Dave’s RAW Thoughts
October 8, 2013
By: David Stephens of Wrestleview.com
WWE lost me this week. I’m confused and not in a good way. I’ve been supporting the current direction ever since the regime change, but it seems like we are getting caught up in the swerve-just-to-swerve mentality. I’m all for insanity and unpredictability. However, I’m having a difficult time getting behind this current environment of uncertainty. Aside from a few stalwarts who seem to have a clear direction, the rest of the show is more muddled than a 75 year-old’s Old Fashioned.
Dolph Ziggler proved that realism is simply not necessary. After taking the brunt of the beating for ten minutes he snuck in his finisher for the win. As if John Cena and Randy Orton haven’t used that gimmick to death. It’s frustrating and annoying. The belief is that it will make the heel look strong because they can get in a lot of offense. Instead, it made Sandow look weak for exactly that reason. Damien put in a dominant offense but Ziggler shook it off for the win. Alrighty then.
Brad Maddox has been off of his game for the past two weeks. I’m normally a fan of his goofball awk-fest. He seems to have lost his mojo as of late. Maddox needs to watch some tape and rekindle his early magic.
To everyone that has ever criticized The Bella Twins et. al. in terms of poor wrestling skills – I’m not going to be the guy that tells you that you are wrong. It would be super easy to point out that Eva and Aksana were so horrendous that by comparison the rest of the division looks strong. Well that’s like chilling with a dung beetle and envying a fly. Your life is still based around – well you know. They’re almost all terrible. The few that do shine, like Natalya and AJ, can only put in half the effort required for a match. The opponent matters as well. Hell even Alicia freakin’ Fox looks good by Eva Maria standards. I hate the fact that I’ve started to pay more attention to the Divas division because it is nauseating. Let’s face the facts straight on. There are so many incredibly talented women wrestlers on this planet. Unfortunately almost none of them look like Eva Maria. For as long as male fans would rather watch a smoke show like Eva be rolled around on the mat instead of a technical troll then this is what we’re going to get. Screw it, at this point I’m not even sure what I want in regards to this “division”.
Los Matadores and El Torito continue to shine. In other news Drew McIntyre decided to show up on the show and completely bury all of the speculation that has been building on social media. There were actually people interested in Drew McIntyre. No really, people were actually talking about him and hoping for a singles return. WWE decides to just pull a big LOL and chuck him out in a losing effort with his old crew.
Not even Paul Heyman could escape the horrendous flow of last night’s show. Whether the graphic he wanted stayed on too long, wasn’t the right shot, or Punk’s music failed to hit on time – everyone’s favorite walrus was stranded in the ring without script for a good chunk of change.
R-Truth decided to get in on the fun and continue to distort the flow of the show. At some point while watching I began to ask myself if this entire broadcast was some sort of rib. It was either that or all of the editors and producers were tripping out of their heads because nothing flowed together.
Truth couldn’t be bothered with a microphone apparently, even though every other damn time he comes down to the ring he has to rap that stupid song about popping pimples. But when an actual storyline needed to be relayed to the audience? Hell no. JBL probably captured the moment best with his stuttering commentary. Well, I guess we are getting a tag match, oh look now there is a referee in the ring. How about just a tad bit of setup so the crowd at home feels like they are watching a billion dollar industry and not the Gummi Bears on parade.
My heart went out for Bob Backlund last night. I truly enjoyed his yell fest of a promo. Though I’ll readily admit that the people I was watching RAW were not as entertained. I tried to slide in the connection of the old school but much like the crowd at RAW they weren’t buying it. I say my heart went out for him because there was no way that he was going to win the poll. I could see it in his eyes that he truly wanted to win. To his credit he did score over 30% of the vote. Not a paltry sum given the absurd rigging of the contest.
Kofi Kingston shook off his annihilation at the hands of Bray Wyatt and put on a strong showing against Randy Orton. Sister Abigail needs to sing some more hymns because that was not a very effective beat down. If you’re trying to emulate the likes that put down Sharon Tate – you’d expect at the least a banged up opponent on the next broadcast. Nope.
Alberto Del Rio tried to woo Vickie Guerrero in the back. It was silly of him. Surely he should have realized that Vickie has not been hungry for Latino beaus since the passing of her late husband. A look back at her love interests shows that she thirsts more for Caucasians as of late. It took just one whiff of Alberto’s scarf to remind her of her distaste for such men. So what does Vickie do in response? She brings back the greatest Caucasian hero active in the company – John Cena. Admittedly his Thuganomics past might have rained on that parade if he was still spitting. All I’m saying is there are clearly some bizarre racial undertones to Vickie’s character that I would like to see explored.
As for Cena – who the hell knows? Honestly when Vickie announced it I thought it was simply a ploy to allow Ricardo to score the roll up. I totally expected her to say she was joking. The commentator’s barely sold the announcement. The crowd was seemingly disinterested. Though to be fair they were disinterested the entire night. I’m still confused by the announcement. This one is too soon. Unless, as I’m hoping, Alberto Del Rio retains by “further injuring” Cena’s arm and shelves him till his actual return. There is a lot of power that can come from Cena returning from an extended absence that has been lost. I’m really not buying this as his full return.
In case you didn’t see it on the PPV, Antonio Cesaro swung Khali around once again. This was one of the few moments that the abysmal crowd showed some emotion. It is a move of great strength though perhaps a bit silly for a finisher. Antonio is easily one of the best that they have in the company in terms of in-ring ability. It’s time for him to figure out what he is missing character wise so he can break through to the next level.
I’d be remiss not to mention how horrendous the Pittsburgh crowd performed. Between their lack of response, the production miscues and editing gaffs this was a show to forget as quickly as possible.
Fandango defeated Zack Ryder. Shocker.
Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton continued their game of Superstar patty cake as The Miz will be Wyatt’s latest target. At least it saved us from an edition of Miz TV.
The main event was a fairly solid match. It was more brutal than I would have anticipated and the crowd was finally fired up. The ending saw an interesting resolution. I’m getting fatigued by this character of Triple H. Basically, he lets something play out that clearly is stupid and angers the fans. Then he gets up and says wow I can’t believe that happened so don’t worry I’m here to fix it. Now while I appreciate the fact that he is essentially just trolling us since he is behind both sides of the play, I find it difficult to sink my teeth into his character. I’m at a loss for where he stands because it seems to change on an hourly basis.
That being said the end of the show painted a good picture. Big Show knocked out Triple H. Bryan stood over him with his signature chant and actually had the crowd on their feet to end the show. At least I know that’s good for business.
David Stephens
Follow me on Twitter! @TheDaveStephens