WWE: James Caldwell (PWTorch): "Three (wellness violations) may just be the beginning"

[Cor]

I have a feeling both Kalisto and Apollo got popped.

 

[Blueblood9]

We expecting this news today?

 

[Del Preston]

I have a feeling both Kalisto and Apollo got popped.

Kalisto should at least be suspended for his ****** promos.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Kalisto should at least be suspended for his ****** promos.

Imagine the roster with that kind of policy. 85% of the roster would be suspended and Cena would get suspended for cutting a kiddie promo. lol

 

[Paris in Flames]

Imagine the roster with that kind of policy. 85% of the roster would be suspended and Cena would get suspended for cutting a kiddie promo. lol

Titus would be serving a 19 year suspension for that crap he pulled on Raw.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Titus would be serving a 19 year suspension for that crap he pulled on Raw.

Titus would've been suspended five seconds into his promo and would've saved the audience so much precious time. lol

 

[SeidoN]

I have a feeling both Kalisto and Apollo got popped.

that would not be a good lucha thing

 

[bruins309]

So this was incredibly irresponsible reporting.

Toss an allegation out there and say "more to come"....when that doesn't happen, no skin off Caldwell's back.

"Hey man, I reported what I was told!"

Yeah, probably from one source who was lying to you or speculating.

 

[GKJ]

So this was incredibly irresponsible reporting.

Toss an allegation out there and say "more to come"....when that doesn't happen, no skin off Caldwell's back.

"Hey man, I reported what I was told!"

Yeah, probably from one source who was lying to you or speculating.

Typical Eklund rumor mongering

 

[These Are The Days]

I have a feeling both Kalisto and Apollo got popped.

Smackdown! would literally have a 2 person midcard of Miz and Corbin if that was true. lol the lack of depth on that show is laughable.

 

[Cor]

I have a feeling both Kalisto and Apollo got popped.

What? I was just reporting what I was told

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Smackdown! would literally have a 2 person midcard of Miz and Corbin if that was true. lol the lack of depth on that show is laughable.

When you have Ziggler, Wyatt, Orton, and potentially Cena outside the main event, your midcard will live on a two hour show.

 

[These Are The Days]

When you have Ziggler, Wyatt, Orton, and potentially Cena outside the main event, your midcard will live on a two hour show.

It depends on the definition of "outside the main event". I had a very long response crafted that asked how Smackdown! can fill it's programming because right now the show is being essentially carried by the tag teams, Becky Lynch vs the island of misfit divas and 5 main talents in Wyatt, Ambrose, Ziggler, Orton and Styles and 4 mid card talents in Miz, Kallisto, Corbin and Crews. The only viable solution I can come up with is that Ziggler enters a feud with Miz because the lack of roster depth is making it impossible for me to think of fresh material a few weeks beyond Backlash.

Losing Cena is going really... REALLY hurt in about 6 weeks.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Dude, Smackdown is in a great position and I think they've done a good job building some characters, notably Heath Slater. They've built up Ziggler from jobber status to at least upper mid-card status again. Corbin's been getting some shine with some mic time and backstage segments. The Miz is awesome. The women are getting equal time to shine whereas the Raw women's division is only featuring Charlotte and Sasha (until Bayley debut) and Summer, Alicia, etc. are nowhere to be seen. Raw's tag division outside of the top-3 is so bad whereas Smackdown is almost equal minus The Ascension (I think that will change soon).

They need one or two more guys for their mid-card, but they're fine as is and can definitely build guys up. I think they'll be fine featuring Miz, Ziggler, Crews, Corbin, Kalisto, Hawkins, Benjamin when he appears, Harper, Rowan and I presume they'll get one of Joe/Nakamura and maybe even a Dillinger from NXT or a Zayn/Cesaro from Raw.

Smackdown will be fine. Their shows are awesome. Losing ADR will hurt their mid-card, but oh well.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

It depends on the definition of "outside the main event". I had a very long response crafted that asked how Smackdown! can fill it's programming because right now the show is being essentially carried by the tag teams, Becky Lynch vs the island of misfit divas and 5 main talents in Wyatt, Ambrose, Ziggler, Orton and Styles and 4 mid card talents in Miz, Kallisto, Corbin and Crews. The only viable solution I can come up with is that Ziggler enters a feud with Miz because the lack of roster depth is making it impossible for me to think of fresh material a few weeks beyond Backlash.

Losing Cena is going really... REALLY hurt in about 6 weeks.

The tag teams and women's division should be carrying the bulk of the midcard and when it's a two hour show that you need to fill roughly eight fifteen minute blocks, that's not very difficult to do and they can easily stretch what they have into more than six weeks. Plus, after the tournament you'll be able to add guys like Rhyno and Curt Hawkins to the midcard and maybe Heath Slater. And when Harper comes back, you add him and Rowan to the tag division and probably break up a team to put them into the midcard. There are a lot of different elements at play there.

 

[These Are The Days]

Dude, Smackdown is in a great position and I think they've done a good job building some characters, notably Heath Slater. They've built up Ziggler from jobber status to at least upper mid-card status again. Corbin's been getting some shine with some mic time and backstage segments. The Miz is awesome. The women are getting equal time to shine whereas the Raw women's division is only featuring Charlotte and Sasha (until Bayley debut) and Summer, Alicia, etc. are nowhere to be seen. Raw's tag division outside of the top-3 is so bad whereas Smackdown is almost equal minus The Ascension (I think that will change soon).

They need one or two more guys for their mid-card, but they're fine as is and can definitely build guys up. I think they'll be fine featuring Miz, Ziggler, Crews, Corbin, Kalisto, Hawkins, Benjamin when he appears, Harper, Rowan and I presume they'll get one of Joe/Nakamura and maybe even a Dillinger from NXT or a Zayn/Cesaro from Raw.

Smackdown will be fine. Their shows are awesome. Losing ADR will hurt their mid-card, but oh well.

Smackdown! has done a phenomenal job of building things up but as you even admitted to they need one or two more guys and it makes me very concerned as to when that becomes essential as opposed to "We don't need to worry about it right now" It's basically 9 guys carrying the show until Cena comes back and who knows when that will be? You can't book the main event guys to fight each other too much or you'll ruin a possible future feud. And you can only book Crews, Crobin, Kallisto and Miz vs the top guys so many different ways for so long. For example we've already seen Orton vs Cena a bajillion times.

Putting Zayn, KO AND Cesaro all on Raw really hurt. I'm in the same boat of Sheamus as I am with ADR. They can both leave and I wouldn't care. I just hope Smackdown! gets a VERY BIG NXT fish and not a long term project. Either Joe or Nakamura would do wonders for Smackdown! programming. Personally I'm partial to Nakamura and would be more willing to wait for him than to potentially get Samoa Joe now.

 

[These Are The Days]

The tag teams and women's division should be carrying the bulk of the midcard and when it's a two hour show that you need to fill roughly eight fifteen minute blocks, that's not very difficult to do and they can easily stretch what they have into more than six weeks. Plus, after the tournament you'll be able to add guys like Rhyno and Curt Hawkins to the midcard and maybe Heath Slater. And when Harper comes back, you add him and Rowan to the tag division and probably break up a team to put them into the midcard. There are a lot of different elements at play there.

Smackdown is going to be JUST FINE for now but going forward I'm struggling to see who else AJ Styles is going to fight from night to night other than guys like Orton, Kallisto, Crews or Ziggler. Conversely Ambrose to fight someone else other than Wyatt, Corbin or Miz. The booking options just feel very limited to me.

Everything you said is true but whose going to get excited about a 40 year old Rhyno and Curt Hawkins relying on Chuck Norris jokes? Talk about getting the leftovers. Meanwhile Cesaro is literally goddamned into a 7 match series with Sheamus because neither of them have anything going on for them.

As for Harper and Rowan go ahead and have them tag because the only midcard action you'd get out of them are probably squash matches like Strowman on RAWR er I mean Raw. Smackdowns tag division is absurdly strong and if they want to make the Wyatt Family a big thing again then I'm all for it. I just don't think Harper OR Rowan is going to survive very long as singles competitors. I'm concerned that Heath Slater is going to lose his novelty if he actually reaches success because his whole gimmick is predicated on falling short because he can't get out of his own way.

Considering how WWE was going to originally be booked prior to Reigns screwing everything up I'm doubtful that Smackdown! is going to get any kind of elite NXT talent to shore up their need for depth. As far as I'm concerned they'll get Dillinger and Aries while Raw gets both Nakumara and Joe and WWE will say, "There ya happy!?"

Adding Nikki Bella in the meantime may as well be the return of Christ. That women's division was getting UGLY. Turn her face and Carmella heel for now and run with it like you just robbed a bank

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Zayn should lose to Owens in a Loser Leaves Raw HIAC match for the Universal Title and then go to Smackdown. Boom. Or Cesaro, whatever. Zayn's better to actually separate them, though.

 

[AfroThunder396]

It's not difficult to build a #1 contender, they did it with Ziggler quite literally overnight.

Guys like Corbin and Crews are just one meaty program away from getting people to care about them. It's really hard to identify with a guy when they're just floating from exhibition match to exhibition match with no stakes or investment.

That's why I think it's a shame Del Rio got suspended, a ruthless heel veteran with a chip on his shoulder would be a GREAT match for a young smiling baby face like Crews. It lets him get nasty and show off his toughness, and Del Rio makes everyone he works with look like a million bucks. It would force Crews to get serious and show some character instead of just doing his standing moonsault and smiling.

If Joe goes to SD I wouldn't mind seeing him work with Corbin again, their match at Brooklyn 2015 was one of the best big man matches I've seen in a while.

 

[These Are The Days]

What I'm REALLY hoping for is that Samoa Joe signs with Smackdown! and dominates for several weeks and demands a trade. So Shane and Bryan oblige in exchange for one of Owens, Cesaro or Zayn and someone else and they go directly to the IC Championship program. Plus Joe on Raw would be total ****ing chaos and it would open up for a feud with Lesnar. Then later on in a few months Nakamura signs to Smackdown! and the shows are close to an equal footing talent wise.

My only other concern is the lack of tag team depth on Raw. The fact they had to throw JeriKO together simply so we could have daily competition worries me a lot.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Smackdown is going to be JUST FINE for now but going forward I'm struggling to see who else AJ Styles is going to fight from night to night other than guys like Orton, Kallisto, Crews or Ziggler. Conversely Ambrose to fight someone else other than Wyatt, Corbin or Miz. The booking options just feel very limited to me.

Everything you said is true but whose going to get excited about a 40 year old Rhyno and Curt Hawkins relying on Chuck Norris jokes? Talk about getting the leftovers. Meanwhile Cesaro is literally goddamned into a 7 match series with Sheamus because neither of them have anything going on for them.

As for Harper and Rowan go ahead and have them tag because the only midcard action you'd get out of them are probably squash matches like Strowman on RAWR er I mean Raw. Smackdowns tag division is absurdly strong and if they want to make the Wyatt Family a big thing again then I'm all for it. I just don't think Harper OR Rowan is going to survive very long as singles competitors. I'm concerned that Heath Slater is going to lose his novelty if he actually reaches success because his whole gimmick is predicated on falling short because he can't get out of his own way.

Considering how WWE was going to originally be booked prior to Reigns screwing everything up I'm doubtful that Smackdown! is going to get any kind of elite NXT talent to shore up their need for depth. As far as I'm concerned they'll get Dillinger and Aries while Raw gets both Nakumara and Joe and WWE will say, "There ya happy!?"

Adding Nikki Bella in the meantime may as well be the return of Christ. That women's division was getting UGLY. Turn her face and Carmella heel for now and run with it like you just robbed a bank

AJ Styles won't have to have a match every show plus you don't always have to limit any one on ones to those who are singles right now. You can put someone like Styles against an Uso from time to time. I think that's where you're getting stuck. There will be plenty of booking options and it'll likely expand as we move on down the line especially with call-ups available like Joe, Nakamura, Aries, Roode, and Itami among others that will at least partially end up on Smackdown.

There's more to Curt Hawkins than just Chuck Norris jokes that are just there to hype his return. Not every match that gets put on a Smackdown show needs to be something that the fans are going to be excited about. Sometimes it's just there to fill time and serve a certain purpose to the story. They've already done a pretty good job with the leftovers that they've received thus far. If they get better talent in and some that return from injury like Harper or Benjamin or whoever, it's only going to improve.

I'd be happy if Smackdown got Aries and Dillinger to be honest. If Raw happens to get Joe and Shinsuke, what will eventually happen is they will be forced to move someone off of Raw to Smackdown just because there won't be much TV time left to give to talent. For instance, they're running a decent amount of talent out there for Raw right now and have fewer repeat uses of talents as they go along. They're going to add a Cruiserweight division to the show which will take up probably 30 minutes a night or so. That's probably going to push someone off the show and Smackdown will be there to pick up the pieces and utilize them as needed.

It may look thin but they can use it well and they will only improve as time goes on. Booking is not that difficult even if they had a thin talent pool. A thin talent pool in a lot of cases is good for the brand because it makes them do things like they did with Ziggler and give exposure to people like AA, Crews, and a lot of newer talent.