Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
After Cody Rhodes successfully retained the Undisputed WWE Championship over Kevin Owens at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event, an angle was done where Owens attacked The American Nightmare and took him out with a piledriver. Rhodes was stretchered out, similar to the Randy Orton situation, and that’s all we know at this moment.
My question for you today is “Where would you take that story next?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
Let me outright say that I wouldn’t have done this, as I wouldn’t have drawn out the Owens/Rhodes story any longer than it’s already been. But now that they’ve done it, if I were put on WWE Creative today and tasked to pitch ideas of what to do next—without, of course, knowing what they have planned for The Rock and Roman Reigns and all these other missing pieces of the puzzle for WrestleMania season—here’s what I would do.
First off, Rhodes cannot come back before Randy Orton. It wouldn’t make any sense for the one given a piledriver more recently to return healthier quicker. Yes, you could say something like “he didn’t get all of it” or point out that Cody is younger and doesn’t have as many injuries, but I think that would be an odd way to go about that.
Orton needs to return first. He and Owens need to have their blow-off match. That can either take place on the January 6th episode of Raw on Netflix, or it can happen at Saturday Night’s Main Event on January 25th. I think the latter is a bit long to ask for, as Owens can’t just do nothing in the meantime, as it also wouldn’t make sense to me for Orton to return on the next SmackDown or something and to then spend an entire month bullshitting around just to stretch it a full month and 10 days.
So Orton returns next week on SmackDown, probably. You can get one week out of Owens just saying “Screw him. I did that. Cry about it. Blah blah blah” and fill in the rest of that show with other stuff. But next week, Orton returns, goes after Owens, they fight, and a match can either be scheduled for Jan 6th or the Jan 3rd episode of SmackDown.
Ideally, Owens wins that, and Rhodes comes back on the 10th to have something set in stone for Saturday Night’s Main Event on the 25th. It would need to be a gimmick match to settle this once and for all. Last Man Standing, maybe? That’s simple enough without breaking out a big gun like Hell in a Cell, which this hasn’t yet earned. Then, Cody will have retained his title the week prior to Royal Rumble, and that will explain his absence from that card.
Royal Rumble’s card features the two 30-men/women matches and three other bouts, most likely, which can be anything from the four midcard titles being defended to something big like Gunther vs Goldberg if they were to have that waiting in the wings. Cody takes that event off, though, or is just on commentary for the men’s match or whatever.
By that point, Owens can either be in the Royal Rumble, or he can be written out of that by losing the gimmick match at SNME 38. I’d rather him be in the match so he can say he’s going to win it and go back to fighting Cody, only to come up short and start a feud with whoever eliminates him, as I don’t want Owens to miss out on WrestleMania.
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!