What is the Worse Title Match Booking Move? (Sami Vs. Drew)

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

I’m really hoping Sami wins it tonight as it’s very unlikely and would be a welcome surprise.

Over all though I think Drew losing at Clash at the Castle was the worse booking move. Sami is white hot and Montreal is always going to be a hot wrestling city. With Drew though…well look at how he fell down the card.

Beyond that with Clash at the Castle WWE looked like they could set the stage for a big European stadium show to be a regular tradition. Maybe not annual, but that certainly is possible.

Yet, with the way it ended…it was just really bad. Like one of the worst big wrestling event endings I‘ve ever seen. It would be like if at the end of the first WrestleMania Bob Orton knocked out Hogan with his cast and Paul Orndorff pinned him in the middle of the ring. Then Piper and gang walked off and Hogan woke up 5 minutes later to hum the theme of the A Team with Mr. T.

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

I'd say Drew losing because at least Sami has some interesting storylines coming out of it depending on how he loses (Jey/Kevin/etc). Drew just really had nothing after that. It was his chance at a historic event and he just lost.

[Moppy]

These aren't comparable. Drew losing at Clash is worse by a country mile.

[Allie Kitsune]

It's Drew.

And to boot, they made the man look like a fool, singing with Tyson Fury afterward (doesn't matter if that wasn't originally supposed to be on camera, because they DID put it on camera).

[Deleted]

Feb 18, 2023 10:16:07 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

It's Drew.

And to boot, they made the man look like a fool, singing with Tyson Fury afterward (doesn't matter if that wasn't originally supposed to be on camera, because they DID put it on camera).

While also showing a guy in the crowd with a better dad than Chris Benoit shirt on

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Feb 18, 2023 10:19:46 GMT -5 slickrickstyles said:

Feb 18, 2023 10:16:07 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

It's Drew.

And to boot, they made the man look like a fool, singing with Tyson Fury afterward (doesn't matter if that wasn't originally supposed to be on camera, because they DID put it on camera).

While also showing a guy in the crowd with a better dad than Chris Benoit shirt on

Austin 3:16 fan definitely thought this was worse booking.

[A Little Doo Doo]

I'm always going to hold CATC against HHH. Dude ripped my heart out.

[1 Free Moon-Down with Burger]

My opinion?

We haven’t even got the Sami one yet so we can’t even tell. But business in every metric has gone up since CATC so it’s hard to say that was a bad decision.

Continuing the reign has just built and built and built and it’s working

[4real]

I still can’t believe they had Drew lose in the UK’s biggest show in 30 years. Roof would have come off the place if he had won. I was gutted but hey at least I got to see Tyson Fury singing live right?!

[Gerard Gerard]

Feb 18, 2023 11:49:01 GMT -5 4real said:

I still can’t believe they had Drew lose in the UK’s biggest show in 30 years. Roof would have come off the place if he had won. I was gutted but hey at least I got to see Tyson Fury singing live right?!

Agree, especially since so much of Drew's fanfare going in signaled a title switch. I'm sure the eventual title switch is going to be swell, but not sure it was worth bypassing such a natural and satisfying off-ramp to get there.

[Rudy Gobert Weather Machine]

Neither. I think passing over literally anything that we've been getting now in favour of a Drew McIntyre title reign would have been awful and I say that as someone who was dying for it at the time.

[1 Free Moon-Down with Burger]

Feb 18, 2023 12:41:24 GMT -5 Rudy Gobert Weather Machine said:

Neither. I think passing over literally anything that we've been getting now in favour of a Drew McIntyre title reign would have been awful and I say that as someone who was dying for it at the time.

Yeah.

Like, I enjoy Drew but giving up all the Zayn stuff and the Cody stuff? No way.

(Side tangent but for all the talk when Cody won the rumble about how there’s “no story” to him beating Roman, people really wanted Drew to win when the story there was literally “the match is happening near where he was born”)

[Kay Faban]

Neither was/would be a bad move.

[Jindrak Mark]

Drew because I think you could easily have given him his moment at Clash and dropped it back to Roman a month later. Does anyone remember Bulldog's IC title run after beating Bret? Doesn't matter, he had that legendary moment at Wembley and it will live forever. That could have been Drew's Summerslam 92 moment that we talk about for 30 years. And it was still over half a year out from Wrestlemania so it wouldn't really effect anything else and all the other great Bloodline stuff could have happened as is. The only difference is Roman going into Wrestlemania on the back of a 6 month reign instead of 3 years. I understand in story the title length is important but in reality do people actually exist who would have been like "you know this Wrestlemania card looks pretty good but Roman has only been champ for 180 days, not 900, that's a deal breaker for me and I'm not ordering the show."

Sami losing I don't think will be a bad choice at all. It's the right call given the circumstances. Like if this Montreal PPV happened 6 months ago like Drew/Clash I'd say go for it but a month out from Wrestlemania a title change here just screws up a lot of things. Roman v Cody and Usos v Sami/KO makes for a way better Wrestlemania card in my eyes than Roman/Cody/Sami (with one of the faces obviously having to fail) and the Usos in a weaker match. Sami loses due to Jey tonight. Bloodline beat him down until KO makes the save to send the crowd home happy. At Wrestlemania Sami & KO beat the Usos and Cody beats Roman. That's the way to go for me.

[dbrussel]

The only thing i remember is Drew singing after his match, so it wasnt that bad.

[darbus alan]

I think with Sami you expect Roman to retain because there's no way he's ending his mega-reigns on the gimmick PLE before Wrestlemania. It's all about execution of how he loses. If it sets up Sami for Mania, then it did its job.

Drew felt like he had more of a legit chance to win. Especially since it was the first major event on Drew's side of the Pond since covid (granted he's Scottish and the show was in Wales, so not exactly the hometown guy). And then you had the weird singalong after.

[TOK Is the Target Demo]

Feb 18, 2023 12:41:24 GMT -5 Rudy Gobert Weather Machine said:

Neither. I think passing over literally anything that we've been getting now in favour of a Drew McIntyre title reign would have been awful and I say that as someone who was dying for it at the time.

If it was only for the WWE Championship and not both, it would have been the time to pull the trigger. But taking everything of Roman halfway through and not landing the Sami/Jay story first would have been insane looking at it in hindsight

[XIII]

Sami. This is a perfect storm of a story culminating in Montreal which will be absolutely molten.

[Friday Night SmackOwn]

Feb 18, 2023 13:48:04 GMT -5 darbus alan said:

I think with Sami you expect Roman to retain because there's no way he's ending his mega-reigns on the gimmick PLE before Wrestlemania. It's all about execution of how he loses. If it sets up Sami for Mania, then it did its job.

Drew felt like he had more of a legit chance to win. Especially since it was the first major event on Drew's side of the Pond since covid (granted he's Scottish and the show was in Wales, so not exactly the hometown guy). And then you had the weird singalong after.

It’s like how Kofi didn’t win at EC 2019, but the show still ended on a note that made it quite clear his story didn’t end there. I expect the same for Sami tonight.

[Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story]

Drew and in my opinion, there's no real comparison. Sami's still going to be red hot after this and have a tag team title main event-level match waiting for him with his best friend. Drew is back in midcard land.