While Cesaro missed this week’s episode of WWE Raw, he had a strong outing on last week’s show. We have a few feuds in mind for his red brand rebrand.
Last Monday on WWE Raw saw Cedric Alexander return to the red brand for the first time since the 2016-17 era of 205 Live. This time, it was as a new, official member of the Raw roster. His match also marked the return of Cesaro in his first Raw match as a member of the red brand since April 2018.
After frolicking on the blue show with his buddy Sheamus as part of The Bar for the last year, Cesaro is Team Red again. Only now, he’s back as a singles star. He has been tag teaming with The Celtic Warrior for the better part of the past four years. In that time period, The Bar have had a combined five WWE Tag Team Championships. With everything they have accomplished already, it was time for a change.
It was time for both men to go into a different direction. Judging from the general response to his match last week, the world is more than ready for another – and long overdue – singles run for The Swiss Cyborg.
The last time he was given a shot at the brass ring as a single star was 2015 right before he got together with Sheamus. At that point, Cesaro had a staggering 289 day reign with the United States Championship. Then, he had his very own WrestleMania moment when he became the first man to ever capture the Andre the Giant Memorial Trophy by lifting all 400 lbs of The Big Show out of the ring.
Unfortunately, Cesaro’s singles run after WrestleMania XXX failed to live up to expectations. He continued to thrill in the ring, but he lost often and never reached the main event scene. However, now is the Swiss Superman’s second shot at grabbing the brass ring. Recalling his in-ring determination from last week, the man is hellbent on grabbing it this time.
If he keeps having great matches like that with guys like Cedric – and maybe have some compelling feuds along the way – that brass ring will have Cesaro’s name on it in no time.
6. AJ Styles
Both AJ Styles and Cesaro have spent more or less – a little more for AJ – 20 years in the wrestling business. It is shocking to think that both men have wrestled each other on very few occasions. They’ve competed against each other in a handful of tag team matches and wrestled each other one-on-one exactly one time; it was at a WWE house show. They spent the last year on SmackDown together, but Styles spent the 2018-19 WWE season as a main event singles star while Cesaro frequented the tag team scene.
Now that both men are on the Raw roster as singles stars, there may be a greater chance that both men could compete against each other one-on-one on television for once. Both men had strong success on the first non-Shake-Up edition of Raw; Cesaro beat Alexander while The Phenomenal One became the number one contender to the Universal Championship. Considering that both men are heading towards a hot streak on Raw, a collision towards each other seems inevitable by now at this point.
Cesaro is often hailed as one of the best technical Superstars that the WWE has to offer while some consider Styles to be the best in-ring wrestler on the planet. A match between them is bound to be Phenomenal.
5. Ricochet
We got a bit of a taste of this during the Fatal Four Way SmackDown Tag Team Title match at WrestleMania a few weeks back. Cesaro was spinning Ricochet around the ring for almost a full minute while Sheamus laid the Beats of the Bodram on, well, everybody in what was arguably the most memorable spot of the match. The brief work we saw the Swiss Superman and The One and Only do in that ring that night was spectacular enough of a teaser that we are dying to see more.
With Cesaro being pound for pound one of the strongest competitors on the Raw roster, a series of match against Ricochet sounds like a fun prospect worth investing in. It would give us a classic case of strength versus speed. Beyond just in-ring acumen, a feud would be wholly compelling between these two. The story of a hungry newbie trying to make a name for himself against a wily veteran who is just as hungry to grab that brass ring that has eluded him his whole WWE career thus far. That could make for some great television.
Above all else, I think all of us would just love to see Cesaro take on the highest flyer on the Raw roster. Well, one of the highest flyers, to be more accurate. There is at least one guy who we know of on the Raw roster who might be a higher flyer than Ricochet.
4. Rey Mysterio
Remember when Cesaro used to always do the Swiss-1-9 during his uber babyface days? Well, maybe it’s time for him to finally face the innovator of The 6-1-9, Rey Mysterio. Well, technically, they have faced each other numerous times in the past. Just never in singles competition. Whether it was in tag team matches or in battle royals, Mysterio and Cesaro have only ever faced off briefly in multi-man matches. It may be time for that to change.
To be perfectly honest for a second, Rey Mysterio realistically does not have many years left in him as a wrestler. Miraculously, he’s proven in recent years that he can still go like he hasn’t missed a beat in the last 20-odd years, but as his ankle injury against Baron Corbin a few weeks ago seems to suggest, Mysterio is more injury prone than ever. As his injuries continue to stack up, his as a wrestler is quickly winding down.
As such, WWE would be wise to try and crank out as many dream matches out of Mysterio as he’s got left in him. We would consider a match against the Swiss Cyborg to be one of those dream matches. Much like with Ricochet, a match of pure strength vs. pure speed would be purely entertaining between Cesaro and Rey Mysterio.
3. Sami Zayn
Between 2012 and 2014, Cesaro was pulling double duty for both the main roster and NXT. His best days down there was his feud with Sami Zayn. It was not a complicated feud, as both men were competing simply to determine who was the better wrestler.
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Their series of matches together were highlighted by the opening bout on NXT Arrival – which is officially the first match in the history of not only NXT specials, but live WWE Network specials – and a tremendous 2 out of 3 Falls Match a few months beforehand.
That latter match actually helped get Cesaro on Paul Heyman’s radar, to make a long story short.
While they have had a few matches against each other here and there on the main roster since, they have never had a full blown rivalry since their NXT days. They have also never had a match that rivals their classic NXT bouts. Maybe it’s time they finally did.
As of now, both men are heels on the Raw roster, but since people love Cesaro’s in-ring work while hating Zayn’s babbling, the heel/face dynamic sets itself up. Plus, fans are dying to see someone knock that condescending smirk off of Zayn’s face – finally – and Cesaro could get some incredible babyface heat by being the one to do just that.
2. Drew McIntyre
A week before the Shake-Up commenced, The Bar’s final tag team match together was a Six Man Tag against The New Day. Their third man was none other than Drew McIntyre. That alliance was a brief one while it lasted, but it wasn’t brief enough that WWE could never revisit their dynamic. Especially now that Cesaro’s without a partner and judging by these last couple weeks of Raw television between Drew and Baron Corbin, so is McIntyre.
WWE could play the long game with this one. Provide an alliance between Cesaro and McIntyre only to eventually lead to one turning on the other; create a storyline worth investing into. Even without such a storyline manifesting each itself, a match between these men sounds too good to pass up, especially considering how WWE have passed up on it for so long.
It is astonishing to think that neither one of these men have gone toe to toe with each other; not even outside of WWE. The idea of two big Un-American hosses pounding into each other sounds way too good on people. Keeping the immense talents of both athletes in mind, we expect them to deliver to high expectations whenever they do decide to finally square up.
1. Seth Rollins
We’ve talked a lot about how badly Cesaro must want to grab that beautiful hypothetical brass ring in WWE, but the best way to do so would be to beat the leader of the Brass Ring Club: The Universal Champion. That title holder is none other than Seth Freakin’ Rollins.
Considering what we saw between these two a couple weeks back, it would not be too hard to imagine them in a full on feud for the title. The night after WrestleMania – which as some of us may know officially kicks off the new 2019-2020 season of WWE television – Cesaro and Sheamus interfered during Rollins’ Winner Take All match against WWE Champion Kofi Kingston. The pair of champions would go on to challenge and then beat The Bar in tag team competition later that night.
The King of Swing very well could take another swing at the Universal Championship. Only this time, it could be in a singles match and with the coveted World Title on the line. These two men have been facing each other on and off for the past decade ever since their FCW days. Every time, they have proven to have impeccable chemistry. A match between the two today on a WWE PPV for the Universal Championship has a shot at being their best work yet.