{"id":14796,"date":"2018-03-02T15:07:46","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T20:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=14796"},"modified":"2018-03-02T15:08:21","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T20:08:21","slug":"stepping-up-to-the-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/03\/02\/stepping-up-to-the-bar\/","title":{"rendered":"Stepping Up To The Bar: Who&#8217;ll Challenge for WrestleMania?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This past Monday\u00a0on <em><strong>Monday Night Raw<\/strong><\/em>, Raw Tag Team Champions <strong>Sheamus<\/strong> and <strong>Cesaro<\/strong> defeated <strong>Titus Worldwide<\/strong> (Titus O&#8217;Neil &amp; Apollo) in a Best 2-out-of-3 Falls Match to end their current feud. But with a month and a half until <em><strong>WrestleMania 34<\/strong><\/em>, there&#8217;s no clear indication who the 4x Raw Tag Team Champions could be facing in New Orleans &#8211; as Sheamus indicated, they&#8217;ve beaten all comers, from <strong>The Hardys<\/strong> to <strong>Seth Rollins &amp; Dean Ambrose<\/strong> to Titus Worldwide.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Cesaro &amp; Sheamus vs. Titus Worldwide - 2-out-of-3 Falls Raw Tag Team Title Match: Raw, Feb. 26, 2018\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uJ3Zdk4qVhE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Over on <em><strong>Smackdown Live<\/strong><\/em>, <strong>The Usos<\/strong> seem headed towards a confrontation with <strong>The Bludgeon Brothers<\/strong> (Luke Harper &amp; Erick Rowan), but with <em><strong>Fastlane<\/strong><\/em> cutting off <em>WrestleMania 34<\/em> at the pass, this matchup may end up there instead. But The Usos also have unfinished business with <strong>Chad Gable &amp; Shelton Benjamin<\/strong>, giving the Usos somewhat of an idea who they&#8217;ll end up defending their titles against (either one of the two or in a Triple Threat).<\/p>\n<h3><strong>THE REVIVAL<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14969\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14969\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-14969\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/02\/revivalreturn-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14969\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The seemingly obvious choice as <strong>The Revival<\/strong> have yet to have a meaningful feud on <em>Raw<\/em> since their call up from NXT, when they were seemingly the hottest tag team in the world (although back to back injuries to both <strong>Dash<\/strong> and <strong>Dawson<\/strong> didn&#8217;t help the first half of their year). They&#8217;re still somewhat feuding with Anderson &amp; Gallows, but there&#8217;s time to insert them into a program for March to end up challenging The Bar at <em>WrestleMania 34<\/em>, although with both teams being heels, it may be something WWE creative is apprehensive to pull the trigger on. Although both seemed to respond to Sheamus&#8217; claims this past Monday when they said no one was left to challenge them.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/ScottDawsonWWE\/status\/968370592322916353<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/DashWilderWWE\/status\/968617721679241217<\/p>\n<h3><strong>KARL ANDERSON &amp; LUKE GALLOWS<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14967\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14967\" style=\"width: 503px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-14967\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/02\/179_RAW_06052017mm_1292-a84a49cfa44ae36b1ab9d54bb85e5fe2-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"503\" height=\"503\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14967\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Anderson &amp; Gallows<\/strong> have had an up and down career in the WWE since arriving from NJPW with <strong>AJ Styles<\/strong> in 2016. They&#8217;ve held the Raw Tag Team titles, but only felt relevant when paired with either Styles or now with<strong> Finn Balor<\/strong>. They&#8217;ve had solid momentum and are currently in a pseudo feud with The Revival, but they also step up to challenge The Bar for the titles in New Orleans &#8211; they could even be the face lynchpins for a potential Triple Threat with The Revival and The Bar. But with Finn battling The Miz, they may end up facing <strong>The Miztourage<\/strong> (Bo Dallas &amp; Curtis Axel) in a rematch from this past Monday on the Kick Off Show.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>TITUS WORLDWIDE<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14966\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14966\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-14966\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/02\/172_RAW_06192017cm_5034-aecefbc9908109b6c4123810632b1079-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14966\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>They&#8217;ve been feuding with The Bar the past few weeks and had the upper hand most of the time, except when it really counted. There&#8217;s plenty of time for Titus Worldwide to fight their way back into contention and ultimately have a rematch at <em>WrestleMania 34<\/em>, and perhaps this time finally winning tag team gold.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>WAR MACHINE<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14970\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14970\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14970\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/02\/war20machine-e1520013719653.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14970\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>War Machine<\/strong> were notably absent in the announcement for teams for this year&#8217;s Dusty Rhodes Classic Tag Team Tournament in NXT, despite joining the Performance Center at the same time as other recruits, <strong>Ricochet<\/strong> and <strong>Candice LeRae<\/strong>, both of whom have already debuted. Could War Machine be simply be biding their time training at the PC and instead be debuting on the roster as a mystery &#8220;new&#8221; tag team to step up and challenge The Bar in the coming weeks?<\/p>\n<h3><strong>AUTHORS OF PAIN<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14968\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14968\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14968\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/02\/authors-of-pain-1-e1520013742216.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14968\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When the tournament for this year&#8217;s Dusty Rhodes Classic was announced,<strong> Triple H<\/strong> made an interesting comment on Twitter, that the winner would &#8220;make history on the biggest stage during the biggest weekend of the year&#8221;. While he may simply mean NXT Takeover: New Orleans, the biggest stage on WrestleMania weekend is obviously WrestleMania itself. If that&#8217;s the swerve (that the winner gets a tag team shot at WrestleMania), we could see Authors of Pain win their second Dusty Rhodes Classic and arrive on the main roster at <em>WrestleMania<\/em> itself and make their debut one for the history books.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A tournament for 8 teams to prove they\u2019re the best, for 1 team to make history on the biggest stage during the biggest weekend of the year. The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/DustyClassic?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#DustyClassic<\/a> is about showcasing what <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWENXT?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@WWENXT<\/a> is about&#8230;and honoring the man who helped build it. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Dream?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Dream<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ksV1e9cAVr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ksV1e9cAVr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Triple H (@TripleH) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TripleH\/status\/967102235401388032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 23, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Who do you think will The Bar will face at WrestleMania 34? Let us know in the comments below!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This past Monday\u00a0on Monday Night Raw, Raw Tag Team Champions Sheamus and Cesaro defeated Titus Worldwide (Titus O&#8217;Neil &amp; Apollo) in a Best 2-out-of-3 Falls Match to end their current feud. But with a month and a half until WrestleMania 34, there&#8217;s no clear indication who the 4x Raw Tag Team Champions could be facing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":14965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[527,400,399,1116,243,632,396],"class_list":["post-14796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-wwe-universe","tag-authors-of-pain","tag-cesaro","tag-sheamus","tag-the-bar","tag-the-revival","tag-war-machine","tag-wrestlemania"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}