Welcome back to another round of Quick Takes—a post that indulges in the topics that aren’t worth dedicating a full article to, but are still on my mind.
Each week, I try to cram in as many smaller talking points as I can via a speedier process, and I invite you to chime in with your own thoughts about these topics and anything else by keeping the discussion going in the comments below! Drop some more talking points in there for everyone to chat it up about, too!
Without further ado, let’s get into this week’s topics.
Thoughts on the NXT UK Relaunch
I was really hoping these months of being away gave WWE enough time to sort out a better game plan for NXT UK. Sadly, I was wrong, for the most part.
The BT Sports Studios looks great, for what it’s worth. It’s not the type of thing that replaces a live audience, but it’s a step up from the WWE Performance Center. That’s definitely a positive, as are some of the newer graphics.
However, I’m no more interested in Piper Niven vs Kay Lee Ray than before, after their super bland promo segment. I don’t care that there’s a Saxon Huxley vignette hyping him up, because he’s fighting WALTER, which means he’s going to get destroyed. Huxley never wins and WALTER always does, so why would I think anything different? Ilja Dragunov and Noam Dar are two of the more promising competitors, so their main event match should’ve done more for me, too, but it didn’t.
I’m most curious about the wildcard for the Heritage Cup tournament. If that’s something really interesting, then I’ll be much more invested. If it’s just a surprise of Pete Dunne drawing his own name, I’ll be disappointed (despite how great Dunne is as a performer).
All in all, I’m glad these men and women are back to work, but if I’m being honest, I really don’t want to invest another hour of my week to watching this show. I was happier having one less WWE television show to watch.
Mandy Rose Traded to Monday Night Raw
Why do I get the feeling there isn’t any actual plan to use Mandy Rose on Raw, now that she’s been traded, and that their only idea was to do that and “see what happens” because they’ll “figure it out as they go” like so many other things?
SmackDown is the brand that needs new names. Just look at how many times we’ve seen Nikki Cross in the same couple of matches over and over again. Yet, for whatever reason, WWE keeps moving people away from the blue brand and over to Raw, where there are people like Bianca Belair who are being wasted.
Insanity. At least they’re making somewhat of a story out of it with The Miz and Otis, but it’s still nothing that strikes me as a move we’ll look back on fondly in hindsight.
Ricochet Leaving WWE? Nope.
WrestleVotes reported that someone isn’t going to be renewing their contract relatively soon. Twitter folk jumped straight to Ricochet, who clarified that’s not the case. That means we have to try to figure out who the real person is that WV was talking about.
Since we don’t know everyone’s contract information, we don’t have a full list of people who are available. I would assume, though, that this is someone who is a big enough name (a la Rusev/Miro) rather than someone like Primate or Desmond Troy.
WWE Battlegrounds Steals Image of Tessa Blanchard
So someone who is either lazy or just doesn’t care about copyright infringement and worked on the WWE 2K Battlegrounds game took a photo of Tessa Blanchard from Impact Wrestling, edited out the background, slapped a filter on it and figured “good enough” to be used for the game.
Obviously, that’s not cool, so now, they need to release a patch that will replace that image with something else.
Curious if that worker is going to get fired or if they’re just going to get a stern talking to, or nothing at all. In either fashion, this is by no means a good way to start this game’s life cycle after having such a bad reaction to the previous WWE game that was released.
Pitch to Split The New Day
Apparently, a pitch was put out there that Kofi Kingston and Big E would be on separate brands with Xavier Woods going between Raw and SmackDown as a manager, rather than a wrestler. The twist would be that they would remain members of The New Day and keep their ring gear, entrance, etc.
This is a stupid idea, and it makes you question who pitches these things. Fundamentally, it just doesn’t work. Basic logic and 2 seconds of thought exposes the holes in this.
How do they keep the same entrance if Big E is on a different show? He can’t do the intro for Kofi. That already changes the act. Then, when you’re perpetually missing one of your members, it throws off the dynamic. Plus, they wouldn’t be wrestling in tag team matches, so they’re no longer a true tag team!
Do you think anyone cared about Bart Gunn when he was solo Bart Gunn and didn’t have Billy with him, but was still doing the cowboy act? How well did Marty Jannetty do as a solo Rocker? Is there anyone out there who thought Mark Henry still wearing his Nation of Domination ring gear but being separate from his teammates felt like he wasn’t losing steam?
What are your takes on these topics? Keep the discussion going in the comments below!
