1. Well that was one of the strangest segments I’ve seen kick off Raw. I think we all thought that Axel was going to be buried instantly but now he’s just the character actor in the McMahon/Helmsley drama. For the old-school fans, it’s fun to see how the dynamic of the family has changed since they first debuted the storyline in the Attitude Era. Mentioning Stephanie & HHH’s children and how much older Vince is now is a nice addition to a family drama that’s been on TV for 15 years.
2. That’s the most normal I’ve ever, EVER seen Kane on WWE TV. It’s really weird to hear his normal speaking voice on Raw but I liked it. The Shield vs Orton & Bryan for the tag titles & Kane vs Dean Ambrose for the US title are two great additions to a very weak Payback PPV. Now if they just come thru with CM Punk’s return at the PPV versus Chris Jericho, we could be in for a pretty intriguing night. Oh and Daniel Bryan vs Seth Rollins one-on-one tonight? I’m surprised Twitter didn’t crash.
3. Curtis Axel as the replacement for Fandango is (no pun intended) perfect. He needed a match that wasn’t with Triple H and an Intercontinental Championship reign would be phenomenal for him & the championship since the title would then be featured in a storyline with a top-tier guy in Triple H (I still think they’ll have the Triple H/Curtis Axel match at SummerSlam and if Axel is walking around with the same title his father held so prominently, he’ll begin to look like a legitimate superstar. And I forgot to mention before but thank God that Axel finally got new tights. Now all he needs is a shave…
4. What the hell was with Antonio Cesaro’s crab walk to the ring? If that was supposed to look like an amateur wrestler’s approach to the ring it failed. It looked like he shit his pants ring before he hit the stage. Now that’s out of the way, Cesaro and Sin Cara put on another decent TV match & the addition of Zeb Coulter to Antonio Cesaro’s gimmick could be just the thing to push him over the edge. Hey, WE all know that Cesaro can cut a pretty good promo when the right story is in place but obviously there are those in the WWE that don’t believe he can & if he HAS to be placed with any manager, he could do much worse than Zeb Coulter.
5. Very good match between Daniel Bryan and Seth Rollins but I think we all expected that. Plus, that was just a very small taste of what these two guys can do in the ring. There were flashes of brilliance throughout the match but you just know they could do so much more given the time and the opportunity. I’m looking forward to future big matches between these two. By the way, is there anyone out there that doesn’t think Randy Orton is turning heel on Sunday?
6. You know what’s sadder than Kaitlyn & her lack of a secret admirer? People who actually cared about this storyline.
7. What started out seemingly like a “passing of the torch” (at least on-screen) where Vince McMahon hands over the booking sheet to Triple H just turned into a massive ego stroke. The night started out with some potential going forward in this storyline but now it turned into a full-blown comedy bit. If they had any plans of moving forward with the “concussion” storyline, there’s no way it will be taken seriously now.
8. I’m glad they tried something new with the lumberjack segment though.
9. Nothing about that last segment sold me on Sunday’s PPV. Both men seemed bored and uninspired. The lumberjacks were just running through the motions and no one seemed to really know what to do to make this segment special. Why? Because there was no way to make it special. It wasn’t designed to be special and it sucked. I’m not looking forward to sitting through 3 falls of John Cena vs Ryback.
10. By the way, if you haven’t heard, tomorrow I’ll be interviewing the man behind the very popular Twitter WWE parody account WWE Creative Humor (@WWECreative_ish). We’ll be talking about all things current WWE as well as what inspired him to start this account, his time working with the WWE, what it’s like to have more followers than some people within the WWE and the WWE’s reaction to the Twitter account as well as how he had to start-up a new one after the WWE got the first one shut down. I’ve known the “man behind the curtain” for a while now so it should be a fun & extremely entertaining interview. Be sure to look for it here either tomorrow night or Wednesday. Make sure you follow me on Twitter (@MattHarrak) so you know when it’s available!
