WWE SmackDown Discussion II

[bestnamezRtaken]

When Carmella attempted to cash in during the Charlotte/Natayla match on SD it made me think that if she successfully cashed in making it a triple threat, but then Natalya went on and won, then Natalya should technically be Champion despite the initial match not being a title match.

I think this has potential for a shocking title win in the future and it could be anyone not just the person holding MITB.

I guarantee you that WWE is not clever enough to have thought of that wrinkle.

My guess is that she cashes in after Asuka beats Charlotte at 'Mania thinking that she can take advantage of Asuka being weak, but then Asuka kicks her head in.

I still think she's going to cash in during Bliss v Nia. Seems like they'd make that "trade" of Asuka and Carmella. She's going to get the pin on Bliss and thus it'll still make Nia look strong like they did for the Lesnar/Roman match.

She's going to Raw as the champion after cashing in.

[Spens1]

When Carmella attempted to cash in during the Charlotte/Natayla match on SD it made me think that if she successfully cashed in making it a triple threat, but then Natalya went on and won, then Natalya should technically be Champion despite the initial match not being a title match.

I think this has potential for a shocking title win in the future and it could be anyone not just the person holding MITB.

I guarantee you that WWE is not clever enough to have thought of that wrinkle.

My guess is that she cashes in after Asuka beats Charlotte at 'Mania thinking that she can take advantage of Asuka being weak, but then Asuka kicks her head in.

can you get DQ'ed. cause i think Asuka may actually just murder her after the match for daring to try it.

Honestly i'd prefer her cashing in on the raw champ.

[LLJ]

Carmella getting the MITB case was a mistake. I think the WWE realized this months ago. She's not ready as a wrestler and she struggles to get reactions. On top of that, she's off TV for weeks at a time. The next female MITB winner needs to be better chosen for a successful cash-in.

[Stanford]

The whole gimmick needs to be scrapped. It hasn't mattered since Rollins cashed in. Give it a few years and bring it back when you have concrete plans for it.

[LLJ]

I can see the original idea for giving it to Carmella, back when the WWE still had one foot in the Diva-era door. Carmella is a classic Diva-era heel. Which would have been great 4 years or so ago. But now, she's basically a woman out of time. The Diva-era mentality is most apparent with the push of Alexa, who went over Bayley, Sasha and Becky, all superior wrestlers who were all pretty over when they first got to the main roster, but were completely buried after they lost their feuds to Alexa. Alexa was sort of a manifestation the ultimate Revenge of the Diva era. Great looks, can talk, but not really good in the ring.

The two game changers were Asuka and Ronda. With those two on the main roster now the WWE had no choice but to start emphasizing in-ring ability over Diva-types because if you want to build a serious division around Ronda, you can't have too many bad wrestlers hanging around impeding the good ones now because you need those good ones to be built up as credible opponents now. Plus once the crowd sees the good wrestlers, they can't go back. Carmella would have been a heat machine in the Diva days but now people see her Diva-era offense and they just can't buy it now. Alexa's fanbase is very loyal and obsessed but you watch her matches and you don't really get the feeling the majority of the crowd buys her "one punch" finishers and her limp DDT.

[jakecronus8]

MITB is for the most part better for a heel. Carmella was the most over heel at the time. I'm guessing she's unsuccessful in her cash in attempt.

[improper]

The whole gimmick needs to be scrapped. It hasn't mattered since Rollins cashed in. Give it a few years and bring it back when you have concrete plans for it.

The reason it hasn't mattered is because they keep putting it on the wrong people. You can't put the briefcase on someone who clearly isn't ready and just cross your fingers and hope they are ready by the time you have them cash-in. When you do that, more often than not they're not ready and you end up killing their career when they cash in and fail. They did that twice over last year with Corbin and Carmella and it backfired spectacularly.

The briefcase should have gone to Owens last year. He would have been perfect. He was ready for the main event and he would have been a fantastic troll with the fake cash-ins. The female briefcase should have went to someone like Sasha (she may have been champ at the time...don't remember), or maybe even Bayley. Giving it to Sasha would have been the perfect opportunity to finally turn her heel, which for whatever reason they've repeatedly refused to do despite the fact that she's great at it.

You have to put the briefcase on a person who could believably hold the title tomorrow, and you need to put it on someone who is over, as a face or heel, at the time. No one gave a crap about Corbin and he obviously wasn't ready to be world champ. Same with Carmella.

[LLJ]

Carmella was only over with Ellsworth at her side. Before Ellsworth she had no heat, after Ellsworth she had no heat. So, the WWE saw that when they canned Ellsworth and she wasn't getting reactions anymore, they had made a mistake and that she was mostly drawing heat for her being with James, not necessarily her herself.

[WRau1]

It's still a goddamn shame that Ellsworth wasn't an entrant in the womens RR, just to take like 10 finishers or a record setting elimination.

[skbucks1985]

I can see the original idea for giving it to Carmella, back when the WWE still had one foot in the Diva-era door. Carmella is a classic Diva-era heel. Which would have been great 4 years or so ago. But now, she's basically a woman out of time. The Diva-era mentality is most apparent with the push of Alexa, who went over Bayley, Sasha and Becky, all superior wrestlers who were all pretty over when they first got to the main roster, but were completely buried after they lost their feuds to Alexa. Alexa was sort of a manifestation the ultimate Revenge of the Diva era. Great looks, can talk, but not really good in the ring.

The two game changers were Asuka and Ronda. With those two on the main roster now the WWE had no choice but to start emphasizing in-ring ability over Diva-types because if you want to build a serious division around Ronda, you can't have too many bad wrestlers hanging around impeding the good ones now because you need those good ones to be built up as credible opponents now. Plus once the crowd sees the good wrestlers, they can't go back. Carmella would have been a heat machine in the Diva days but now people see her Diva-era offense and they just can't buy it now. Alexa's fanbase is very loyal and obsessed but you watch her matches and you don't really get the feeling the majority of the crowd buys her "one punch" finishers and her limp DDT.

I don't think that's what it is with Alexa. I think its because she is far and away the best talker in the division. She's not really capable of regularly having the caliber of match that the top 6-8 women in the division are but they're not capable of regularly going out there and talking for 10-12 minutes like she is. And in a 3 hour show, they've deemed the latter to be more important.

[LLJ]

I think Alexa being blonde and hot really made it easy to package her. She fits the standard WWE mold of what they traditionally preferred out of their top women. Her mic skills is what put her over the top, I agree.

I've been saying for a whole that Alexa is made for TV, but not PPVs. Like, come PPV time she's the last person you want to see in a big title match, but the first person you want to use on TV. So there's that wild dichotomy with her. She should always be a major player, but not necessarily a champion. She's like The Miz, but with The Miz it's okay because he's firmly set with the midcard title. Alexa annoys because she's holding the top women's title in the company for such a long time.

[jakecronus8]

Alexa's push has been ok, but it kind of reminds me of Rollins' heel run with the title. He held it forever but they almost always made him look weak AF. It's hard to build someone back up to that level when they continually have to win with shenanigans and cheating and look absolutely chicken sh*t doing it.

[improper]

I think Alexa being blonde and hot really made it easy to package her. She fits the standard WWE mold of what they traditionally preferred out of their top women. Her mic skills is what put her over the top, I agree.

I've been saying for a whole that Alexa is made for TV, but not PPVs. Like, come PPV time she's the last person you want to see in a big title match, but the first person you want to use on TV. So there's that wild dichotomy with her. She should always be a major player, but not necessarily a champion. She's like The Miz, but with The Miz it's okay because he's firmly set with the midcard title. Alexa annoys because she's holding the top women's title in the company for such a long time.

Miz has also become a pretty good worker, and more importantly he's good enough to keep up with better workers and not hold them back. He's been in some fantastic matches the past couple of years. You put him with a great worker on a PPV and you're probably getting a great match.

The same can't be said for Alexa. Not that she's bad or anything, but she's just not very good either and, while she isn't embarrassing in the ring, she also can't quite keep up with the top workers. That's why I'm glad they matched Asuka up with Charlotte, as that will be an actual interesting match, whereas watching Alexa try to believably beat Asuka would have been awful, especially if they had Bliss control most of the match with Asuka as the underdog face. I'm glad they didn't go that route.

[LLJ]

Bliss has gotten worse in the ring since NXT, where she at least looked promising. Namely, her selling absolutely sucks. It's not that she doesn't sell, she just sells even before she's hit. And her timing on this is atrocious. Watch her fall down on dropkicks and hip attacks like several feet before those attacks even come close to contact with her. She's afraid to take hits on strikes. This makes her opponents look awful and her matches look fake as hell.

And there's the fact that Alexa is presented as a chickensh*t heel yet had clean wins over many of her opponents during the peak of her reign in the summer of 2017. Bayley needed 6 months to even start recovering from her awful program with Alexa.

[WRau1]

Someone needs to take Alexa and give her the Paige treatment. Paige wasn't selling properly so her mom took her aside and really struck her, multiple times. You can't sell properly if you've never been hit.

[skbucks1985]

I think Alexa being blonde and hot really made it easy to package her. She fits the standard WWE mold of what they traditionally preferred out of their top women. Her mic skills is what put her over the top, I agree.

I've been saying for a whole that Alexa is made for TV, but not PPVs. Like, come PPV time she's the last person you want to see in a big title match, but the first person you want to use on TV. So there's that wild dichotomy with her. She should always be a major player, but not necessarily a champion. She's like The Miz, but with The Miz it's okay because he's firmly set with the midcard title. Alexa annoys because she's holding the top women's title in the company for such a long time.

She certainly fits the profile of the type of women they have typically had at the top, but so does Mandy Rose.

She's been a lot more successful on the main roster than she was in NXT and the reason seems obvious to me, which is that in NXT people don't cut a lot of 12 minute promos. Her biggest asset was basically negated and when you take that away from her she pales in comparison to so many others. Conversely, on the main roster being able to cut a 12 minute promo is endlessly valuable and she's the best woman on the roster at doing that but is perhaps the only one that can do it consistently. And that's why she'd had more success than people that are far better overall performers than her.

[LLJ]

Mandy Rose will likely be pushed someday if she sticks around long enough. She's very green right now but she's quite athletic. They have started easing her into singles matches with veterans of late like Sasha. She's been doing singles matches against Asuka on house shows as well.

[Ruzious]

Alexa's push has been ok, but it kind of reminds me of Rollins' heel run with the title. He held it forever but they almost always made him look weak AF. It's hard to build someone back up to that level when they continually have to win with shenanigans and cheating and look absolutely chicken sh*t doing it.

But Rollins is a great athlete and a great wrestler, so it's easy for his opponents to sell his offense. In Alexa's case, her opponents have to sell her punches from her tiny fists as if they're coming from Floyd Mayweather.

[skbucks1985]

Mandy Rose will likely be pushed someday if she sticks around long enough. She's very green right now but she's quite athletic. They have started easing her into singles matches with veterans of late like Sasha. She's been doing singles matches against Asuka on house shows as well.

Her looks certainly help her and she'll get all the opportunities in the world. But right now she's a glorified jobber and its because her looks don't compensate for her lack of overall skills.

[LLJ]

Mandy Rose will likely be pushed someday if she sticks around long enough. She's very green right now but she's quite athletic. They have started easing her into singles matches with veterans of late like Sasha. She's been doing singles matches against Asuka on house shows as well.

Her looks certainly help her and she'll get all the opportunities in the world. But right now she's a glorified jobber and its because her looks don't compensate for her lack of overall skills.

She's a long term project for sure.

Liv Morgan is also another one who fits the profile. They have a bunch of them always lined up.

I think when Toni Storm eventually signs, they'll have found their blonde bombshell to build around.