better, get noticed, get over, etc (unless your Zach Ryder and do it by yourself).
A Wrestlemania payday is a way to give every wrestler at a certain level a nice bonus check. And if your so low on the totem pole that you can’t even get on the bloated wrestlemania card then they should be worried about their job.
I have no problem with multi-man matches on wrestlemania to get everyone on the card as long as its balanced out with a variety of one-on-one and tag matches. Everyone has their favorite random wrestlers that their excited to see and for the price of a wrestlemania ticket should be able to see them, even in the Andre Battle Royal. That’s always been the model for wrestlemania and even NJPW does the same thing at Wrestle Kingdom.