Feeling a bit discouraged after Old School Raw? Disappointed in the start of Punk/Taker? Well have no fear because here I am with yet another article that is completely opposite from what the title would suggest (I really should change the title from THE RAGER to Soothing Whispers from Uncle Chris).
I understand how the Undertaker opening fell flat with a lot of people, especially since what was portrayed was essentially already accomplished when Taker took over WWE’s SMS services before the show. It would’ve saved us a lot of time if WWE just sent a mass text that said “WM29?” And Taker responded with “Totes dtf” and then Punk replied with “;)” while Big Show, Orton and Sheamus all sent “FIRST!” after everyone else had already said something.
This is why I wonder why WWE hasn’t offered me a writing job.
And sure, Punk wanting to face Taker just to spite the people seems like an odd/weak reason to start a feud. It would work if Punk was opposite a face that was a huge pander bear to the audience and I just don’t see Undertaker going out there and get the local city cheap pop. And it felt even more odd for Big Show, Orton and Sheamus to come out with even weaker reasons to face him but apparently it was reason enough to put them all in a match (somewhere backstage, Teddy Long is crying at the missed opportunity for a tag team main event or to announce that someone was going one-on-one with The Undertaker.
But maybe now that Punk and Undertaker know they’re facing each other, maybe some more interesting details and personal rivalry will come out of their promos. Even if it doesn’t and things stays monotone, we get a good match at WM so can we really complain that much?
Does it make a lot of sense for Taker to come back? Probably not but it’s happening and I think both men have a decent enough history to where we should be confident in their ability to build a feud and a great match. Just think, last year when they announced that Punk would face Daniel Bryan at Over the Limit, was there much of a feud story going into that PPV? No, there wasn’t and did we care? No because we knew they would put on a great match. There’s not much of a difference in this case because we’ve seen how much better Taker works on a santa schedule and not to mention Taker’s promo skills put against Punk’s. I’m excited and I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be too. Cue comments discussion about how I’m wrong!
I do like how everyone (including myself) made the assumption Ryback and Mark Henry are going to have a match at WM and based this assumption only on the fact that they eyed each other once. It would be an interesting notch for Ryback and would help him maintain some sort of momentum during the Wrestlemania season and most of WWE’s attention is elsewhere.
Speaking of Mark Henry anyone else catch his brief reunion with his baby momma? It was far too brief because they cut away but it totally happened and the only way I would’ve marked out more is if that was followed by a Chris Masters return.
The most notable thing about Miz and Dolph’s match is Ric Flair air-humping the 2nd rope after Miz won. That rope now has half of Flair’s estate which means that rope is now bankrupt.
Kudos to Rock for going through an entire promo without referring to anyone’s genitals. I know how difficult that is for him, especially since he mentioned Lance Armstrong, that’s one tough nut to crack (see? I couldn’t even do it). I’m taking a point away from Cena for doing a dopey Mike Tyson impression but all-in-all, it was a good, logically promo that gave them an emotional connection to the match.
Yeah, I’ve gone back to not giving a crap about the WHC picture seeing as how Swags and Zeb are repeating themselves and Alberto is back to his non-face antics. I give it one more week before they do something wacky with the bucket again.
That $100 bill went from Ted’s pocket to Darren Young’s mouth and then into Daniel Bryan’s trunks, a million germaphobes just crapped themselves and then had a heart attack over the fact they just crapped themselves.
Fandango is just good fun, stop being so cynical.
I’m sure Joel will probably mention this but Triple H failed to hold the microphone weirdly and never once said “this business” in his promo and so now we are convinced this is a clone and the real, long-haired Triple H is in a closet in the dungeons of Titan Towers. #CloneHHH
The New Age Outlaws had a match, that was fun.
Punk went from having an amazing match last week to being the guy trying to do the absolute least and win strategically and both work for me. I kinda wish that one year, we get a long, multi-week tournament where the winner gets a Taker match, I miss WWE tournaments.
So that was Old School Raw. It was kinda underwhelming for a “special” episode of Raw but pretty good if it were a regular episode because that’s essentially what this was, a regular episode of Raw with old staging and random appearances by legends.
As always, be on the lookout for this week’s podcast and be sure to follow us on twitter (@CRAttire) and join us for our Monday night live-tweets, it’s a ton of fun.
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice,
Chris
The Answer: It’s not unusual.
