With WWE No Mercy 2017 concluded, it’s time for another 3-Count review and Smack Talk Pay-Per-Viewpoint post-show podcast!
As always, click the video at the bottom of this post to check out the podcast breakdown of everything on the show, but before we get into that, I want to focus on three things that standout from my mind in regards to No Mercy 2017.
For this edition, I figured I would focus on three of the burning questions that I have following this event, which I hope WWE shines a light on as soon as possible.
1) What’s Next for Braun Strowman?
After losing to Brock Lesnar, there’s nothing left for Strowman to do on Monday Night Raw.
His feud with Roman Reigns went on long enough that they can’t pick up where they left off on that without it seeming like the writers don’t want to do their jobs.
A feud with someone like Finn Balor will be a mismatch and seem unbelievable when the two are standing next to each other.
John Cena appears to be stepping away for a bit, so that goes out the window if that’s the case.
My guess is that we’ll see Strowman going up against Bray Wyatt, but I couldn’t care less about Wyatt feuding with anybody at this point, so that just makes me shrug my shoulders.
Would it matter at all to see Strowman beat Wyatt or anybody else on the Raw roster at this point, knowing that he can’t win the Universal Championship until at least WrestleMania?
Worse, is WWE going to make the mistake of having Strowman lose his next few matches or feuds? I sure as hell hope not.
I’m curious what the plan is—if there even is one—for how WWE can capitalize on the popularity and momentum of Strowman going forward. Judging by how things worked out for Ryback, I’m assuming I’m in for disappointment, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still curious.
2) When will it dawn on WWE that Roman Reigns will be booed just the same, if not worse after No Mercy?
How long is it going to take before they realize that having John Cena lose and shake Roman’s hand is not going to turn the fans around and convince them that he should be cheered as the top babyface?
Will it hit them tomorrow night on Raw when he’s booed instead of cheered? Will it take them another few weeks or months of the continued response and they won’t start to panic until it’s too close to WrestleMania to do anything about their plans since they’ll have already gone through all the other options?
Will WWE never learn this lesson and just refuse to admit it for as long as Reigns is wrestling like they did with Cena?
I legitimately just want to know what the discussions backstage are like and if they’re deluded enough to think that this is going to work, or if they simply don’t care and will tell the story they want to tell even if it elicits a completely different reaction from the audience.
Is this a scenario where they are legitimately trying their best and think these ideas will work, so when they perpetually fail, they just facepalm and get depressed that they can’t figure out the riddle, or is this a situation of pure stubbornness and a rigid refusal to admit one is wrong where they’re hoping if they yell loud enough, eventually people will listen?
My guess is we’re not going to see any changes to the dynamic until at least June of 2018, if not later.
3) Where do we go with The Miz and Jason Jordan?
Somewhere down the line, whether it’s sooner or later, The Miz is going to have to drop that Intercontinental Championship, but it certainly wasn’t against Jason Jordan at No Mercy, that’s for sure.
Is WWE’s plan to actually give Jordan that rematch that he teased and to potentially put the belt on him anyway, despite the crowd reaction being a not-so-welcoming response?
Alternatively, are those rumors we heard about months back about Roman Reigns taking the title so he can defend it as the top belt on the brand while Lesnar is away, then use that to catapult him into the Universal title hunt true? I sure hope not, but at least that might set up a win for Samoa Joe down the line where he can hold the belt going into WrestleMania, which will be a much bigger promotion after the way he was treated last year.
Maybe it’s Finn Balor? His feud with Bray Wyatt has to be ending and Balor/Miz could be a decent enough combination.
With or without the title, what’s next for Jason Jordan will be interesting, too.
If he’s got the belt, he can have a multitude of feuds with that being the primary motivator of why he and the other guy are clashing, so it takes away from his storyline with Kurt Angle, which may be a good idea even if it flies in the face of what WWE wants to do.
That isn’t a necessity, though, if the plan is for Jordan to feud with other people based entirely on being Angle’s son, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him lose a feud against Samoa Joe in the meantime, either.
I’d hate to see WWE drop Jordan and punish him for this, but I also don’t want to see the creative team stick to their stubborn ideas too much if it isn’t working. They need to be what they’re paid to be: creative. If the idea doesn’t work, find a solution, and don’t drag down the intercontinental title or Jordan or The Miz in the process.
For more opinions on the show as a whole, check out the latest edition of the Smark Out Moment wrestling podcast SMACK TALK for the post-show review breakdown:
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