WWE News: Finn Balor's injury, Brock Lesnar's elbows and The Miz's promo
It’s been a very newsworthy week. From a controversial SummerSlam ending, a heart-wrenching RAW with Balor being forced to relinquish the Universal title, to an epic promo by the Miz that set the internet on fire – the WWE Universe has seen it all.
Wrestling weekly’s Vic Sosa and wrestling legend Les Thatcher spoke on their podcast about all the events that transpired over the past week. They voiced their opinions on a number of issues ranging from Finn Balor’s injury, Brock Lesnar’s elbows, the Miz’s Talking Smack promo and more.
They raised an important issue that if Seth Rollins was not a fan favourite, how differently would the fans have reacted to him injuring three top guys within the course of a year? Seth had earlier shattered John Cena’s nose, followed by a powerbomb to Sting on the turnbuckles that ended the latter’s career. Last Sunday at SummerSlam, Finn Balor was injured during his match with Rollins when he took the running buckle bomb on the barricade.
It is noteworthy that in the last twelve months, Rollins was out of action for about six, and yet three wrestlers were injured in matches with him. This seemed to be an alarming frequency to the hosts.
They also emphasised the fact that Balor had reached for the barricade with his arm and fell short, thereby injuring himself. Finn Balor was on the verge of a big push when the injury sidelined him for at least six months. It would be interesting to see how WWE resume his run when the 35-year-old finally makes his comeback.
They also debated blade vs elbows by looking at the ending to SummerSlam’s main event and how Brock Lesnar’s biggest asset may also be modern WWE’s biggest weakness. They discussed if blading to a bare minimum should be allowed to avoid concussions from big blows or elbows to the head as in the case of Lesnar.
They discussed WWE’s PG policy of not allowing the superstars to use blades, to which Thatcher said that blades, if used correctly, would not even be detectable, let alone be barbaric. He emphasised the fact that he had never seen anybody pounding on a co-worker like Lesnar did on Randy this past Sunday.
The duo also spoke about Miz’s promo on Talking Smack. They exposed both sides of the coin, saying that although the promo was the best piece of mic work the Miz has ever done, doing it at Bryan’s expense was probably not a good idea. Vic said that the promo was a way of needling Bryan to get back into the ring when Vince McMahon has already barred him from doing that.
He was unsure of the goal WWE was trying to achieve by putting Bryan and Miz in a war of words. Thatcher candidly said that the segment portrayed Miz as a bully trying to pull Daniel Bryan’s strings.He also said that he did not appreciate any segment where a wrestler tried to pick on a commentator, announcer or general manager, just for the sake of heel heat.
He pointed out that although the segment got people talking, it would not generate any monetary gains if the WWE do not give direction to the angle.
Vic and Thatcher also talked about why Ric Flair or Ricky Steamboat didn’t have runs in the WWF back when they were guys on the rise in the late 70s? They discussed how lenient contracts were during the 70s and the mutual understanding among the territories that allowed them to share the top names in the wrestling business at that time.
Thatcher added that both Ric and Steamboat were being used pretty well in Jim Crockett Promotions. He said that they were happy with what they were doing in Charlotte, so there was no need for them to make that move to the WWF at that time, keeping in mind that changing territories was hard on the wrestlers as well as their families.