John Cena vs. Nakamura Betting Odds
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Tag: WWE Championship
WWE SmackDown Live Results – July 25 2017
Welcome to SmackDown Live, only 48 hours removed from the Battleground PPV!
Jinder Mahal retained the WWE Championship against Randy Orton in the Punjabi Prison match. However, to nobody’s surprise, Orton wasn’t beaten one-on-one. In fact, it took FOUR guys for Mahal to retain, including himself, The Singh Brothers, and the return of The Great Khali. Look, I don’t like the fact that Mahal is being booked so weak, nor does the return of Khali excite me, but I do like the concept of Mahal having an impressive entourage. Mahal is a beatable Champion but he has two lackeys who will go through hell for him, and a giant to be the muscle. It’s a great sight and I’m excited to see where WWE go next with the Punjabi Posse.
Kevin Owens won the United States Championship from AJ Styles at WWE Battleground. The match itself was fine but the finish left almost everyone scratching their heads. There was a seemingly unnecessary ref bump, a series of submissions in which nobody tapped, and then a weak roll-up to finish an anti-climatic match. It definitely was a blemish on a match that was only starting to get good. However, it’s likely we’ll get the rubber match between the two at SummerSlam and so the feud will continue tonight. That being said, there are rumours that last-minute plan changes were made to allow AJ to leap into a feud with Jinder Mahal. Either way, we’ll find out soon!
The New Day won the SmackDown Tag Team Championship’s on Sunday night, following the best match on the entire card. The match was fantastic and it felt like the right time to put the titles on The New Day. It’s unclear if we’re going to get a third showdown between the two teams at SummerSlam, but seeing as SmackDown’s tag division is pretty lacking, it seems likely. I’m fine with another month of these two teams going at it but in the meantime WWE really has to build a credible contender to New Day. Speaking of other teams, The Fashion Police were once again attacked on Sunday night and we’re no closer to figuring out who perpetrated the attacks. Rumour has it that Luke Harper and Erick Rowan are behind it, and I really hope that’s the case because they could be credible contender’s to the New Day should they beat The Fashion Police.
Natalya won the Five-Way Elimination Match at WWE Battleground on Sunday night, which means she will face Naomi at SummerSlam for the Women’s Championship. These two could have a good match but I worry about the feud when it comes to the microphone. That being said, WWE would do well to include Carmella in the feud and she could easily make it more interesting in the promo department, as well as give Naomi another thing to worry about.
That’s the preview for tonight’s show, which is likely to feature the continued feuds between Corbin and Nakamura, as well as Sami Zayn and Mike Kanellis. Don’t forget to check out the Ringside News app and get talking on the Ringside Talk app! Enjoy the show!
Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – RAW’s 3-point Failure, Kevin Owens’ New Documentary, The Death of Kayfabe, More!
Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.
Russo says that Enzo Amore cut a terrific promo to open this week’s episode of Monday Night RAW. He hopes that WWE isn’t writing Amore off after his split with Big Cass, because Amore is a machine on the mic, and he proved it again on Monday. It’s also clear to Russo that Amore is writing his own promos, because there’s no way the same writers that write the rest of the show are writing his promos. Amore’s promos are simply on another level.
In Russo’s opinion, RAW fails every week because of three points:
1. The show is 3 hours
2. They split the brands, so they don’t have their entire roster available to them to use on Monday nights.
3. They don’t even utilize the top talents that they have on that roster.
It doesn’t make any sense to Russo that WWE chose to split there roster. When he almost returned to WWE in 2002, the first thing he talked to Vince McMahon about was undoing the brand split and merging the rosters again. In addition to this, the top stars on both brands are barely utilized each week. We saw all of RAW’s top stars for no more than a few minutes each on Monday night.
Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Russo as WCW Champion, Changing Landscape of the Wrestling Business, Undertaker Returning? More!
Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).
Russo comments on the growing speculation online, that WWE’s promotional image for the upcoming ‘Great Balls of Fire’ PPV resembles a penis and two testicles. Sasha Banks even tweeted this week that she actually agrees with the speculation and can see the resemblance. Russo doesn’t understand why WWE would blatantly do this given their ‘PG’ environment, and the fact that their target fanbase is mostly children.
Gilbertti points out that there was a recent study which concluded that the median age of WWE’s fanbase is 54. Russo is shocked by this news but it proves what he’s been saying for a long time now, that WWE isn’t making new fans. Gilbertti says that this number has nearly doubled from 28 in 2000, and today’s fans are mostly attitude era leftovers. He adds that WWE’s fans are literally dying off.
Russo says that wrestling isn’t ‘cool’ anymore, and teenagers aren’t watching today’s product. In turn, WWE is unable to generate and maintain new fans. Gilbertti says that WWE had the biggest increase of median fan age from 2000 to 2017 out of the 25 sports that were studied.
Why Jinder Mahal As Champion Is Fine
As most of you know by now, WWE pulled the trigger on Jinder Mahal and he is now WWE Champion. It’ll surely go down as one of the most shocking and unexpected victories in professional wrestling history. Sure it was met with harsh criticism, but others seem to think it was the right move. From a business standpoint, it was.
WWE is in the process of expanding its brand to India. Mahal winning the championship was the edge they needed to promote it and expand even more. It was a smart business decision, but don’t let that take away anything that Jinder has done to get to this point. He earned his match against Orton in the upcoming weeks to Backlash. His victory in the six-pack challenge and over AJ Styles showed that Mahal should be considered a true player.
Sunday night was just the coronation of his arrival to the spotlight, one that I’m perfectly fine with him having.
Mahal is considered a jobber by most of the WWE Universe. After being fired back in 2014, Mahal was brought back just to fill up the roster holes the brand split would create. The Mahal we saw in 2016 was different. Much different. He is built like a brick house. Maybe it’s the steroids, but nonetheless he changed his look. He also changed his character to a degree. No longer was he a founding member of 3MB. This Mahal was serious, ready to knock down anyone that stood in his way to success. It still didn’t change how he would be booked. By definition, Mahal was a jobber. That would all change at Wrestlemania 33.
Mahal was a finalist in the Andre the Giant battle royal, losing to Mojo Rawley with help from New England Patriots Tight End, Rob Gronkowski. Fast forward a little bit and we see him in the ring with a returning Finn Balor. The match was anything great, but what got people talking was the forearm shot by Mahal. It was viewed as stiff, unnecessary, and dangerous. Even though it got people talking bad about Mahal, it got them talking about Mahal nonetheless.
Jinder then shows up on Smackdown Live and does what every superstar plans to do, seize the opportunity before him. Thanks to The Singh Brothers (formally known as The Bollywood Boys), Mahal was able to pin Sami Zayn in the six-pack challenge and become the number one contender for Randy Orton and the WWE Championship. The rest, we say, is history. Mahal seized his opportunity and became the man of Smackdown Live.
The reason I love this so much is because Mahal has seized his moment, capitalized on every opportunity given before him, and took advantage where necessary. Smackdown Live is “The Land of Opportunity”, and Mahal is now the face of that moniker. Just three years ago Mahal was receiving his termination papers. Today, he holds the most coveted belt in all of professional wrestling.
If that isn’t perseverance, I don’t know what is.
People are going to hate the fact he is champ. They are going to say he hasn’t earned it, or that he doesn’t have enough credibility to be champion. The fact of the matter is, Mahal proved then wrong. He said he would become champ and everyone laughed at him. Now he’s the one holding the gold, laughing while people sit in unbelief.
Anything can happen in the WWE. It’s what makes it a great product. The unpredictability captivates audience or sours them, but either way it’s being talked about. I applaud WWE for making this happen. It was a shocking moment, and it was the right move to make.
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