8 Things We Learned From The WrestleMania Go-Home Smackdown Live! (March 28)
2. 'Traditional'?
As a final hurdle before the inevitable, AJ Styles and Shane McMahon had a non-traditional contract signing to promote their traditional match. That is to say, it failed to end in violence.
However, Styles’ point about the match not being full of the usual shenanigans associated with a McMahon encounter creates a worrying scenario for the how the contest may play out.
AJ’s ‘Phenomenal’ nickname has never been a lie, and he was right to proffer that the stipulations aggressively favour him over ‘Shane-O-Mac’. But what about the viewers? Surely audiences will be the biggest losers of all?
Without the promise of an insane bump from the McMahon son, his matches lack the necessary drama needed on account of the fact he’s simply not a professional wrestler.
Furthermore, stripped of the bells and whistles (and excluding the unlikely event of a total squash), that also means Styles and Shane have look evenly matched over a 10-20 minute bout, which undermines AJ’s cause as the best in the entire industry unless he can work a complete miracle with the ‘Boy Wonder’.
On Talking Smack, Styles reiterated that he had still not received his one-on-one rematch for the WWE title. A great match here, and he should be atop the entire promotion.