|
|
Post by henriquesser on Jan 31, 2024 12:01:31 GMT 1
Ok so this won't really be a diary or a major thread. But I do have some thoughts on stuff that WWE should do. And of course, just some stuff that could be fun. So this thread is for that, and I'd also like to keep it open for debate because I think debating booking ideas is fun. I might even change things up in real time as more stuff happens. So everyone can feel free to pitch in and have some fun with it.
For reference, I'm starting this on the day of the first Smackdown after the Royal Rumble. So all that is known at this starting point is that Cody Rhodes and Bayley will have title matches and CM Punk is unfortunately out with a torn triceps.
In this post I'll leave an overview of what you can read down the line.
Card so far:
Night 1
Gunther (c) vs Bron Steiner - Intercontinental Championship
Seth Rollins (c) vs Sami Zayn vs Drew McIntyre - World Heavyweight Championship
Night 2
Gunther (c) vs Sheamus - Intercontinental Championship
Iyo Sky (c) vs Bayley - WWE Women's Championship
Roman Reigns vs Cody Rhodes - WWE Undisputed Championship
|
|
|
|
Post by henriquesser on Jan 31, 2024 12:14:34 GMT 1
So, to get the obvious out of the way first.
Cody Rhodes is facing Roman Reigns for the Undisputed title. Last Monday on Raw they had Seth cut a promo where he tries to convince Cody to challenge him, but honestly it didn't make much sense. I get that the planned match for Seth is up in the air, but the Raw main event scene is interesting enough to produce something good without the Cody story getting sidetracked. The build should be simple, and clear. Cody vs Roman. And in the leadup to WrestleMania Cody should be interacting with the Bloodline. There's other moving parts in this story too, as Roman and the Bloodline have oubviously made a lot of enemies, and that can keep the build fresh.
Bayley is facing Iyo Sky for the Women's title. I do think here you can have some fun and tease Bayley going for the other title for a bit or even say she won't challenege anyone (like Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt, but make it better). But ultimately, they have to continue doing the slow turn of Bayley and have her be the babyface challenger. With the weird dynamic of having some former enemies eventually coming to her aid (especially Bianca).
Also, it's the right time to finish the story. Both Cody and Bayley should get the big babyface win.
|
|
|
|
Post by henriquesser on Jan 31, 2024 13:03:22 GMT 1
Next, there's two major stories that are attracting a lot of discussion and ideas. To start with, let's talk about Seth Rollins and the World Heavyweight Championship.
Obviously the plan was Seth Rollins vs CM Punk. It would've surely been the main event that CM Punk has been wanting all along (even if it's the night 1 main event) and it would be kind of insane to see it happen with all the history and his exit from WWE 10 years ago. But unfortunately he is injured. So, let's look at other possibilities.
First there's Gunther, the Intercontinental Champion. Honestly, they could very easily just book them against eachother, IC Champion vs World Champion, winner takes all, and it would work. Gunther is probably the best wrestler in WWE right now, he's super dominant and probably the best Intercontinental Champion of all time. Seth has had a pretty good reign, he's been a strong world champion and hasn't lost in a long time. So a Warrior vs Hogan type situation does make enough sense and could very feasibly be a good night 1 main event. It's a fresh matchup too, Seth and Gunther have been kept fairly separate and both being in long title reigns adds to the intrigue too. I would stay away from this match for now tho, as it would almost certainly mean merging the titles and that's something I'd avoid right now. Definetly do it at a later date though, once Gunther loses the belt. If Gunther and Seth stay on the same show I'd have them wrestle at either Summerslam or the Berlin show.
Seth has ran through pretty much all other main event guys on Raw already, so there isn't really another fresh matchup per se, but there's enough stories going around for a compelling build. Drew McIntyre's transition into a bitter but justified heel asskicker has been great. He'd provide a strong foil and he's got the added heat from being the one to injure CM Punk (at least in kayfabe, I'm not sure where it was that Punk got hurt). But we've seen that match already. So, I'd add another wrinkle to it. Aside from taking out CM Punk, Drew McIntyre also took out the great underdog babyface that is Sami Zayn. Everyone loves Sami Zayn and would love to see him win the title, I think he's one of the few wrestkers in WWE that can encite that kind of emotional response from fans. And being emotionally invested in storylines does make wrestling better (see Naito vs Sanada). So yeah, I'm leaning to a triple threat. And on the next post I'm gonna lay out how I'd get to it.
|
|
|
|
Post by henriquesser on Jan 31, 2024 14:04:25 GMT 1
So, Seth Rollins is also injured, and that limits what I can do, I'm not gonna have him wrestle at all until Mania. Elimination Chamber is coming up and sense dictates that Seth's challenger would be determined there. But I set up a triple threat and Chamber matches will only have one winner. (I could do something dumb where I have a draw in the Chamber, but that's lame). So one challenger will get through the Chamber while the other will get there through... something else.
The 6 men who will enter the Chamber are: Sami Zayn, Drew McIntyre, Bronson Reed (because Australia), Jey Uso (because he's over), Andrade and Shinsuke Nakamura (they're both great). Over the next few weeks these guys have their qualifying matches. Doesn't really matter who their opponents are, but do make sure they're somewhat relevant (Ricochet, Finn Balor, Damian Priest, the Miz, pick whoever. No Gunther tho, he's not it because he can't work Elimination Chamber but I also don't wanna have anyone pin him to qualify). The field is decided by the February 12th episode of Raw, so they have a segment with World Champion Seth Rollins, GM Adam Pearce and all 6 guys and everyone cuts a promo. Btw, by this point Cody has hopefully announced he's facing Roman, so it's clear that this match is to crown the #1 contender for the WHC. So, as it usually goes everyone talks a bit, but then it gets to Drew Mcintyre and a brawl starts between all 6 guys. Agents rush in and Adam Pearce tries to protect Seth Rollins, but eventually Drew is the one that gets to Seth and hits a Claymore, he gets a chair but is stopped. A while later backstage Seth goes after Drew and they fight some more before getting separated. To end the show we see Seth going to his car while Drew assaults him in the parking lot and crushes his injured knee with the car door or something before getting carried off by security. To open the go-home Raw before EC, Adam Pearce opens the show, calls out Drew and announces he's suspended. Drew is escorted out by the police or something. His replacement in the Chamber match is... Jinder Mahal, because memes. Then there's a 6-man tag on the main event with all the chamber participants, Sami, Jey and Andrade vs Reed, Jinder and Nakamura with the heel team getting the win after Bronson Reed dominates. After the match he beats up the other 2 heels too for good measure.
We get to the actual Chamber match, and the two guys that start are... Sami Zayn and Nakamura, because they're really good together. They have a really good wrestle and then in comes Andrade because I want him to get a good showcase. After that comes Jinder to balance out the babyface/heel ratio. Then it's Jey Uso time. Ring fills up for Bronson Reed to come out, he looks like a big monster. He eliminates Jinder pretty quick, before he drags down the match too much. He beats up everyone else too and then splashes Sami through a pod. In the midst of the chaos, Nakamura eliminates Andrade. Reed eliminates Jey (sorry he doesn't get to do more). Zayn really has to fight from underneath in this situation, Nakamura and Reed kinda team up on him before they inevitably turn on eachother. Zayn takes advantage of this to eliminate Reed and then it's down to Zayn and Nakamura, much like at the start. They go back and forth for a while and really build up the danger before Zayn gets a gutsy win. Sami Zayn will challenge Seth Rollins at Wrestlemania. But as Zayn is celebrating, Drew comes in through the crowd, gets in through the chamber door and attacks Zayn. Before anyone else can get in he locks the chamber door and brutally beats up Sami Zayn for an uncomfortable amount of time, like 10 minutes.
On the following Raw, Adam Pearce says Drew McIntyre has put Raw's Wrestlemania world title in jeopardy and is set to fire him, before Seth Rollins and Sami Zayn comes out all beat up and beg him not to because they want revenge on Drew for these attacks. After some back and forth Pearce agrees to not only not firing Drew, but lift his suspension and books a match for the next week's Raw where Drew has a handicap match against Seth and Sami. Of course, because they're opponents at Wrestlemania it's a whole "can they coexist?" thing. Which... they actually can because that's not the point of this match. Seth and Sami are still visibly beat up after these attacks, so this match is more a beatdown by Drew. Seth gets taken out fairly early on and goes to the back (because he's injured, remember) and Drew pins a beat up Sami Zayn. So, on paper, Drew McIntyre beat both the World Heavyweight Champion and the #1 contender, and that's how he gets added to the match. Obviously we keep the revenge story going, but make sure to do some angles where Sami and Seth also have tension, you can even have them get physical.
As for the WrestleMania match itself, I'd definetly have Sami and Seth agree to team up at the start but that quickly dissolves. Really, you can take the plot from the Mox vs Ospreay vs Finlay match from Wrestle Kingdom since the story is quite similar. Winners wise, can really go either way. I'll put Drew as the winner just because I'm gonna note down winners for all matches but Sami can just as easily get his big world title win or Seth can continue his reign. I think all three would work.
|
|
|
|
Post by henriquesser on Jan 31, 2024 16:56:53 GMT 1
Another big match that is up in the air is Gunther's match. With the incident involving Brock Lesnar it's safe to say the dream match between them isn't happening, and rightfully so. Honestly, I was really looking forward to it so it's upsetting. But now the question is, who is Gunther gonna face? The IC Champion is actually amazing and I'm confident he can have a great match against anyone. There's a lot of hot babyfaces he could go up against.
I've talked about Seth Rollins already and why I wouldn't do Hogan vs Warrior 2: Electric Boogaloo. Sami Zayn would be a good challenger as well, but as you can see from the previous post. There's a lot more babyfaces on the Raw roster that could work with him and have a good match, but it's not as simple as that for one major reason: Gunther should lose the title at WrestleMania. The title reign has been amazing, he's had a lot of great matches and broke the Honky Tonk Man's record. I'll say it again, he's the best Intercontinental Champion of all time. He's been built as almost unbeatable and he's had some of the best Intercontinental title matches ever. And that's exactly why his reign needs to end in the biggest way possible, and he will then move on to bigger things. So the question isn't who should wrestle Gunther, is who should beat Gunther at WrestleMania.
For me there are three candidates: Chad Gable, Sheamus and Bron Breakker (please change his name, it's so dumb). I could stick them all in a 4 way but that would also be doing the reign a disservice. A reign this great should end in a proper singles match, because the ring is sacred and all that. However... WrestleMania is 2 nights, so why not have Gunther defend the title on both nights. Unfortunately, in this scenario, it is Chad Gable who draws the short straw here. As great as he is, he lacks the big name that Sheamus has and his ceiling is admittedly lower than Bron. So the plan is to have Gunther face Sheamus on one night and Bron on the other.
As far as how I'd get to it... it's pretty simple. Gunther can't work Elimination Chamber, but why not have a tournament to crown his challenger? I know we just had one on Smackdown, but tournaments are great anyways and we should have them more often. Also, like on the last post, matches with stakes are more fun. And with WWE having such a bloated roster you might as well have them appear. You can even have NXT guys in it, like Bron STEINER (let me dream). He should get to the final, at Elimination Chamber (or on a Raw main event really, it's fine if it's not on PPV) where he faces... Chad Gable, because he should still be in the mix even if he's not getting the match. Bron and Gable put on a great match, give them some time and have Bron win clean. Then the build is fairly simple, asskicker babyface vs asskicker heel. You can have Imperium jump Bron, you can have Bron team up with Alpha Academy and do some trios matches. Just make both guys look like a million bucks.
Then we get to WrestleMania Night 1. When he enters, make sure Gunther sends Kaiser and Vinci to the back, because Intercontinental title matches are sacred. And just have Gunther and Bron beat the shit out of eachother for 15 to 20 minutes. Bron gives Gunther a great fight and there's many times where he's close... but ultimately the champion retains. After the match, Gunther is incredulous with the fight Bron put up, and offers to shake his hand... and Bron slaps him, because he doesn't care about his respect. So they fight some more... until Imperium come out to beat up Bron 3 on 1. Aaaaaand... that's when Sheamus comes in. He makes the save and hits a couple Brogue Kicks, and then challenges Gunther... for tomorrow. Gunther promptly accepts, because frankly he's got an ego and thinks he's unbeatable, despite having wrestled a grueling match the night before. Plus he's mopped the floor with Sheamus before so why not do it again? You can even have him explain that on a backstage promo or something. So yeah, Night 2 and we have another 15 to 20 minute slugfest... and Sheamus wins! He's finally won the one title he never had!
Honestly you could've just as easily switch Sheamus and Bron's roles and keep everything the same too. It's also good, just achieves different things. With Bron going over you establish a new major player for years to come, it's definetly more productive. With Sheamus going over you give a (final?) big moment to one of the most consistent and dependable wrestlers WWE has had in the past 15 years. It'd be a thank you to Sheamus, and he'd tick off the final box in his WWE career. Then after a few months his contract expires and he can go to New Japan and have bangers with Shingo, Ishii and Taichi all the time (I really want NJPW Sheamo).
Whatever happens here there is one thing that should 100% happen. Gunther should win a world title at either Summerslam or the Berlin show. Whatever brand he's on and whoever is the world champion of that brand (hopefully a babyface) it's time to crown the Ring General. And have him in one of the WrestleMania 41 main events too.
|
|
