Each year, after the WWE draft – which is the pro-wrestling equivalent of Taco Bell shuffling around the same five ingredients – there comes the usual swampy swarm of cries for ending the draft. Which is a fair request, though the draft does mix things up on a balance sheet level. It busts people out of runaround feuds with no clear end while also protecting certain individuals or gangs.
Like, for example, both Legado del Fantasma and The Final Testament get to be free of their losing-end rivalries and start fresh(ish). And Nia Jax gets to pose a new threat to Bayley after coming up short on RAW (and, just this week, losing to a rising Liv Morgan).
The silliest thing about the draft though is not just the Procter & Gamble of it all, where we’re supposed to kayfabe believe in true managerial and creative separation between Raw and Smackdown, but having to sit through endless picks where wrestlers just stay on their brand. “SmackDown picks… Randy Orton!” It’s anti-scintillating. And of course it has to be that way or else it’s just a full roster swap, but it still feels preposterous given the more recent presentation of the draft, which is meant to emulate the actual team/brand boardrooms of the NFL draft. So you see a meeting room with SmackDown bigwigs being like “Yessss, we get to keep Karl Anderson!”
And sure, if you break it down, most people are switching sides, but it sure seems like the majority of these lovable fools are staying f***ing put. Even though it’s only [does extremely scientific calculation] about 40% who stay. Yeah, NXT is in there to mix things up, but the fact that it’s all mostly only between two brands tends to highlight the stagnancy. And it’s always extra hilarious when someone can get a Raw crowd to boo the SmackDown simply existing. As if there are WWE fans who only watch Raw and are only invested in Raw and will die on the hill that is Raw is War. Wrestling is absurd, folks, and we love those tiny stolen moments of self-delusion.
Now… how will all this change next year when Raw goes to Netflix? Other countries will get to watch all of WWE programming on Netflix, but Raw itself will be a Netflix-only production. Will there be a clearer brand divide then? Will Raw stay three hours? What will wrestling be like with no commercials? Will they have to non-stop endorse and advertise Red Notice 2 and have Dirty Dom empty Rock’s film set piss bottles? Could this be when the draft finally ends (in the way we’ve come to know it anyhow)? That’s a lot of questions in a row for something that’s not Macaulay Culkin in Uncle Buck.
Backlash is this weekend, and from flippin’ France of all places, which means we get to enjoy a maxin’, relaxin’ Saturday afternoon premium event experience. Think of it! We’ll now have our entire night free to sit on the corner of our bed and stare off coldly into the middle distance. And then from there WWE keeps the Eurotrip going with Clash at the Castle in mid-June. Why “Scotty Doesn’t Know” isn’t the theme song to either of these PPVs is beyond me. Someone’s leaving Scotty on the table, that’s all I know.
Let’s look at Backlash briefly, which feels like it usually does — like an aggressively post-WrestleMania show. The singles champions will all retain, while the Kabuki Warriors will most definitely fall to Bianca and Jade. WWE is soaring these days and there’s no doubt the crowd in Léon will be Le Professionnel, but does WWE have enough good will and bodacious buzz to sustain us through a show clearly meant to deliver humdrum results? WrestleMania comedowns can be crushing if things aren’t plotted out precisely.
Note: No “Opposite Momentum” picks here. Just classic, original recipe, factory settings picks.
Damian Priest vs. Jey Uso
Jey, despite being massively over, ain’t grabbing Damian’s World Heavyweight Championship. It’s a good thing they’ve set him up, as of this week’s Raw, to dethrone Logan Paul.
Winner: Damian Pries
Cody Rhodes vs. AJ Styles
No, Cody is not losing to AJ. Backlash has the potential for strong matches but it’s not going to deliver head-spinning/scratching results.
Winner: Cody Rhodes
Bayley (c) vs. Tiffany Stratton vs. Naomi
Bayley isn’t dropping the title she just won, that’s crazycakes. But this match can still be another amazing showcase for Stratton as she dazzles and delights on the main roster and grows in popularity.
Winner: Bayley
Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane) vs. Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill
As much as I don’t want to see Damage CTRL continue to disintegrate, Bianca and Jade are just too much here. Jade can’t lose this early and Bianca was the number one draft pick (and the number one male pick is already losing at Backlash).
Winners: Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill
Kevin Owens and Randy Orton vs. The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga)
This one’s a toss-up, sort of. The Bloodline is in chaos, in full disruption mode, so a loss could be explained away. But also, if WWE is trying to build up Solo’s new hardline leadership, and get over the new addition of Tama Tonga, then a win here is necessary. If something noteworthy happens on SmackDown this week, I may amend the pick, but probably not…
Winners: The Bloodline
Should there be any other matches added to the card? Beck vs. Liv? Sami vs. Chad? Or is the show lean and mean enough as is? If Liv vs. Becky gets added then you definitely know my pick. Liv Mas, if you know what I’m sayin’.
Over on AEW, things have been schmedium absurd, but most of that was Tony Khan no-selling his supposedly devastating, and controversial, corkscrew tombstone off-air during the NFL draft and then, while still no-selling the injury, calling WWE the “Harvey Wienstein of the wrestling industry.” It all makes me wish the Young Bucks storyline heel takeover of AEW was a shoot not a work. Or a worked shoot. Or shooting yourself into a work.
I like the smarmy, weasley Bucks (mostly because their default state is “extremely punchable”) and how AEW going for a more full company-size storyline here. They’ve never really fully surrendered to a large angle like this that can affect most of, if not all of, the roster so I’m interested to see where it goes. The closest they’ve come is the J.A.S. a few years back, but that was primarily because they took up so much airtime.
The Bucks inflicted their most dastardly attacks this week on Dynamite. No, not their beatdown of Elite member Kenny Omega. I’m talking about the booking of Christian Cage vs. Swerve Strickland at Double or Nothing. Savage.
Look.
Look. I love Christian but this bout feels less-than. They have three more weeks to prove me wrong, and all in all it will be a good match bell to bell, but… does it feel Double or Nothing worthy? Maybe I need to get out of my “Big Four” mindset now that AEW is doing monthly PPVs. After all, Dynasty just crowned a new champ and he was never going to drop it at the next big event. Basically, DoN is Backlash-y this year, it seems.
Also, at this point, especially given her awesome and brutal Rampage win over Skye Blue this week, don’t we just want Willow to beat Mercedes now? I think, if we had to do all of this over again, that the multi-month lead-up to Mercedes’ first AEW match should have just been a few weeks. You need someone actually good on the mic to warrant that much promo/segment time. I love her but she is less than ideal when it comes to the saying of words.
KNEELIFT!
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