Aug
27
2014
0

The Four Sided Ring: Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

This week WWE gave it a really big try to hold ground against the Emmys which were on a rare Monday this year. They started the show with a WWE Hall of Fame roundtable which saw HOF’ers Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair bicker about if John Cena should retire or not. It largely fell flat to me and the novelty of seeing this guys just being on TV has largely worn off. I think WWE promoting and kicking off the show with a big match has proved much better to really make Raw great. The best Raws over the last few years have followed this formula. What this segment did do was show me an unforeseen downside of the WWE Network. Seeing HBK and Hulk just being on TV isn’t enough anymore. We have access to almost every match they have ever had (for $9.99) and are saturated with their classic moments and faces all week so seeing them sit behind an announce desk just doesn’t cut it anymore. Sorry WWE but this didn’t hold my attention. The segment got a little better when Cena came out for his inevitable “You don’t believe in me but I do” speech. I’m interested in seeing how WWE goes about the rematch but no way is Cena winning it.

Later Cena wrestled Bray Wyatt and anyone with half a brain saw where this was going. Cena would dominate the Wyatt’s throw a bunch of suplexes and win clean to save face. I’m not as concerned about the loss for the Wyatts as many of my colleagues are. They are a polarizing group that can easily regain heat at a moment’s notice also let’s not forget that Wyatt got a clean win over Jericho at Summerslam less than 2 weeks ago.

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The second big angle going on is the Seth Rollins Dean Ambrose feud. Of course by now everyone knows Ambrose will be off filming a movie so will be off TV for a few weeks. To keep the heat going on WWE decided to plug Roman Reigns into the storyline to fill the gap. It’s the most logical move but it’s hard to not feel like this is a little cheap way to get Reigns some of the steam he has lost by throwing him into a situation Ambrose and Rollins did all the work for. Reigns is treading dangerous water right now, fans are onto his limited offense and the Super Cena esque  way in which WWE is booking him is beginning to backfire. Fans are seeing the future it looks very much like the present. There is still time to turn things around but fans have seen this too many times to give them much more time.

The Bellas continued their sisterly spat in what was an up and down segment. There were some good moments and some cringe worthy moments. Nikki showed some dark side that was refreshing and showed some growth on her part but she went a little too long and lines like “I wish you would have died in the womb” felt awkward because no one talks like that. I’m interested in seeing the angle move on 1. Cause it’s something meaningful for the divas and 2. gives them some rare character depth.  The girls are without a doubt over their heads in this but they are getting better so that’s reason enough for me to let them go a little bit. It’s been a while since Divas have had a chance to perform like this so some growing pains can be expected. I’m not jumping ship on this just yet, the story is good it’s just the performance needs to catch up.

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The other big Divas angle going on (I know TWO Divas angles!) is the Paige AJ feud. Paige and Natalya had a good match with Naty showing some aggressiveness we haven’t seen and showcased some unique reversals. As typical it was criminally short and another 2-3 minutes would have benefited them more. The angle itself has taken a “out weird the other” turn and I think the girls are capable of more. Again it’s something to do and I’m hoping it results in a decent match length as I’m really interested in the story these two could tell given enough time.

In other news Rusev beat Swagger again, it’s sad the crowd despite my guesses is still hanging on in this one and were begging for Rusev to tap to the Patriot lock but it just never came. With Bo Dallas sticking his nose in I’m not even sure Swagger will ever get a victory over Rusev which sucks for what was surprisingly good angle that fans really seemed invested in. I hope they have a long term plan for Rusev because if not an audible call in this match would have been a great moment. Other news of note is the turn of the Dust Brothers, can’t say I saw it coming and it was definently an interesting decision. How they handle the turn and where they go with it will be mist see as Goldust was once one of the weirdest heels going but that was a long time ago. As a lover of the tag division anything that keeps it high profile and keeps it going is ok in my book. I’m still not sold on the Uso’s and I can’t exactly figure out why, I suppose to me they remind me of Kofi in that “raw energy but nothing else” aspect but maybe a good feud with the Dusts can bring more out of them.

In the Mid-tier title front Damian Sandow came out in Miz attire and lost to Dolph Ziggler. I would love to know what Sandow thinks of his place in the company right now, he seems to put on a good face but it has to be tough considering his promising start.

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Cesaro beat RVD for a US title shot as we found out later that both RVD and Ryback will be taking some time off. Ryback due to injury and RVD most likely due to his part time contract.

It was a rather quiet week outside the ring as no big time indie stars were signed. WWE doesn’t seem interested in signing Bully Ray who is leaving TNA and it also seems unlikely Kurt Angle will be making a return to WWE anytime soon. WWE made it official that starting in October Smackdown will return to Thursday nights. On the Daniel Bryan injury front there were reports he would need Tommy John surgery which would add another three months to his recovery time, then there were reports that he wouldn’t need it. Then there were reports that he is advertised for the European tour in November, so what can we take from all this? No one has a clue when or if Daniel Bryan will be returning. Until then you can re watch his amazing night at Wrestlemania XXX on the WWE Network for the low price of…….

 

Now go out there and put someone over.