I get why they did it though:
- Lashley might lose his fight in two weeks
- What if Lashley gets fukked up in his fight for real?
- They can always put it on back on Lashley later
- Eddie Edwards is probably a transitional champion and they didn't want to give a transitional reign to EC3
Let's be honest, losing wouldn't affect him at all. Everyone know wrestling fake and they appreciate both sports as completely different things. People still gonna know Lashley one of the realest in the ring. And in kayfabe, he can just brush it off with some heel antics like his opponent cheated to win, or even they can ignore it all together and announcers just note "Lashley back from competing in MMA".
You have a good point that he might actually have to take time off to recover from real injuries sustained in his fight, which leads me to......
That's called a payoff
Last time they faught it was close
If you asked before this night who Lashley's biggest rivals are currently? EC3, MOOSE, BENNETT. That's THREE people. If there's no time to build a story back up between them, just don't do it. If this was for a lesser title, it can slide. But this is your crown jewel of the company. Something where, if you tell any fan of TNA that the championship just changed hands, they should be able to tell you after only 2 guesses who Lashley lost to.
There are 2 clearly better options here, but they have decided to go the Chris Sabin route here.
1) HAVE EC3 WIN AT BFG. Don't make this a transitional reign then. The biggest PPV of the year. Lashley has had a pretty good reign by this time. If you are having Lashley win that match to continue a long run as champ, okay. But to have him lose the next week to someone else? After they spent all that time building EC3 back up as the guy to beat Lashley? That's a payoff guys.
2) MOOSE AS TRANSITIONAL. Moose has been pretty involved with Lashley the WHOLE time he's been in TNA. There's been decent story development between them. He's as big as Lashley, if anyone can make a random win with no build look convincing, (for ppl rooting FOR or AGAINST Lashley), it's him. He's got a pretty strong buzz, he's been booked to mingle with main eventers off the bat. Sure, he's new to the roster, but this actually makes sense, compared to Eddie.
This was a total :_charles: moment for TNA, and they have been doing alot of things right lately, so it sucks this fukk up happened in the main event/world title picture. Looking forward, it's done now. We have to see if Eddie can step up and make this look somewhat okay.
