3) Gronk’s Schedule With WWE
According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, Gronk will be working a schedule that is similar to Brock Lesnar. That means only a few matches a year.
Here is what Meltzer had to say (h/t to Ringside News for the quote below):
“Gronkowski has got a deal there. He’s gonna be on the show on the 20th in New Orleans if there is a show on the 20th in New Orleans, it might be somewhere else for all we know. He’s gonna be on the SmackDown side and he’s gonna be working some dates kinda like a Lesnar scheduled. Listen, he’s one of the greatest football players ever, maybe one of the greatest tight ends of all time.”
“He’s got size, he’s got personality. You know it’s kinda interesting because I don’t know how many concussions he’s had, but it’s a lot, a huge number and back problems.”
My Take:
- This doesn’t surprise me. I see him working a lot fewer dates than what Ronda Rousey did. Gronk dealt with a lot of health issues in his NFL career and it doesn’t make sense for him to be wrestling every month. They should use him for a match or two per year, depending on how he progresses.
2) The Elimination Chamber Main Event Was A Subject Of A Big Debate Backstage
According to Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Radio, there was a lot of discussion backstage about which match should main event the Elimination Chamber PPV. The Women’s Chamber match went on last but there were some arguments being made for the tag team Chamber match being the main event instead.
Here is what Alvarez said (h/t to Ringside News for the quote below):
“In fact, there was huge debate about what the end of this show was gonna be. Going into this show they didn’t know what the main event was gonna be. It wasn’t obviously going to be the women’s match. There were a lot of arguments for it to be the men’s tag team match. There were arguments for it being the women’s match.”
“I know that some people saw the way the match was structured and thought, ‘There’s no way this match should close the show. Have the men’s match close the show.’ At the end of the day they chose the women so it was not a foregone conclusion that the women would be closing the show.”
My Take:
- In hindsight, the tag team Chamber match was probably the better option to close the show. Shayna Baszler destroying everybody seemed to leave a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of fans. If the match went on earlier, it may have been forgotten about.
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