Edge Says Brock Lesnar vs. Samoa Joe Should Have Been Saved for WrestleMania

During the recent installment of the E&C Podcast of Awesomeness, Edge talked about the upcoming match between Brock Lesnar and Samoa Joe and mentioned that WWE should have saved the match for WrestleMania next year.

“You want my take? Here’s my take, ok, I’m assuming that they wanna go Reigns and Brock at WrestleMania. I personally would have gone Brock and Joe at WrestleMania because it’s different, it is fresh, it is believable. You have this 300 pound Samoan you know, beast and then The Beast Incarnate. So I don’t know, I think that to me it would have been a fun match to get at WrestleMania and I think people would have been excited to see that too.”

You can listen to the complete podcast here.

Austin Aries Says He’s Not Taking Time Off

While speaking to Josh Barnett of USA Today, Austin Aries addressed reports that he was taking time off from WWE soon. He explained that the quote from the interview he was featured in was taken out of context.

“If you look at the full quote and what I said was, Everyone is dealing with various stuff,” Aries said. “I don’t think there is anyone in the locker room is 100%. We’re all nicked and banged up to various degrees. Like anything else, you pick and choose the times you need address when it needs to be addressed and some times are better than others. I figure no matter what interview I do, the real good ‘journalists’ are going to find the completely irrelevant quotes that will drum up some controversy and stick it on their page to get some clicks and completely miss the real context of what the interview is about. That’s what we do nowadays and call it ‘journalism.’”

You can check out the full interview here.

Ruby Riot Busted Open at UK Download Festival — Match Suddenly Stops

Ruby Riot’s match against Asuka at the UK Download Festival had to be stopped when she was busted open after taking a bump into the steel stairs. Ruby confirmed the incident with a Facebook Live chat with Kayla Braxton and mentioned that she had to get 5 stitches afterwards.

Samoa Joe Should Be The Next Universal Champion

Mr. Brock “The ‘Conqueror’ Beast” Lesnar will finally defend his Universal Championship at the aptly named Great Balls of Fire. His opponent is none other than Mr. Samoa “Samoan Submission ‘Destroyer’ Specialist” Joe. This has all the potential in the world to be a great match if WWE actually decides to book a proper match. It should be a hard-fought battle, but many feel that he is a placeholder contender until the proper Samoan can win the title. We still don’t know what WWE’s plans are, but hopefully, they crown the Destroyer in July. The Samoan Submission Specialist would be a great Universal Champion, and here’s why.

He’d Actually Be There Most of the Time

We can’t really fault Lesnar for wanting to work 10 times a year and get paid millions for it. He took Mr. Perfect’s advice to refrain from making wrestling his whole life. Good for him. I can respect that.

However, when Lesnar has the championship and disappears for months on end to go kill a wolf with his bare hands, it can leave Raw feeling a bit barren. Obviously, when he does show up, it’s a big deal, which adds to his star power (and to an extent, the star power of the belt).

If Samoa Joe had the title, we’d be seeing it a bit more often, what with the fact that Joe is actually a full-time Superstar. There are two groups of people when it comes to top championships. Some people prefer frequent defenses, while others want to save those for big occasions. Both are right, but there’s a fine line in between them. It’s been 69 days since the title was defended, and it hasn’t been successfully defended at all in almost 100 days. That’s kind of bad.

With the Destroyer holding the championship, we’d see it defended a bit more frequently, which could help boost the stock of the belt.

He Could Have Great Matches With the Rest of the Roster

Brock is an incredible wrestler, there’s no doubt about that. So is Joe. The problem is that ever since Lesnar defeated John Cena at Summerslam, his matches have since devolved into suplex spam. It’s like when you first learn to play Mortal Kombat and all you do is press one button and try to win. The difference is, Brock Lesnar actually wins. So there’s that.

Joe’ first/last feud with Seth Rollins sucked a whole lot, but that was because of the story. The matches were fine. There was just no real reason for the Destroyer to fight the Kingslayer other than “hurr durr Stephanie fell through a table, I’m gonna kick your ass”. Rollins defeated Triple H; that should have been the end of his story with Joe.

If the Samoan Submission Specialist got his hands on the Universal Championship, then he could put on great matches with the other big names on Raw. I wouldn’t mind seeing Rollins v. Joe again. I wouldn’t even mind seeing Balor v. Joe again. Heck, let’s put the two Samoans in one match and have them beat the hell out of each other for the Universal Championship.

It Will Boost the Championship’s Image

We are all aware of the Universal Championship’s lineage. Finn Balor was the inaugural champion and vacated the title the very next day. Kevin Owens held the title after and sucked more than a black hole during his reign. Goldberg won the belt in 30 seconds and dropped it in 28 days, and now Lesnar has the title. How many truly great Universal Championship matches can you count? Maybe 4 or 5. How many truly great WWE Championship matches can you count? Way more. Heck, even the World Heavyweight Championship (RIP) had more great matches. Randy Orton v. Christian at Over the Limit, Randy Orton v. Christian at Capitol Punishment, Randy Orton v. Christian at Money in the Bank, Randy Orton v. Christian at Summerslam, etc.

The Universal Championship hasn’t even been around for a year, so obviously, there have been less memorable matches. With Samoa Joe as champion, those matches can start happening. The Destroyer locking horns with the Demon, the Big Dog, or even the Eater of Worlds over the Universal Championship would be a sight to see.

Of course, none of this will come to pass because Lesnar is keeping the belt warm for the Big Dog. Beleedat.

Reason Why Sister Abigail May Never Appear on WWE Television

While appearing on the PWTorch Livecast, former WWE writer Kevin Eck explain why fans will never see Sister Abigail appear in physical capacity on WWE programming.

“From what I know about how Bray Wyatt envisioned that character, I don’t think that character is ever going to be seen, because the way Bray explained it, and I don’t think it’s ever come out on TV. He speaks in riddles, so maybe if you read in-between the lines.”

He continued, “But Bray Wyatt was apparently a young man and Sister Abigail was an old black woman. I believe the swamps of Louisiana who had some supernatural powers and you know the history of voodoo and such in New Orleans. I believe she took him under her wing and kind of taught him the secrets of what she knows of the dark arts and things like that.”

Eck asserted that Sister Abigail is a witch-like character and the person who turned Bray Wyatt into what he is today. Eck stated that if WWE goes by Bray’s vision, the fans may not get to see a physical Sister Abigail.

Jim Ross Reacts to Lana’s Title Shot

Jim Ross published a new blog entry on JrsBarBq.com. Here are a couple of highlights:

WWE’s booking of Jinder Mahal: “I’m a fan of the decision to make Jinder Mahal the WWE Champ, but I feel that his random utilization of his Singh sidekicks might be overdone. Nonetheless, the former Bollywood Boys take a helluva, ass whipping. Enjoying the villains getting success, which generally adds to the build of most storylines within the genre. If I were to err in booking, and I have plenty of times, I’d suggest erring on the side of antagonist angst more often than not. ‘Heat’ is good.”

Lana’s SmackDown Women’s Title shot: “Lana ‘earning’ a Women’s Tile match? Hmm….the pressure is on for her to deliver in front of a somewhat unforgiving and discerning fan base.”

Upcoming female MITB Ladder Match: “Arguably, today I’m more excited to see the women’s [MITB] bout than the men’s in a few weeks, essentially because of the unique nature of this match being the first ever Women’s MITB match ever. I see these athletic women perceiving this booking as very personal and one can only hope that they are discerning about whey they want to do in this match and remember that their safety should never be compromised, which is largely up to the talents in the match. The Gents in the their TLC bout better lace them up tight or they could be outperformed by the women here.”

You check out the full entry at this link here.

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Smackdown Analysis, Burying Jinder Mahal, Lesnar Turning on Heyman? More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.

He opens today’s show by saying that Smackdown Live simply isn’t for him. He has tried to review that show for three straight weeks now and it has been nothing more than six hours of wasted time. Next week Russo is going to switch back to watching and reviewing RAW because Smackdown Live just isn’t entertaining him.

Russo says that Smackdown Live is a ‘cookie cutter’ show. Every week it’s the exact same thing, and viewers are never given fresh looks or different programming. He points out that the opening segment with all the women in the ring was the exact same segment we saw with the men only two weeks ago.

He says that WWE has been hyping and promoting Lana’s debut for weeks, and when she finally came out the entire announce team no-sold it. He adds that they totally buried Lana by not selling her entrance, and it’s almost like they did it on purpose because it was that bad. He says that Tom Phillips is horrible because if he doesn’t sell something, the audience at home will never look at it as important.