WWE Champions Corner (2-3 July): Hell Yes!

Hello there, fellow Vultures. Sadly, Simon isn’t able to pen Champions Corner this week. Luckily, I was able to step in and will be breaking down each title picture in the current main roster product of WWE. It was somewhat of a surreal week. Raw felt incredibly Attitude Era-esque with ridiculous skits and non-finishes, while SmackDown was just…there. Let’s get into it.

WWE Raw Champions

The Universal Title

Yet again, no Brock. Yet again, no clear picture for the Universal Championship’s path. Until Roman vs. Bobby at Extreme Rules is confirmed as a #1 contender’s match, I won’t say anything else on the matter.

 

The Intercontinental Title

There was a lot of storyline crossover on this week’s Raw, most of it revolving around Roman Reigns as the through line. It was confirmed prior to Raw that Dolph Ziggler would defend his recently won IC Title against Seth Rollins at Extreme Rules in a 30-minute iron man match. Dolph may have been spinning his wheels these last few years, but this pairing with McIntyre seems to have lit a fire underneath him and it’ll no doubt be a memorable contest. In the meantime, we got Roman and Seth teaming up to take on the massive Scot and his bleach blonde buddy. The title itself was inconsequential, as this match existed to further tease a feud between Roman and Drew before The Revival interrupted proceedings for a DQ finish.

I hope the match between Dolph and Seth is something to write home about, as the two of them really got the shaft this week in favour of Vince McMahon’s favourite Shield member.

 

The Raw Women’s Title

There wasn’t a six-woman tag on Raw this week and Simon isn’t here to rejoice about it; there’s a certain poetic tragedy to that. Nia Jax (who is now a face, but I’ve stopped keeping track) defeated Mickie James in a straightforward TV match. Alexa Bliss and Natalya were at ringside, continuing to keep Nattie on the outer fringes of the title scene. This must surely lead to a heel turn that sees The Queen of Hearts turn on her on-screen bestie, Ronda Rousey, once Ronda secures the title. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I’m interested to see how all of this plays out. Alexa Bliss winning back the title was the only ending to Ronda vs. Nia that made sense in what was a rushed confrontation that should have been saved for SummerSlam. WWE are making the best of a bad situation and I can’t fault them for that.

 

The Raw Tag Team Titles

Déjà vu from last week, as we saw Curtis Axel defeat Matt Hardy clean in back-to-back Raws. Bray Wyatt was absent from the show after being hurt in a car accident over the weekend, so I can’t be too harsh on WWE for being repetitive here. For all we know, they had something much more exciting planned, but Bray’s injury threw a spanner in the works. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt here.

The B-Team must win the belts at the end of this, their meteoric rise up the tag team ladder has been handled pretty damn well. Even if they drop them to someone like the Authors of Pain the next night on Raw, it doesn’t matter. Just let them have their moment in the sun, they’ve earned it.

 

The Cruiserweight Title

Gonna cheat a little bit here, as the champion wasn’t on the show. Cedric Alexander defends his belt next week against Hideo Itami, and it’s going to be epic. Seeing as there’s only one title on 205 Live to compete for, it could be argued that everything happening on the show somehow revolves around the belt. Noam Dar returned and squashed TJP in a cathartic moment. With the Scot recently being named #1 contender for the United Kingdom Title, it seems WWE are keen on pushing Dar upon his return to in-ring action. Then, Akira Tozawa beat up a local talent while Lio Rush acted like the ultimate shithead at ringside.

But there was only one thing on this show that anybody cared about: the match of the year contender between Buddy Murphy and Mustafa Ali. The rubber match in their lauded trilogy was easily the best. It was a chaotic, no DQ war that started off at a hundred miles per hour and didn’t let up. We had Spanish flies onto the announce table, planchas using the ring steps as a launch pad, my God it was insane. Ali eventually emerged victorious and must surely be considered the next in line for a title shot after next week’s match. Maybe this time, he’ll finally be able to get the big W over Cedric. Magnificent stuff.

WWE SmackDown Live Champions

The WWE Title

It pains me to say that AJ Styles vs. Rusev is just a filler feud. As much as we’d all love to see Rusev win the gold, all logic points to AJ dropping the belt in a programme with Samoa Joe. This week, we got to see Aiden English take on “The Phenomenal One” in what was a routine victory for Styles. Rusev would then attack AJ after the match and frustratingly continue to be portrayed as the heel in this feud. The people want to cheer Rusev, just let them.

AJ’s reign has been going since November and hasn’t really been anything special. I love AJ, but when your key feuds are with Jinder Mahal and an overly drawn out dick kicking contest with Shinsuke Nakamura, what can you do? Put it on Joe and let him have a monster heel run to carry the SmackDown brand. Please.

 

The United States Title

Jeff Hardy had a US Title open challenge because WWE don’t know how else to book that belt (and also because it was Murica Day Eve). We all wanted Almas, and instead we got The Miz. Miz has been doing the best work of his career since 2016, but this match did nothing for anyone. It was decent, if forgettable. Certainly not a patch on Miz’s past IC Title bouts with the likes of Rollins, Ambrose and Ziggler.

Jeff won clean to avenge the loss he suffered from Miz in the build up to MITB and we got a pre-taped message from Shinsuke Nakamura. Naka appeared to bark like a dog towards the end. Whether he did or whether I just wanted him to do that due to the nature of his recent injury is up for debate. It would seem the plan is still for Nakamura to hopefully take the belt off of Jeff, and I pray that is what happens. Shinsuke has had two title feuds since coming up to main and has lost both of them, let’s not make it three in a row.

 

The SmackDown Women’s Title

Well, this was…a match. We were treated to Asuka vs. James Ellsworth with Carmella at ringside. It was exactly what most of us were anticipating, with Asuka wailing on Ellsworth, who promptly ran into the crowd while Asuka gave chase. We then got a double count-out finish and Carmella sneak attacking Asuka to end the segment.

Ever since Asuka’s legendary undefeated streak came to an end, it’s almost as if WWE have been making fun of her. She looked like nothing short of an idiot by being distracted for what felt like an hour by James Ellsworth at MITB. Now, she’s being regularly outsmarted by the chinless wonder. James has admittedly been doing solid character work. He plays the delusional misogynist role well, especially since we all know he’s one of the nicest blokes out of character. But this storyline is doing Asuka no favours and if it doesn’t end with her as champ, it could do irreparable damage to her credibility. Not to mention that the feud over the women’s title is revolving around a man. Typical stuff from WWE, really.

 

The SmackDown Tag Team Titles

Now this was entertaining stuff, truly. The Team Hell No! reunion last week warmed all of our hearts and it was followed up on perfectly last night. Bryan and Kane had a genuinely funny exchange, where Bryan pointed out the inconsistencies in Kane making the save. He directly referenced everything Kane did to antagonise Bryan when the former was part of The Authority, and Kane flexed his comedic chops with goofy body language and facial expressions.

This was before The Usos came out and questioned the validity of Bryan and Kane’s instant granting of a title shot from Paige. The GM then made her presence known and set a match between the two teams, informing the brothers Uso that they would be inserted into the match between Team Hell No! and The Bludgeon Brothers at Extreme Rules to make it a triple threat. The two had a high energy, solid as you like TV main event match that saw the newly reformed Kane and Bryan pick up the win. This was before the current tag champs stood on the ramp and stared down their future opponents to end the show. It was a strong, self-contained story that fed into a wider narrative, and it bookended SmackDown very well.

It wasn’t the best week for champions. A lot of belts were mostly ignored and relegated to other stories. However, there are several prospects for future title matches that are keeping me intrigued for now.