4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (July 1)

3. The Power Struggle That’s Going Nowhere

Adam Pearce Sonya Deville
WWE

...this.

This guy was a big fan of Sonya Deville's before she turned into Adam Pearce's assistant. Her heel run in the summer of 2020 was a weekly highlight on SmackDown, but WWE followed it up with a crappy end to the Mandy Rose feud and then turned her into Pearce's gopher.

The pain lingers, because Deville is being cast as the one willing to put her neck on the line by questioning Adam's inconsistencies. The problem? Well, it's hardly like Pearce and Sonya are going to have a match at SummerSlam, or something, is it? There's no satisfying way to end this.

Most fans would probs like WWE to move on from a soft General Manager post-Pearce, at least for a while. Replacing him with Deville cuts her out of the regular women's conversation and is more of the same heel authority figure bullsh*t everyone has seen one million times before.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.