WWE Mailbag: Answering Your Questions on Cody Rhodes, Batista and More

Drake OzJun 7, 2018

It's time for the greatest part of every Friday, the WWE Mailbag.

As you probably know by now, in the mailbag I answer your questions on anything and everything WWE-related.

You can ask questions to be considered for it through Twitter or Formspring, and the general rule is that I answer anything that isn't inappropriate, repetitive, boring or ridiculous.

The better the question, the more likely it is to be answered here in the B/R mailbag, although I'll answer just about every question anyway.

In this week's edition, I tackle a number of topics, including a look back at Extreme Rules, an interesting query about the Money in the Bank Match and a debate about Batista as a top star.

All right, let's go to it. Here is the latest WWE Mailbag.

Enjoy!

What Do I Think About Cody Rhodes Winning the IC Belt Back?

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Your thoughts on Cody Rhodes winning the IC title again?

He never should have lost it in the first place.

I'm about 99 percent sure that the only reason Rhodes lost the Intercontinental Championship to Big Show at WrestleMania was because Show had never won the IC title, and they wanted to have him win it so he can now say that he's won every active title in the WWE.

Stupid booking, but it is what it is.

They should have let Rhodes hold the IC belt for more than a year and win a World title while holding it to become a dual champion. I actually think it's still possible that he holds two titles at once, though.

You let Rhodes build himself back up as IC Champion over the next few months, win Money in the Bank at SummerSlam and then successfully cash in to hold both the IC and World/WWE title at the same time.

Rhodes definitely deserves to hold some sort of World title gold, and I'm going to be pissed if his second reign as IC Champion keeps him in the mid-card.

If it helps elevate him, though, then I really like the move to get the belt back on him.

Should WWE Have More Gimmicks?

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Do you think WWE would be better if they had more gimmick wrestlers instead of the cookie cutter first name/last name ones?

Just because a guy only goes by a first and last name, it doesn't mean that he has no gimmick.

See: Dolph Ziggler, Daniel Bryan, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, etc.

And to he honest, I don't think that the over-the-top gimmicks, aside from The Undertaker, thrive in wrestling today. The guys who have gimmicks that work (CM Punk, Zack Ryder, etc.) make those gimmicks work simply because they're extensions of their real-life personalities or beliefs.

Otherwise, the wrestlers with clear-cut gimmicks, like Brodus Clay, Santino Marella and R-Truth, are basically comedy characters.

These over-the-top gimmicks thrived in the 1980s and 1990s, but with the advancement of the Internet and the knowledge that fans have, it's really hard to get a gimmick over that would have been incredibly popular back then.

The names I don't really care about because a wrestler should never be limited by his ring name, unless it's something ridiculous like Michael McGillicutty.

I think the WWE has actually done a decent job of setting some wrestlers apart as characters without having to give them some wacky gimmick where they wear masks or come down to the ring covered in face paint.

Wrestling is more real today in the sense that most of the successful wrestlers just play themselves on TV rather than some crazy character, and I actually prefer it that way because it comes across as more believable.

What's the Ideal Amount of Competitors in the Money in the Bank Match?

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How many competitors should be in a Money In The Bank ladder match? 6? 8? 10? 30? Does it have to be an even number?

You know the saying "less is more?" Well, I think that's very appropriate here.

We've seen the Money in the Bank match have six, seven (WrestleMania 24), eight or even 10 competitors, but yes, I prefer an even number. And yes, I prefer six competitors.

When you have a MITB ladder match with 10 competitors, things can get really crowded really quickly, and it can be very hard to have a solid flow to the match.

Eight has proven to work fine so far (and I have no problem with eight participants), but the MITB ladder match started off with six, and I'd prefer to keep it that way.

While having eight competitors gets more people on the card, it also leads to guys like Heath Slater (who had no business being in the bout) participating in it.

I'd rather see six mid-carders or upper mid-carders who all have a legit chance to win the bout, and I think six is a good number because it makes every guy in the match stand out.

With eight wrestlers, that's hard to do, and with 10 wrestlers, it's even harder.

Six is the right amount because it's not too much or too little.

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Ricardo Rodriguez as a Wrestler?

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Do you think Ricardo Rodriguez will ever become a full-time wrestler in WWE?

I could definitely see it happening.

Rodriguez is, of course, a trained wrestler, and when you look at the WWE today, you tend to see a lot of comedy characters.

Hornswoggle, Brodus Clay and Santino Marella are all on TV primarily for comedy purposes (even if the "comedy" isn't always that funny), and I think that Rodriguez could settle into a similar role.

In fact, I could certainly picture Rodriguez as a pretty over mid-card babyface like Santino.

Remember how over Rodriguez was during his little comedy routine in the Royal Rumble match?

He's hilarious, has great facial expressions and mannerisms and could undoubtedly work in a mid-card comedy role for the long-term.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'd be surprised if that didn't happen within the next year or two.

Triple H to Take over for John Laurinaitis?

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will johnny ace keep his role or will the brass eventually give it back to Triple H because hes good at playing the heel and would make a great villain to help put over rising superstars?

Well, for starters, I don't think we're going to see a heel Triple H anytime soon.

Since he is now a part-time wrestler, it's going to be almost impossible for him to get anything but a baby face reaction on the random occasions when he does show up. Nor do I think he will "help put over rising superstars."

Just ask Sheamus and CM Punk.

That being said, John Laurinaitis just gained control of both Raw and SmackDown less than a month ago, and I honestly don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon.

At the same time, the natural way to remove Laurinaitis from power would be to have Triple H try to regain control of the company.

But do we really want to see another battle between two authority figures? I sure don't.

I'll say that, at least for a while (a year or more), Laurinaitis will run both shows until the WWE is presented with a better alternative, whatever that might be.

Remember, Teddy Long was the on-and-off GM of SmackDown for like eight years. Most authority figures stick around for a while.

Was Batista on the Same Level as Orton and Cena?

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Did you ever see Batista as one of the biggest stars in WWE? Like on the level of John Cena and Orton?

Well, for starters, I don't think anyone is/was on the same level as John Cena in recent years.

But Batista on the same level as Randy Orton? I think so.

He was part of Evolution, won the Royal Rumble once, won four World Heavyweight and two WWE Championships, main-evented SummerSlams and WrestleManias, etc.

That's a pretty damn impressive resume if you ask me, and if you just go back and look at everything Batista did over the last five years of his WWE run, it's pretty clear that he was booked line one of the top three or four stars in the company.

There was a time when Edge, Orton, Cena, Batista and Triple H hogged the main event for a while, and I think it's because they were the top five full-time stars in the WWE at the time.

Where you rank Batista on that list is up for debate, but it's hard to argue against him being one of the WWE's biggest names and best booked superstars over that five-year period from 2005 to 2010.

My Thoughts on Extreme Rules

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what did you think about extreme rules

There seem to be mixed feelings about Extreme Rules, but I personally thought it was awesome and probably even a better overall show than WrestleMania 28.

Chris Jericho and CM Punk had a much better match at Extreme Rules than they did at Mania, so did Sheamus and Daniel Bryan (fantastic match there), and Kane vs. Randy Orton did, too.

Throw in that amazingly entertaining match between Brock Lesnar and John Cena and the surprising return of Layla, and what more could you ask for out of a B-level pay-per-view?

A show like this could have easily been a throwaway PPV, but instead, it featured three four-star matches (at least in my view) and a really good Kane/Orton match.

There were definitely some lows (the two squash matches), and I didn't particularly care for Cena winning the main event (though I didn't hate it, either).

But first and foremost, I'm a wrestling fan, and we got some incredible wrestling at Extreme Rules.

I thought it was the best B-level PPV since Money in the Bank 2011 (also in Chicago) and the best PPV of 2012 so far.

Will SmackDown Ever Be the 'Flagship Show?'

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will Smackdown ever be the "flagship show"?

It depends on how you define "flagship show."

To be honest, I'd say that SmackDown is becoming almost even with Raw because of Raw's "Supershow" format.

Which stars appear on both shows every week? SmackDown stars, right?

And how often do Raw stars appear on SmackDown? Not near as often as SmackDown stars show up on Raw.

Raw will likely always be the show that is called the "A" or "flagship" show and gets the higher ratings, but Smackdown stars take up more TV time every week and arguably have more of an influence on WWE storylines.

Plus, when you look at Smackdown's roster, it's pretty damn talented and is probably even better than Raw's.

Like I said, the answer to this question depends on how you define "flagship," but I'd say that Raw and SmackDown are a lot more evenly balanced than people tend to think.

Raw is on a better network and on a better TV night, but that's about the only thing that makes it more of the flagship show than SmackDown.

My Thoughts on a New Trend in WWE

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I'm starting to see a trend I don't like with the WWE, we're seeing more and more part time wrestlers who do promos on RAW and only wrestle on PPVs (Jericho, Lesnar, The Rock, Undertaker, etc). Are we going to see more of this?

To be fair, Chris Jericho has competed on Raw and even SmackDown multiple times.

And while I do see your point (and think it's hurting the future of the WWE at least a little bit), the bottom line is that all the guys you mentioned are among the biggest names in the wrestling business and have earned the right to do this.

Otherwise, the WWE would have never given them the contracts that they have in the first place.

That being said, I do think we will see more of this because The Rock proved to be a tremendous draw for the WWE, Undertaker is going to continue to wrestle once per year, Jericho is going to be a top star even if he doesn't wrestle all that much on TV, and Lesnar's matches will be few and far between.

I'm not necessarily crazy about it, but from a business perspective, it definitely seems to be working for the WWE. The success of WrestleMania 28 shows that.

While I'm not sure exactly how much more time those aforementioned names have in WWE, it's a pretty safe bet that we will see at least another major name or two (like Batista, Bobby Lashley or "Stone Cold" Steve Austin) do the same.

It won't be great for morale, but it will happen.