How To Book ‘The Club’ in the New Era

It’s officially the “New era” in the WWE, and has been for a few weeks. We’re heading to Summerslam, about a week a way, and one story line that many were intrigued in at “The Draft” has yet to gain any attention. that is: What The Frick Happened to The Club? sure they’re still technically around, but nothing is going on with them as a unit since AJ Styles was drafted to Smackdown and Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows were drafted to RAW. So what’s to become of the Club? That’s why I, Joseph Reds, am here to tell you, “How To Book ‘The Club’ In the New Era.” You need only look at the greatest Faction of all time:

That’s Right, the nWo. Now I’m Sure that by this point, you’ve noticed the Wolfpac logo over here on my right. Yes, I specifically included them in this post. And I’m sure youre probably like, “Joseph, ‘Savior’, father of my unborn child, darling. Why would you include the Wolfpac? Sure they had a cool theme and color scheme but they were a useless!” And, for the most part, you’d be right; especially about your unborn child, I am the father. But the concept behind the nWo Wolfpac was great. Hell it even had Sting looking super rad in the Red and Black. Anyway, let’s take the good things about the nWo and leave the bad ones out.

First off, we’re going to split the club into two factions that are not opposing, but are unified across two brands. Both those factions needs a leader. On RAW we have The Balor Club. On Smackdown, we have The Styles Club.

1. First, backstage politics needs to stay out of this, luckily no wrestler (Except maybe Trips and Cena) have creative freedom, so there’s that.
2. Second, don’t just make two factions that have zero purpose and its members jump around back and forth for ages. Keep the Club’s shelf life small, maybe just until the next Wrestlemania. The Reason The Bullet Club is so successful, is that you only ever see it in NJPW or ROH. It makes it exclusive. We don’t want to see it all over our TV’s for a minimum of 5 hours a week for years. Keep this great league of heels until Wrestlemania. On top of that, if you ever want to bring The Club back, its better to have the option later on when the crowd still hungers for it, instead of over saturating it and making the crowd lose interest.
3. Keep the teams small. No more than 5 people on RAW to start out (6 if you feel a woman should be on the Club team, but I think the Women’s division needs to build its own steam apart from men). Because Smackdown is shorter and doesn’t have as many titles, for now, we’ll stick to 4 stars. One of nWo’s biggest problems was that it had like 800 members. Nobody knows what’s going on at that point.
4. — USE THE CLUB TO LAUNCH NEW STARS.

Ok, now that we have some rules established, lets look at the Balor Club:

They’re fairly easy to put together because we already have Gallows, Anderson and Balor all on RAW. They all wear red and black, and that’s how we’re going to associate them.

To start off their Club Reign, we have Gallows and Anderson win the Tag Team Championships. Its been a great run New Day, but it’s time for them to go your separate ways and we need the Club to have all the gold. Then Gallows and Anderson help Balor win the very poorly titled “WWE Universal Championship” over Seth Rollins at Summerslam. This helps us complete the best double turn that the WWE has seen in quite some time. Balor stands, painted face and all, over a motionless Seth Rollins with Gallows and Anderson on either side of him. He smiles, ever so slyly, raises his title in one arm and holds “Too Sweet” up in the other. Gallows and Anderson follow suit with their brand new titles as well.

Now that we have established who’s running RAW, we need to have The Club dominate everyone, including (and very specifically) upper management. The Balor Club needs to be untouchable by everyone. Over the next few weeks after Summerslam they recruit one man from the Cruiserweight division and one man from the mid card  those men are Adrian Neville (yes give him the Adrian part back, he isn’t a Botanistic wizard) and Cesaro. Both have everything to prove and have been held down for far too long. Both are awkward as faces, and both would compliment the team very well.

First Adrian Neville drops the crappy cape and adopts the red and black. He gets approached by his friend Finn Balor and is persuaded to join. He uses a Balor Club centered theme music, and he decimates the Cruiserweights, winning the title.

Cesaro, has a much subtle and more cool of a turn. Cesaro should be held down by Stephanie McMahon and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, Mick Foley. He continues to get more disgruntled as he is kept from all oportunities for a U.S. Title shot. He gets much darker but maintains that Cesaro appeal. People love him ’cause he always looks like he’s having fun and he gives it his all in that squared circle. Now we have him coming out still wearing the suits, but with a black undershirt, a red satin tie and a red satin handkerchief. Keep it subtle but just make him look a little more edgy. I assume, by ‘Clash of Champions’, Roman Reigns will have won the U.S. Title, because why the fuck not? Reigns, being ever the baby face, asks Foley to grant Cesaro a title shot, because Reigns is a great guy (or some other nonsense).

They have their match and everything is going great with no shenanigans. Cesaro is trying his hardest, but he just can’t get the job done. Reigns counters one of Cesaro’s Running Turnbuckle Uppercuts with a Superman Punch and is setting up the Spear. At this point the ref, lets just say Charles Robinson (because of that hair), is trying to see if Cesaro is ok, thinking he may have injured himself. Reigns goes for the Spear, Cesaro dodges and Reigns Spears all of the Naitch off Robinson. Now we have no ref and Cesaro and Reigns don’t know what to do; when, all of a sudden, we hear the Club’s music. Finn Balor walks out to the stage, looks at the two confused men for a few minutes and slowly points at Reigns. Gallows, Anderson and Neville rush the ring and decimate Reigns. Much like Rollins at Summerslam, he is bloodied and motionless. Cesaro stares in disbelief, and then picks up Reigns, smiles, motions a “Too Sweet” and hits him with the Neutralizer.

Again all men stand in the Ring with their titles, just like at Summerslam. Reigns is kayfabe injured and kept off TV, hopefully to learn a new move…no, inverted Superman Punch is not a new move.

Now we have The Styles Club:

Starting at Summerslam, we need to have Styles go over Cena clean. Absolutely zero shenanigans. By the end of the night it will look like the Club has left Styles behind. With all the momentum in the world, Styles will have a clear shot to the title, challenging Dean Ambrose at Backlash. In the mean time he’ll be looking for new lackeys. Now this is where things get a little weird, so bear with me.

I would have Styles recruit The Vaudevillains. Idebated on The Ascension, but they’re far too similar in style to Gallows and Anderson and frankly you’d have to drop the Ascension name and have them use their real names, instead of Konnor and Viktor. So instead, we’re going with the Vaudevillains and here’s why. The Vaudevillains have a huge amount of talent, especially Aiden English. Their gimmick is so far past any momentum it once had that they’ve become jobbers and that’s honestly a shame. So drop the gimmick altogether. Keep the cool ‘staches and get rid of the old timey wrestling gear. Let’s use Styles’ huge momentum after beating Cena to help lift The Vaudevillains out of the depths of bad booking. We’re going to make them THE tag team on Smackdown, because there really isn’t much there anyways. Put the, sure to come, new tag titles on them and immediately they look like a threat.

Next we need someone to lock up the Intercontinental Championship. So up to the plate steps…….The Miz.

Yes, I can hear your screams from here.

We have an episode of MizTV at Backlash, The Miz invites AJ Styles (who will be vying for the WWE Championship later that night) on and makes a case for his bid into the Styles Club. AJ Styles mocks him for how far they’ve come from when The Miz would taunt him on that very show about being nothing without him. Styles tells The Miz that he will allow him to join if he beats one man in a title match at that very moment. The Miz accepts boasting that he’s the best IC Champion ever yaddah yaddah yaddah- when the lights go dark and we see this man appear on stage.

Samoa Joe decimates The Miz and takes the IC Title. This both gives it relevance and shows that the Styles Club is in no way inferior to the Balor Club.

Styles has his match with Dean Ambrose, he agrees to a stipulation that none of his new Club members will interfere. Due to this Ambrose beats him with a roll up.

In disbelief, Styles looks at the celebrating Ambrose and loses his shit. He rolls out of the ring grabs a chair and dismantles Ambrose, the other Club members come out and join him. They leave Ambrose the same way that the Balor Club left Rollins and Reigns, noticing a pattern?

Ambrose is medically forced to vacate the title. Yes this sucks but we need him to drop the title without losing, it would hurt his credibility as a champ, and I would very much like to see him champ again one day. Styles can lose here but maintain momentum by being a crazy mofo.

Daniel Bryan announces that there will be a fatal fourway for the title at No Mercy consisting of AJ Styles, Dolph Ziggler, John Cena and Randy Orton. Ordinarily Orton or Cena would win, but not in our New Era. The Club interferes and destroys everyone leaving Styles to deliver a Styles Clash to John Cena and take the Vacated title.

Now, we’ve established The Club as a dominant force on both RAW and Smackdown. We need to ensure that they are together, unified, but just separated by brands. Having two thirds of the Shield out of action for a few months sets up the Shield reunion and then you can slowly have the WWE mount a counter offensive that culminates at Wrestlemania where you would have The Shield vs. three of the top Club members. Following that, you would have The Club fall and disband before they grow tiresome. This leaves the potential to bring them back at any time over the next few years.

In doing all this we established Cesaro as a legitimate threat by beating Reigns. Aiden English and Simon Gotch become a premiere Tag Team and after The Club disbands, eventually English goes Solo. Also, you bring up Samoa Joe from NXT and elevate Adrian Neville as THE top High-flyer.

So, That’s how I would book the expansion of The Club, do you agree? Do you disagree? Tell me in the comments below and be sure to follow me on Twitter and Instagram @WelpThatsAThing