For well over a month now, Aleister Black has spent his Tuesday nights promo-ing in a dark room. As the weeks have gone by, the Dutchman has gotten angrier and angrier that no one from the SmackDown (or Raw... WILD CARD) roster has come looking for the fight he’s been offering.
Until last Tuesday (June 25)...
Black didn’t rush off to answer the door, and the one who knocked didn’t stick around. We know because this week (July 2), Aleister said some more sinister-sounding $#!+ that more or less amounted to an announcement he plans to meet the unknown knocker in the ring at Extreme Rules.
Which leaves us with the always popular MYSTERY OPPONENT situation for the Sun., July 14 pay-per-view (PPV) in Philadelphia. And the question is, who knocked on Aleister’s door?
Two names seem to dominate the conversation.
First up, we have Bray Wyatt. Narratively, this makes a ton of sense. Both Black and Wyatt have an air of the supernatural about them, and one of them has been waiting for a knock on the door while the other has been asking for someone to let him in.
From a booking perspective, it makes less sense. Black and Wyatt are both waiting to be reintroduced to the main roster (while this feels like Aleister’s official rollout, he was prominent on Raw and SmackDown as Ricochet’s tag partner prior to the 2019 Superstar Shakeup). Ideally, neither would start their latest runs by losing their first match or program right out of the gate. That would be bad for Black, but potentially disastrous for Wyatt. Week of Firefly Fun House followed by defeat would confirm the thinking that Bray is a cool act WWE has no idea what to do with.
The other name I’ve heard a lot is Randy Orton. While there’s no obvious storyline connection, it’s not like accepting an offer for a fight is out of character for the Viper. Booking-wise, Orton is both at the stage of his career where he should be putting over new wrestlers the company has big plans for, and his schedule of late has been win a feud, take a break, lose a feud, take a break. He’s coming off a win over Triple H at Super ShowDown, and will have had about a month off come Extreme Rules. Before that, he took a few weeks after losing to AJ Styles at WrestleMania. Black can be the program he loses before taking time off after SummerSlam.
Of course, it could be someone else entirely. There’s no shortage of wrestlers on WWE’s massive roster without a story heading into this month’s PPV.
Give us your answer below. No need to knock.