The New Day vs. The Club: The Good, Bad and Ugly of Current WWE Feud

The New Day's continued attempt to keep Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson from seizing the WWE Tag Team Championship should be a far better story than it is.

WWE found the ideal rivals for the champs and a smart place to position The Club. But where this feud succeeds conceptually, it has limped along thanks to an off-the-mark dynamic.

Gallows and Anderson are simply not the predators they were with New Japan Pro Wrestling. WWE has diluted their aura, steered them in the wrong direction and left The New Day without worthy foils as a result. 

As these two squads charge toward another meeting at Clash of Champions, the underwhelming rivalry isn't a lost cause. It is a few displays of viciousness away from getting really good.

The Good

The tag team champs have run roughshod over the division.

The New Day has held tight to the gold since last year's SummerSlam. Neither The Dudley Boyz, The Lucha Dragons nor The Usos could dethrone the trio. Big E and his crew were running out of quality competition just as Gallows and Anderson arrived from Japan.

A spark surrounded the invaders right away. A showdown with The New Day was inevitable. 

The juxtaposition of bruisers and jokesters, the vilified and the beloved felt just right. As the folks at Mat Men podcast tweeted: "The Club is the perfect team to feud with New Day."

Just before SummerSlam, WWE had the right instinct with Gallows and Anderson. The heels attacked and injured Big E, shrinking The New Day down to a duo temporarily.

There was a chance there to tell an intriguing story of the champions' vulnerability, but the company instead turned that moment into a punchline.

The Bad

The numbers tell the story of why The New Day vs. The Club story has failed to get out of the starting blocks.

Gallows and Anderson haven't looked like legitimate contenders. Per CageMatch.net, they have won two matches since the draft as a team, with one of them by disqualification.

That follows John Cena pushing both guys around with ease during his feud with The Club's former head man, AJ Styles.

And when The Club has faced the tag team champs, WWE has leaned on 50-50 booking. Without Styles, Gallows and Anderson are 3-3 against The New Day. Gallows defeated Kofi Kingston on Aug. 8; Big E beat Anderson on Aug. 22.

Neither team has had a chance to gain significant momentum of late.

Why not separate them more often on Monday nights and let both The New Day and The Club score wins over lesser teams? Instead, the audience has seen several images of Anderson and Gallows on their back, of the champions and challenger running in place.

WWE should be presenting these teams like superpowers headed for a collision course, letting each side grow more powerful apart from each other until Clash of Champions.

The Ugly

As much as The New Day thrives at silliness, it's baffling WWE would have its rivals also slide into a comedic role. The feud has seen the company pile comedy on comedy, leaving the champs' feud with The Club lacking in violence and animosity.

Gallows and Anderson spent several weeks making testicle jokes each Monday. They have since moved on to puns about being old, talking about how they will help put teams into early retirement. The shtick is underwhelming and an odd route to take considering how those two are just clobbering whoever gets in their way.

Adam Pacitti of What Culture asked on Twitter: "What happened to Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows being legitimate bad asses?" Only Vince McMahon knows.  

The battle for the tag team titles could have been a war between warrior troops, but it has morphed into an attempt to make the crowd giggle. Rather than The New Day taking on the imposing rivals it needed, it now faces a subpar vaudeville act.

Projections

The New Day will split, amicably or otherwise, by the end of this feud.

WWE alliances don't last as long as this one has. That's not necessarily the right move considering how much chemistry these three guys have, but the company is going to want to shake things up. The New Day has held the tag titles for over a year now. 

And Big E is likely poised for a big singles push.

Dana Brooke, who briefly joined The Club on the last Raw of August to clash with The New Day and Bayley, will later become a long-term addition to the crew. Her partnership with women's champ Charlotte has already run out of steam. And Brooke's presence will allow WWE to continue to give The Club an added dimension, goofy as it may be.

Corny antics and all, The Club will win the Tag Team Championship from The New Day.

The champs have already broken the record for the longest reign with the current version of the titles. They have faced just about everyone. WWE will believe that it's time to move, to see if Gallows and Anderson can create new sparks as the ones sitting atop the tag division.

How entertaining that transition will be depends on whether WWE wishes to adjust the tone of the narrative.