Nick Aldis getting sent home from WWE television may not be a punishment as much as it is a setup.
After Aldis got into it with GUNTHER backstage at Night of Champions, WWE replayed the footage on the June 29 edition of RAW, and Michael Cole announced that Aldis had been placed on administrative leave. That means Adam Pearce is now running both RAW and SmackDown for the time being, but according to Dave Meltzer, there is a bigger reason Aldis is being taken off the board.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Bryan Alvarez brought up the obvious direction, saying Aldis may finally be getting his big match. Dave Meltzer didn’t dance around it, noting that GUNTHER and Aldis will face each other at SummerSlam.
“They’re going to wrestle at SummerSlam, yeah. Aldis, I guess because he’s big, with the big shoulders and all that in the suit, there’s always been that thing like, ‘Oh, he should wrestle.’”
Meltzer said he likes Aldis in the General Manager role and does not think WWE would easily find a better replacement. That said, he understands doing one big match with GUNTHER if WWE wants to pay off the physical confrontation.
“Hopefully it’s only a one-match thing. I like him as a General Manager, and I think if they replace him, they’re probably replacing him with someone who’s not as good. If he becomes a wrestler, I don’t think he’ll be successful at this stage of the game. But for one match on a big show? Sure.”
Alvarez then pointed out the easy storyline WWE already handed itself. Aldis is on administrative leave, which means he is no longer tied down by the authority figure role for a few weeks.
“Well, the easy story is they put me on administrative leave for six weeks. That means I’m able to do wrestling.”
That makes what happened on Raw feel a lot less random. Aldis gets taken off TV, Pearce takes over both brands, and GUNTHER suddenly has a clear path toward a SummerSlam fight with the same authority figure he grabbed after Sami Zayn’s title win.
Bottom line, Nick Aldis may be “suspended,” but WWE might have just cleared his schedule for a match instead. Administrative leave sounds official. SummerSlam revenge sounds a lot more fun.
What do you think about Nick Aldis possibly facing GUNTHER at SummerSlam? Should WWE keep Aldis as a GM, or let him wrestle one more big match? Let us know in the comments below.
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