AJ Lee WWE Return, Stephanie McMahon Evolution 2 Rumor...WWE Huge “Surprise”!
Today we’ll be going over a new reoccurring issue coming from WWE that’s starting to
get on fans’ nerves and that’s the misleading false advertisement for their TV shows
WWE does this sort of thing all the time, this isn’t a new strategy by them at all,
but they’ve been doing it so much lately that it’s become a real topic of discussion
But the problem is when WWE hypes up a big announcement or a big mystery segment to be
this big groundbreaking part of the show, but when we see this hyped up segment, it
just turns out to be a massive disappointment because it didn’t live up to that hype
The most recent example of this horrible strategy was used for the July 17th edition of Friday
Night Smackdown
During the middle of the week WWE started to heavily advertise the moment of bliss segment
on this week’s Smackdown and said that Alexa Bliss will bring out this huge surprise guest
WWE was promoting this so hard that they managed to fool everyone and all the fans took the
bait set by WWE
All the fans started to believe that maybe this was a huge surprise guest and huge announcement
that was happening on Smackdown
The rumors that were going around were absolutely insane and we’re building a lot of hype
around the show
The most popular rumor about the surprise guest was Stephanie McMahon
Stephanie McMahon has been fully absent from WWE television for a long time and it’s
been rumored for a longtime that Stephanie McMahon would be a making an appearance really
soon
So everyone thought this could be Stephanie McMahon’s big return.
Not only would it be Stephanie’s big return, but Stephanie would also make a huge announcement
and that would be the official confirmation of Evolution 2, the exclusive women’s only
pay per view event
Evolution 1 was a huge success for the WWE.
They had a jam packed arena full of fans and they had a huge main event of Ronda Rousey
vs Nikki Bella
The show was a great success and the WWE women had their exclusive pay per view event that
showcased all their talent
Everyone first thought that maybe Evolution would be a yearly pay per view event for the
women, but that wasn’t the case
The first evolution event was in 2018, but all of 2019 and half of 2020 has already gone
by with no word at all about a squeal to the women’s only pay per view event
There’s been a lot of back and forth rumors about evolution 2.
At times, it sounded like the event was close to being announced then at other times, it
felt like WWE wasn’t interested at all in doing the event
A popular rumor on why the event wasn’t brought back in 2019 was because Ronda Rousey
wasn’t with WWE
Some reports claim that Ronda Rousey was a big part in why WWE did the first evolution
event and she was another huge reason why the women were given the main event of Wrestlemania
35
The report claimed that Evolution 2 wouldn’t take place without Ronda Rousey competing
in the show and that’s why it’s been delayed for so long
Don’t know how true that is, but knowing WWE’s love for Ronda Rousey, that report
very well could be true and it makes a lot of sense
Not to mention that WWE is currently missing some other huge names such Charlotte Flair
and Becky Lynch as well
But Evolution 2 could still go on without those 3 women that main evented Wrestlemania
Right off the top of my head, I think Sasha Banks vs Bayley would be the perfect main
event for Evolution 2 no doubt about it
Sasha And Bayley are dominating all three of WWE shows and the fans are really invested
in their story, so what better place for them to finally have their big “one on one”
match than at Evolution 2
Last time Sasha Banks and Bayley were given a huge spot on a big card was NXT Takeover
Brooklyn 2015 and that was a historic match in not only women’s history, but the entire
WWE, that match was that phenomenal
So if you give them the honor of headlining Evolution 2, they can definitely carry that
weight on their shoulders
You have Sasha and Bayley as your main event and build the rest of the card underneath
that match, it could definitely work
So that’s what everyone was expecting and everyone was getting hyped for Stephanie McMahon’s
big announcement, but that obviously didn’t happen
The other huge rumor was if this big surprise guest was the long awaited return of former
WWE Superstar AJ Lee
AJ Lee fully retired from the WWE at the age of 29 out of no where and it was a complete
shock to everyone
The reason why AJ Lee left so suddenly is still one of the most highly discussed and
speculated WWE departures in recent years
AJ Lee’s reason for the retirement was that she literally accomplished all there is to
do in WWE, so she decided to just hang up her boots and call it a career at 29 years
old
However, a lot of fans also wonder if AJ’s sudden departure had anything to do with her
husband, CM Punk, and his legal battle with the WWE at the time
AJ addressed this matter several times in her book.
She confirmed that the backstage atmosphere towards her felt really weird and uncomfortable
after CM Punk had such a horrible departure from the WWE himself
AJ Lee talked about the strange looks she would get backstage since everyone obviously
associated her with CM Punk since that was her husband
So it was really weird for everyone that was involved because WWE and CM Punk are having
this huge legal battler, but CM Punk’s wife and is still working for the WWE week after
week, so it was just really uncomfortable and strange for all parties involved
So everyone wondered if that backstage discomfort is what really made AJ say “I can’t take
this anymore” and left the WWE, but covered it up as a “retirement”
AJ Lee’s explanation of accomplishing everything in the WWE was a good reason for her retirement,
but fans still didn’t feel right about it
This was a woman that was so passionate for the WWE, literally put her entire life towards
making it to the WWE, when she’s finally there and in the prime of her career, she
walks away?
It just didn’t add up and sit well with a lot of fans
It all just happened so fast that we didn’t even get a proper send off for AJ.
She just wrestled a 6 women tag match on Raw and retired the next night via twitter and
was never seen again
AJ has made it beyond clear that she is still retired, she even turned down the opportunity
to appear on WWE backstage because she’s still “very much retired”
Yet fans can’t let go of the idea of an AJ Lee return and that’s what lead to AJ
Lee being another popular guess to be Alexa Bliss’ surprise guest
Was AJ a more unrealistic guess?
Yeah, you can say that the chances of AJ actually being the surprise guest was slim to none,
but a lot fans still believed there was a chance for AJ to appear here
The other rumors included either Trish Stratus or Mickie James, two superstars that Alexa
Bliss has history with
Trish Stratus and Alexa Bliss we’re supposed to be meet at the first evolution event, but
Alexa was dealing with injuries at the time so that never happened
Mickie James and Alexa Bliss also go back to 2016 when Mickie played a big role in assisting
Alexa as a manager
So that was some other huge names that fans assumed was the surprise guest, but obviously
it was none of the above
In typical-anticlimactic WWE fashion, the surprise guest was just Aus-ka which felt
so flat and disappointing, I can’t even put it into words
It really shows WWE’s desperation for attention and ratings for the show that they’re going
this low as a cheap way to pull in viewers
Viewers should be tuning in because they like your television product not because they’re
being baited to tune in with these huge surprises that are always a letdown
Ratings for Raw and Smackdown have been at a steady decline for a long time now.
Just last week, Raw never went over 1.5 million viewers.
Raw stayed just around that 1.4 to 1.5 million range which is an all time worst for the history
of Raw
Don’t be mistaken, 1.5 million people tuning in for this sort of product is still a pretty
big number, but you compare it to Raw’s numbers from a few years ago and you can see
just how disappointing this number really is
Raw, from a few years ago, used to easily pull 3 plus million viewers and would probably
dip to 2.8 towards the last hour but never went much lower than that
Look at the ratings now, they’re far away from 3 million, 2 million...now they’re
in the 1 millions and it keeps going down
You would think WWE is having a lot of success with being the only view live entertainment
going on, but that’s not the case at all
Even with all the sports being gone and everyone being stuck at home, it’s still hard for
WWE to pull in viewers
A lot of sports are set to return in the coming weeks, so things might start to look even
worse for WWE
So you can understand why they do these sort of miss leading / false advertisement sort
of segments, but it’s still wrong to build so much hype for “surprise guest” when
in reality, it’s nothing special at all
Sure, it worked for WWE this time around, but as they keep doing it, it’s gonna get
to the point that fans aren’t going to get their hopes up at all anymore because they
know WWE is just gonna let them down
The last announcement that I would say really lived up to the hype was Becky Lynch’s announcement
Everyone guessed that she was pregnant and that turned out to be true, but other than
that, everyone single one of WWE’s “surprises” and big reveals has been non stop letdowns
and that really has to stop
If you know that it really isn’t anything special, don’t get the fans hopes up for
something that isn’t happening
Obviously WWE will not stop this because it definitely works.
Just say that there’s a mystery tag team partner for the main event of a show or a
surprise guest like they did in this situation and the fans will tune in because that whole
mystery element really does help attract viewers
But that’s just my thoughts on them really abusing the whole “mystery big surprise”
guest situation over and over again
How do you feel about what WWE pulled off this week with Alexa’s big mystery guest?
Did Aus-ka live up to your big expectations for the guest or will you heavily disappointed?
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Thanks for watching guys!