When Otis won the Money in the Bank ladder match back in early May, it seemed a bizarre decision at the time. In the months after, it became clear just how little thought was put into that decision.
While Otis has had a steady role on television, most notably in a storyline as the improbable love interest of Mandy Rose, his status as Money in the Bank contract holder was never taken seriously. In fact, that ended up being the focus of his feud with The Miz, who scored a rare heel victory in the babyface promotion that is WWE: he thoroughly broke Otis down, sent his girlfriend to a different brand, and then took his Money in the Bank contract from him in a match at Hell in a Cell.
The way WWE went about accomplishing this was having Tucker, who had already been drafted to Monday Night Raw while Otis was kept on Friday Night SmackDown, turn on his longtime tag team partner in Heavy Machinery. This seemed a bizarre move, considering the draft splitting them up, but we are coming up on Survivor Series, so perhaps it they could have a match there?
It sure isn’t looking that way.
In fact, it’s not looking any way at all for either of them.
Otis wasn’t used on the first episode of SmackDown following Hell in a Cell. Tucker changed his look and debuted as a singles competitor proper on Main Event, where he immediately did a job for Ricochet. They put that same match on Raw this week and Tucker did the job again, only this time he also got beat up by RETRIBUTION.
At no point was he presented like a wrestler to be taken seriously. There was no indication they would be visiting his issue with Otis again.
It sure looks like WWE booked itself into a corner on a whim, and then booked itself out of that corner in a way they couldn’t follow up on, and are simply just moving forward as though nothing happened at all while the two wrestlers involved are left floundering. I’m certainly not claiming Tucker or Otis would be the next big thing in pro wrestling, but it’s situations like this that make obvious why WWE hasn’t been able to make a legitimate star in what feels like forever.