It was the Blue Brand’s turn to take a look at what shiny new (and same old) toys they had to play with.
The week after the Superstar Shake-up, it’s now time to see what the impact was on WWE SmackDown Live. Here are five things we learned from Tuesday night.
1. Kofi’s First Challenger Is Not Suprising
The WWE Universe was wondering who was going to be Kofi’s first major feud. On the blue brand there are Roman Reigns, Randy Orton, Elias and Andrade to just name a few.
However, it turned out that Kevin Owens was the man for the job. Was it really that surprising? Big E went out with action with an injury and Owens joined The New Day as a honorary member, and he turned against both Kingston and Woods. Surprise.
This is leading into a nice rivalry. However, if it wasn’t for Big E’s injury, could we have seen Big E feuding against his partner, Kofi? Interesting. For now it’s looking to be a good storyline and it puts Owens as a heel, the best role for the wrestler.
2. Becky’s First Challenger Is Not Suprising
The women’s division is a bit all of over the place at the moment, with injuries and the slight problem that we have one woman holding both titles – that woman being ‘The Man’ Becky Lynch. It means that Becky is having to appear on both Raw and SmackDown Live and defend the titles separately. Whoever thought of this idea needs to be sacked.
I love Charlotte, and I believe she should be the SmackDown Live Women’s Champion over Becky Lynch. However, Charlotte should have a break and let Bayley or Ember Moon have their time on the blue brand. When this opportunity came up, it was Charlotte against Bayley and they faced off in a match to determine who should get a future title match.
Charlotte won the match, putting her over Bayley, which I felt was a strange move. At the Money in the Bank PPV, it sees Becky Lynch defending her titles in two separate matches.
This idea was either not well thought out, or a genius one. I do hope Becky does drop one of the titles that night.
3. Absolution Are Still Very Much A Thing
Do you remember when Paige came back from injury with her new group ‘Absolution,’ consisting of Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville? Well, whoever is on the creative team thought this through very well indeed. In some crazy way, Paige’s old and current team are both on the same roster.
Could we see some form of storyline taking place in the future with The IIconics, Absolution and Asuka and Kairi Sane? Although this is all SmackDown talent, it’s definitely a good storyline idea. It does leave the Raw women hanging, but there isn’t much tag team competition on the red brand currently.
An Instagram story that was released from Mandy and Sonya, where they said that Paige’s team was keeping her “relevant.” Harsh words from the duo, but I’m sure this will lead to something quite interesting.
4. Andrade and Zelina Vega Are Staying On SmackDown
You might recall that Andrade and Zelina Vega were in fact drafted to Raw in the Shake-up. Well, forget about that for a moment and pretend that never happened. Andrade, who is one of the best wrestlers on the roster at the moment, hasn’t had his moment to shine just yet. He’s held the NXT Championship, but since making the jump to the main roster he’s had no luck.
However, his luck could be changing as he’s currently in a feud with Intercontinental Champion, Finn Balor. Very exciting news for the wrestler and about time.
It’s looking like this could have been the best move to keep Andrade on the blue brand. Let’s just pretend that it never happened and hope that he finally becomes a champion.
5. Roman Reigns Will Face Elias At Money In The Bank
One of the biggest picks for the blue brand was getting Roman Reigns as one of their new talents on the roster. It was Shane McMahon that called him out, and then it ended up being a beat down with Shane and Elias against him.
Don’t forget Shane’s previous rival The Miz was sent to Raw which meant that he had to pick someone new to feud with, and it’s none other than
The Big Dog.
Elias really needed someone high profile to make sure his career kept going in the right direction, and it looks like we could be seeing a match-up in the future with Reigns against Elias.
If you liked this article, please make sure to check out more of our stuff at TWMNewsUK on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
You can find me on Twitter @JackDinsley. Thanks for reading.