3 ways SmackDown can catch up en route to WrestleMania 36
SmackDown needs all the help it can get on its road to WrestleMania! Ever since moving to Fox - a blockbuster move everyone suspected would make Smackdown the “A-Show” - WWE’s blue brand has felt nothing more than a weekly televised house show. It has mostly been dominated largely by random tag team matches and Roman Reigns vs. Baron Corbin - which mind you, is still going on.
While its Monday Night counterpart seems to have most of its top WrestleMania offerings this year already established on TV, SmackDown appears to have nothing set for the biggest show of the year yet. If rumours are to be believed, any ideas that management had for SmackDown at WrestleMania too are up in the air now; most notably the planned Universal title bout and John Cena’s appearance.
But this may be a blessing in disguise for the blue brand as they’re not short of options now. All they need to do is make the smart call with Superstars on hand, and SmackDown will be just fine at WrestleMania.
With that said, here are three decisions WWE needs to take en route to WrestleMania 36 in April for the blue brand to have a significant showing at The Show of Shows.
#3 AJ Styles gets drafted back to SmackDown
While yours truly has been very vocal in the past about letting The Undertaker retire already, even I can’t pass the prospect of The Phenom facing The Phenomenal One on the Grandest Stage of Them All!
Yes, as reported first by Dave Meltzer on his Wrestling Observer Radio earlier this month, The Deadman has been keen to face Styles one-on-one as he considers the former WWE Champion to be the current generation’s Shawn Michaels.
These rumours were only strengthened last week on RAW when Styles name-dropped The Undertaker amongst other current and former Superstars, and went as far as calling himself ‘Mr. WrestleMania’ - a moniker HBK himself adopted back in the day.
So everything is going good, the WWE oonly needs to make sure this feud takes place on SmackDown as opposed to Styles’ current home on RAW.
As mentioned earlier, SmackDown needs all the help it can get, and having a marquee bout featuring two names who have been synonymous with the blue brand represent it at WrestleMania, is far from being the worst idea.
The Undertaker has always felt like a blue brand loyalist (especially since the 2000s) and we all know how Styles was the "face who ran the place" in the early years of the current brand split incarnation.
Not only should the brand host this dream rivalry, but SmackDown needs to be a key factor in the build towards that match as well, it’s where Styles feels at home and at his best. The Phenom and The Phenomenal One can both make their returns to the blue brand, and agree to face each other for supremacy over the other.
Besides, add in the fact that RAW already has too many top programs going for itself to look elsewhere, and you have a ready-made solution to the SmackDown problem without much extra effort.