Pull Up a Barstool and Let's Talk Championship Panics
Grab a cold domestic light beer and slide into the booth, because we need to talk about Sami Zayn. The guy finally climbed the mountain and sent the arena into absolute hysterics on Smackdown. It was the kind of victory that makes you want to buy a round for every single person in your row.
But this is WWE, where no good deed goes unpunished by the booking committee. Before the pyro smoke could even clear the rafters, Raw General Manager Adam Pearce decided to crash the party. He booked Sami to defend his brand-new WWE Championship on Monday Night Raw, just three days after winning it.
What are we doing here, folks? This is the kind of creative panic that makes you wonder if they even want their champions to succeed. Sami Zayn fought tooth and nail for this moment, but defending the title on the rival brand immediately completely undercuts the brand split.
As Javier Machado and Wade Keller discussed on the latest PWTorch Smackdown Post-Show, this is a bizarre way to kick off a reign. You have a fresh, beloved champion, and instead of building up his first major title defense as a must-see event, you throw it onto a random Raw broadcast. It feels like the creative team got cold feet about Sami holding the gold and is already looking for an escape hatch.
And let's look at the brand split itself. What is the point of drafting superstars to specific shows if the champions can just wander over to Monday nights whenever a GM feels like it? If Pearce can just book Smackdown's top champion on a whim, the rules do not mean a thing.
We also saw Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes crossing paths again on Smackdown. These two have enough history to fill a library, and their chemistry is undeniable. But WWE needs to be careful not to rush this dynamic on the main roster.
AEW Finds Its Groove with Omega and the Death Riders
Now let's turn our attention to the other side of the fence. AEW is coming off Forbidden Door, and they are actually showing some booking courage. Kenny Omega is back, immediately going after MJF, and the two are currently haggling over stipulations for their inevitable clash.
This is how you build a main event feud. Omega is the veteran legend who wants to prove he still belongs at the top of the mountain. Meanwhile, MJF is the arrogant, loudmouthed kingpin who thinks the entire promotion revolves around him, and adding stipulations to the mix gives this match a sense of urgency.
But the real headline coming out of Forbidden Door is Will Ospreay joining the Death Riders. If you had told me last year that Ospreay would align himself with Jon Moxley's band of violent thugs, I would have laughed you out of the bar. Yet, here we are, and it might be the smartest move AEW has made all year.
As Joel Dehnel and Gregg Kanner pointed out on the All Elite Conversation Club podcast, this heel turn completely revitalizes Ospreay. He was starting to get a bit stale as the smiling, happy-to-be-here babyface who just puts on five-star matches. Putting him in the Death Riders gives him a mean streak and a clear direction.
Ospreay is the best bell-to-bell wrestler in the world, but he needed an edge. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Moxley and his crew gives him that. The Death Riders now look like a group that could credibly run roughshod over the entire roster.
It also sets up some incredible match dynamics. Ospreay can still go out there and tear the house down, but now he has a reason to cheat, to be nasty, and to talk trash. That is the kind of character depth that keeps fans invested.
NXT Suffers the Post Bash Blues
Meanwhile, NXT is having a bit of a comedown. They just put on the Great American Bash, which was a solid show by all accounts. But the follow-up episode saw a significant drop in both viewers and ratings, as reported by F4WOnline.
This is the classic NXT trap. The creative team puts all their energy into these big, themed episodes, blowing through their biggest matches and stipulations. Then, the very next week, they give us a holding-pattern show that feels like a glorified house show.
If you look back five years ago to the NXT post-show from July 2021, they were running the same playbook. They had Adam Cole against Kyle O'Reilly in a massive rematch, and Timothy Thatcher and Tommaso Ciampa taking on MSK. Those were big-time matches, but the weekly follow-up always struggled to maintain that level of excitement.
The problem is consistency. NXT has some of the best young talent in the world, but they are booked like they are in a constant state of transition. One week they are stars, the next week they are losing in three minutes to a main roster crossover act.
They need to realize that the weekly show is just as important as the premium live events. You cannot just coast on the reputation of the Great American Bash. If the follow-up show doesn't advance storylines in a meaningful way, fans will simply tune out.
The Creative Ghosts of Wrestling Past
This brings us to a larger issue in modern wrestling: the writing. Former WWE creative writer Kevin Eck recently did an interview looking back at his time with the company. He talked about the backstory of the Shield, roster split insights, and Vince McMahon stories from over ten years ago.
Eck's insights remind us that the struggle between creative writers and management is nothing new. WWE has always had a problem with micromanagement, with Vince McMahon famously tearing up scripts hours before the show went live. While Vince might be gone, that corporate culture of last-minute panic still seems to linger.
Look at how they handled Orton's character or the Cena-Punk feud fifteen years ago. There was a constant battle between giving the fans what they wanted and sticking to a corporate plan. That same tension is what we are seeing right now with Sami Zayn's sudden title defense.
Wrestling writing is different from any other TV show. You do not have an off-season, and you have to react to real-life injuries and crowd reactions in real-time. But that is no excuse for lazy booking.
When you have a hot babyface champion like Sami Zayn, you protect him. You do not throw him to the wolves on a rival show just to pop a quick rating. Writers need to have the courage to let stories breathe.
Let Sami Zayn celebrate. Let the fans cheer for him. Let him have a couple of weeks of promos and squash matches to establish himself as the champion. Don't immediately rush into the next chapter before we've even finished reading the first page.
If WWE keeps running their champions into the ground with hotshot booking, the titles will continue to lose their value. The fans are smart and know when a title match is a rating stunt. Let's hope the writers start treating the WWE Championship with the respect it deserves, instead of just another prop in a corporate chess game.
