WWE: 8 Shocking Developments Since WrestleMania 30

5. Cesaro Out, Barrett In

A week after WrestleMania, WWE announced an eight-man tournament to name a No. 1 contender for the Intercontinental Championship. As soon as the names were announced €“ six of the men were former world champions and one is a three-time IC champ €“ it looked like the entire tourney was set up for Cesaro to dominate. After all, he won the prestigious Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and had aligned himself with Paul Heyman. Clearly he is being positioned for a huge push upward. What better way to do that than have him run through Mark Henry, RVD and Sheamus en route to capturing gold? Instead, Jack Swagger cost Cesaro the match, leaving Bad News Barrett to win the tournament and face Big E at Extreme Rules. Cesaro, meanwhile, gets a triple threat match against Swagger and RVD. Hardly a consolation prize. WWE hopefully is just doing a slow burn for Cesaro, finishing off the Real Americans€™ breakup feud before he moves on to either the IC title or something else substantial. Barrett, meanwhile, is a three-time Intercontinental champ who wrestled his first match in what felt like eons the night after WrestleMania. He€™s had numerous stop-and-start pushes, but this €œBad News€ gimmick seems to be sticking. It€™s a testament to Barrett that a gimmick that originally saw him getting the cheapest of cheap crowd heat is working. If Barrett is successful on Sunday, hopefully he will finally be pushed as a serious threat, and not be booked to lose every non-title match, as he had been when he previously was champ.