Welcome to another edition of The Week that Was.
After a tumultuous week of highs and lows, things returned to normal somewhat on Monday with another edition of Raw. If the previous week’s Raw was jam jacked with news, debuts and a hot crowd, this week’s Raw was the antithesis. Not much of note happened, the crowd was dead and there wasn’t anyone new. Not that I was expecting as such, but overall the show was a lame duck one if there ever was. Not every week can be a winner, obviously, but this week’s Raw and last week’s were like night and day.
The major story, as always, is centered around Triple H, as he has reunited himself, Orton and Batista as Evolution to take on the Shield, who as you might remember, attempted to lay out Triple H the previous week. The matches will probably be hot, but as far as interest level goes for an Evolution reunion..whatever. If it’s something to last a few months, cool, whatever. If they’re going to dominate Raw for the next few months, that’s another story.
This leaves Daniel Bryan feuding with Kane, who has the mask back on now. Question- who here cares if Kane is masked or not? Nevermind he’s changed gimmicks at least 4 or 5 times in the last two years alone, what makes this new run as the monster (AGAIN) so special? Considering that Daniel Bryan has beaten him numerous times over the last few months, to say that this will be a great main event title feud is silly. After winning a hot Wrestlemania match against Orton and Batista, he’s stuck with Kane for the time being. It’s WWE’s own fault I guess for not lining up a more suitable opponent for Bryan following WrestleMania (CESARO) but it’s a pretty lame duck feud.
Beyond Raw, much of the WWE Network highlights this week has been the Ultimate Warrior footage they’ve been airing on there. Tuesday was an hour of matches with guys like Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant that weren’t all that interesting. What was interesting was the interviews in between where guys like Sting and Chris Jericho talked for a minute about Warrior. Wednesday was the airing of the Wrestlemania Rewind with Warrior/Hogan from WrestleMania VI. That’s aired several times this week, and it’s a solid match. Hogan’s theatrics after doing the job is pretty hilarious looking back.
Thursday was a documentary on the Warrior showcasing his career highlights, brief talk about the horrendous Halloween Havoc match, his beefs with Hulk Hogan and the WWE over the years (including showing snippets of the Self Destruction DVD from 2005) and his interactions with various people over Wrestlemania weekend. It’s definitely worth going out of your way to see as it adds a lot of interesting insight into his career as well as his return to WWE. It’s pretty amazing how WWE can pull together a documentary like this with a week’s notice- it’s outstanding.
Meanwhile, TNA continues to exist. Magnus, the hand picked champion by Dixie Carter to be the face of her company, lost to the bearded underdog by winning two matches in one night to become champion. Tell me where you’ve seen this before. It’s very sad that TNA at this point is just blatantly ripping off WWE storylines in order to keep themselves relevant. Instead of trying to be an alternative, which is what any promotion with a TV deal like TNA has, they should be going for something completely different. Instead, it’s just WWE retread after retread. With sinking house show and live event attendance figures as well as low ratings, interest in TNA is at it’s lowest and it will continue to go that way under the same management. It’s only saving grace is that ratings are still above Spike’s average, but even that might not be able to save them in the fall.
For what is like the first time ever, I actually did watch an episode of Ring of Honor in the last week, the 4/5 show that was highlighted by the Young Bucks capturing the tag team titles from reDragon in a **** match. Bucks are great in their role here and they had a great match with Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Riley. The other match on the card was Chris Hero against Roderick Strong which was a ***3/4 match with Chris Hero winning. Lots of hot near falls in the end with Hero hitting an interesting submission for the victory. With the big New Japan shows coming next week, as well as their return to regular PPV imminent, perhaps it’s time for those who have soured on the ROH product to give it another go. I enjoyed the one show I watched and there will probably be more watching to come!
On another ROH note…what is with Jimmy Jacobs and stables? Every time I hear about him he has another stable. If it isn’t Decade, it’s SCUM. If it’s not SCUM, it’s Age of the Fall. Maybe that’s his gimmick now, I dunno.
That will do it for me for this week. Next weekend I’ll have coverage on TNA’s next pay per view, Sacrifice. Yes, there’s a TNA pay per view next weekend. Yes, they still do those. No, I don’t know why or if anyone besides me will watch it. Hey, someone has to. See you next week!
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