I can’t come up with anything else to write about at the moment, but I think I might have a few opinions on some of these Fact or Fiction questions, so let’s do that.
You were shocked when the news broke that Brock Lesnar would be returning at UFC 200.
Yeah. Totally. Not so much that Brock would want to fight again, but that WWE would let him do it while they have him under contract. I don’t know exactly how much they pay him, but it’s a lot. What happens if he goes in there and gets injured, like really injured? I doubt he will, but if you’re WWE, you have to consider it. Or what if he loses? I’m not saying they couldn’t rebuild him because he’s Brock and he’s awesome, but if he goes out there and loses decisively or embarrassingly, it could be trouble. If he wins, great. You come out of it with an even more legendary and marketable Brock Lesnar. But not knowing what WWE is getting in return for allowing this, it seems like a lot more risk vs. reward than I think I’d personally be comfortable with if I were Vince McMahon.
Enzo and Cass WILL be split up when the WWE does the brand extension.
For the sake of both of them, I hope not. Maybe they’d be fine at least short-term because Cass is big and because Enzo is a fountain of charisma, but they’re definitely better together. When Enzo was out injured and Cass was left on his own for a few weeks, something was clearly missing. Cass either needs somebody to talk for him or WWE needs to stop over-scripting him, because he sounded like he was reading straight off a teleprompter every time his mouth opened. But the bigger thing is that the crowd loves them and it’s way too soon to split them up. WWE has something with these guys, and they’d be fools not to give them a run and see exactly what. If nothing else, they’d move some serious merchandise.
Once Smackdown goes live, you will watch the show more regularly than you currently do now.
No, because I already watch it every week for some reason. I can get through it in about an hour by skipping commercials, entrances and recaps, which makes it feel a bit less useless. And when it goes live and they split the roster in half, that changes everything, or at least it should. If they’re serious about each show being different, they can’t rely on recaps of Raw to fill it out and will be forced to use that time to build feuds. That right there should get people caring about the show again, at least for a while.
I skipped a bunch of out of date questions since there’s no sense in me predicting what’s going to happen on PPVs that have already ended, so let’s see what we have over here.
WWE running two, brand specific PPVs a month, sounds like a horrible idea that will lead to overexposing the product.
You could argue that the product as it is is overexposed because there’s too much weekly programming that all features the same people in the same matches over and over again, and you would be correct. But if done right, splitting Raw and Smackdown into separate brands with separate rosters should fix that, even if it means adding extra PPVs or Network Specials or whatever we’re supposed to call them now. Yes it’s more programming that we’re being asked to watch, but it’s new programming with different faces on each show, and in theory, that’s a good thing. Plus what I think a lot of people are forgetting here is that we live in a different time. WWE isn’t asking you to pay $40 for a 3 hour show with only half the stars on it like they were a decade ago when they tried this. We have WWE Network now where for $10 per month, you get everything you already get, plus all these new shows. It’s hard to complain about getting more value for your money. And you don’t even have to carve out an extra Sunday to watch live if you don’t want to. It’s all there on demand so you can watch when it suits you. Sure some of these shows are probably going to suck and be slogs to watch, but that matters a bit less when you’re not out anything but a couple hours for having taken the time.
If Brock Lesnar wins at UFC 200, the WWE WILL book him vs. Reigns at Summerslam, with Reigns going over clean.
This would have been a much easier yes a week ago, but now that Reigns has lost the title and gotten himself wellnessed I’m not so sure. Before his vacation he was headed for a match with Seth Rollins and probably set to do some stuff with Ambrose, so I imagine they’ll pick up where they left off when he comes back. The brand split could easily change all that, but if it’s me I want to at least try to tie up some of those loose ends before I move on to something else.
If WWE does end up running two, brand specific PPVs a month, the women will main event a PPV before the end of 2016.
Nope. Unless something changes and changes fast come brand split time, it’s not happening. This isn’t NXT where the women are allowed to build compelling stories and have matches as good as or better than the men, this is WWE proper where the booking of the women is still mostly garbage that feels like it’s treated as an afterthought. They aren’t called divas anymore and we’re no longer watching them wrestle in gravy on all of our turkey-based holidays, but there’s still a long way to go before they’re taken seriously enough to be put in that position. The wrestling talent is there to make it happen, but there just doesn’t seem to be any will from management to use it.
