WWE: Good week, bad week
Thursday 23 March 2017 12:35, UK
WrestleMania is now on the horizon and with almost all the matches for the event already announced, Raw and SmackDown are now preparing for their final stop on the Road To WrestleMania next week.
NXT superstars are also gearing up for Takeover: Orlando next Saturday night, with every Championship currently scheduled to be on the line.
There is no better time to be a WWE fan than right in the middle of WrestleMania season, and here are the superstars who have stood out at the best possible time this week.
Good week
The Usos
The Usos have been one of the visually compelling teams on the SmackDown roster for a long time, but the Tag Team Championships has been something that has eluded them for almost a year. Finally the real-life twins lifted the gold this week when they defeated American Alpha.
Just 12 nights ahead of WrestleMania a title change was a huge shock. The title match for WrestleMania is still yet to be confirmed, but this win will definitely put a spanner into the plans of American Alpha who will now be expecting a rematch to help them reclaim their championships on the grandest stage of them all.
Dean Ambrose
The last time Dean Ambrose was seen on SmackDown Live he was being crushed under a forklift truck at the hands of Baron Corbin. This week, The Lunatic Fringe returned and not only cost Corbin his match against Randy Orton, but he then hit him with Dirty Deeds and announced that the two would be facing off for the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania.
Ambrose has been on the back foot ever since Elimination Chamber and this week he finally stepped out from under Corbin and proved that he has what it takes to outsmart The Lone Wolf, which gives him the upper hand this close to their final showdown.
Nia Jax
Nia Jax has only been on the Raw roster since the WWE Draft back in the summer, but she has left a path of destruction in her wake and finally that was rewarded this week when she was able to defeat Bayley in a No-Disqualification match to book her place in the Women's Championship match next weekend.
The encounter has now been upgraded to a fatal-four-way match that includes all four women who are currently in the title picture, and also marks the first time that Nia Jax has competed at WrestleMania.
Bad Week
Mick Foley
Mick Foley's job has been on the line for the past few weeks and, when he attacked Triple H last week on Raw, it was obvious that there would be repercussions. This week Foley and Commissioner Stephanie McMahon got into another heated confrontation and she fired her former friend.
Foley took it like a man and was able to say his emotional farewells to all of the superstars who he has helped over the past few months, but this does now leave a vacant position on the Raw roster. It will be interesting to see who takes the spot and follows in the footsteps of The Hardcore Legend.
Tyler Breeze
It is seemingly not enough for WWE that Tyler Breeze has been brought onto the SmackDown roster to team with Fandango as part of a duo that never wins a match, but now to further humiliate him, this week he was forced to dress up as Nikki Bella and then tap to her as well.
Breeze and Fandango don't have a match at WrestleMania right now, and this just added insult to injury, as he was forced to humiliate himself to help Nikki and John Cena to look strong ahead of their WrestleMania match against The Miz and Maryse.
Oney Lorcan
Oney Lorcan hasn't been seen on NXT since 2016, last week he made a statement by calling out Andrade "Cien" Almas when it was made obvious that he was bullying HoHo Lun. This week he had the opportunity to finally make a name for himself in front of the University of Central Florida crowd, and he didn't take it.
Oney hasn't won a match in NXT since his debut and given that NXT Takeover is merely days away, this would have been the perfect time to make a statement, but he failed and instead switched the focus onto his opponent, who will likely now be added to the Takeover card.
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