Welcome, my sticky friends, to another edition of The Rager. I’m am the official Rager Gondolier through this ocean that is WWE news of late. This has obviously been a humongous week that has more people excited than anything surrounding Wrestlemania. I’ll start off with the biggest piece of news that I know everybody is wanting to talk about:
The HUGE News
During Money in the Bank, we were all witness of the single most amazing sight to be held at a WWE pay per view. It was a true testament of will as well as the ultimate under-dog story.
I speak, of course, of the glorious Spanish Announce Table. The entire world gave you little-to-no credit when we saw you at ringside. We knew that you would never last 2 ladder matches, 1 match between giants and 2 championship bouts. You survived 2 separate RKO’s and you didn’t budge. For the first time in recent memory, you made it through and for that, I commend you.
Oh Yeah, That Happened Too…
Obviously the big news is the sentimental success of Money in the Bank throughout the IWC and that doesn’t even necessarily have to include the Punk/Cena match. Going back to what I mentioned in The Rager that I wrote right after the CM Punk shoot in saying that even if that was planned (and it was), what makes these past few weeks and ppv special is that it finally seems like WWE is listening to the fans and the internet in general. It seems like WWE is finally responding in some way to the criticism that’s rightfully been thrown at them for a while now. We saw an honest and heartfelt batch of promos from CM Punk, we got Daniel Bryan winning and very meaningful match and obviously some sort of push and on-top of it all, we got a brilliant match between Punk and Cena. Now, we can credit Punk is making Cena look better than he is but Cena truly played his part and, what I liked, kept it simple. I’m not gonna spend too much more time on this just because I know there definitely isn’t going to be a shortage of coverage on this.
Nobody has put it into better perspective than our own Glazer Monday morning. One can speculate a million different ways of how WWE is going to tie this up and possibly screw it all up. The important thing is that we may have witnessed one of the greatest moments in wrestling history and instead of picking it apart for any shortcomings (I DARE you to find any) and just enjoy it. Enjoy the fact that something came together so perfectly for one night and it became something mammoth. I’m a huge Chicago sports fan (minus The Bulls unless the Houston Rockets are having a bad season) and over the years, I’ve witnessed many big moments either on television or in person and the crowd was a typical Chicago sports crowd amplified by 100 and the only thing I could compare it to was the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup and the millions of fans crowding the streets the next day. Chicago is a great sports town and its about time they got a wrestler they can go insane for every time he comes home.
Side Note
If by some miracle, there was to be a championship match between CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, I would probably just mail my wallet to WWE Headquarters.
Moving Forward
By now, I’m sure everyone saw the tearful closing segment of Raw (more tears were shed on-air during that segment than there was for the passing of Macho Man, just throwing that out there). I know this was pretty much done really for two reasons:
1) They would have an excuse for not firing Cena
2) They could get a Mr. McMahon-like persona on the air more frequently without actually having McMahon on the air.
HHH being the authority figure on the show was definitely something we all knew would be coming in the near future but I suppose nobody really saw it that future being THIS near. I like the move, we can have another power struggle storyline as WWE has had so many times before and then McMahon can go back to being full-time behind-the-scenes like we all knew he really wants. What I am curious about is how the Punk situation is gonna go down because it really wasn’t addressed, at least not about Punk specifically.
In Other News
Monday continued to be an extremely busy day for WWE, especially with that announcement of the suspension of Sin Cara for violating the Wellness policy and followed by the rumor that WWE may not even bring him back due to lack of interest and botch-ful matches. But speaking to the lack of interest, I completely understand that because, honestly, what can Cara do that Mysterio hasn’t already done and without the mistakes? WWE signed him with the hopes that using the Mysterio formula will equal the same amount of success with the kiddies but the fact is, one is enough (too much, in my book). If he or someone likewise is gonna be successful, they need to be different and not a carbon copy of Mysterio. I mean the guy even violates the Wellness Policy like Mysterio does. IF he’s brought back, find out a way to make him a heal and see how that works and then we could see Mysterio vs Sin Cara and that might be something worth watching.
Also, in other news, did anyone manage to catch the apology posted on WWE.com to John Laurenitis? Apparently the guy doing live coverage for MitB said some less than flattering things about the VP of Talent Relations and had to backtrack. No real point in me talking about that, I just thought it was interesting that WWE took exception to how he was described as he got punched in the face.
Well that about covers it for this week. Be sure to catch my Live Rager on Twitter every Monday during Raw. Its fun and basically we just interact and make fun of whats going on there on the tube.
Song of the Week
This week comes from the best band (live or in studio) in the world, MUSE!
Anti-Movie of the Week
This gem is one I’ve watched twice, once on heavy medication and once because I was a jerk and decided to torture my friends with it. Both times, by the end of the movie, my head was killing me. Its what happens when you give Charlie Kaufman complete creative control and the desire to stick it to movie critics and the outcome is Synecdoche, New York. Watch at your own risk and if anyone joins you, make sure they’re not wearing shoes that they can pummel you with (I speak from experience).
I hope everyone has a fantastic week and be sure to stop by all throughout the week for a wide variety of columns by our fantastic writing staff. Until then, be sure to comment below if there’s anything in the world you’d like to Rage about and I’ll be sure to offer my two cents because that’s what I do.
R-Truth is the new Hooch…because Hooch is craaazy.
Chris
(Yes, the title of the column was a cheap shot at Sin Cara’s height)
(Also, I just lost the game).
