WWE Fastlane 2018: How to Fix Least Promising Storylines so Far

WWE Fastlane 2018 will be the final pay-per-view before WrestleMania 34, so it will feature the last solid opportunity for the SmackDown Live brand to pick up momentum before the biggest show of the year.

Sadly, the build for this event has been subpar in more ways than one.

Even sadder, that feels like a guarantee for anything using the Fastlane moniker, as the event has always had an atmosphere of not being the most important when it should feel the opposite.

Instead of biting their nails in anticipation of how there could be a fork in the Road to WrestleMania that causes major storyline detours, the WWE Universe seems to be approaching this with a collective press of the skip button.

An overhaul of the card is impossible, so starting from scratch, while the preferred way to go about things, is off the table.

However, there's just enough time that WWE's creative team might be able to save, or at least improve upon, the matches.

Above all else, the main event needs some tweaking given it's the single biggest drawing point for the show.

The build for this all started with a No. 1 Contender's situation turning into a Triple Threat, which started a cycle of someone asking to be in the match and then winning another fight in order to get their wish.

This has gone from one challenger to two, then to three, then to four and, finally, we are at a Six-Pack Challenge for AJ Styles' WWE Championship.

Despite six men being involved, though, there isn't a lot of substance behind two of them: Dolph Ziggler and Baron Corbin.

With Cena, we can at least follow the simple story of his desperation to get an important WrestleMania match because he was formerly "the guy," and that wasn't something he had in question before, which makes him panic.

For AJ Styles, he simply wants to retain his title so he can head into WrestleMania with the belt, but having more challengers means there is less of a chance he can accomplish that goal.

Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn are still dragging on the feud between themselves and Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan, which could well lead to a disappointing conclusion. But that is an unknown and can still garner some interest for those inquisitive about how it will play out.

In contrast, what do Ziggler and Corbin bring to the table?

For all intents and purposes, Corbin is merely a jerk who wants the title, which is exactly how he's always been. He doesn't have any personal stake in relation to the other people in the match.

If all of his opponents were to change to Mojo Rawley, Zack Ryder, Sin Cara, Tye Dillinger and Mike Kanellis, there would be no character or story alteration.

Credit: WWE.com

To help with that, WWE should invest a few promos in trying to develop a deeper connection between Corbin and someone in the group. He could reveal he wants to target a certain Superstar as being the person he would prefer to pin to win the title or someone he feels he believes to be his biggest threat.

With Ziggler, it isn't even clear wheter he's a babyface or a heel, as he's somewhat cutting the same promos from before about being too good to be ignored but has slightly less of an edge to him about it.

The Showoff seemingly feels the same as he's felt for months but doesn't have the passion to get intense about it and lacks any direction on where he wants to focus what energy he still has.

It's time to cut the act and stop treading on familiar ground, as this gimmick isn't going to help with the Fastlane match.

Perhaps Ziggler should have a crisis of conscience and come to the realization everybody in the match has the same dream of holding the title at WrestleMania. He could thus struggle with feeling guilty that if he were to pin anybody but Styles, it wouldn't be fair to The Phenomenal One.

Credit: WWE.com

A promo explaining that and allowing Ziggler to empathize with the champion, coming to the realization he would feel awful if someone did that to him, could bring a dynamic to the multi-man match that we don't see too often.

Does Ziggler do the selfish thing and look out for himself, or does he do what is morally right and play as fair of a game as possible?

This would present him the option to prove whether he is the best and can win within the rules or whether he is a hypocrite.

The Six-Pack Challenge isn't the only storyline with some problems, though.

The feud between Bobby Roode and Randy Orton for the United States Championship is flawed.

An element missing from this the past few weeks has been the United States Championship Open Challenge despite the fact that spectacle's reinstatement was supposed to bring about Roode's legitimization as the champion.

The program has been largely about the outsider of the feud, Jinder Mahal, telling Orton that Roode doesn't respect him, as if that somehow gets Mahal closer to the title.

That would make sense if The Modern Day Maharaja were in the match, but he isn't, so if his endgame is to hold the title, it doesn't serve any purpose to interfere in a fight he can't possibly win.

If the plans for WrestleMania are to have a Triple Threat between them for the title, Mahal shouldn't have been touching upon this angle at all, and it should have been a generic Open Challenge.

On top of this, Mahal's idea of manipulation has been to say Roode values his spot on the SmackDown Top 10 list, as if that means anything.

There has been only one list released, with little explanation of what it is and absolutely zero revelations on its purpose.

Is it simply supposed to be a popularity contest voted on by the locker room? If so, why would Orton care what people think of him when he's made a career of having no friends?

Assuming it isn't about hurt feelings, something must be on the line or valuable in regard to the list. Yet that hasn't been revealed, so there's no intrigue, as we didn't see the list's creation or anything coming about from its introduction.

Either the list means something and we need to be told why it is important or it doesn't mean anything and there shouldn't be anything with this feud tied to it.

Finally, the SmackDown Women's Championship feud is so bland and uninteresting it would be easy to forget to talk about it.

When in doubt and out of ideas, it seems WWE goes to the well of just having multiple matches surrounding different people to illustrate the point there must be some kind of feud going on.

All that has been done with this has been a shuffling of Charlotte Flair against the other members of The Riott Squad while Ruby Riott beats Naomi and Becky Lynch.

Yes, this illustrates the champion and the leader of the stable are in some ways superior to their peers and that they will meet up to find out which one of the two has what it takes to hold the belt, but why should we care?

Anybody watching the product long enough knows Riott stands no chance at beating Flair, so those viewers are just waiting for the inevitable pinfall or submission with the announcement the title is staying where it is.

The Riott Squad still hasn't established why it turned heel, so Riott is just a bad girl because she fights the fan favorites. She has aspects of being a villain, such as cheating and complaining, but why she is like that is an unknown.

With regard to this feud, all that changes is she's the villain who has a title opportunity, which makes Flair the generic babyface hurdle with the belt who wants to keep the championship and has to win solely for that reason.

Considering her appearance and her attitude, why not make this a feud that has Riott displaying some elements of envy that many people can identify with?

Credit: WWE.com

One promo from Riott about how Flair reminds her of the popular cheerleader who used to pick on her in high school for looking and being different might sound like something the babyface would do, but with the right twist, it's a heel move.

Instead of being sympathetic and inciting pity for Riott, having her stress she's above all "normal" people because she expresses herself in creative ways the average person is too dull to understand could come off as the right type of snobbish backlash to get people to boo her.

Think back to how CM Punk was able to take the incredibly positive message of not doing drugs and turned it into a heel gimmick by acting holier than thou.

Riott could do the same, drawing inspiration from people who want you to think they are cool because they are different and who judge you to be a square if you like anything mainstream. Then picture Flair, who Riott could say can't even be her own woman because she's just copying her dad.

Meanwhile, Flair could lay down the law about how she stands out by being the best and that nobody can criticize anybody for being themselves, even if they are what is deemed as normal. And with that, she would hit all the marks of a true babyface.

All it would take is a few promos harping on this ideological difference, and there would be another whole level to this other than simply a challenger trying to win a championship.

Do you think these storyline tweaks would help the Fastlane card? Are there any other suggestions you can think of to improve the event's build?

Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below to keep the discussion going!

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.