WWE: Five First Feuds For Buddy Murphy on SmackDown

Buddy Murphy’s gimmick since his debut on 205 Live has been the “best kept secret” and this was proven true during his time there. Murphy should not have been a secret at all.

He was WWE‘s Cruiserweight champion for a long time. He won the title on the main show of a pay per view. He had reliably tremendous matches at every instance. He still does.

Buddy Murphy is a guarantee of quality entertainment. In the past he has mentioned that he is developing his promo skills by learning from his partner, Alexa Bliss, but his in-ring skills are of such high quality that it is him teaching her in that regard. He simply does not have bad matches, whether technical, high flying or even hardcore.

205 Live has suffered a huge loss in the last week. The absence of Mustafa Ali was already being felt but losing Buddy Murphy and Cedric Alexander in the same week essentially takes the whole top tier out of the division. What’s bad for 205 however, is good for the wrestlers, good for SmackDown and very good for the viewer. Murphy can flourish on the big stage.

What’s next for Buddy Murphy? Well it’s time for the man to step up to the big leagues. SmackDown Live. A brand containing some immense talents that he may potentially have some stunning matches against. On the global stage, can you still be a secret at all, let alone the best kept one?

Today we’re going to look at five potential feuds for SmackDown’s newest signing. We’ll talk about who they are, why they’re exciting and what might be some good storylines in the lead up to their feud.

I’m Tom Colohue and you’re reading five first feuds for Buddy Murphy.

Let me know what you think in the comments below or on Twitter. Without further ado, let’s get started with a painted man.

Finn Balor

I’d like to say we’re starting hot but it genuinely gets hotter from here.

Buddy Murphy has great range and versatility but his bread and butter is slower technical sections broken up with high tempo high flying. Also fitting that bill on the Smackdown Live roster, Finn Balor. What a perfect start this would be.

In the natural face and heel dynamic, these two fit each other perfectly. Physically and stylistically these two fit each other perfectly.

Buddy Murphy also has previous when it comes to the almost bloodthirsty pursuit of championships. He has just come off of the back of a long term Cruiserweight Championship run. The first thing he did after losing that title was challenge the Velveteen Dream to a match for the NXT North American Championship. He may not have won that match but it shows his relentless determination for the gold. Immediately going on the hunt for the Intercontinental Championship is surely one of the first things on his agenda. There’s your feud right there.

There’ll be a lot of very talented people chasing the Intercontinental Championship right now but Murphy is well placed. Balor is currently running open challenges and having high quality matches with (Mustafa) Ali and Andrade (Cien Almas). Murphy could easily answer that challenge and either draw the match or lose only via count out. This would set up a pay per view match and the feud simply follows from there.

Balor is a high caliber of opponent and could do wonders for Murphy’s visibility. At its very least this would be a high quality match that could steal the show on any pay per view and it’s a match that I would very much like to see.

Next up is a returner to SmackDown Live who has been too long stuck in the tag divisions.

Chad Gable

Between Gable and Jordan, Gable and Benjamin and Gable and Roode, Chad Gable really hasn’t had much of an opportunity to shine as a singles star.

The intentions always seem to be good. He starts the season on his own, looking for matches with people such as AJ Styles, Kevin Owens and Kurt Angle. They’re always a whole lot of fun. Sadly, it never takes long for him to go from singles guy to tag team guy. Like a typecast movie star, Gable simply can’t get away from the role they want him in.

So let’s turn the tables, shall we?

Also a near constant in Gable’s career is sudden heel turns. This was the case with his team with Benjamin, in which they decided via prerecorded promo that they were bad guys now and also in his team with Roode, in which they decided via prerecorded promo that they were bad guys now. Right now he’s already a bad guy, so let’s have bad guys, shall we?

Murphy and Gable spent time together at NXT. Logically, following on from what I previously said about Murphy’s longing for the gold, Murphy could be looking for a partner to chase the SmackDown tag team titles with. I’m just trying to tell interesting stories here; don’t shoot the messenger.

The absence of The Usos and the fact that The New Day are in and around the WWE title has left the SmackDown Live tag division in need of an early boost in terms of teams, especially with Sheamus injured as well. Gable and Murphy could represent that division for a month or two while other teams build and recover. Let’s not have them take the titles though because we want a feud.

From there it’s quite simple. Gable gets pinned one time too many and Murphy turns on him. This helps Gable go face and, more importantly, it gives Murphy a solid opening storyline and feud that gets him some attention and gives him a great match to look forward to.

Gable’s power game is tremendous. This has been proven time and again. With Murphy being a very powerful figure himself, the two could wrestle much more aggressively than their standard styles without sacrificing natural chemistry. What’s not to like about that?

Our third choice is the final one in what has become our chasing championships trilogy.

Kofi Kingston

Yes, I’m suggesting that Buddy Murphy should line up against the current WWE Champion at some point.

The New Day like to have fun. To be positive, creative and entertaining. Buddy Murphy is coming in to take over. He can be serious, intense and aggressive. The chalk and cheese nature of their personalities lends itself to a feud from the off.

As an establishing feud, this has everything you need to make an instant star out of Buddy Murphy. The New Day throw a celebration party and by and large people have fun. Murphy does not. He’s not a fan of the way that The New Day operate. Xavier Woods challenges Murphy to a match and Murphy wins.

From there it’s very logical. Each week The New Day try and show Murphy that they can have fun and be tough at the same time. Each week Murphy proves them wrong. They try to get Murphy to eat pancakes and grind his hips and throw cereal into the crowd and each time he doesn’t play along you can see them get more and more frustrated with him. However, every time they challenge him to a match, he picks up the win.

First, he beats Woods. Then he beats Big E. Finally, he demands that Kofi Kingston take him seriously and defend the WWE Championship against him in a big pay per view match.

This feud would allow both sides of wrestling to be the area of focus. You can have the more childish, energetic and to be blunt silly side of wrestling. You can also have a match that plays to the strengths of both men. Murphy can be physical and aggressive from the off, allowing Kingston to establish himself as the underdog before we go high flying and high tempo as the match goes into the home stretch.

Now I don’t think that Buddy Murphy should be taking the WWE Championship in his first big match but that’s certainly a great way to establish someone as a big deal in their first feud, isn’t it?

My fourth choice is going to take a bit of a change but if we’re all willing, I think we can just about make it happen.

Daniel Bryan

Buddy Murphy is a heel right now. He also has never appeared on SmackDown Live, so let’s keep all that a secret, shall we? For the purposes of this article, let’s just say that Murphy goes face from his arrival in the same way that Bobby Roode did.

But better, obviously.

Daniel Bryan is a starmaker at the moment, playing a role similar to that of The Miz when he was a heel or even John Cena in recent years. Would the rise of Kofi Kingston have been anywhere near as effective without the hard work of Daniel Bryan putting him over? I suppose we’ll never know now but we can certainly see him at work again.

Right now, Bryan needs to get his heat back. He’s been the fall guy in the Kofi Kingston story and has suffered a number of major losses along the way. He hasn’t appeared since WrestleMania and could benefit from this feud as much as Murphy would.

So how might this happen? Well the most obvious option – the whole life of excess that Bryan hates so much – doesn’t really seem to fit Murphy much. Maybe let’s be a little simpler and just make this one all about wrestling?

Murphy has a penchant for gold but he also goes hunting for the best. For me I’d keep it plain. Murphy debuts and calls out Bryan. Bryan, still smarting from his big losses, is not particularly eager to show his face early on but is eventually drawn out by Murphy’s increasingly anti planet rhetoric. Murphy beats Rowan en route to the actual match but this is both Murphy’s debut feud and Bryan’s big return.

This would be a short one but you don’t get much more top quality opposition than the original and greatest B plus player.

We’ve reached our final destination. The one, the only. The top of the industry.

Roman Reigns

You can not debut with any bigger a feud than Roman Reigns.

Roman can play both face and heel quite comfortably. Right now he will undoubtedly prefer to play face but thankfully Murphy can also comfortably go both ways. Reigns vs Styles was highly celebrated and was a series of matches in which Reigns was a flat track bully heel. He was physically imposing, hard to take down and very slow paced in his offence. He could play that style again, with Murphy focussing on his high flying or mat wrestling styles more.

They could also go the other way once again, with Murphy being much more physically aggressive, catching Roman off guard and playing off the fact that, in storyline terms, Roman isn’t fully fit just yet. One way or another this is likely to be a very physical match and both men are likely to need a couple of days off after it.

Importantly, this keeps Roman Reigns away from titles for a while; which should hopefully decrease the speed at which the boos are returning. Despite an increasingly limited opinion, Roman Reigns is a very talented wrestler. Put him in a ring with Buddy Murphy and he will unquestionably show that.

This feud covers several of the storyline ideas previously mentioned. Roman is a top star who consistently wins top championships. He’s a marquee name that Murphy has a taste for the hunt of. You could play it similarly to Bryan very easily but you could also use the Balor or Gable systems.

Either way, it’s one of several very exciting prospects. There aren’t many feuds that I don’t want to see Buddy Murphy in.

Except maybe Lars Sullivan.

So who do you want to see Murphy in action against? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter and let’s all hope that Murphy is given the chance to explode on the scene as he deserves.