Money in the Bank remains nearly a month away, but WWE revealed many of the headline matches this week on RAW and SmackDown Live. Before we get to our AllWrestling Power Poll, we will review the pay-per-view card as it stands right now.
When AJ Styles moved to RAW, we obviously dreamed about a matchup between The Phenomenal One and Universal Champion Seth Rollins. What we didn’t know is that we’d get it in the very first pay-per-view after AJ’s move. The Beastslayer didn’t get the honor of working the main event at WrestleMania 35, but this will likely headline Money in the Bank. The May 19th show at Hartford can’t get here fast enough.
However, that wasn’t the only championship match scheduled for the card this week. Two-brand champion Becky Lynch announced separate title defenses for each belt. She will face Lacey Evans for the RAW title and Charlotte Flair for the SmackDown gold. Evans earned her opportunity last week with a victory over Natalya, while Flair defeated Bayley in a No. 1 contender match Tuesday from the SmackDown Live in Lincoln, Nebraska.
In addition, two of SmackDown Live’s biggest acquisitions in the Superstar Shake-Up, Roman Reigns and Elias, also got placed on the card against each other. The Drifter teamed up with Shane McMahon to dole out a beating to the Big Dog for retribution over his Superman Punch to Vince McMahon’s chin last week at the SmackDown from Bell Centre in Montreal.
Given what happened after the main event of SmackDown, we can also reasonably assume that Kofi Kingston will defend the WWE Championship against Kevin Owens. The heel turn everyone saw coming put KO right at the top of the heap of contenders, and made this the most-heated feud as of right now.
Now, it’s time to take a look at the best of what was an eventful week in WWE with our AllWrestling Power Poll.
Top 10 Superstars (In Reverse Order)
10. Baron Corbin – The Lone Wolf had fans on the edge of their seats as the man nobody wanted to see get a title shot finished just one match away from facing Rollins for the red belt. Booked to perfection, Corbin won his triple-threat qualifier match against Drew McIntyre and The Miz in the most Corbin-esque way possible. He vultured a win away from McIntyre after the Scottish Psychopath laid out The A-Lister with a Claymore Kick by tossing Drew out of the way and covering Miz for the 1-2-3. He advanced to the main event in which he ended up eating a Phenomenal Forearm from AJ Styles. Given that Corbin won his WrestleMania match and McIntyre and Miz lost theirs, I understand having the former RAW General Manager win. However, Corbin’s unpopularity with the fans may have contributed to RAW dropping a half million viewers in the third hour (2.146) from the first hour (2.680). Overall, the show dropped 11 percent of its viewers from the previous week and posted the second-worst rating number of the year at a 0.91 in the 18-49 age demographic. With that being said, Corbin actually turned in two pretty solid matches wrestling-wise. Fans just don’t seem to like him.
9. Andrade – El Idolo didn’t win his rematch against Finn Balor with the Intercontinental belt on the line, but he was too impressive to leave off the list. You could tell in the first matchup that Andrade won on RAW that these two weren’t quite used to working with each other. The contest on SmackDown Live this week turned into a non-stop fight between two of the most athletic talents on the roster. Even though it was awkward, it was the right call to move Andrade back to SmackDown Live this week after he was announced for RAW during the Superstar Shake-Up. A feud with Balor highlights Andrade’s skills and can give him momentum to propel him into a possible title run in the near future.
8. Charlotte Flair – The Queen disappointed a lot of Bayley fans this week, defeating The Hugger in a No. 1 contender match on SmackDown Live. With the victory, Flair earned a title shot against Lynch at Money in the Bank. This will mark the eighth major pay-per-view show in which the two have collided over the past year. Some fans online expressed angst at the announcement of another matchup between Flair and Lynch. However, I’m of the opinion that Lynch and Flair bring out the best in each other and never disappoint when they are paired up in a match booked to be even. (Throw out the hokey injury angle Fastlane match booked to have Lynch hobbling around on one leg because it was supposed to be bad.) With a victory, Flair would begin her ninth title reign as a champion. It will be interesting to see if WWE chooses to make her the alpha on SmackDown Live or continues to have Lynch work both shows.
7. Cesaro – The decision to move the Swiss Cyborg to RAW this week reportedly occurred at the eleventh hour. However, the match he had with former Cruiserweight Champion Cedric Alexander turned into the best one not involving the Universal Championship contenders. This ranking in the power poll is based on the belief that booking Cesaro to win means he will get a decent singles push going forward. He’s an elite in-ring competitor and is more than capable of pushing anyone on the show for great matches. Considering RAW made such a big deal of Alexander joining the roster with a few video packages, the booking to have him lose clean to Cesaro doesn’t make sense if the Swiss Superman doesn’t get built up into the singles title scene.
6. Lars Sullivan – The Freak saved us from having to watch Chad Gable and Jinder Mahal put on a snoozefest. Lars raced out from the back, launched Gable into a ring post and then took out the Singh brothers. R-Truth ran out in an attempt to stop the beatdowns, but instead fell victim to a running sit-out powerbomb. Several rumors hit online that WWE is planning a massive push for the big man, and it seems like they are spot on from his booking. He’s taken out Hall of Famer Kurt Angle, the SmackDown Tag Team Champion Hardy Boyz and several others since WrestleMania. A likely feud with R-Truth won’t be much too watch, but it will showcase how dangerous Sullivan is. He can use that momentum to propel him to bigger and better beefs down the road.
5. Sami Zayn – The Underdog from the Underground told us he was holding us all accountable for being online trolls, told fans in Des Moines to go to Hell and then danced off. Sami has stepped into the heel promo void left by “The New” Daniel Bryan’s injury at WrestleMania and ran with it. He somehow found a way to continue on the roll he had after playing the fans in Montreal in the palms of his hands. Now, WWE must capitalize by booking him to have a great feud in the near future. He put on a tremendous match with Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor in the first RAW after WrestleMania in Brooklyn. When we look back, we could very well view this time in Sami’s career as his best run on the main roster. That’s saying something considering how good he was in working with Kevin Owens before they both missed time in 2018 with injury.
4. Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor – After taking it on the chin in Round 1 against Andrade, Finn answered with a decisive, clean victory with the belt on the line in the rematch. In an unexpected turn, Zelina Vega actually distracted her own guy, serving up Andrade for a corner dropkick into the Coup De Grace. From a purely wrestling angle, this was the best match of the night on SmackDown. Only the main event ended up topping it overall on Tuesday because of the twist brought on by Kevin Owens. Other than Universal Champion Seth Rollins and The Man, nobody has been booked stronger than Balor in 2019. Don’t expect that to change any time soon. However, this feud can end up helping both men if WWE can get creative in how it ends the matches. This decisive loss hurt Andrade’s momentum a bit.
3. Bray Wyatt – When you get Twitter trending for your work, it’s a good sign that you succeeded in your segment. For the first time since August 13, 2018, Wyatt appeared on WWE TV in a taped promo titled “Firefly Fun House.” The skit had the look and feel of a PBS kids show. However, Wyatt made it clear he’s still deranged, perhaps even more so than what we’ve seen in the past. Surrounded by the creepy bird and doll in a rocking chair from the vignettes hyping his return, Wyatt ended the segment by taking a chainsaw to a cardboard cutout of his former WWE self. Depending on what rumors you believe, either this is about to be one of the greatest creative coups for WWE or the company is already planning to kill it. Some rumor sites have said that sponsors complained to WWE executives and that might cause them to pull the plug on Firefly Fun House Bray as he debuted. We’ll have to wait and see.
2. Kevin Owens – The feel-good vibes of honorary New Day member “Big O” got erased with one big Superkick this week. WWE Champion Kofi Kingston had no time to celebrate a victory by disqualification over Shinsuke Nakamura in the main event of SmackDown this week, because heel Kevin Owens returned and laid him out. Kingston managed to sidestep a post-match ambush attempt by Nakamura, but stepped into a Superkick from Owens. That’s when KO turned up the heel heat. He ripped off his New Day shirt, retrieved the championship belt and held it high in the air as he put his boot on Kingston’s neck. He yelled that he hoped Kofi enjoyed himself as champion because KO is coming to take it away. Just like that, Owens ignited the hottest feud so far for Money in the Bank and finally gave Kingston a worthy first rival for the pay-per-view show.
1. AJ Styles – The Phenomenal One wasted no time in making his impact felt on RAW. He starred in the best match of the week in a victory over United States Champion Samoa Joe and Rey Mysterio in the triple-threat qualifier. Then, he went ahead and defeated Baron Corbin in the main event to give us the matchup we dreamed about when he was named to RAW – a Universal Championship match with Seth Rollins. I’d say it’s hard to picture WWE greenlighting a title change this early in Seth Rollins’ reign. However, I also thought it’d be way too early to have these two facing off in a pay-per-view show coming into the week. That’s why I despaired when they had Styles facing The Lone Wolf in the main event because I anticipated the former RAW General Manager winning. I figured the earliest we’d get Styles-Rollins would be at SummerSlam. Lucky for us, we don’t have to spend months waiting for what should be one of the most anticipated matches of the year. In the race for best acquisition made during the Superstar Shake-Up, Styles is your clubhouse leader.