The nature of a weekly TV show that never takes a break is dips in quality are par for the course. This is probably the most obvious and true for WWE programming. The last 2 weeks have been good to awesome depending on the segment and this week took a sharp dive (for reasons that I will get into as we go along). It wasn’t god awful by any means and there were outside circumstances that prevented any major Daniel Bryan involvement as well.
On that note, my condolences (and I’m sure I speak for the rest of the writers too in this instance) to Daniel Bryan and his family on the passing of his father.
Stephanie McMahon: Not A Great Leader
The opening segment started off very good with Daniel Bryan coming out to a thunderous ovation and being greeted in the ring by his new wife Brie Bella. However, before he really got a chance to speak, out comes Stephanie to offer what I assume was sarcastic congratulations on their nuptials. It was really hard to tell, honestly. She kept saying “sincerely” all the time but she not-so-subtly mocked the rustic organic style of their wedding that Brie and Bryan chose to go with. It was all very strange and I’m not sure what purpose it served.
What I’m getting at here is; why was Stephanie out here? Couldn’t Bryan just talk for a minute and then have Kane’s music play. Does Kane need Stephanie to be his harbinger? To me, it just seemed like they wanted an excuse to bring Stephanie out and get her some screen time since she is of no use in the Shield vs Evolution feud.
The attack on Daniel Bryan was necessary to write him off the rest of the show due to his personal tragedy, but it also helped to inject something into the feud heading into their championship match. I do worry that this match will not main event the PPV, but with the advent of the network, they are not focused on buyrates anymore so does it matter if it does? I really hope they don’t have Bryan’s championship reign be like Punks.
Bad News Barrett Gets Some GOOD NEWS!
This was refreshing. I think most people going into this thought that Sheamus would win with Barrett putting up a good fight. So colour me shocked when Barrett won clean with the bull hammer. This was a great match. Barrett and Sheamus are friends in the real world and they have a great chemistry in the ring so it stands to reason that given their chemistry and talent, they would have a great match. I would love to see more matches between these two, possibly for heavyweight title in the future, and I’m almost certain we will.
More Like ‘Evo-douche-ion’ Am I Right?
I touched on this last week, but I am less than enthused that Evolution is back, unless its to do the job for The Shield and elevate them. And that seems very unlikely given the egos contained in the group. And with reports that Batista is taking some time off after Extreme Rules (probably due to his failed return and the constant booing), it makes sense he’d want to go out on a win. There are reports coming out at the moment as well that this feud isn’t being done to elevate The Shield as a group, but to elevate Roman Reigns and build towards Reigns vs Triple H at Summerslam.
I like Reigns, much more than when he first came on the scene. He does have a bright future. But I don’t think the future of Reigns is now. It’s way too soon to be putting him in marquee matches with H at least. We don’t want to pull a Ryback and ruin him. My two cents? I’d have The Shield break up, feud for a while and give Reigns the US title. Keep it for a month or 2, then drop it and move on to a feud with a top tier guy like Orton, Bryan, Wyatt, or maybe Cena (but don’t turn Reigns heel just for it) and have him go over. Lead this up to Money In The Bank and have him win it.
This puts him in contention for the title naturally, and you can have him chase it for a few months, teasing a cash in (potentially against Brock Lesnar who may take the title from Bryan).
And lets not forget about the other 2 guys. I really hope they don’t put them in a tag team because Ambrose is awesome and Rollins has been on frickin fire recently! They both deserve to be elevated as high as Reigns, and potentially at the same time too.
Oh, We’re Not Done With Swagger / Cesaro?
This angered me a lot. I was full sure that this tournament was simply there to make Cesaro look like a beast and get him the IC title. But it turns out that we’re not done with the Swagger and Cesaro beef yet. I hope this is leading to Cesaro contending for the belt after Extreme Rules, or maybe something more, like going after Daniel Bryan for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. A man can dream.
Either way, Rob Van Dam won by count out, and is advancing to the finals against Bad News Barrett. So BnB is winning the IC title at Extreme Rules then?
Paige Continues To Impress…Kind Of
You could say that Paige is dominant in her debut run, since she is winning every match and is probably going to defeat Tamina at Extreme Rules. But there is a disturbing trend in all of Paige’s matches that needs to change if she is going to be a serious competitor. Every match shes been in (AJ, Alicia, and Aksana twice) she has been beat down for the majrity of the match, only to rally at the end and lock in the Scorpion Cross Lock. I get that she’s a rookie and new to the roster, but having her win is not enough. If she is only winning by the skin of her teeth, it doesn’t mean as much as it would if she was winning semi dominantly. Let her opponents get in some offence, but make it even at least.
John Cena Overcomes
The main event (since Daniel Bryan was away due to personal circumstances I imagine) featured John Cena against some formation of the Wyatt’s as voted by the WWE Universe. Like there was ever a choice. It was completely obvious from the get go that people would vote for the 3 on 1 and you know that’s what they expected too.
The match itself was not good. Not good at all. It was Cena doing his Cena thing and overcoming the odds. We need to get Wyatt away from Cena as soon as possible befre any more damage is done. At least he didn’t win and the show ended with Cena being dominated. And this was just the best:
That’s gonna do it for me this week. Short and sweet and to the point due to other stuff going on in the real world that I need to deal with. I’m sure my regular readers are devastated that I didn’t talk about the midget fight or Emma vs Layla but to quote the immortal Bootista; “deal with it”.
Peace.
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