-As we are just a few months from WrestleMania, speculation about the card is well underway. There is widespread belief and hope that this is the year we get a women’s main event for the card. We’ve seen rumblings of a women’s tag title match, along with possible plans for NXT graduates Lars Sullivan and EC3.
Now we are hearing of a possible match for former champion AJ Styles. According to Barnburner’s podcast, WWE may finally move forward with AJ Styles facing Randy Orton. This match could be a very good one. Maybe even good enough to steal the show (or come close).
Also, with Styles’ WWE contract expected to expire soon, and rumors of All Elite interest, it’s possible this match or program might be the last hurrah for The Phenomenal One. On the chance that this is Styles’ last WrestleMania match, working with Orton is an intriguing program. It might not have the wow factor fans were hoping for (like if he was getting a match with Kenny Omega), but Orton is experienced and perhaps even underrated.
-On both RAW and SmackDown this week, we saw more risque segments than usual. RAW had a production assistant “walk in on” Alexa Bliss while she had her top off. SmackDown gave us Jimmy Uso going to Mandy Rose’s hotel room. Rose was scantily clad to tease Jimmy, and then she and Naomi brawled around the hotel room.
Older fans will know that these moments harken back to an era of WWE programming that happened before the company was publicly traded. When the IPO happened, WWE shifted to a more family friendly offering. Gone were the encouraged Playboy photo shoots, blood, swearing and more.
On one hand, moving away from that was good-it gave us a women’s division with real matches, not a Divas division with bra and panty matches. On the other hand, each of the two segments have done very well on YouTube. As of this post, the Naomi-Mandy Rose hotel segment had over one million views. The Alexa Bliss RAW segment had over 3.5 million views. Contrast those with typical RAW and SmackDown clips that get between 200,000 and 500,000 hits in a similar timeframe.
Whether it’s the right move or not will be debated, but we know WWE is concerned about sagging ratings, and the clicks don’t lie.
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