Buddy Murphy Deserves Better

A prevailing storyline was told throughout the SummerSlam pay-per-view, pertaining to the recent events involving Roman Reigns. Two weeks ago on Smackdown, Reigns was walking to an interview segment, when a forklift dropped scaffolding and crates on top of Reigns. He was unharmed and walked away without a scratch. The following week on Raw, while arguing in the parking lot with Samoa Joe, an unidentified driver rammed into Reigns' car, nearly taking him out in the process. Again, Reigns walked away shaken but relatively unharmed.

The next night on Smackdown, Reigns confronted Buddy Murphy, who was seen walking away from the initial "accident" the prior week. After refusing to answer Reigns on if he had knowledge of the attacker, Murphy was brutally attacked by Reigns, forcing Murphy to callout Rowan as the person responsible.

Fast forward to the SummerSlam Kick-Off Show. For seemingly no reason, Buddy Murphy had a match with Apollo Crews. There was no storyline to this match, no previous feud, and no explanation for the match. The reason became evident partway through, however, when Rowan came out and laid waste to Murphy.

Don't get me wrong, I was very happy to see Buddy Murphy on TV. He is an excellent talent who is greatly under-utilized. His run as Cruiserweight Champion was the best the 205 Live brand has had, in my opinion. The commentators even pointed out that this was Murphy's first official match since moving to Smackdown in the Superstar Shakeup in April. But if the only reason for this match with Crews to happen was just to have Rowan attack Murphy, why was there a match to begin with?

This seems like an angle that could have been more effective if done in a backstage segment. A match with an already established storyline could have taken place on the show, for example: Drew McIntyre versus Cedric Alexander is a rivalry that has been built on Raw for the past several weeks; Aleister Black versus Sami Zayn was originally supposed to happen on the pay-per-view, but was instead moved to the Go-Home episode of Smackdown; neither the Raw nor Smackdown Tag Championships were defended at SummerSlam.

So, what was the reason behind making this match with Murphy and Crews? Is Murphy going to have a serious feud with Rowan now, or possibly turn babyface? This match didn't help either of the men, nor has Murphy looked good in either this or the Reigns encounter. In my opinion, Buddy Murphy deserves better and this storyline in general needs to be better thought out.