Roadblock: End of the Line wasn’t just named that way so Michael Cole could annoy us every time he said it. It also referred to the end of the line for Charlotte and Sasha Banks’ long-running feud – one that’s been criticised for playing hot potato with the Women’s Championship belt at the expense of Raw’s other wrestlers. Since the belt was created in April this year, Charlotte and Sasha have had seven reigns between them. That’s 0.8 title changes a month, maths fans.
Big E. made fun of this passing back and forth of the belt in this week’s episode of Raw, with probably the best joke of the night. After Kofi Kingston mourned The New Day losing their tag team belts – which they held for just under 500 days – he pointed out that sometimes you have to lose to win in the long-run. For instance, Ric Flair wouldn’t be a record-setting 16-time world champion if he didn’t lose his belt 15 times.
To which Big E. immediately replied: “that’ll be Charlotte in about a month.”
It appears as though that was an adlib on Langston’s part, and one not approved by WWE higher-ups, because that gag – the best thing by far on that entire segment – has been edited out of the clip uploaded to WWE’s official YouTube page. Because heaven forbid, you’d want a talent actually getting over.
If you’re interested, Reddit user SuperTurboMan has worked out that Ric Flair would’ve been a 209 time world champion if he won them at the same rate as his daughter since her Wrestlemania 32 victory. Numbers!
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer has revealed why Sasha and Charlotte’s feud was stretched out to last through to Raw’s last pay-per-view of the year. Apparently Banks’ third Women’s Championship win on the 28th November episode of Raw – in that really good falls count anywhere match in Charlotte’s hometown – and the subsequent Roadblock: End of the Line match were only booked to postpone the start of the Charlotte vs Bayley feud. Vince McMahon reportedly sees this as the big money program going into Wrestlemania 33, as the chairman isn’t “high on” Sasha, thinks Bayley is more over as a babyface and Charlotte more over as a heel. Bayley’s first big match will reportedly come at Royal Rumble, and culminate with the feud peaking at WWE’s biggest show of the year.
Charlotte and Sasha’ Iron Maiden match at Roadblock: End of the Line has been criticised for upside down booking. The accepted way to plan out these kinds of matches is to have the babyface chasing from behind – but Sasha was 3-2 ahead until the closing moments of regulation time, positioning Charlotte as the chaser.
Again according to Meltzer, this was Vince McMahon’s idea. Vince apparently wanted Banks in the Figure Four leg lock leading up to the end of regulation time where she was just about to win, with the crowd counting down the dying seconds and rooting for Sasha not to tap out. And then they’d then be deflated when she tapped.
That isn’t what happened, though, as unfortunately the crowd was pretty lacklustre throughout the match, and numerous people backstage argued that deflating the audience that way was a bad idea. But, as we saw, Vince decided he knew best.
How do you think Sasha Banks and Charlotte’s feud should’ve ended? Tell me about 2 months sooner in the comments down below.