Stalling on Shinsuke Nakamura
In a different set of circumstances, it certainly comes off as though WWE opted to go with the draw finish for the WWE Championship match solely to put the title on Shinsuke Nakamura at Backlash, rather than do it here.
My only guess is their philosophy was that if they do a non-finish at this event, it gives them a reason to have the Backlash thing next week without having to do any build for it, and when Nakamura wins the title, they have a built-in reason to do another match with AJ Styles when he has his rematch at Money in the Bank.
Effectively, holding off on the WrestleMania title win to be the catalyst for a heel turn that then gets stalled for a bit gives them an extra month and a half of programming with the same feud that, for the most part, started in January.
That Titus O’Neil Botch
Obviously, this wasn’t planned, so it isn’t as though there was an outline of the events to transpire with an asterisk next to the most important parts of the night that really needed to get over with the crowd and this was on it, but it happened and it ended up being one of the best parts of the evening.
This was just hilarious, and perhaps the best source of entertainment out of the whole pay-per-view, strangely enough.
From a completely different perspective than anything else that transpired, this is going to be a takeaway in the sense that it’s certainly going to be more talked about than something like The Bludgeon Brothers retaining or Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt winning the Raw tag titles.
I’m very curious to see if WWE turns into the skid with this and acknowledges it in some fashion on Raw, but I’m really hoping they don’t try to replicate it as some new aspect to his gimmick. Attempting to repeat it will just come off lame. These Titus O’Neil moments have to happen organically.
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