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10:47 - By the way, while I love that they're doing something with AJ, I do think they disbanded the unique dynamic Bryan and AJ had as the d-bag guy and sweet innocent girlfriend. Crazy obsessed girlfriend and d-bag guy is a different relationship -- and it'll work -- but I think it was a bit too accelerated.
10:38 - I was about to take a bathroom break, and I would've missed a segment with AJ and CM Punk. And that would've been a damn tragedy.
10:28 - In storyline terms, why would anybody want to sign with A.W.? He signed Primo and Epico, but he hasn't done anything with them. In fact, he's actively putting off their rematch.
10:20 - I don't know what it is, but for some reason Brodus introducing Cameron and Naomi really kills the rhythm of his entrance.
10:14 - That was a very, very long segment. My guess is that this leads to Big Show helping Johnny Ace beat Cena at Over the Limit. Big Show is rehired as a heel.
10:11 - Just because Big Show is a good enough actor to pull off crying doesn't mean he should be scripted to cry.
10:07 - Contracts, lawsuits, and public apologies. All this and more on tonight's Raw!
10:05 - I'm confused, is Johnny Ace fighting John Cena or Big Show at the PPV?
10:01 - You know, I almost forgot that this Sunday is the PPV. This feels like a severely lackluster card. The title matches and Cena/Ace are fine, but what else is there?
9:53 - I cannot adequately express how little I care about this Big Show/Johnny Ace storyline. But hey, great seeing David Otunga back. And yeah, I'm not being sarcastic either!
9:44 - I said this on Twitter last week, but a lot of people get on WWE's case for the times they pat themselves on the back. But you know what? It's stuff like this that they completely deserve it. The fact of the matter is, they don't HAVE to do this stuff. And they don't have to do it to the extent that they do. And yes, they publicize it, but so what? If you sit back and actually watch these pieces, they're actually really touching and sweet. And I respect the fact that they help kids with terminal illnesses.
9:35 - I think the Cobra is the most asinine finisher since the Worm, but I have to admit that I laughed when Cody Rhodes walked into a GTS because he was afraid of getting hit by the Cobra.
9:22 - I think you all probably know that I'm not in that "Zack Ryder was buried" boat, but I do have to wonder why they took the US title off of him. When he held the belt, people cared. They were happy he won it, and they wanted to see him keep it. Then he lost it to Jack Swagger, who went on to only defend it on Superstars. And he went on to lose it to Santino, who rarely defends it and rarely even wins. There really was zero benefit to taking the title off of him. If it's just a prop, why not use it on a prop where people care?
9:15 - So I'm guessing somebody just ran into the ring?
Anyway, I'm not quite sure what to make of that opening promo (although I'm guessing Scott Keith hated the Brock burial). Most of me wishes they just found a more creative way to keep Lesnar off of TV without resorting to this contract/lawsuit stuff. It goes over a lot of people's heads, and most people just don't really find it interesting.
And is it crazy that Johnny Ace is juggling storylines with John Cena, Triple H, Big Show, and to an extent CM Punk?
9:04 - The one downside to Triple H appearing on Raw so infrequently? WWE feels the need to reshow footage of him explaining why he's not on Raw over and over and over again. Who else remembers when they showed the footage of Kevin Nash knocking over Triple H in the stretcher three times in the span of 20 minutes? This Brock Lesnar stuff reminds me of that. How many times do we need to see that attack?
Monday, May 14, 2012
LIVE Raw thoughts - May 14, 2012
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11 comments:
On the opening promo: I didn't think the whole thing was terrible as some seem to, but HHH really did seem to bury Brock there, which is just stupid. I'm not saying he should have come out and sucked up to him, that's not HHH, but he pretty much tore him down as a worthless piece of garbage who sucks at everything he does in life. Too far I thought. As others have said, if you want to draw money with Brock, you make him something special. Losing to Cena hurt that but they could have easily gotten around that by focusing on him kicking the crap out of Cena for most of the match...instead HHH is tearing him down as nothing special at all and focusing on John Cena being way better than him, which is not the route to go at all unless you want Brock to be just another loser, the way they treat most of the roster.
On Ryder: To me, he's essentially been buried. Had they gone ANYWHERE with him, ANYWHERE, I might think differently. I could have gone with the "swing and a miss" theory, where they tried and it didn't work. But honestly, they gave him the US title, and even losing it to Swagger wasn't terrible since he had an out (he was seriously injured and actually showed heart by kicking out multiple times). After that I really wanted to see healthy Ryder VS Swagger...and did we ever get that? No. They took Ryder off TV, and when he came back he looked like even more of a chump by totally accepting Eve's apology, lost the match at WM for his team, and then...did nothing. Nothing at all. People kept insisting he was in great shape because he was being put in a big angle with Cena, except that angle went literally nowhere except turning Eve heel, who nobody overly cared about. The Cena involvement meant absolutely nothing at all and went nowhere, Ryder never got his revenge on Kane (what was the end result of all that, Ryder hit Kane once in the last Kane/Orton match but early in the match so it didn't factor into anything?). I just saw them announce Ryder/Kane on the Youtube preshow, and I bet Kane wins that. I would have settled for Ryder being returned to the US title picture, feuding with Ziggler/Swagger/Santino/Miz/etc., but we didn't even get that. I don't think Ryder is a future world champion or anything but he was an over midcarder and WWE buried him for no clear reason.
By the way, is it just me or is this show, a show intended to set up their next PPV, HEAVILY pushing Big Show apologizing to Johnny for talking like him as if anyone actually cares about that? I've seen like, 2 or 3 promos already all about "BIG SHOW TALKED LIKE JOHNNY OMG!!" and I've changed the channel on each one. Might stay changed because I'm not at all interested in Big Show VS Kane.
Also, I agree with you on Make a Wish. I think WWE often does pat themselves on the back way too much when they shouldn't, but in the case of Make A Wish they're justified in my opinion.
Ryder is a real, real interesting case. I can't bring myself to calling it a burial only because he IS in a far better spot, even right now, than he was before his push. And the other thing is, there are so many people on the roster being treated the same way. Even as US Champion, Santino loses more than he wins. Daniel Bryan went through a dreadful losing streak. Look at Miz right now. Swagger typically loses. Ziggler frequently loses. WWE is in this strange place that if you're not being pushed strong, you're in a losing streak.
It's idiotic, I'll give you that.
Well, let me be clear on Ryder. He's in a better spot now than pre push, but my point was the burial started after they started pushing him, and I don't know why. They do it a lot but this seemed like a lot even for them. They were pushing him a lot up to the US title, then shortly after he won it he looked like the biggest loser ever. The Swagger loss was fine because of the other stuff going on around it, but after that he looked like a big loser constantly.
I do agree he's not the only one. Ziggler is getting treated horribly right now. It's just bizarre because it wasn't the "We're pushing you to a world title match and then depushing you to teach you humility" or whatever their garbage reason is. Ryder got depushed heavily from the US TITLE level. That's just sad when, as you say, Santino barely even defends the thing and loses often.
Wow, who did Big Show piss off?
They seem to love to put Big Show in these emotional angles because he's the only guy who can convincingly pull it off. And he does do a great job, but it's just so counterproductive to the character he should be portraying.
Oh no, you're probably right about Show...so we have Cena/Show to look forward to? Sad face.
As scary as it sounds, I think we're getting set up for a reformation of that Lesnar/Big Show/Albert alliance we had near the end of Lesnar's original run (on Smackdown). Those three had a loose alliance, right?
Stop it, why are you ruining my night?
Also, I'm sorry, but is this supposed to sell the PPV? Look, I'm sure we still get interference from either Brock, Big Show, or both (since they're already "fired" they can't be fired again). But isn't the only possible way to sell Cena VS some guy who hasn't wrestled in forever to stack the deck against Cena with promises of outside interference, special guest refs, no DQ, etc. and then people pay to try to see Cena overcome the odds? That's the formula for Cena and as much as I hate it, in this specific case it's the only way to do it. Some people might like to see Johnny get beaten up...I don't think people are eager to PAY FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS to see Cena beat up Johnny.
And the joke is when the PPV does god awful numbers they'll blame Punk and Bryan, who were unceremoniously shoved into Segment 2 with no fanfare while the show focused on Big Show getting fired by Johnny.
Honestly, I've seen plenty of less entertaining Raws, but, and maybe I'm overreacting a little, I felt like this was one of the most potentially damaging Raws I've ever seen. They buried the guy who is supposed to make them big money (Brock). They shoved the WWE Champion into "Segment 2" with no fanfare (to me the three big spots in a show are opening the show, the 10:00 spot, and the ending...usually Punk is in one of the first two). Cena was way over the top on his cutesy make poopy jokes persona that was the thing that made people turn on him in the first place, after doing a decent amount of damage control and making him a little edgier recently. And then in case anyone was interested in ordering the PPV, they essentially announced the main event (and it certainly won't be the WWE title match, since they buried them in Segment 2) will be John Cena beating up Johnny for 10 minutes or so before, in all likelihood, one person interferes out of Show or Brock. I was actually kind of interested in a "Let's see the bells and whistles Johnny brings, ala Vince/Shane or Dude Love/Austin", where lots of "overbooking" happened that was quite entertaining. Instead they openly announce we will have no bells and whistles save for one likely outside interferer at the end of the match. And they want me to pay MONEY for that?
There were some entertaining matches but holy crap, they might have done some serious damage both short term (likely lowering the buyrate of a PPV that was already going to be low...I was actually considering getting it for Punk/Bryan before tonight) and long term (burying Brock Lesnar so he comes off as nothing special, shoving the WWE champion into a random segment and not acting like he matters to the show at all). Ugh. Just ugh. I may be overreacting and I accept that, but this was a terrible Raw to me.
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