Wins and losses still don’t matter in WWE

Tomorrow night (May 25) on Raw there is going to be a number one contender triple threat match between Nia Jax, Charlotte Flair, and Natalya. The winner will be next in line to face the Raw women’s champion, Asuka.

This match has a glaring logic flaw, because Natalya has lost two consecutive singles matches to Shayna Baszler on Raw. In kayfabe, there is no reasonable explanation for why Natalya was chosen over Baszler for this number one contender match, unless wins and losses don’t matter in WWE.

Out of kayfabe, the booking motivation looks obvious; Natalya is here to take the pin so that Nia Jax can earn a match with Asuka. WWE wants to protect Baszler and Flair from taking the fall, so Natalya is in this match to do the job, just like she has done on the last two episodes of Raw.

Moving over to SmackDown, the Universal championship has its own issues. This title has a bizarre history of top contenders being crowned simply when a challenger declares himself the next in line. But the bar for earning a championship match was somehow lowered this week. Miz and Morrison were granted a shot at Braun Strowman’s title after each man was pinned by him over the last two episodes of SmackDown.

That handicap Universal title match will take place on June 14 at Backlash. Miz & Morrison look like pretenders here based on the booking, and Strowman looks like an idiot for falling for a similar stipulation that cost him the Intercontinental championship two months ago at Elimination Chamber 2020.

The Universal title match at Backlash is nerfed as a result of this booking (without even getting into the embarrassing dookie diaper puppet thing), and it implies that WWE doesn’t have enough credible top level heels on the SmackDown brand. But we’re a few weeks away from the pay-per-view, so WWE still has time to undo the damage by hopefully promoting Strowman’s title defense as the The Greatest Handicap Match Ever.

The two examples above illustrate obvious logic problems in WWE’s booking. How do you think WWE should have booked each of these two stories to avoid this problem?