With the injury to Seth Rollins forcing major changes in plans, WWE’s priority this past week at the Survivor Series had to be to fill the top heel slot in the company.
There were endless options, including turning a top babyface, whether it be Roman Reigns or Dean Ambrose, giving Kevin Owens the ball, bringing someone like a Samoa Joe up from NXT with impact. They could even take someone like Bubba Ray Dudley out of his nostalgia act tag team and give him a role similar the one he thrived in as top heel in TNA, a role he was better at than any heel currently in WWE. With Bubba, that one goes against their own mentality since they’ve never viewed him in that light even though he was really good at it somewhere else, and he’s past 40, and has been booked as an undercard babyface with the dreaded tag team label on him. Even Big E, the heavy hitter of an act, using his partners as back-up, would have been better. Like with Bubba, it’s not WWE mentality to consider tag team guys as potential headliners since they are inherent mid-card acts, but the guy they put in the spot was a less over mid-card act. Bray Wyatt could be moved up, but the problem is, if it’s not Reigns turning (and that we’re told was never seriously thought about), that means Reigns is top babyface, the Reigns vs. Wyatt program has pretty much run its course.
The company chose Sheamus, who captured the WWE title by cashing in his briefcase on 11/22 at the Phillips Arena in Atlanta, barely five minutes after Reigns had won the title beating Ambrose in the tournament final.
Current subscribers click here to continue reading.