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Randy Orton declared at the end of Smackdown that as long as Bray Wyatt is his “master,” he will not challenge him for the WWE Championship. He kneeled and the show went off the air.
Daniel Bryan addressed that on “Talking Smack” by announcing next week on Smackdown, a battle royal will be held to determine a new challenge to Bray at WrestleMania.
Keller’s Analysis: The job of the G.M.’s on WWE TV these days seems to be to deliver nonsense decisions that helps the creative team bridge themselves from one plot point to another. This makes Bryan look bad. A battle royal is not a particularly sensible way to determine who deserves a title shot, the Royal Rumble notwithstanding. The idea of just throwing everyone in the ring and seeing who is left standing at the end seems to not only lack creativity and good sense, but also seems premature. Why not wait a while in case Bray loses his championship in one of his many title defenses between now and WrestleMania against established top contenders, such as A.J. Styles himself, who threw a fit over not getting a (deserved) one-on-one title shot on Talking Smack tonight. Anyway, all that complaining aside, I still do expect Orton to end up facing Bray at WrestleMania for the title by the time the event arrives. I have a hunch Luke Harper wins the battle royal and the match becomes a “more intriguing” triple threat match.
Why can’t Orton challenge the RAW champion? This is the way it was done during the last brand split.
And I am hoping there is a draft right after Wrestlemania to shake things up again. Again just as it was done in the previous brand split.