As seen on WWE Smackdown Live this week, Shane McMahon announced that Kofi Kingston will challenge Daniel Bryan for the WWE Title at Fastlane taking place next month in Cleveland. Furthermore, it was announced that Shane and The Miz vs The Usos in a rematch for the Smackdown Tag Team Titles will also take place at Fastlane.
As for Kofi Kingston, it appears as if current WrestleMania plans do not call for the New Day member to face Daniel Bryan at the PPV in April, as Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline is reporting the current plan is for Daniel Bryan to face a “returning superstar” at WrestleMania. Meltzer did not name the returning Superstar, but it was reported last week that WWE has made an offer to Batista to compete at ‘Mania this year, making The Animal a possible Bryan opponent should Batista agree to a WWE return.
Why Raw Was Completely Re-Written
WWE Raw this week was reportedly “completely re-written”, according to Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio, and the two key reasons why center around a scrapped match and Seth Rollins.
Meltzer noted that Seth Rollins was initially the focal point of Raw this week, and was actually scheduled to wrestle a match, but when he arrived to the arena in Lafayette and was not yet medically cleared to compete, the decision was made to re-write the show. Rollins has been dealing with a back injury for the past several weeks, and WWE has kept him out of the ring in order to rest him until his Title match against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 35.
[lawrence-related id=837999]Another reason why Raw was re-written this week is because Triple H decided to scrap a previously planned Ricochet vs Finn Balor match. As of now, there remains no word on why the bout was scrapped, and instead Balor and Ricochet competed in a tag match against Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush.
Meltzer also noted that original Raw plans called for Ronda Rousey to face Alexa Bliss in a long singles match, but the decision was made to have Rousey face Ruby Riott instead, in a rematch from their bout at Elimination Chamber the night before.
Abyss Update
As noted, Impact Wrestling Hall of Famer Abyss departed the company last month in order to accept a role in WWE. The Monster recently updated his Twitter profile to reflect that he is now a WWE producer. Abyss is not expected to be wrestling in WWE, but rather will be used in a backstage capacity.
Abyss’ current Twitter profile now reads, “This is Chris Park aka The Monster Abyss. WWE Producer. Let’s do this!”
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