In what might be a sign that the Wild Card Rule Era is drawing to close, WWE Champion Kofi Kingston and the rest of the New Day weren’t on Raw last night. Instead, they were at a Smackdown-branded House Show, just like in the old days. As per the usual schedule, this was the Smackdown Roster’s third night in a row doing WWE Live Events. On Saturday and Sunday’s show, Kofi defended the WWE Championship against Dolph Ziggler. Last night, however, the main even was Finn Bálor defending the Intercontinental Championship against Ziggler instead. Kofi was officially pulled from the action in an announcement early in the show.
As reported on Wrestling Inc, the announcement said that Kofi was out of action due to injury. If Kofi is actually injured that could definitely affect Sunday’s Extreme Rules PPV, at which he’s supposed to defend his title against Samoa Joe. There’s a chance he could really be injured to the degree that he can’t wrestle that match, or that some lingering issue will necessitate him dropping the belt (assuming that wasn’t the plan anyway). On the other hand, it’s possible that they’re just playing safe with the Champ during a PPV week, and he’ll be totally fine by Sunday. We should have a better idea of the state of things after tonight’s Smackdown, at which Kofi’s expected to appear as usual.
