Earlier this year, it was announced that WWE would finally return to Madison Square Garden. The arena the original WWWF basically grew up in will host Raw and SmackDown tapings once again. This will be their first broadcast emanating from MSG since a Network special in October of 2015. And it will be the first time either Raw or SmackDown have aired from the historic arena since November of 2009.
It was a pretty renowned show last time, and an important one in hindsight as well. It was the show where Kofi Kingston took a big plunge, diving off a balcony to hit an outstanding Boom Drop on Randy Orton, putting him through a table. That was the peak of his initial main event push. A push that Orton would himself then famously derail.
That angle has been revisited this year. It’s been a recurring thing, actually. During the build to Kofi’s WWE title victory, he ran into Orton once more. Randy happily took credit for stifling Kofi before. Kofi overcame him eventually and went onto defeat Daniel Bryan, but the Viper is back again to try and end his WWE title reign. He’s set to face Kofi at SummerSlam for the title. But it’s clear that their feud will not end there. Fittingly, it will spill over into the place it all began…
WWE Champion Kofi Kingston will face Randy Orton on September 10th.
I don’t imagine it’d be too popular a decision if Orton defeats Kofi at SummerSlam… but considering the timing and the fact that this match will happen anyway? I’m sorta thinking it’d be a cool idea if Randy beat him there, setting up a rematch where Kofi regains the title at Madison Square Garden. Traditionally, their television tapings at MSG are much more significant than usual episodes. So it’s not too crazy to think a world title change could occur on this particular episode of SmackDown. Plus, it’d be nice to raise the profile of the show ahead of the move to FOX.
More importantly, something like that would really put a bow on this whole thing, and really the whole career of Kofi Kingston. It’d be a fitting end to their rivalry, as well as a lovely way to cap off this grand return to MSG after ten whole years of never airing anything on TV from the arena.
Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns is also set to go down on this event, atleast by their advertisements.
On the Raw side, a six-man tag match featuring Seth Rollins, Braun Strowman & Ricochet against the OCs (AJ Styles, Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows) as well as a triple threat match between Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss and Natalya. That of course takes place the night before on September 9th.
Now it should be noted that all of these advertisements are done largely for the house.
That is to say they’re there to draw tickets rather than ratings. We don’t know that any of this will actually make air. In fact a lot of stuff announced this early for the live crowd tends to get changed these days. But they always take Madison Square Garden more seriously. So I have a feeling these matches will happen. And in my estimation, Kofi/Orton atleast has a very good shot at actually making SmackDown.
