Happy New Year! Hailing at the home of the World Champion Atlanta Braves and the home of the runner up of the Eastern Conference, Atlanta Hawks, the State Farm Arena hosted a new WWE Pay Per View called Day 1 and with insurmountable odds, a rather underwhelming series of go home episodes and the positive COVID test of Universal Champion, Roman Reigns. Day 1 was in a lot of disarrays but in weird circumstances, WWE has pulled through with a solid event to start of the year.
Welcome to the first 3 Count of the year for the WWE Day 1 Event
WWE Day 1 Takeaways
1.) Smackdown is DIRECTIONLESS without Roman Reigns
As much warranted criticism that Raw gets on a week-to-week basis, after this show, Raw has more certainty than Smackdown at this point in time. Foreshadowing the third point of this article, Day 1 may possibly have solidified Raw’s WrestleMania picture more than ever.
Smackdown entering into the show had a pre-show match and a not-so-needed McIntyre/Moss match. With Toni Storm’s exiting and Roman Reigns’ COVID diagnosis, Smackdown was left with the short end of the stick and it didn’t do them any favors entering into the show and the remaining period heading into the Road to WrestleMania.
2.) Liv Morgan May Be the Best Choice to Win the 2022 Women’s Royal Rumble.
Day One was a stellar show and the addition of the Morgan vs Becky Lynch, Raw Women’s Championship match only boosted this show even more.
This was a matchup that solidified Morgan as a top talent entering into the new year. Although, she’s not the strongest talker compared to the likes of the Horsewomen, Bianca Belair and Shotzi. Morgan as a wrestler shines with empathy, hard work, and persistence.
Morgan’s consistently decent performances have put her in a position that WWE heads should be considering her as a favorite to win the Rumble match setting up Lynch vs Morgan III at WrestleMania 38. It makes the most sense from a storyline perspective and at the moment of writing this, no other women’s wrestler right now on either brand makes any logical sense to win the Rumble.
Kick Out: New Day vs The Uso’s is what you expect, but that’s not a bad thing.
The best thing about having these two teams go against each other, you can always count on consistent performances and it’s nearly impossible for these teams to have a bad match against each other.
The chemistry is there, the history is there, the work rate is there, these teams always put on a good to excellent match against each other bringing the crowd in and keeping the momentum high as a whole to keep the show going in the right direction.
3.) The Fatal 5 Way could very well set up the WrestleMania picture.
This match was a stellar matchup between five of the best wrestlers on the Raw brand. Sure, Lesnar having the WWE Championship might’ve been a disappointing result to some but honestly, it’s a safe choice heading into the WrestleMania season.
This match heavily teased a Bobby Lashley vs Brock Lesnar encounter. This match might just be the change of pace for a night two main event for WrestleMania 38. For many, especially Lashley, this was the direction that was wanted. “The Almighty” wanted to face Lesnar and this matchup on numerous levels is extremely the big money match of the entire WrestleMania weekend.
With Big E taking the pin however, this could very well put him in the Universal championship picture. With the Uso Brothers going against the New Day, and Reigns been really going against E’s fellow members of the New Day with Xavier Woods’ King of the Ring crown being a vital storyline point, E could very well win the Royal Rumble with the potential of a Universal Championship feud between him and the “Tribal Chief.”
Which with Reigns’ shifting of rivalries due to the unfortunate circumstances of testing positive for COVID-19 due to the rise of the Omicron variant, plans could very well change in that direction.
As for Rollins and Owens, the storyline between them could very well lead to two directions. One, a tag team matchup between them and RK-Bro or another single’s feud between the two. It was honestly, the safest choice heading into the next few months.
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the WWE Network and Peacock.
