Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
One of the two title matches scheduled for tonight’s episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown will be an open challenge as LA Knight puts his United States Championship on the line against….well, that is what we’re here to address.
My question for you today is “Who do you think should/will answer LA Knight’s open challenge? Who would you book if you had the creative control?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
There are a few names dancing around in my head, but before I mention them, I want to toss out a couple qualifiers.
First off, I don’t think LA Knight is dropping the title. Naturally, if that is going to happen, that greatly affects who I’d be rooting for to be his opponent, as there are only three people I consider worthwhile options to be next in line. One of those is Carmelo Hayes, who will already be busy fighting Andrade. The other is Jacob Fatu, and it would make sense to have this be the follow-up for Solo Sikoa taking the tag title off him, only to book him in this match instead so they can continue to amass gold. The other would be Sikoa himself. But since I don’t think the belt is changing hands, I’d rule all three of them out, and I also don’t think Sikoa is going to be holding a midcard championship when he feuds with Roman Reigns. That’s too much of an unnecessary distraction and Reigns isn’t going to be gunning for that belt anyway.
Second, this person has to be someone the crowd will pop for. You don’t book an open challenge and leave the mystery out there, getting folks’ hopes up, just to have Santos Escobar come out and say Angel Garza or Humberto Carrillo is going to give it a shot this time. Sorry, guys, but you’re not going to wow the Berlin audience. You’ll just get booed.
So if I’m WWE, and I’m looking for someone who will get the crowd to pop, lose the match, and continue to feud with LA Knight going forward, that narrows it down to a few options.
The lesser of all choices right now would be Giovanni Vinci. He’s Italian, not German, but it would be a better spot for him to return to action and potentially get a decent pop than if he shows up in Milwaukee or something. But not only is it too early, after just a few of these vignettes trying to hype him up, but I also think if he answers the challenge and loses, he’s pretty much done for. I don’t think he can bounce back from that. So let’s hold off on him.
The next least likely option I would say would be Talla Tonga. He’s got to debut at some point, but I think that will be at Bad Blood or whenever they book Reigns versus Sikoa. Plus, Jacob Fatu is right there, and again, if Hikuleo were to lose his debut (unless it were by disqualification) I think it would look bad for him.
For the most part, I’ve got my top three picks as the following…
#3) Ludwig Kaiser – He’s German, so he’ll get a good reaction. Kaiser could lose, too, and nobody would bat an eye in the grand scheme of things. But he’s going to be wrestling in the Intercontinental Championship No. 1 contender’s tournament, and he’s a member of the Raw roster. The only reason to book him here is strictly because he’s German. It can work, but there are two better options.
#2) AJ Styles – Check off the big pop for a big name. We haven’t seen him in quite a while. He has history with LA Knight, so this could piggyback off their WrestleMania program. Styles has nothing else going on right now, and they’d have a great match in front of a hot crowd. But we’ve already seen seemingly the conclusion of their storyline, so maybe there’s still one better option…
#1) Shinsuke Nakamura – While he isn’t as big of a name as Styles, he’s important enough that the crowd would respond well to his return after so many months off-screen. Nakamura versus Knight isn’t a feud that has been done yet, so that’s something new. He has credibility to him as a former multi-time midcard champion and Royal Rumble winner, but he can also lose and help put Knight over.
Not only is Nakamura my prediction, but he’s the guy I’d slot in here if I were running things, too. Depending on how long they want to stretch this out, I could see Knight getting lucky with a pinfall that isn’t super definitive, or Nakamura getting himself accidentally disqualified, or winning the match by count-out, in order to extend their feud for at least one more match. I’d prefer not to have Knight win outright, followed by Nakamura beating him up after the match, as that’s the cheapest way to extend the story, but I can see that happening if I were to guess what WWE has in store.
In any case, I’m going with Nakamura as my prediction. Who do you think will answer the open challenge? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
