In the closing moments of WWE Bad Blood, The Rock returned from a six-month hiatus to stare down undisputed WWE champion Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns.

The look on his face, the raising of his eyebrow, and some accompanying gestures suggested that he was not happy with what went down in the WWE Universe during his absence, and the path to WrestleMania 41 he takes is officially underway.

His return also overshadowed a shocking heel turn from Kevin Owens some 40 minutes after the show, when he confronted Rhodes outside of the arena and viciously assaulted him while fans watched and recorded.

The Owens betrayal is likely to have a greater immediate impact on WWE programming while Rock's involvement will be as part of the overarching Bloodline drama, suggesting that The Prizefighter's big moment should have been more prominently featured on the show itself or held off until Friday on SmackDown.

Regardless, those two moments were at the forefront of a show that featured several developments worthy of hot takes and these are just a few of them.

WWE Fumbles Judgment Day Booking

Judgment Day has been the focal point of the Raw brand for most of 2024, so it stood to reason that the matches pitting Liv Morgan against Rhea Ripley and Finn Bálor against Damian Priest would be handled with the utmost creative care.

Instead, the booking surrounding those two matches left fans scratching their heads and much to be desired.

Bálor, JD McDonagh, and Carlito looked like incompetent fools as they bumped around for Priest, their credibility shot by the time The Archer of Infamy delivered South of Heaven and dispatched them.

The Women's World Championship match progressed just fine until Dominik Mysterio found himself hanging upside down from the shark cage intended to contain him and Ripley teed off on him with a kendo stick.

Raquel Rodriguez returned and attacked Mami, drawing a disqualification when she would have better been utilized to make up for Mysterio being incapacitated by building heat and costing her the title.

From the credibility-killing handling of Bálor, who now looks like an incapable leader of even lesser-capable fools, to the unnecessarily messy execution of the women's title match, the utilization of The Judgment Day was surprisingly ineffective and overall sub-par.

Triple H and the creative team will have their work cut out for them Monday in terms of rehabilitating Bálor, McDonagh, and Carlito and making them a threat again because they were anything but Saturday night in Atlanta.

World Title, Match with Gunther Should Be Next Up for CM Punk

CM Punk survived Drew McIntyre, outlasting The Scottish Warrior and ending their rivalry emphatically with one of the greatest victories of his career.

After defeating his rival at Bash in Berlin at the end of August, Punk cut a promo on the following Raw in which he expressed his desire to compete for the World Heavyweight Championship.

With no obvious program waiting for Gunther after he wraps up his feud with Sami Zayn on Monday night on Raw, a showdown with Punk makes the most sense, especially considering the Chicago native is unlikely to forget what has driven him since he returned to the company.

The endgame is ultimately the resumption of his rivalry with Seth "Freakin" Rollins and a date between the two, presumably at WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, and there are ways to get there that involve Gunther and the world title.

Punk kicking off the road to that match, by jumpstarting the rivalry with The Ring General that he had already teased, makes the most creative sense for everyone involved.

WWE Books Itself Into A Corner with Crown Jewel Championship Concept

Triple H announced the creation of the Crown Jewel Championship Saturday night, to be awarded to the winners of two champion vs. champion matches in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at Crown Jewel.

While the intent is to surround that show with a special gimmick that helps it stand out without having to sacrifice high-profile matches he means to save for Survivor Series, one cannot help but think he and the company have booked themselves into a corner.

For someone who takes special care of preserving the credibility of his champions, the Chief Content Officer has now set two of them up to lose.

With his insistence Saturday that there will be a winner, he has essentially told the WWE Universe that one men's and one women's champion will be proven inferior to the other on a grand stage.

At a time when fans begin looking toward the hottest period of the year in professional wrestling.

In creating a new concept for the Crown Jewel show, which traditionally takes on the form of a glorified live event with an occasional big angle, he has sacrificed the legitimacy of two of his champions for the photo op of the others hoisting a new title that is not cannon to ongoing storylines.

Tiffany Stratton Poised for Major Babyface Run After Nia Jax Story

Tiffany Stratton will be a major star in the women's division and based on what we have seen out of her and Nia Jax since they formed their business relationship, it will be in a most unexpected role: babyface.

Miss Money in the Bank has repeatedly shown that the reigning WWE women's champion intimidates her. It is why she has not cashed in on the 2024 Queen of the Ring and taken her title, despite having more than one opportunity.

She has backed down at every turn and become somewhat subservient to the queen.

Eventually, Stratton will stand up for herself, hand over her briefcase, and attempt to take it from Jax. When she does, the WWE Universe will embrace her as a babyface and support her.

It already has.

Look back to Elimination Chamber in February and how much the fans in Australia loved her and wanted to see her win the namesake match. Ditto at Backlash in France and Money in the Bank in Toronto.

The momentum has been building and WWE has the right story, and antagonist, to pull it off.

When the time comes, Stratton is going to leap to the forefront of the SmackDown women's division and become one of the most unlikely babyfaces in recent memory by proving she is her own woman, and both stronger and smarter than anyone gave her credit for.

The Rock's Return Ignites Road to WWE WrestleMania 41

The Rock returned to WWE in the closing moments of Saturday's show and ignited the Road to WrestleMania with the raise of his trademark eyebrow.

It was a buzzworthy moment and The Final Boss didn't have to do anything else besides show up to make it happen.

He stood at the top of the aisle, stared down undisputed WWE champion Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns, and with a single throat-slashing gesture, made it clear that he is about to become a heavy influence in the Bloodline story again.

We know there is unfinished business with Rhodes that The Great One not-so-subtly eluded to on the Raw after WrestleMania. We know he has likely had something to do with Solo Sikoa assuming leadership of The Bloodline and betraying Reigns.

With six months to go until The Showcase of the Immortals rolls into Las Vegas, he has reminded the entire WWE Universe that his role in the overarching storyline is significant and will directly affect the two biggest Superstars in the industry today.

What that means for the big show and how it encompasses all three stars remains to be seen.

Kevin Owens' Heel Turn Gives Peek at the Evolution of Social Media in Pro Wrestling

Kevin Owens shockingly turned on Cody Rhodes Saturday night, beating him down in the parking lot of State Auto Arena. The only cameras there to catch it were those of the WWE fans watching and waiting for a glimpse of their favorite Superstars.

Not only is it a major angle that will have long-reaching implications on the SmackDown brand, but it was also a peek into how WWE can and will utilize social media moving forward.

It is no longer just a platform for promoting events, selling merchandise, and making announcements.

WWE officials know that fans are around and every single one of them has a cell phone on them. They want to snap pictures and record their favorite Superstars, even if it is just as they emerge from the parking lot.

Allowing them to tell the story through their own social media accounts makes things look less polished and scripted and more spontaneous and real. It injects a freshness to the product that has long been missing and also allows the company to take angles out of the glossy, overproduced arenas and anywhere it knows fans will be.

More importantly, it tells the audience that anything can happen anywhere so it best be there. Autograph signings, media events, pre-show rallies...wherever there are cameras.

It is almost surprising that it took this long but given the previous regime and how one-dimensional its productions had become, it makes sense that it did.

As for Owens' big moment, the Prizefighter has always been his best as a motivated heel with a chip on his shoulder. He may not beat Rhodes for the undisputed title but the storyline, and his performance, is about to be a whole lot of fun.