RAGER’S 10 Thoughts: Raw 2.3.14 (Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton, CM Punk Chants)

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1. Randy Orton and the Authority deployed a counter to discourage the CM Punk chants. Randy barely got into his opening monologue before the Omaha crowd erupted in a cry for CM Punk. Orton immediately changed his usually-slow cadence into a more brisk pace with less of a pause between each sentence until the crowd gave up. HHH used the same strategy when the chants returned after the Authority’s entrance. This was successful because it was executed well, plus it helps that it was Omaha and the crowd was simply weak. I expect future crowds to be more difficult to reign-in as long as people remain enthralled by what’s going on with Punk and his relationship with WWE.

2. Congrats to Christian for making it a week without breaking. I’m starting the think “one more match” means “one more match before shattering.”

3. Having a cage match but taking away the escape stipulation just seems silly. What seems ever sillier is having a tag match in a cage but not under tornado tag rules. Also, Cody had balls for the flip off the top of the cage but it gets cheapened when it whiffed by quite a bit.

4. Emma’s highly-anticipated debut came to pass for a dance competition. JBL’s look of complete disinterest afterward completely summed up my feelings on this segment.

5. Damn you, WWE, for making me believe that you already squashed this Batista and Del Rio nonsense. I know there’s always the chance Del Rio can make this into a decent match whenever it does happen but still, Del Rio is the most boring and redundant character and he’s gonna be paired up with a guy that’s not exactly know for his personality either.

6. Having a Xavier Woods and Dolph Ziggler tag team it’s not so much of a bad idea. However, having R-Truth in the mix as well is the downfall. Also, it seems like Dolph’s passionate promo after Smackdown last week got so many people to believe this will be the start of another Ziggler build. Hopes were once again destroyed, this time by the Wyatts.

7. I don’t know what Lawler had up his sleeve to next week and Bad News Barrett but I sincerely hope it’s been trashed after that verbal pillow toss. Also the writer that is responsible needs to well acquainted with unemployed.

8. While on commentary for the Divas match, AJ admitted that she sometimes gets distracted by other Divas during matches. It was the statement that launched a thousand fan-fics on tumblr.

9. If all this Punk madness ends up being completely legit, I have a feeling WWE is going to dangle Daniel Bryan in our faces to shut everyone up about Punk. And honestly, that might be the most successful way of going about that. It’s like Indiana Jones replacing the golden idol with a bag of sand and hope that the giant boulder of fan outrage isn’t unleashed.

10. Nothing of any substance happened tonight. I’m more interested in the fact that we may not see or hear from CM Punk until his February 12th appearance on @Midnight which was also set to feature Miz but has been removed last week but Punk is still scheduled to appear. Personally I think dropping Miz from the show is an upgrade. I think the show would be pretty hilarious and great if CM Punk and Ron Funches were joined by Mick Foley.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice,
Chris

Chris is a writer from Fayetteville, NC. He's the co-creator of Irrelevant But Awesome Productions which produces podcasts you all know and love like Classy Ring Attire, Trashy Ring Attire and The Disney Magic Podcast. You can keep up with everything on twitter by following @IBAStudios and @CWSanders39