Friday Night SmackDown’s first episode on FOX is coming soon and it will feature a WWE Championship match between Kofi Kingston and Brock Lesnar that has the entire fanbase on the edge of its seat.
This week’s feature of weekly opinions around WWE’s programming will focus on the WWE Championship match between Kofi Kingston and Brock Lesnar on SmackDown, a title on the blue brand that has yet to receive a match at Hell in a Cell on Sunday, and the importance of 205 Live in the context of the promotion’s larger plan.
Liv Morgan should face Bayley at Hell in a Cell
Bayley and Sasha Banks are back together again as a force in WWE, with The Hugger holding the SmackDown Women’s Championship and The Boss ready to claim the Raw Women’s Championship for a fifth time at Hell in a Cell.
While Banks has a title match secured as part of her acclaimed rivalry with top star Becky Lynch, Bayley has yet to receive her opponent for WWE’s first Pay-Per-View in the FOX era.
Since Hell in a Cell already has at least two marquee title matches in Becky vs. Sasha and Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt – with a possible title match involving Kofi or Brock – it’s OK for Bayley to face an up-and-coming star instead of a big name.
Her title reign has been all about elevating other women on the SmackDown roster, which is something she made clear about from the get-go. WWE could have done more with her one-off match against Ember Moon at SummerSlam, but the good intention behind the match was to simply get Ember in the ring with Bayley and use the match to elevate her as a future champion.
Bayley recently defeated Charlotte Flair at Clash of Champions by cheating to win, exposing the turnbuckle to her advantage before fleeing the scene of the crime. It was a fitting way for this “new” (I would say, more resourceful) Bayley to defeat Charlotte, whom she cashed in on at Money in the Bank to win the title.
Charlotte was a tough test and a big name for Bayley to face, and with so little time to build to a big match at Hell in a Cell, it makes sense for Bayley to defend her title against a returning opponent who also falls into the “rising star” category.
Enter Liv Morgan.
Since we last saw her, she lost to Charlotte Flair, but got over in the process. As she exited the arena, she told the fans she was going to come back and get “Real.” That comment suggested she would return with a gimmick change, and there may not be a better place for a return than the first episode of SmackDown on FOX.
Morgan would make a huge splash in her return by facing Bayley, and she’d get to show the entire wrestling world how much she’s improved in the ring over the years. She has looked like a future world champion for about a year, showcasing excellent character work and selling as one of the three members of the Riott Squad.
Now that she’s on her own, it’s time for her to get a taste of the spotlight, and it seems like WWE are quietly high on her potential. A match with Bayley at Hell in a Cell would be impromptu, but that might be the best way for Liv to return. And even if she loses, there’s no shame in falling to Bayley, who has been one of WWE’s MVPs this year; a loss would also give Liv even more motivation to get a second crack at winning her first title.
If Seth Rollins can beat Brock twice, why can’t Kofi do it once?
It seems like a foregone conclusion that Brock Lesnar will win the WWE Championship on the first episode of SmackDown on FOX, leading to yet another title reign for a wrestler who is seen as WWE’s biggest mainstream draw as a champion.
Lesnar’s reigns with the Universal Championship were meant to make it clear that the Universal Title stood above the WWE Title on the hierarchy of championships in the company, mainly because the red belt was meant to signify the superiority of the red brand. It’s likely WWE will do the same on SmackDown, since FOX likely value Lesnar’s mainstream appeal highly on a show that they apparently want to make sports-centric. (Hence the recap shows akin to those they run for other major American sports.)
So yeah, I understand all of that. And I also understand the fact that if Kingston’s excellent, dream-come-true reign as WWE Champion is to end, Lesnar is the most prestigious opponent he could conceivably lose it to.
Yet at the same time, why can’t Kofi win? Why is it that we’ve almost resigned ourselves to a Lesnar championship reign? If Seth Rollins can beat Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania and SummerSlam in a calendar year, then why can’t Kingston? In other words, what makes Kingston worse than Rollins on the ranking of WWE superstars that he can’t beat Brock once? After all, Kingston’s title reign has been better than Rollins’s, right?
And if Kofi does win, it would be the feel-good, THIS IS WHAT WWE CAN BE moment that would really make SmackDown’s first showing on FOX feel special.
If Brock wins, it’s deflating. It’s expected. Yeah, it’ll get headlines, but imagine how many more headlines would be made if Brock LOST his first match on television in ages? Imagine the “slump” takes on “The Bump”.
And imagine the incredible outpouring of support for Kofi Kingston if he were to grab another brass ring in his Hall-of-Fame career.
Nevertheless, the match will be Brock’s best of this era
Regardless of the outcome of the match itself, there is one thing clear in my mind. This is going to be the best match of Brock Lesnar’s recent career.
That is setting a high bar, because Brock had fabulous Survivor Series champion vs. champion matches with AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan. The latter match will be an especially tough one for Kingston to clear, because Bryan and Lesnar paced their match perfectly while telling an awesome story that made us believe in Bryan winning.
Lesnar’s also had strong matches with Finn Balor and Seth Rollins (twice) this year, though it would honestly be a surprise if Kofi vs. Brock didn’t exceed both of those in terms of quality.
I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that Brock vs. Kofi will reach a new high, because that’s how big the stage is here. This is Lesnar’s first television match in 15 years, and it’s on SmackDown’s FOX debut, no less. The entire spotlight is on this match, and both men are going to do everything in their power to deliver the goods.
If Kingston loses, he’ll want to go out with a bang by having his best match yet. And if Kingston wins, they’ll want this match to tell an unforgettable story that is befitting of the result – WWE doesn’t want a guy like Lesnar to lose on television after a good-but-not-great match.
There’s also the matter that Kingston is producing some incredible in-ring work this year, as he and Bryan put on a legitimate five-star classic at WrestleMania 35 that will stand the test of time as one of the great ‘Mania matches. Bryan has been the only wrestler that Kingston has faced in his reign who is on his level, as Kingston has been WWE’s best wrestler this year.
Time after time, Kingston has blown us away, and fans only have to go back to his Elimination Chamber and Gauntlet Match performances to see that Kofi is one of the absolute best performers in WWE right now. He and Lesnar will put on a story-telling and athletic masterpiece on Friday, and we can only hope WWE allows both men to go out there and show everyone watching on FOX what wrestling is about.
205 Live has been instrumental in developing stars
Now that NXT is entrenched as WWE’s “Third Brand” as a USA Network show going head-to-head with AEW on Wednesday nights, nobody is calling it “developmental”. And on a technical level, wrestlers are constantly improving their craft and reinventing themselves on any show, so “developmental” is even more blurred outside obvious developmental contexts such as the Performance Center.
But I’d like to highlight 205 Live here, especially since fans were concerned about the future of the Purple Brand. Despite rumors that 205 could be cancelled, the show will take place on Friday nights after SmackDown, just as it used to take place on Tuesday nights after SmackDown.
We can talk all about low ratings and an increased platform on NXT as ways of judging 205 Live’s existence, but I’ve always seen the brand as invaluable. And the best way to understand 205’s value to WWE is to examine the stars it has produced.
Ali, Cedric Alexander, and Buddy Murphy have all looked like future champions in 2019. These three men were the cornerstones of 205 Live, bringing eyeballs to the show before boosting their stocks to the point where WWE had to take notice. They’ve had great matches with the likes of Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, and Roman Reigns on the main roster. In other words, they’ve held their own against three legitimate living legends of the wrestling business.
205 has been working to replenish their main event scene by building new top stars for the brand, and they clearly have a few. Drew Gulak and Lio Rush will have a Cruiserweight Championship match soon, and these two undeniably have superstar-level talent; we’ve seen Rush flash that talent on NXT and Raw before, too.
It will be exciting to see how others on the brand develop, such as Humberto Carrillo, who looks like another charismatic athlete on the ascension. Ali, Alexander, and Murphy used 205 as a platform to become true stars in WWE, and I can’t wait to see who else emerges on Friday nights to stake their claim on the main roster one day.
Dakota Kai is winning the NXT Women’s Title
The NXT Women’s Division is going to be instrumental in the Third Brand’s “war” with AEW on Wednesday nights, and it’ll come to the point where AEW will be forced to sign more women to their roster and showcase more women’s wrestling.
Io Shirai and Mia Yim set the standard high enough with their incredible non-title match; I am always blown away by how brilliant Shirai is in the ring.
But the NXT Women’s Title match between Shayna Baszler and Candice LeRae was even more special, with a gut-wrenching ending. I could feel hopes rising as Candice tried to beat Shayna with a rear-naked choke of her own, only to have the proverbial pin pop my expanding optimism when I saw Candice forced to tap out.
Baszler is the most dominant champion in wrestling right now. She has taken down the best of the best in the talented NXT Women’s Division, including Bianca Belair, Shirai, and LeRae. Those are three of the best wrestlers in WWE with unique skill-sets, and all three would be more than deserving of leading this division.
Yet Baszler stands tall, unbeaten in her second reign as the NXT Women’s Champion.
And at this point, it seems like there is only one woman who can end this incredible reign of dominance in NXT.
Dakota Kai returned to the ring last week from an ACL tear to defeat Taynara Conti in convincing fashion. Kai, if you recall, was bullied relentlessly by Baszler last summer when Baszler was rising to prominence having recently ended Ember Moon’s title reign. Baszler repeatedly crossed the line to impose her will on Kai, singling her out as an apparent weak link in the division.
But Kai is no weak link. The leader of “Team Kick” is vicious inside the ring, and she has the tenacity and guile to defeat Baszler. Kai’s never-say-die attitude is matched by her pounding strikes; her kicks can change the complexion of a match in an instant.
Last year, Baszler bullied Kai to assert herself on the rest of the division, but, in doing so, she planted the seed for her own demise just when she was becoming her most dangerous.