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WWE WrestleMania 34: What Is SmackDown’s Main Event Payoff?

By Kevin Parvizi

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WWE SmackDown Live’s main story arc is a rift between authority figures Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan, which stems from their feelings regarding actual wrestlers Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. So what in the heck is the WWE WrestleMania 34 payoff supposed to be?

When Raw and SmackDown Live first split into separate brands during the summer of 2016, SmackDown quickly became “The Land of Opportunity” and established itself as the superior show.

After years of watching “The Authority” storyline run its course with no satisfying conclusion, it was refreshing to see two babyfaces managerial characters, commissioner Shane McMahon and general manager Daniel Bryan, work together harmoniously. Further, the TV matches were solid, the show itself was well-written, the characters were layered, and the entertaining two hours flew by.

Today’s SmackDown Live is hardly the same as it was in 2016, and it might honestly be one of the worst shows in wrestling today. And why would it be worthy of anything less than harsh criticism? The women’s division is booked even lazier than Raw‘s, WWE Champion AJ Styles isn’t a centerpiece of the show despite being its most talented and popular wrestler, and there’s no lower card to be found. Aside from the tag team division and the current United States Tournament, there aren’t many other reasons to tune in to SmackDown.

But there’s hope. And the glimmer of hope lies in the main event program, despite how annoying the storyline may seem. It sucks that a guy who isn’t cleared to wrestle, Daniel Bryan, is in a top feud with a guy who pretends to wrestle, Shane McMahon, but what would suck even more is if there’s no actual payoff at WWE WrestleMania 34.

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SmackDown Live has been down this road before. Last year, they positioned Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt as their top feud, and it all started promisingly enough. Orton and Wyatt played mindgames, Orton foreshadowed infiltrating the Wyatts with some creepy snake metaphor, and then he joined the.

Orton won the Royal Rumble, and then Bray won the WWE Championship off of John Cena at the Elimination Chamber. Then Luke Harper turned babyface, Orton turned on Bray by burning down the Wyatt Compound, and we seemed to be all set for a memorable main feud at WrestleMania.

However, the WWE turned the storyline into a hoaky mess, forgot about Harper instead of including him in the storyline and WrestleMania match, and then Wyatt and Orton proceeded to have arguably the worst match on the card. What a nice way to present your main feud, for the WWE Championship no less.

At this point, we’re all assuming that AJ Styles will be the WWE Champion up until WrestleMania, but there’s no guarantee that this will be the case. You see, our good old babyface Daniel Bryan decided to book his champion into a handicap match against both Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens at the Royal Rumble, essentially rewarding the heel duo for cheating in back-to-back weeks. Styles should retain, but since the people booking the show were responsible for creating this abomination of a Rumble match, can we really trust them to make the right decision? Can we really be sure that Styles will retain?

Because if Styles doesn’t, here’s what we’re faced with. We’re faced with the WWE Championship changing hands at the Rumble and Zayn or Owens turning on the other. That is actually compelling, because Zayn’s out-of-nowhere heel turn at Hell in a Cell gave us a great moment that has carried over into one of the most entertaining partnerships in WWE.

The problem is that the whole Shane vs. Bryan thing remains. So how does that get resolved?

In my book, the only way the WWE can justify having Bryan and Shane take up so much television time and screw over so many babyfaces is if they clear Bryan to wrestle.

We already know, thanks to an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Justin Barrasso, that the man who has inspired the “Yep!” movement will know his status with the company by WrestleMania 34. That is to say, if he isn’t wrestling in a WWE ring by WrestleMania, he won’t be wrestling in a WWE ring ever again.

There have been signs of an in-ring return for Bryan, and as unlikely as that may seem to some, it might actually happen. Because would the WWE really set all of this up between Bryan and Shane, only to have Bryan select someone to wrestle “in his place”? Would that be well-received at WrestleMania – the grandest stage of them all? I think not.

The storyline on SmackDown Live between Shane and Bryan has been intriguing, because it is something different and could lead to something big. However, it’s also been frustrating, because it’s clogged up the main event for months, has led to recycled matches, and has us all questioning if there will be a pay-off in the end.

Next: Predicting The 2018 Royal Rumble Card

Because if the WrestleMania match resulting from this is lackluster or if the overall conclusion to the storyline is unsatisfying, then the WWE just wasted all of our collective times. Granted, that’s just par for the course.