WWE Battleground was certainly a strange event. The Undertaker returned, Orton won, Wyatt won, Cena won and Rollins retained. Basically, my big predictions for this event were all wrong. Having said that, it was by no means a poor event, it just made little sense to me moving forward.
The Undertaker returned during the main event to exact revenge on Brock Lesnar. He cost Lesnar the WWE Championship just as he was pinning Seth Rollins for the victory. He then opened RAW and explained his actions. He acknowledged that streaks are made to be broken but then declared that his actions were in response to Brock Lesnar constantly reminding everyone (via Paul Heyman) of his accomplishment at WrestleMania 30.
This raised a few questions. WWE has seemingly booked The Undertaker as the heel in this situation. He cost the new babyface the Championship at his point of victory, he gave him a low blow, gave him the tombstone piledriver twice and tried to beat him down on RAW. The crowd are never going to treat The Undertaker as the heel in this situation so I find it strange they decided to go with the low blow. Also, Heyman even came out later on RAW and quite understandingly stated “Why wouldn’t I brag about the accomplishment?”
The timing doesn’t make sense either. If The Undertaker is so enraged at Lesnar for bragging about his win, why did he not return to face him at WrestleMania 31? After all, he was at the height of his bragging and he was the WWE Champion at that time.
Instead, we get a rematch at SummerSlam and what does it really do for either man? If Undertaker wins, Lesnar’s momentum takes a pounding, which is already damaged by fans feeling shoehorned in to booing him because he’s facing the most respected man in wrestling.
Also, if Undertaker picks up the victory, it doesn’t really mean much for him either, as the match is taking place at SummerSlam not WrestleMania. Logically it would have made more sense for Lesnar to win the Championship and then Undertaker confronts him. At least that way, something would have been on the line at SummerSlam.
If Lesnar wins at SummerSlam, what does it mean for Undertaker? Maybe that’ll be the end of it or maybe we will get a possible The Undertaker and Sting confrontation the night after to potentially setup up a match for Dallas but in reality it’s still very doubtful and confusing.
I don’t want to sound too negative, because Lesnar and Undertaker is still a blockbuster match. I just wished WWE had taken a little more care in going in this direction. However, I’m sure if care is taken by Brock during the match, it’ll be a lot better than the WrestleMania encounter which had Undertaker receiving and finishing the match with a concussion. I don’t expect this match to visit suplex city and if it does, expect a variation of a suplex to take centre stage.
Also, during Battleground, John Cena defeated Kevin Owens. Everyone seems to have an opinion on this, whether you love John Cena or whether you think Kevin Owens was ‘buried’ I simply cannot understand what direction this is going in unless they planned to put the belt on Owens at SummerSlam. Unfortunately, due to the confrontation between Cena and Rollins on RAW, this appears to be unlikely. There have been reports suggesting that Owens is now being taken away from the main event scene which if accurate is truly a shame.
