10 Small Success Stories That Saved WWE No Mercy 2017
Great Expectations?
Did WWE tactically front-load a pay-per-view to such a degree in order to take a floundering midcard and help it soar?
It's perhaps the biggest question coming out of this year's No Mercy supercard, a landmark event in planning if not quite so in execution. Positioned smartly as a two-match show with double headers featuring John Cena, Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, and Brock Lesnar, it almost guaranteed to shift the very tectonic plates that lie below the earth's surface.
Neither did, of course. But it meant seismic reactions could be doled out to the the women and tag teams of Monday Night Raw instead. Starved of such affection during the weekly grind, the combatants in the doubles title duel and the fatal five-way Women's Title clashes fought for the respect of management alongside peers chasing a similar validation.
No Mercy was subsequently something of an uneven show, perhaps tipped one way by the controversial decision to award Enzo Amore the Cruiserweight Title.
Eric Bischoff relentlessly reiterated that 'controversy creates cash' when plugging his company-mandated autobiography, and WWE will hope this divisive decision generates enough income to justify decking Neville's prized possession in leopard-print and gold. The short-statured loudmouth had a better night than Braun Strowman though. Anything really can happen in WWE.
10. Walk With Elias
The continuing unlikely success of Elias seems to only be leading one way, but the inevitable quasi-face turn for the wandering guitarist can surely only spell doom for the character?
His pained vocals and weak guitar prowess makes for one of the hotter portions of any evening when he rips apart a local town with the comedic chops of an Edge and Christian or Kurt Angle in years gone by.
He can't replicate the skills of those greats between the ropes yet, but that will matter less and less if his songs remain as silly. John Cena was the last to pivot from antagonist to protagonist by the virtue of his pre-match spiel, and he only offered slightly more bell-to-bell once the rap concluded. Don't count on Elias merely drifting away.