"Bring the crew together" - Massive angle in The Bloodline storyline could happen before WrestleMania, says WWE veteran (Exclusive)
The Bloodline saga continued on this week's WWE SmackDown, as The Usos and Sami Zayn contributed to a fantastic show-closing segment. While reviewing the episode on Sportskeeda Wrestling's Smack Talk, Dutch Mantell predicted that WWE would get all the major players involved in the storyline once together on TV before WrestleMania.
The latest SmackDown saw Jimmy Uso and Sami Zayn have an emotional back-and-forth, which concluded with Jimmy attacking the former Honorary Uce. Roman Reigns wasn't in attendance, leading to more questions regarding his creative direction heading into WrestleMania.
WWE has a lot riding on Sami Zayn's feud with The Bloodline, but more importantly, they also need to ensure the focus remains on Roman Reigns' title defense against Cody Rhodes.
Zayn is expected to team up with Kevin Owens for a tag team championship match against The Usos at WrestleMania, and Dutch believes WWE should let multiple stories blend into one another before the mega show.
As noted below on Smack Talk, Dutch Mantell felt WWE would soon book a segment involving The Bloodline, Sami Zayn, Cody Rhodes, and Kevin Owens:
"I have an idea that at one point, they have to bring the crew together. They have to bring Roman and Sami and the two Usos and Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes; they've all got to get the starting team on the field." [10:01 - 10:30]
Every person connected to Roman Reigns in kayfabe has a vital role to play on the road to WrestleMania. While Sami Zayn might have the fans' support, Dutch Mantell felt Cody Rhodes also had to be pushed into the limelight before his scheduled match against The Bloodline leader.
The former manager stated that the potentially explosive segment should ideally happen on the final RAW or SmackDown before WrestleMania:
"So we can look at that. I don't know if that's going to be next week or the week after. I would think we would do that the week before WrestleMania. The next week or the week after that, I think you're going to see Cody involved in there somewhere because he needs to be because he is facing Roman at WrestleMania." [10"31 - 11:00]
Dutch Mantell says this week's WWE SmackDown was a "maintenance" show
The most recent installment of the blue brand clearly wasn't as newsworthy as the shows from the past few weeks.
While Dutch Mantell liked the main event segment, he said that WWE didn't do much to advance the narrative surrounding Sami Zayn and The Bloodline. The veteran noticed a similar pattern throughout the episode, which interestingly featured a lot of in-ring action.
Mantell explained that Triple H's team decided to take a step back this week and ensure they don't burn out creatively with over a month left to go for WrestleMania.
"It was actually a pretty good interview. Well, it was the only thing in the show that, to me, meant anything. The rest of them were just matches and pretty good matches, nothing wrong with the matches," Dutch clarified. "Of course, the presentation was great. They just did maintenance to this angle. They didn't advance it. They didn't retard it; they just kept it on its straight line. So, it's exactly the same spot it was before the show started, but now the people have something to look forward to." [9:23 - 10:00]
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