Ryan Dilbert's 10-Count: The New Day Sputtering Due to Lack of Strong Rivals

1. New Day Needs New Foes

Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston and Big E sit bored and unchallenged atop the tag team mountaintop.

As entertaining as the champions are, their reign is growing stagnant. There's simply not enough opposition to make the most of the group's talents. As Sean Rueter of Cageside Seats wrote, "It doesn't take a genius to notice the lack of challengers WWE currently has set up for tag champs The New Day."

That has The New Day stuck in limbo, with no foil to bring out the best of them, no adversary to build a narrative around.

Los Matadores disappeared a few months back. The Lucha Dragons appear to be on hold as Kalisto holds tight to the United States Championship. The champs have taken out The Usos and The Dudley Boyz plenty, and now need fresh faces to step up to them.

There is no more clear indication of how much New Day is running in place than the trio's position on the Fastlane card. While other wrestlers are set to collide with their enemies in high-octane matches, the tag team titleholders will appear in a talking segment opposite Edge and Christian.  

That's a waste.

That's fine for a segment on Raw, but The New Day isn't going to gain major momentum by trading barbs with two retired guys. Woods and Co. aren't going to show off how powerful and ruthless they are without being able to wallop someone in the ring.

But it's not as if WWE had a ton of choices for challengers. 

The situation is at a point that on Monday's Raw, The New Day set its sights on Mark Henry. Never mind that he hasn't been relevant in a long while. Never mind that there was little chance of this developing into a feud considering that Henry is sans partners.

The New Day goaded the big man. Big E beat him after an awkward ending where Henry hurt his rib. And that was it.

Imagine if Edge and Christian were stuck with taking down Big Boss Man in their heyday rather than mixing it up with The Hardy Boyz. Picture The Hart Foundation tangling with Dino Bravo instead of clashing with Demolition.

Until WWE finds better enemies for New Day, this kind of underwhelming scene will continue. The company will have to scramble for ways to put the team on TV, despite them being such a hot act over the past year.

The answer lies at NXT. 

Sure, New Day should take on all comers, from The Social Outcasts to R-Truth and Goldust, but they will find their groove again against opponents who can clash with them over an extended period of time. That's a job for Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady or American Alpha.

Bringing in exciting, rising talent like that is the best way to better a thin tag team division.

Amore's electric charisma would be a perfect match for The New Day's antics. Their promos together promise to be special.

And WWE can portray the NXT newcomers as being on the roll of their lives. Should The Realest Guys in the Room go on a major winning streak upon getting called up, suddenly a showdown with The New Day begins to become increasingly appealing. 

Otherwise, The New Day will continue to banter among themselves, shuffling in circles without prey to chase.

2. The Beast Invulnerable No More

Brock Lesnar is beatable. The audience is fully aware of that heading into Fastlane, where he takes on both Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns with a world title shot on the line.

Had the Lesnar that wrecked John Cena at SummerSlam in 2014 entered this match, fans wouldn't be able picture him not winning. Since then, though, WWE hasn't portrayed him as quite the destructive force of nature.

Between his return in 2012 and his dismantling of Cena at SummerSlam 2014, Lesnar suffered a total of two losses. Since then, victory has been less guaranteed.

He has gone 4-4-1, per CageMatch.net.

The fine print there, though, is that takes special circumstances to fell the beast. There is an explanation for each loss.

Credit: WWE.com

Seth Rollins attacked Cena at Night of Champions 2014, causing Lesnar to get disqualified. At WrestleMania 31, Rollins pinned Reigns, not Lesnar, to get the win. At last year's SummerSlam, Undertaker won thanks to a screwup from the referee, who didn't see The Deadman tap out.

And at the Royal Rumble, it took the entire Wyatt Family to oust him from the match.

At Fastlane, expect similar booking. WWE will find a way to let Lesnar lose in less-than-definitive fashion. The company has foreshadowed him mixing it up with Ambrose come WrestleMania, not seeking to reclaim his world title.

3. Throwback Video of the Week: Big Show

Back when Big Show was The Giant, he earned quite the easy paycheck at Starrcade 1997.

The big man was supposed to face Kevin Nash at the pay-per-view. Nash didn't show. Instead, Scott Hall blathered on until The Giant crushed him.

Big Show managed to make that odd moment more entertaining than one would expect. He's been around so long that it's easy to forget how imposing and impressive he can be.

Over time, we get numb to even the most powerful of monsters. 

4. Bayley Getting the Best Out of Her Peers

Bayley is pulling a Shawn Michaels and getting each of her opponents to achieve their best work against her.

Her win against Carmella on last week's NXT was another in a line of outstanding matches on her resume. It was a well-told story of opponents who respected each other, who held back as they both sought Bayley's gold.

It caught Matt Morgan's eye, among others:

That was Carmella's best performance to date by a mile. Nia Jax, Alexa Bliss, Sasha Banks and Eva Marie have all had their best matches against Bayley. That's no coincidence.

Bayley is just killing it, being able to not only make herself look heroic in the battle, but to elevate her enemy, too.

5. A Tradition of the Thinly Veiled Identity 

TNA's Grado is supposed to be exiled from the company after getting a pink slip during a Feast or Fired match. He isn't, though, thanks to a familiar loophole. It wasn't Grado that appeared in a recent tag match, it was his masked alter ego, Odarg the Great.

Dusty Rhodes once pulled this same stunt as The Midnight Rider. Junkyard Dog claimed to be Stagger Lee. Hulk Hogan sneaked back into WWE as Mr. America.

The fun of this act is how obvious the "secret" identity is, yet it works anyway. Authority figures are oblivious. Enemies are somehow confused.

It's a reminder of just how unique and entertainingly goofy pro wrestling can be.  

6. The Year of the Odd Title Change

When Kevin Owens won back the Intercontinental Championship by winning a five-man match on Monday's Raw, he made history.

It was the first Fatal 5-Way that decided a new IC champ. The title changing hands in anything other than a singles bout is a rarity.

But that wasn't the case in 2000. WWE traveled well outside the box when it crowned new champions that year.

Match	Event	Stipulation	New Champion
Chris Jericho vs. Chyna vs. Hardcore Holly	Royal Rumble 2000	Triple Threat	Chris Jericho
Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho	WrestleMania 2000	2-out-of-3 Falls, Triple Threat, both IC and European titles on the line	Chris Benoit
Val Venis and Trish Stratus vs. Chyna and Eddie Guerrero	SummerSlam 2000	Mixed Tag Team Match, winner of the fall wins title	Chyna
Chyna vs. Kurt Angle vs. Eddie Guerrero	Raw, Sept. 4, 2000	Triple Threat	Eddie Guerrero

Going such a gimmicky route hurt the prestige of the title. This wasn't a prize won in battles between gladiators; it felt like a prop shifting around in kooky ways. 

Here's hoping that Owens doesn't end up experiencing that. The best bet for him as the titleholder is to have him go to war with worthy rivals.

7. Seeds Planted for WrestleMania Celebrity Match

Stephen Amell of Arrow fame isn't done locking horns with Stardust.

Their tag team match at SummerSlam last year may have just been a warm-up for a WrestleMania clash. Stardust confronted the actor at the Dallas Comic Con, angering him, challenging him and finally throwing water in his face.

The fact that WWE filmed this and aired it on its YouTube page suggests it plans to go somewhere with this. That somewhere is likely to be WrestleMania 32, which happens to be in the same city where this incident unfolded.

8. February Hit List

Before WWE made Fastlane its February staple last year, In Your House, No Way Out and Elimination Chamber provided the early part of the WWE calendar with some outstanding matches.

These are five of the best bouts from February:

• Bret Hart vs. Vader vs. Steve Austin vs. Undertaker: In Your House 13: Final Four (Four Corners match)
• Triple H vs. Cactus Jack: No Way Out 2000 (Hell in a Cell)
• Triple H vs. Steve Austin: No Way Out 2001 (Three Stages of Hell)
• Brock Lesnar vs. Eddie Guerrero: No Way Out 2004
• The Wyatt Family vs. The Shield: Elimination Chamber 2014

Lesnar will have a chance to add to this list when he crashes into both Reigns and Ambrose. The Fastlane main event has a chance to be a thrill ride considering all the talent involved and all the subplots it has in place.

9. Cruiserweight Showcase is Brilliant Move

The smaller, sleeker dynamos of the squared circle will soon get their own stage. 

WWE announced that beginning in July, it will air the Global Cruiserweight Series on the WWE Network. The show will feature talent from all over the world that may have previously been ignored thanks to concerns about size. 

This is such a shrewd decision. The WWE Network's appeal shoots up immediately with this exclusive content on board.

And this allows WWE to deliver a full-throttle brand of wrestling with a different flavor than what's on Raw and SmackDown each week. As a bonus, the company is likely to discover some great prospects along the way.

10. Daniel Bryan on Wrestling Being 'Fake'

Following the announcement of his retirement, Bryan appeared on Good Morning America to talk about concussions and what's ahead for him.

He got the inevitable "Is wrestling fake?" question despite the industry's openness about its scripted nature. Bryan handled it masterfully.

He said, "It's not real. And it's not fake. When you get slammed, you really get slammed. I'm helping him slam me."

That's a spot-on answer. Wrestling is its own entity, a violent art form that is part theater and part pain, part car crash, part sport. Bryan knows that all too well.