CB’s World: Post-WrestleMania Week … Now What? (Brodus Clay, Daniel Bryan, TNA LockDown)

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WrestleMania week is officially behind us, and what a week it was for WWE. Among other things, Triple H and the Undertaker ended an era, The Rock pinned John Cena, Brock Lesnar came back to beat up John Cena, Chris Jericho blasted CM Punk with a liquor bottle, John Laurinaitis took charge of Raw and SmackDown, and Daniel Bryan broke up with AJ but got a new T-Shirt.

So with all of that said, what can WWE do to try and avoid the Post-WrestleMania lull? In other words … Now what?

Rocky on the Shelf: First things first, let’s take The Rock out of the equation for the foreseeable future, since he is currently filming his next movie, Pain and Gain. After that, he’ll likely be doing his usual press tour for G.I. Joe, which comes out this summer. Maybe that will permit Rock to come back sometime in June to promote the movie and get involved in a couple of episodes of Raw, but otherwise we won’t be seeing much of Dwayne over the next few months.

Johnny Ace – Prick of the Litter: This past week on SmackDown!, John Laurinaitis took firm control of the blue show to go along with his running of Raw. His first order of business was to force Teddy Long to take an undisclosed job with Johnny. If Long refused, Laurinaitis was going to revoke Teddy’s grandson’s WWE-sponsored college fund.

It was a pretty dick move by Johnny and David Otunga to treat Teddy this way, but since WWE is running with a heel GM in charge of both shows, I expect and actually encourage more behavior like this to further build up Johnny as the powerful heel authority figure he is. Then, when the time is right, one of the good guys (or group of good guys) can get the better of Ace and the payback that follows will be fun and cathartic to watch.

Give Daniel Bryan More Time and More Matches: The easiest way to keep the fans’ interest at the moment is one that WWE doesn’t seem all that interested in doing at the moment. Sure, they gave Daniel Bryan his T-Shirt and have acknowledged the full-tilt crowd reactions to Bryan’s “YES! YES! YES!” catch phrase.

At the same time, WWE also did not give Daniel Bryan a World Heavyweight Championship rematch and they’ve quickly moved on to Sheamus vs. Alberto Del Rio as the next title feud. Also, now that AJ and Bryan have officially broken up, it’ll be interesting to see what’s next for him considering he doesn’t really have a new opponent lined up just yet and whoever faces Bryan is sure to be put in a delicate situation if they can’t hang with him or handle the crowd’s chants.

No matter what, however, I think we can all agree that it’s time to give Daniel Bryan the chance to log more wrestling time in that ring.

Bring More Funkasaurus: WWE has finally started the next chapter in the rebranding of Brodus Clay following months of squashing Curt Hawkins lower card wrestlers on the roster. Clay can be an even more wildly popular force than he already is if he can be put into a meaningful role, and if Brodus is given more prominence on Raw that could really keep the fans tuned in for the whole show and not just the main event slots.

Lock in on TNA LockDown: This is obviously more for the general wrestling fan than the “WWE Universe”. Now that WrestleMania is in the books, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to flip back over to TNA Impact to check out their build to the upcoming LockDown PPV taking place this coming Sunday, April 15th. Particularly, Bobby Roode vs. James Storm has a solid six months of build behind it, and their match could / should make for the best TNA match of the year.

That just about wraps things up for me this week. I hope you enjoyed my suggestions for what can be done to avoid the post-WrestleMania lull, and I’d love to know your own thoughts and ideas as well.

Sounnd off in the comments section, and I’ll be sure to respond in kind.

That’s all from me — CB.

CB is an Editor for Pulse Wrestling and an original member of the Inside Pulse writing team covering the spectrum of pop culture including pro wrestling, sports, movies, music, radio and television.