Somebody explain to me what happened to SD main event?

[The Legend]

So for a while it looked like the SD Mania main event was going to be the hottest star in the company for the entire year against someone from a list of worthy candidates that he had built differing levels of interesting histories with over the same year.

Then Randy Orton won the Royal Rumble and John Cena won the title. It looked like we were headed to the two most storied longest running rivals at Mania clashing. Then a couple weeks later Bray Wyatt beat Cena and it looked like we were going to have a Wyatt family showdown, not my personal choice, but a better than decent story at least.

That is for a few days, before Randy Orton said he was refusing to face his leader because he's a faithful servant to his cult/family. A week later it looked like Luke Harper was going to create that Wyatt Family story by winning the right to face Bray, it would have been simple enough at that point to pull Orton into the main event saying he wasn't going to leave Bray alone with Harper in the match. From there some suspicion of whether Orton would stay loyal or not would have been feasible to create and the tension and drama would have helped the match.

Hold on, they aren't done throwing monkey wrenches into the system. Harper didn't win and pull Orton into the match, Styles won. And Orton didn't get pulled back into the main event in some Wyatt Family push/pull, he just decided 7 days was all he needed to totally change his mind for reasons unbeknownst to the rest of the world.

I'm not usually one to go looking to poke holes in WWE storytelling and attack their creative direction for fun, but come on this just totally lacks any logical consistency at all. It's like the creative team had five different ideas that they couldn't stop fighting over so they just threw them all together into a mish mash of non-sense that leaves us with a Mania title main event that's lacking anyone that the "WWE Universe" will both want to and should cheer for. The WWE will no doubt try to get the audience to cheer for Orton, but Orton sucks as a face and nobody has given a crap about him in that role in at least 5 years. That will leave the audience cheering for Styles, a guy that has crafted a brilliant heel character and personality that has no logical way to transition to being a good guy carrying the company in a satisfying fashion.

Don't get me wrong, Styles is great and can be entertaining doing anything and will put on fantastic matches as a face. It's just that for a person to watch what Styles has done for the past year and then see what they'd have to do with his character to make him likable in that sense would be extremely bi-polar even by WWE standards.

IF the other title main event is in fact Goldberg vs Lesnar, I'm not exactly sure what the selling point of Mania will be this year. It's looking really sad at this point.

[Str8Shooter]

Feels like they rush jobbed the Orton face turn on Bray. It came outta nowhere

I thought they were going to go with a Wyatt vs Orton vs Luke Harper triple threat for the title after the Harper face turn. Then Harper lost to AJ, and I assumed they were doing Wyatt vs Orton vs AJ for the belt. But with all the Shane and AJ interactions, I think AJ is facing Shane now and isn't even getting the title shot he won. Weird.

I don't find Wyatt vs Orton all that exciting, but it'll likely be in the middle of the card. Hopefully we get Orton vs AJ after Mania then, I'm interested to see those two wrestle.

[DBSoT]

It feels like they wanted to try to swerve the fans for a few weeks because they had so much time between EC and WM. I was pretty upset when Harper lost to AJ and that is because Harper will not get that momentum back. He was really starting to gain traction as a face, but that is all going to shit. He has no match at Mania that is worth a damn and it really sucks. I have no issue with AJ getting a title shot at Mania, but I don't think that is the case. Shane will strip him of his shot, claiming Randy never really gave up his Mania spot. That will lead to the Shane vs AJ match at Mania. Which really make Shane look like the heel. The Orton vs Wyatt match looks fine on paper and I really liked the ending segment from Smackdown. It had all the charm of old school WWE campiness. It was also nice to see Bray have to show vulnerability for the first time. However, it seemed to give me the opposite reaction then what WWE intended. I felt bad for Bray. All Bray ever did to Randy was give him a chance to join his family, yet Randy burned Bray's compound and Sister's corpse. I am not looking forward to Bray losing at Mania and Harper doing nothing. This is the only top match that I give a shit about too. Fuck Reigns/Taker and Berg/Lesnar.

[Hanley!]

I'm with you on this, John. As much as I kinda like the Smackdown show, I really hate what they've been doing with their title scene coming up to Wrestlemania. It makes no sense at all to me, from a business standpoint or a booking standpoint. It's just a mess right now.

For starters, why do they want to run with a Wrestlemania title match that's this cold? It made all the sense in the world to have Styles defend the title against someone at Wrestlemania - most likely Cena - and lose it. He's been Smackdown's biggest star over the last year, his title run had momentum and his losing the title would have been a big moment. Particularly if it had been to Cena as a pay off to that feud.

It bugged me when I realised that they were going to take the title off Styles just so Cena and Undertaker could wrestle for the title at Wrestlemania. Sure it was a big match, but it felt detached from everything else, and it would have been a major draw for the card even without a title on the line.

But since then, it's become apparent that the Cena vs Undertaker match isn't happening. They took the belt off Styles (and then Cena) so Bray Wyatt vs Randy Orton could be the Smackdown title match at Wrestlemania. Why? I feel like they killed the show's momentum just so they could put the title on someone that wasn't ready for it, and elevate a midcard feud that didn't warrant elevating.

Cena/Undertaker would have made some kind of sense as title match, even if it would have bugged me. But the choice of Orton vs Wyatt just feels ... weird, quite frankly.


The feud between Orton and Wyatt has been nonsensical too. They feuded for a couple of months before teaming up, having mediocre matches and horrible segments. So as soon as they joined forces most fans realised, with little enthusiasm, that this was what we had to look forward to once the pair split once again.

Orton's heel turn was horrible. It was done with such lack of ceremony, it was hard to know how the fans were supposed to react to it. Rarely if ever has a main event heel turn provoked such a small response. Orton proceeded to do nothing particularly heelish during his run with the Wyatts, which meant fans continued to cheer for him most of the time, and the rest of the time they were just confused.

We were always supposed to think that Orton joined the Wyatts so he could destroy them from within. But this was written badly, because I don't recall him ever doing anything on television to bring about the collapse of the family. Harper immediately just started fighting with Orton and then Wyatt turned on him. It kind of makes sense, but it wasn't satisfying. They should have had Orton planting seeds of dissension for weeks or months.

Once Harper and Bray were separated, Orton remained with Wyatt for weeks afterwards. If he had only wanted to tear the group apart then he should have just turned on Wyatt then and there. So it looked like they were going with a different story - that Orton actually had converted, and would need to see the light and turn on him at some point down the line. None of that ended up happening.

So Orton won the Rumble. He didn't need Wyatt to get to the title now, but he still didn't split with the cult. He instead feuded briefly with Luke Harper. But because Harper still looked and acted like a member of the Wyatt Family and Orton still didn't look and act like a member of the Wyatt Family, fans didn't get behind the new babyface Harper.

Sadly, Orton having won the Rumble also gave away the finish of the Elimination Chamber. It was now obvious to everyone that Wyatt would win - spoiling what could have been a great surprise in other circumstances. Orton refused to fight Bray at first, but two weeks later decided that he'd fight him after all ... just because.

I feel like the latter part of this story was booked this way specifically to try and set up a Styles vs Shane McMahon feud - Styles will go after Shane once his Wrestlemania title shot is taken from him, as Orton is reinstated into the Wrestlemania main event. But if the title feud is being screwed up to accommodate a Shane McMahon match, then that's a pretty good sign that it should never have been the title feud in the first place.


For all the good stuff Smackdown has put on over the last few months, I don't think they're building anything for Wrestlemania that I'm looking forward to. Cena/Nikki vs Miz/Maryse is a waste of Cena, and in a weird way almost a waste of the Miz too. The Orton/Wyatt feud would have worked well as a grudge match if handled differently, but as the title match it's just weird. Styles vs McMahon is a glaring waste of Styles. Alexa vs Naomi is one of the weirder women's title feuds they could have chosen to highlight at this time of year. A couple of months ago, I thought it was going to be Becky vs Mickie or something similar. That would have actually been cool.

I'm not the biggest fan of Ambrose or Corbin, but their feud seems to make by far the most sense in terms of the Smackdown Wrestlemania stories that are being pushed right now.

[Messiah]

adly, Orton having won the Rumble also gave away the finish of the Elimination Chamber. It was now obvious to everyone that Wyatt would win - spoiling what could have been a great surprise in other circumstances.

I won't debate anything else as it ultimately comes down to preference (I like the Wyatt/Orton storyline a lot). However, I don't see why this is a problem at all. There is no Rumble winner they could have had that wouldn't have spoiled who would end up holding the title in opposition (as per usual; the WrestleMania main event tends to be predictable once you get to this point).

fans didn't get behind the new babyface Harper.

This just isn't true at all. Luke Harper was getting cheered against AJ Styles and definitely was getting cheers against Orton (Orton was being cheered too but he's Orton). Not to mention I don't know how he acted like a member of the Wyatt Family considering he attacked Bray Wyatt multiple times.

[The Legend]

I actually agree with @Messiah that the breaking up of the Wyatt Family has for the most part been really good storytelling and been entertaining to watch (the whole Orton won't fight Bray, but then will with no explanation is the only blemish in the story purely from that stand point).

However, this story was great before the title got involved and it would have been as great or greater if the title never got involved in the feud ever. The biggest problem is none of these guys was ever booked like a Mania main eventer should have been in the fashion that Styles was and Cena was.

My problem isn't with the story, it's that the world title doesn't belong in it at all.

[Hanley!]

This just isn't true at all. Luke Harper was getting cheered against AJ Styles and definitely was getting cheers against Orton (Orton was being cheered too but he's Orton). Not to mention I don't know how he acted like a member of the Wyatt Family considering he attacked Bray Wyatt multiple times.

I didn't watch the match with Styles yet, but he came out to silence at the Royal Rumble and fans barely reacted to him at the Elimination Chamber. He hasn't been getting a good reaction. Maybe that's started to turn around over the last two weeks. But for the first several weeks of his turn, fans weren't reacting to him like a face, because he barely changed from the heel Luke Harper character.

He still acts weird and anti-social, he still cuts creepy promos and dresses like a drifter. I don't want him to completely change now that he's not a Wyatt because that's always jarring and unrealistic, but there's been little strong development of his character. Much like Orton never really changed his attitude much when he joined the Wyatts, which made him harder to accept as part of the group.

[AkydefGoldberg]

Caught the last five minutes of Smackdown to hear the dubbed in Randy chants so that sums it up in terms of Orton's popularity.