Read on for my thoughts on last night's Raw.
Not a bad opening contest to continue that story.
3MB is obviously suicidal to call out The Shield.
Kickass segment with 3MB, Brock, and Heyman. A steel cage match is a bit of a letdown, though. That's not really threatening anymore.
This yodeling thing is kind of ridiculous.
Pretty awesome U.S. Title match. I hope both guys have futures in the business.
Fine Kofi promo. I hope the U.S. Title gets to be more important now.
Dolph's promo was really good. Del Rio was good, too.
Fine "match" to continue the World Title situation. I think we could be in for something good at Extreme Rules.
Nice followup to the World Title match. That should be an important story.
That's a pretty big 6-man tag. I'm surprised that Taker's competing. It might be the only other time we see him in the ring this year. Or see him at all, for that matter.
Yep, PTP loses again. It made sense, though, to build Hell No for next week's match.
Nice Ryback promo. The heel turn makes a good deal of sense. Cena doesn't have a good track record with his friends, does he?
So much for rebuilding Barrett. The match was fine, and it set up a future title match. They're just inconsistent with Barrett again.
Fine segment with the GMs.
Fine Rhodes Scholars promo, too.
Not a bad tag match to give Rhodes Scholars a win.
The Fandango stuff was interesting. I'm glad they're keeping him heel.
Fine Cena segment. Thankfully he didn't sound too goofy.
Swagger vs. Ziggler was good. WWE loves having vulnerable champions, which is good because Ziggler looks pretty weak for a World Champ.
Nice post-match to keep things going.
The Sheamus/Henry segment was fine. I figured Henry would want to continue feuding with Ryback and Cena?
Interesting stuff with Punk and Heyman. I guess this is how they'll give Punk some time off. He's earned it.
It made sense to make a Triple Threat for the World Title. Hopefully it's at Extreme Rules.
Fine Divas' match to set up a challenger for the title.
Good tag match for Friday.
Fine ending segment, other than Ryback chickening out of facing John before The Shield's music played. Cena was better than he usually is on the mic. I think Cena vs. Ryback could be interesting.
More wrestling coming up, including podcasting at Blue Echo.
Chuck, I'm honestly a bit surprised you're not more boisterous about the U.S. Title change. I know Cesaro's had it for a while, but I'm a little upset about it, personally. For a guy who has had an eight-month reign, 1) losing the title abruptly when no one knew about the title match until 10 minutes before it is tough to swallow, 2) Cesaro has been so good in his role and in the ring with upper-card guys all to lose to a mid-carder who has won maybe two matches since his loss to Barrett, and 3) he's been booked so poorly the last two months, despite proving so much.
ReplyDeleteI personally like Cesaro and think he has a great future as a heel, but he deserves a little better than his "demotion" he's been getting. Any justification towards it or is it mainly the "WrestleMania focus" on pushing the guys who were in it that has cost him?
I know you're a Mark Henry fan, so any justification in Mark Henry winning his match against Ryback, yet giving Ryback the title shot (seemingly) over Henry? I like Henry and think his win deserves a WWE Championship shot, so I'd be a bit bitter if I was him.
Any clairvoyance in relation to what will amount with the tag titles now? I mean, seemingly every tag team has had a shot at them that gets regular television time, and like you mentioned, WWE has really milked everything they can in Hell No's repertoire. Everything you mentioned before makes sense in that WWE really doesn't pay much attention to its tag teams that aren't champions, but maybe it's one of those things where they honestly still like Hell No more, despite their long reign.
At this point, I've seen this kind of thing so much that it barely phases me. I like Cesaro, but it's no big deal to me that they're going with Kofi. In the end, WWE probably doesn't care much about either of them since they weren't at Mania. If someone was watching the show for the first time in a while at Mania, they wouldn't even know that the U.S. Title was still around.
ReplyDeleteThe focus on Mania's probably the main reason. I have no clue why they gave him the yodeling gimmick and demoted him unless it's Vince's weird sense of humor or they're "testing" him to see what he can stomach (or both). Seriously, at this point I pretty much wash my hands of it because it's clear that they're not interested in changing things.
I know they re-wrote a lot of stuff after Mania once it was found out that Rock was too hurt to be a part of things. It makes sense that Ryback would want to face Cena, but not that Henry would abandon both of them to feud with Sheamus again. They probably threw things together at the last minute and that's why things are so ridiculous. There was an interview not too long ago I posted with a former member of WWE Creative pretty much said that ideas get changed around a lot because someone will get in Vince's ear and he'll like their idea better than the idea he already agreed upon, so he'll change to the new idea even if it doesn't make as much sense.
I can see The Shield taking the titles soon. If they don't, I see Team Hell No losing them in some kind of fluke fashion (maybe to PTP?) and the focus being on Kane vs. Bryan instead of the tag team titles, with things going back to the days when Otunga and McGillicutty were champs and the titles didn't really mean anything. Obviously I'm pessimistic about the division's future, but I haven't been really impressed with some of their logic lately and that would fit right up their alley.