No Mercy

No Mercy 2017 is shaping up to be one hell of a night. You’ve got the new vs the old as Roman Reigns clashes with John Cena and a war of monsters when Braun Strowman does battle with Brock Lesnar. Underneath that, you’ve got a fatal four-way for the Women’s Title with three of the bigger stars of the division and a tag match between two of WWE’s better sides. It’s a guaranteed night of good wrestling, so why does it feel like WWE still don’t know what they are doing?

Twelve days out from No Mercy, I can’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t the plan. I can’t shake the idea, that WWE is still booking this stuff week to week rather than with an end goal in mind. These matches will be entertaining; but does this show hurt the long-term booking of the product?

Let’s take Reigns vs Cena. That is a big match. You could argue that outside of Lesnar, it’s the biggest match WWE can put on at the moment. So why is it being thrown together with only a few weeks of build? I get that they’ve got people excited with their little shoot comments, but does this match need that gimmick? Does it need Cena going out of his way to make Roman look bad? I don’t think so. This is a WrestleMania main event, not a No Mercy match that’s second from the top.

Lesnar vs Strowman has a similar issue but in a different way. I love the way they’ve built this up. I adore the fact that Strowman is the first man who has stepped up to Lesnar and put him on his ass. Even when Brock came back and lost to Cena he didn’t look this vulnerable. Yet, I can’t help but think how much bigger it could have been. This is also a WrestleMania main event. The Beast will either conquer or he will fall and that should be huge.

And you know what, we might get these matches at WrestleMania someday, but they won’t mean as much. The same way that Bayley retaining her title at ‘Mania this year didn’t mean as much as it would have if she had won it there. The first time is always the most important. By putting the first match on this show, it means that when these matches do happen at ‘Mania there will be an overwhelming feeling of been there done that.

All of these complaints come back to the issue I highlighted above. The idea that WWE isn’t planning this stuff. They allow their plans to be knocked off the rails by the smallest pebble. People complain that Dave Meltzer often gets his information wrong, but how can that not be the case when it’s obvious they don’t know what they’re doing week to week? They put John Cena vs Braun Strowman on free TV last night with absolutely no hype. Why would you do that unless you didn’t know you were going to do it until the day? No Mercy is a show of Braun Strowmans vs John Cenas.

These complaints might sound petty. They might sound like an attempt to kick WWE when there is nothing to kick them for. However, they’re born from a position of wanting it to be better. I know that No Mercy will be a good show but if these matches had been held off on, if they’d been built up to for months rather than weeks, then it could have led to an all-time great show.