Just eleven days ago, I made an article predicting the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments, and I was excited about the chances of getting two fresh and interesting matches in the finals, especially with the unpredictable start that the tournament had.
Now with both finals matchups decided, not only was I wrong on all of my predictions, but I am also no longer excited to see where these tournaments are going.
The umbrella issue here - WWE creative’s unwillingness to pivot from their set plans and try anything different, even when the fans are literally begging them for it.
Let’s break it down.
Queen of the Ring Finals Matchup: Liv Morgan vs Iyo Sky.
There were so many interesting stories to tell here. The caveat from the beginning, or the WWE’s big idea was inserting the WWE Women’s World Champion (Morgan) into a tournament where the winner clinches an automatic shot at a world title. It confused many at first, but still, a lot of good could have come from this twist.
Many fans assumed the second Liv was announced, she would go the distance, because that's the obvious, makes sense correlation. But what if they took that initial idea, and used it in a not so obvious, yet still storyline advancing way? What if the Queen of the Judgement Day was dethroned early on in the tournament, how would she react?
Her best friend Raquel Rodgriguez has had an amazing year, and emerged as one of the top powerhouses in the women’s division. This past Monday Raquel lost to Iyo clean, when there could have been an “accidental” interference from Morgan costing her the match. This way, Raquel is angry, and has incentive to then cost Morgan her match on SmackDown against Charlotte. Now, we have a dream match in Iyo vs Charlotte for QOTR, and a fresh feud finally boiling over between an angry Liv and now face Raquel that could be pushed to SummerSlam, forcing the rest of JD to pick a side, and giving this looming feud a huge exclamation.
My point here is, the WWE could have used Liv in ways that didn’t include her making it to the finals or winning. Technically Raquel could still cost Liv, but at that point she already cost someone else (Charlotte) who isn’t a champion a title shot. Now, if Iyo wins, she’ll have the option to face Liv again for the title, and if Liv wins, she’ll face the other champion, a match that we already have an event (Crown Jewel) for. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I hope they still go the Raquel vs Liv route, but if the WWE creative team was willing to be just a bit - creative - and deviate from their original plan once they saw the potential, this could have been a generational tournament in terms of unpredictability and outcomes.
King of the Ring Finals Matchup: Oba Femi vs Jey Uso
I nearly started laughing just typing that out, “Oba Femi vs Jey Uso” in the finals of a major WWE tournament. In my previous article, I predicted that Je’Von Evans would win KOTR by beating Oba Femi (by way of Brock Lesnar attack) or beating Dom Mysterio (who would have beaten Oba by way of Brock Lesnar attack). All of that was banking on Je’Von beating Jey Uso.
Trust me, as I was typing that article, I had the videos of the backstage segments in my mind, of Roman telling Jey to go win the King of the Ring and face Cody Rhodes, so the Bloodline could have all the major gold. I chose to ignore it, and not even mention Jey Uso in the article. I thought I could force it to not happen by refusing to acknowledge it.
Yet here I am now one match away from being forced to acknowledge Jey as my King of the Ring.
In the WWE’s world, I guess it checks out that an established veteran in Jey got the best of a young Je’Von and won the match. But to me, and many others across the WWE Universe, it didn’t feel right. There have been a million WWE matches, where regardless of outcome, I’ve been able to say yeah, that guy beating that guy makes sense. This wasn’t one of them.
I don’t want to jump on the Jey Uso hate train. He's an amazing professional wrestler, and is one of the most over guys in the business with his “YEET” movement. However, he had his World Title push and ran out of steam a bit, so reinserting him into the big time in a solo capacity like this to me is overdoing it, especially when the ‘Young OG’ was right there to push to the moon.
I am now afraid that at Night of Champions, we’ll see the WWE force Jey Uso to go down to the wire with Oba, who should realistically be squashing Jey like he did with Dom. But, in the case of a Brock Lesnar attack on Oba, Jey uso would win and be crowned King.
The WWE created this narrative of Jey being the second-in-command of sorts in the Bloodline, needing to win this tournament as ordered by Roman to go after Cody’s title. They had many opportunities to deviate from this. For one, having LA Knight (a crowd favorite) win their fatal-four-way. Two, having Knight interfere and cost Jey the match against Je’Von, after Jey and his family attacked him on Monday. Three, just have Je’Von win cleanly and re-visit him and Oba’s NXT rivalry on the biggest stage. None of this even mentioning - fans across the world begging for them to go in any other direction not named Jey. But still, they didn’t budge. It reminds me of their decision to have Cody Rhodes reclaim the WWE title back from Drew McIntyre right before Mania, which the fans were pleading for them not to do.
Oba still could win this match and become king, but for me, Jey Uso being his opponent takes away the anticipation. We could have seen Rollins vs Breakker 3, Rollins vs Femi, Femi vs Evans, even Evans vs Mysterio.
I’m sure the products we see for both these matches will still be great because it is the WWE, but man oh man, what could have been with this year’s King and Queen of the Ring.