When WWE announced the format for its 12-man World Heavyweight Championship tournament, it left fans with more questions than answers. The title was deliberately introduced as a counter to Roman Reigns’ Undisputed WWE Universal Championship and was given to the Monday Night Raw brand after Reigns was drafted to Friday Night SmackDown. But even though the brand split between the two shows is seemingly back, WWE chose to comprise half of the tournament out of SmackDown wrestlers.
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This week’s episode will feature two triple threat matches as part of the tournament — Sheamus vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Austin Theory and AJ Styles vs. Edge vs. Rey Mysterio. Whoever wins those two matches will fight in the main event and the winner of that bout will take on Seth Rollins at Night of Champions to crown the inaugural World Heavyweight Champion. It’s also unclear what would happen if a SmackDown star wins the tournament (will they stay on SmackDown with the title? Would they be moved to Raw? etc.).
According to Dave Meltzer via Wrestling Observer Radio, the booking decision is WWE’s attempt to retain viewership during the ongoing NBA Playoffs. Friday’s edition of SmackDown could be going up against Game 6 of both the New York Knicks vs. Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers vs. Golden State Warriors conference semifinals games. Meltzer also noted that AEW is taking a similar strategy with this week’s Dynamite, adding in matches like Kenny Omega vs. Jon Moxley inside of a Steel Cage.
“I will tell you Monday, Friday, and Wednesday, all three of those shows were booked 100% to hail mary. ‘We got to try to save as much as we can.’ AEW is basically booking a pay-per-view on Wednesday night. They’re coming back and putting the Raw World Title…if people are wondering why the Raw World Title is in a tournament on SmackDown, this is the reason, because they know a normal show right now will do a poor number, so they cannot do a normal show this week,” Meltzer explained (h/t WrestlingNews.co). “AEW knows the same thing. We know what these numbers will end up doing…..wrestling fans are definitely getting benefited greatly by the fact that both of these promotions know that this is a bad week with that Warriors/Lakers series.”
