Welcome to the first monthly review of 2018, where we look at what has happened during January in WWE. You can guess how many of these there will be this year! During this month there has been logging of wins, draws, DQs and no contest matches and this is the focus for us in this column. We’ll look at Raw and Smackdown as separate brands, then an overall conclusion at the end. So without further ado, lets get going!
Raw – January 2017
Headlines : Asuka dominates the women’s division, Cesaro and Reigns wrestle the most (male) matches and Cedric Alexander goes undefeated.
Unsurprisingly, Asuka has a win streak for the entire of January, including at the Royal Rumble. The main difference between Asuka’s push and streak compared to Roman Reigns’ last year is that people like Asuka. We are happy to have her force fed to us because she is good and gets on board with the crowd. Meanwhile, Cesaro and Reigns are tied for most matches (both have 2W-3L records) in January, which goes to show confusing booking at the best times. Two main event wrestlers going into the Rumble on a mixed record doesn’t help the crowd. Looking at the Rumble match itself, there weren’t many credible winners spotlighted leading into it.
However, when we look at the Cruiserweights, we see that Cedric Alexander is the only undefeated male wrestler on the Raw roster who has wrestled more than two matches. However, he wasn’t to be seen during the Rumble match itself. How much of a rub could he (and the Cruiserweight division) got with him having a decent run in the Rumble? It’s another prime example of the Cruiserweights getting bumped. Hopefully with a new GM, this will change.
Random fact : Apollo Crews also featured in 5 matches, but one ended in a DQ so it that match was expunged from the records. Sorry Apollo!!
SmackDown – January 2017
Headlines : AJ Styles wrestlers the most matches in January on SmackDown, Bobby Roode goes undefeated and Kevin Owens can’t win
So January was the month of AJ Styles. Winning the most matches, retaining his title at the Royal Rumble and having the most matches kept him busy. However also on the radar was Bobby Roode. His January was glorious indeed – capturing the US Title and having a successful defence led him to the SmackDown male win streak for the month. One thing that stands out though is Kevin Owens streak (0W-4L). During the month of January, he couldn’t muster up a win. Is this the start of things to come for him? Or will his eventual break up with Zayn result to some wins for KO? More importantly, when will Aiden English (0W-3L) start chalking up some wins on the blue show? So many questions are coming out SmackDown than Raw recently, it leads to a more interesting and must watch show.
Random fact : Liv Morgan had more wins (2W-1L) in January than Randy Orton (1W)
Overall thoughts and predictions for February 2017
With WrestleMania becoming more booked, expect to see win (and loss) streaks to become clearer. I’d invest heavily in Asuka, Nakamura, The Miz and Strowman as we get closer to the big one. Also I’d put Nia Jax into that bracket too. Styles was the workhorse for WWE in January, wrestling the most matches (6). Isn’t it telling that the show with the least amount of time has the wrestler who wrestled the most amount of matches?
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