ĢƵ

close

WWE Draft on deck

By Bill Hughes for The 4 min read
article image -

Starting Friday night, WWE will begin its latest two-day Draft on Smackdown before concluding it on Raw the following Monday.

It will be interesting to see which direction WWE goes with moving talent around.

With Bruce Pritchard overseeing the creative teams for both shows, I am sensing that this draft will have his blueprints all over it and this makes sense.

He knows which direction he, and more importantly for him, Vince McMahon, want to go.

One talent I see switching shows is A.J. Styles.

Word is that he holds Paul Heyman responsible for Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows being released several months ago and it has been reported that Styles is upset that he has to miss his sonĢƵ football games on Friday nights.

Will WWE officially move Braun Strowman to Raw? Will the womenĢƵ division be shaken up? Could NXT be involved? Will Carmella be finally introduced as the mystery woman on Smackdown, and will she be moved?

Wrestling fans will find out starting Friday what is on the horizon for WWE.

Reigns on right path

Next week, we will take a deeper look at Roman Reigns and his solid new persona. For years, WWE fans loathed Reigns as he was force fed down everyoneĢƵ throats as the top good guy.

But now, Reigns is portraying methodical, cunning and calculated puppet master and things are just taking off for the “Tribal Chief.”

Reigns retained the Universal title at Clash of Champions in a match against his cousin, Jey Uso.

Could a faction be next for Reigns, based off of his Samoan heritage? Will Samoa Joe or the UsoĢƵ be involved?

Can Reigns actually be the face of WWE in the role of a bad guy?

We will look at this more next week as well.

AEW Dynamite turns one

AEW has done a solid job of building itself since debuting Dynamite on TNT on Oct. 2, 2019 and the promotion is growing at a solid pace.

It has to be careful to try and do too much too soon, but things are going in the right direction.

While we are going on seven months since sports fans have been able to fill up arenas and stadiums, the pandemic may end up helping AEW in the long run.

Without having a crowd, AEW has done a solid job of establishing characters and storylines without having to worry about crowd reactions.

Look for AEW to draw relatively well, for multiple reasons, once fans are allowed to once again attend shows.

NXT TakeOver tonight

NXT presents its 31st TakeOver show tonight on the WWE Network with the main event consisting of Finn Balor defending the NXT championship against The Undisputed EraĢƵ Kyle O’Reilly.

Other title matches include Io Shirai defending her NXT title against Candice LaRae, North American champion Damian Priest defends against Johnny Gargano and cruiserweight champion Santos Escobar puts his title on the line against Isaiah “Swerve” Scott.

Also on the card, Kushida will take on Velveteen Dream.

This Day in History…

In 2009, The Undertaker defeated World Champion C.M. Punk to win the title in a Hell in a Cell match at the first-ever Hell in a Cell PPV.

It would be TakerĢƵ last title win and he lost the title to Chris Jericho in an Elimination Chamber match in February, 2010 when Shawn Michaels interfered.

This weekĢƵ question:

Will WrestleMania be held at a stadium? Timmy, Perryopolis.

It will all depend on how things are going with the coronavirus. I would think everyone would want to see the show held at SoFo Stadium just outside of Los Angeles in Inglewood. With events slowly being allowed to have more and more fans, hopefully WWE can at least hold it in an arena if a full stadium is still not allowed.

Look for a decision by mid-December from the state of California on large-scale gatherings and WWE will more than likely decide what to from there.

Email questions/comments to powerhousehughes@gmail.com or @BillHughes_III on Twitter.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $4.79/week.