Drew McIntyre & the Royal Rumble
Ever since coming up from NXT, McIntyre has been dominant on top of Monday Night Raw for most of 2018. The man has only has a handful of pin fall losses since returning to WWE in 2017. After defeating Dolph Ziggler tonight in a steel cage match, he’s got all the momentum he needs going into the Royal Rumble. Drew is my favorite to win and betting odds currently have him at 5/2 to win the match.
Traditionally, WWE only allows guys they think can main event a Wrestlemania win the Rumble match and who better to have win than man who came into the company several years ago dubbed as ‘The Chosen One’. While that’s his old gimmick, there’s no denying the fact that WWE loves Drew McIntyre and wouldn’t think twice about having him take the Universal Championship from Brock Lesnar on the biggest stage.
WWE is enforcing change
After Seth Rollins came out and demanded his rematch with Dean Ambrose for the Intercontinental Championship, Triple H came out to interrupt him. Triple H argued with Rollins, reminding him that there are no more automatic championship rematches now that things have changed.
This might seem like a small thing but this is huge. I cannot stress how boring the automatic rematches get. Without these rematches, we get fresh match ups and new storylines that people can actually care about. People don’t want to see the same matches over and over again. Repeating the same matches gives the fans nothing to care about and none of the performers get over doing so.
As great as Dean’s heel turn on Rollins was, the story has gotten stale and they both need to go in separate directions for a while. These are two of the best in the company but the story hasn’t worked and it’s time to move on; for now, at least.
Apollo Crews
He looked great tonight. Apollo is an amazing athlete and given the opportunity as he did tonight, can have good matches. This may have just been a push for the night but Apollo won a battle royal to determine who will face Dean Ambrose later in the night for the IC Championship, eliminating eight men in the process. Later on in the night, Crews had a solid match with Ambrose for the title but came up short in the bout.
Crews is someone who WWE should be pushing more regularly, but you can say that about others on the roster as well. Hell, Zack Ryder didn’t have one match on Raw the whole year until tonight’s battle royal. Hopefully, WWE continues to have these weekly Intercontinental Championship matches with talent we don’t normally see get opportunities. With Apollo however, he needs a storyline soon and I feel like it may come at long last.
