In case you missed it on Raw, Japan's Akira Tozawa won the cruiserweight title, beating England's Neville, ending the latter's run after 6 1/2, nearly 7, months. The match was supposed to take place at Summerslam, but they did a bit where Titus O'Neil, Tozawa's manager, sold GM Kurt Angle on the idea of Boston's tradition as a city of champions, especially considering that the Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics, and the Foxboro-based Patriots have combined to win nearly a dozen titles in the last 15 years.
Who's to say this would've been the end game on Sunday in Brooklyn? Neville was due to lose the title sooner rather than later, and Tozawa becomes the first Japanese wrestler to hold the cruiser title in WWE since Shoichi Funaki had the previous cruiser title around 2004-5.
What this does is one of two things.
1. They could still have the rematch, with Tozawa and Titus Worldwide hot off the title win.
Or....
2. This gets bumped aside, allowing for the Universal title match to become an elimination match, as it should be, with 4 participants.
Unfortunately, knowing Vince McMahon like we do, there's likely to be some other nonsense thrown in to fill the time if they don't do the rematch for the cruiser title. A Intercontinental title match between Miz and Jason Jordan is likely to be added, preferably with the Miztourage and Maryse banned from ringside, which otherwise is the kind of nonsense I'm referring to. Miz is another one who deserves to kiss his title good-bye, and in his case, permanently, since his last two title runs, including the current run, have shown an over-reliance on outside help. In effect, Miz, like Jinder Mahal on Smackdown, is a champion who never really wins.
Right now, the Raw side of the card looks like this:
Women's title: Alexa Bliss vs. Sasha Banks.
Universal title: Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe.
Finn Balor vs. Bray Wyatt.
Tag titles: Sheamus & Cesaro vs. Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins.
Big Cass vs. Big Show.
Maybe:
IC title: Miz-Jordan.
Cruiser title: Tozawa-Neville.
Considering that there'll be almost as many matches on the Smackdown side, the card is still bloated. They've got 6 days to clean up the clutter some more, and, then, maybe it's actually sellable. Maybe.
