Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
This upcoming Labor Day weekend will feature two WWE premium live events with Bash in Berlin on Saturday and NXT No Mercy on Sunday. Both cards seem to be fully locked down, with five and six matches each.
Not everyone can make every card—particularly in this era, where WWE seems to only want to have 5 matches on any pay-per-view and figures that’s good enough—but there are still more championships not being defended at Bash in Berlin and some huge Superstars sidelined in one way or another this weekend.
My question for you today is “What are the biggest omissions currently NOT advertised for those two shows?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
No Mercy is nowhere near as offensive with this as Bash in Berlin. At least all the titles save for the Heritage Cup are being defended in Denver, even if I think some of the matches are leaving much to the imagination. But if I’m looking at the lineup for No Mercy, I do think Charlie Dempsey and the No Quarter Catch Crew feel like they’re being slighted.
On top of that, I think it’s a shame we still don’t see much movement for Lexis King, but I can’t possibly defend having him against Eddy Thorpe on this card to continue that awful feud.
Putting Trick Williams as the special guest referee to the NXT Championship match means he is still on the card, but that leaves Pete Dunne sitting this out. That is, of course, unless he just pops up to attack Williams during the match, which could very well happen.
When switching to Bash in Berlin, though, we’re missing five championships without even counting the worthless WWE Speed Championship. Bron Breakker doesn’t have an opponent set up yet, LA Knight is having his United States Championship match on SmackDown, as will Nia Jax for the WWE Women’s Championship, and the tag titles are just not being represented at all by any of the teams.
Can The Bloodline really not wrestle on these lesser events? We couldn’t get Tonga Loa and Tama Tonga in action? Lame, considering they’re just hitting the stall button on Roman Reigns versus Solo Sikoa and clearly waiting until a future event for that.
Far be it from me to say The Wyatt Sicks and American Made feud needs to be on a pay-per-view, considering how I feel like it’s become less interesting every week since the initial debut, but it is pretty telling that that act is becoming a Raw-exclusive storyline not big enough for the “premium” live events.
But if I’m going to pick the biggest omission from the entire weekend? I’m saying Ilja Dragunov should have been booked on this card in SOME fashion. Even if it were a pre-show Countdown to Bash in Berlin match, The Mad Dragon absolutely should be performing in Germany. Yes, he’s not from that country, but he made his name on the European circuit and they’d pop like crazy for him. Do you really need two hours of pre-show content that exists only of pre-taped interviews? What about the fans in attendance? You can’t put Dragunov against Finn Balor or something to whet their appetite? Or maybe have the Triple Threat match for the Intercontinental Championship No. 1 Contender’s Tournament happen here, and just switch it up a bit and put Bronson Reed in Dominik Mysterio’s place?
I understand the need to spread out some of the matches to television to try to keep the ratings from slumping, but I think WWE spreads itself too thin at the expense of the pay-per-views, and it’s a shame to see that we’re in store for another 11-12 hours of programming this weekend that will amount to the same number of matches AEW was able to put on the All In card.
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!
