rory's wrestling side blog

I'm not against the idea of Dominik betraying El Grande Americano (even though I really like them together), also because they heavily hinted at it, and not only since Dominik returned on AAA two weeks ago, but also considering their history up until now. They never really went against each other, but they weren't exactly on good terms either, and it was all Dominik's doing, because Grande has always being friendly with him, at least until Dominik antagonized him after he won Rey de Reyes.

So, the betrayal was kinda obvious.

But, why now?

Dominik now has allied with Omos and Dorian, and that already is a weird choice to begin with since he won the title from Vikingo and then had a rematch against him, and Omos almost cost him his victory. Did Omos and Dorian turn on Vikingo? Has Dom allied with Vikingo too? We don't know. But, ok, let's just pretend that it makes sense.

What benefit does Dominik get from it, heading now into Triplemania against Grande?

It was Dominik who offered Grande his help against Los Perros, it was Dominik who challenged them to a match with his former tag team partner. Betraying Grande now doesn't do him good, story wise.

I assume he knows Grande a little bit by now, since they teamed up for at least three matches (including this one), so he should know that this behaviour will only rile Grande up, sending him to Triplemania with a fighting fire that will be hard for Dominik to beat.

Did Dominik want to have Grande beaten up before his own match with him? Great! Then all he had to do was... Do nothing! Let things go as they were already going! Los Perros had already targeted Grande, they had already attacked him, so Dominik could have just waited for Los Perros to do the dirty work for him.

Why putting himself in it? What did he gain from it?

Now Grande knows that Dom is a rat and he will arrive twice as prepared at Triplemania for their match!

So, story wise, I don't understand Dominik's plan.

Here's how I imagined it would go, instead.

Considering that Dom will have inevitably betrayed Grande in the end, I would have waited for the betrayal to happen during their match ar Triplemania.

Hear me out.

Dom sees Los Perros are targeting Grande and sees an opening to get back to him (this, if you don't consider that he may have sent Los Perros himself to set his trap).

He offers him his help, he promises him that he'll have his back, he reunites Los Gringos Locos 2.0 for a match against Los Perros. Grande is wary, rightfully so, we already saw him not completely trusting Dominik right before their match (unfortunately he is a kind soul and ultimately he trusted him), so Dominik has to make him trust him, he has to back up his words. He fights alongside Grande, he take bumps for him, he put his body on the line for him, he bleeds for him, he says that nobody will lay a finger on his hermano until he'll have air in his lungs and blood in his vessels. He works for a full month only to gain Grande's trust up until Triplemania.

And Grande will completely trust him in the end, why shouldn't him, Dominik had shown him that he can count on him. That their relationship is based on mutual respect, and it's with that mutual respect that they'll head together towards their match at Triplemania.

And then, just then, Dominik can lie, cheat and steal his way to the victory, pulling out his worst dirtiest tricks to retain the title.

Not to mention, Dom has never been a full heel on AAA, he's always been more of a face with heelish tendencies, if that's a thing, so they could have also played a bit with it, like "will he will he not", maybe not letting us understand his intentions until it was too late.

Maybe, his new allies, whoever they could have been (I still wanted Los Perros instead of Omos and Dorian but, eh) arrive in the middle of their match. Grande and Dom are in the ring, Grande is standing by the ropes closer to the ramp, he thinks both of them are a target and thinks they have to temporally team up in order to send the intruders away and get back to their match, Dominik is behind him, and that's the moment when the betrayal should happen. (a shield chair moment??)

Dominik would have the surprise advantage because Grande was really trusting him and wasn't expecting this, he would have some time before Grande realizes what happened and reacts accordingly, not to mention the emotional distress Grande would find himself in at the moment, and the identities of the allies would be a surprise too, so Grande is unprepared to face whoever will come to help Dominik because he didn't know any of it, he couldn't even imagine something like that would happen, he trusted the little rat!

Now, instead, Grande has the time to elaborate the negative emotions after the betrayal (he looked so broken when he watched Dom walking away 🥲), he knows who Dom's allies are and can prepare accordingly, and, least but not last, he is also very pissed off. And he's somebody you really don't wanna piss off.

So. Again. What was the point? Story wise.

Because, yes, I know, company wise, they need to built their feud starting from now heading into Triplemania. Ok.

But.

I want things to make sense, I don't care about feuds if they don't align well with the story.

The Grande vs Grande feud was great because it came out naturally, it didn't feel rushed or forced, and that's why it lead to a great match.

WWE now took the habit of having to absolutely build feuds before big events even if they don't make sense or feel unnatural and rushed. (sounds familiar?)

I love a good feud, but not at the expense of the continuity of the story.

And hey, I trust both Dominik and Grande as workers, I just know they're gonna pull off something incredible out of this, both on the road to Triplemania and on the match itself. (At least Dom has a serious match on an upcoming PPV)

I just wanted things to go differently, maybe not necessarily as I said, but at least in a way that made more sense.

Sure, Dom betraying Grande and then aligning himself with El Ojo may create a nice viral moment for their nice little social media accounts, but I'm sick of the fact that going viral to sell tickets is the only thing that dictates the direction the stories now take.

And I also agree with people that say that Dom is handled waaay better on AAA than on RAW, as a character, because he is, I've always said it. But being cool alone isn't enough to be considered a well written character, I need his actions to make sense, because they have always had, at least up until now. (I'm talking about AAA. Dom on RAW is a different story.)