Oh hello, fellow Ragertons, I didn’t see you there. Why don’t you come and gather around while grandpa Chris lays down the science for all of you. By no means am I wanting anyone to call me grandpa Chris from now on, it’s just everything wrestling-related seemed to make me cranky over the past couple days. Thankfully, I’m writing this the afternoon after Raw and not immediately after the show went off the air.
I found myself getting really heated at a couple things but now I can admit that Raw was pretty solid last night and served as a good launching point to get us ready for Rumble.
The first thing that I initially got annoyed with was the entire first half hour of the show. It was just your typical serious heel gets undermined by jokey Cena (this time was more of a metaphorical crap-dumping). And yes, we got a really good match out of it but we also got the formulaic big guy run-in that wasn’t really necessary given the outcome. Speaking of the outcome, I found myself initially being one of those people that was pissed Cena won (as if this was different than any Cena Raw match over the past 10 years). It’s the first Raw of the year and people are already giving up on a big Ziggler push in 2013 just because of this outcome. Yes, it’s a feud that’s been spread over the past few months and one could argue that Ziggler only looked somewhat strong at the end of TLC. But again, this is Cena and I really don’t think WEE is ready to put anyone over Cena unless you’re Rock. And let’s be honest, if one was to receive this monumental push everyone is saying Ziggler is going to get, WWE would have Ziggler do it on his own and not depend on the muscle to be his safety net. Using muscle to build bigger talent is a proven method for mid-carders and I still think Ziggler is already beyond that (especially after having the managerial muscle of Vickie for 2+ years). But I’m not giving up on any sort of push as I am not expecting Ziggler to keep both Aj and Big E for very long. I think the best way to go about this group is for Ziggler to keep Big E to serve as the bodyguard and keep watch as Ziggler cashing in the briefcase without anymore outside interference. After that, I’m expecting Big E, Ziggler and maybe AJ to all go their separate ways. However, we all know one of them will end up turning face and the two will have a match or two or 15.
As much as I enjoy Kaitlyn, I’m pretty much done with this thing with Eve. No one seems to get a hold onto what is actually going on with this story and it’s becoming more obvious Kaitlyn(‘s boobs) is getting the belt at some point in the nearish future. I say they go ahead and be done with it so we can move on with whatever they have next (probably nothing at all).
Rhodes Scholars looked strong against the champs. What seemed like a completely random, throw-away tag team at first seems to have become something officials can actually get behind. Weird how that works sometimes.
And that brings me back to something that annoyed me while watching Raw and annoys me still. Did we really need to see 3MB 4 times in one night? We got two backstage segments and 2 different matches. Sure, we needed heels to feed to Randy and Sheamus but that’s why you have guys like Curt Hawkins and David Otunga. Sure, I get the fact that WWE wants to play with their new toys but c’mon, 4 segments is a bit much for one night.
I’m assuming the Main Event match between Cesaro and Khali was a taped experiment to see if Cesaro could actually nail Khali with the Equalizer with the cameras rolling. Once they saw he could, the upgraded it to live TV status. Yes, it was impressive but we don’t need anymore reasons to maintain Khali’s relevance (I’ve said his name twice, maybe that’ll get me tagged in that website that’s dedicated to everything The Great Khali again) within the company.
I was okay with the TLC match between Ryback and Punk. Again, I’m assuming this was a watered-down version of what was suppose to happen at the PPV last month and now it makes sense why they’ve kept Shield after Ryback all this time and why Punk felt the need to mention his non-relationship with them. The match was really just a reason for Ryback to go all Godzilla on Punk and Shield (again, WWE wants to play with their new toy). Hopefully this ends all things Shield and Punk and everyone can refocus on other things (those other things being a lot clearer for Punk).
Quick knock out for Show on Kofi. Remember when Kofi told us that he really meant business once he picked up the Intercontinental belt? Yeah, me too.
That leaves us with the final few moments of the night. It started off with another Punk airing of grievances (seriously, he would win at Festivus…except for the whole meatloaf part) that echoed back to June 2012 and actually felt like a sequel to that promo. Then Rock joined and that’s when it initially went south for me. I just felt like Punk was trying to cut an epic, serious promo but kept getting met with middle school jokes from Rock. By the end of the show, I was ablaze on twitter (which you can follow us @CRAttire) with angry thoughts about Rock’s involvement of the night and thought it completely undermined the build for this Rumble match. I went offline and watched a wonderful movie (Seven Psychopaths, I highly recommend) and went to bed. I woke up this morning and eventually I ended up rewatching the entire promo and I felt less hostile about the whole thing.
Sure, Rock came out and was completely silly and childish blah blah. However, to his credit, he become more and more serious as it went on, especially once Punk had a few rebuttals. I just get really annoyed with non-tongue-in-cheek cheap crowd pops (both heel and face) and we really got that from both men so that probably had a lot to do with my initial rage. And keep in mind, this is the first promo in an entire month of build up towards this match so there’s plenty of things to happen between now and then and I’m expecting that epic promo between the two on the last Monday before the PPV. As for my thoughts of this undermining the match build, that was a completely absurd thought. This match doesn’t need a build, the names on the card pretty much does that for itself plus add the fact that we literally saw this coming for 6 months. I’m still highly anticipating everything may happen in the next month but I do believe that WWe can stop with their announcing matches months ahead of time, it was a cool experiment that got old after a while. That tattoo thing at the end was incredibly dumb, though.
Of course, plenty of people offered up their opinions on the show.
Personal Plugs! Be on the lookout for the Classy Ring Attire podcast right here on Pulse Wrestling later in the week (be on the lookout for special guests soon). Also, I started a new non-wrestling podcast with a friend of mine in which I explain things in American culture and he does this same with his native country of Canada. It’s called “America’s Hat/Canada’s Shorts” and we’re not on iTunes yet but we plan to do so in the very near future but until then you can check us out on our website.
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice,
Chris
The Answer: Coworker needed me to pick up a pack for him. Probably the only time I’ll buy cigarettes and I wasn’t even carded, kinda disappointed
