Tag: The Miz

Wrestling Review: WWE Raw (11/10/14)

In the eastern time zone, where I live, WWE Raw begins at 8:00 and ends, on average, around 11:15. This, I’ve realized, is a lot of time to devote to a weekday wrestling show. And I mean that; I’ve only just now realized this. Maybe it’s because WCW Monday Nitro was three hours when I was a child, or maybe it’s because I was more actively engaged with Raw before I had a Monday night class, but the fact of Raw‘s three hours never felt more real, more oppressive, than last night’s pre-taped episode from Liverpool, England. For this, I’m also going to blame the fact that last week Vince McMahon, WWE’s big bad for half of my life, the swaggering symbol of things mattering on weekly television, came out and said that he was going to shake things up. He said this in reference to the WWE Network being free to new subscribers in November, and in reference to the main event of the upcoming Survivor Series pay-per-view, which will pit John Cena‘s makeshift team of allies against a team of surrogates for Triple H in a match that determines whether or not Vince’s family gets to continue running Vince’s company, but he said he was shaking things up, and I believed this. And then Raw this week from Liverpool started with a 20-minute John Cena interview.

I get it. I do. John Cena, as has been said for months now since Daniel Bryan went on the shelf with a shoulder injury, is the face of the company, and when the company is producing a show overseas, you begin with that face. But everything about this Raw felt exactly the same as the last time I was able to watch the show, only it was in England, which meant that it also felt exactly the same as the last Raw to emanate from there, what with its gigantic Union Jacks hanging from the rafters to compensate for a smaller tron, the red phone booth and old Rolls Royce on the entrance ramp to let those of us in America know what England is, and the crowd chants that are so routine and oppressive that, at this point, they may as well be the Goldberg chants that used to get pumped into dead WCW arenas. John Cena comes out, he tells the crowd that he enjoys the fact that they feel free enough in this, today’s modern society, to sing along mockingly to his theme song, and then he gets real serious, as he always does. The Authority is out to get him. They’re injuring his friends, like Zack Ryder. They don’t want to make Survivor Series fair. The odds are against John Cena because of course they are, but he’s got Dolph Ziggler, he’s got Jack Swagger, and he’s got hope. He’s gonna rise above hate, as only he can, but he needs help to do it. So he calls out Ryback, who he will be wrestling in the main event. Ryback comes out, but since he isn’t trusted with a live microphone, The Authority make their way to the ring and introduce their new teammate, Mark Henry. From there, everybody recaps what happened last week, sets up tonight’s matches, then plays tug of war with Ryback’s soul. See, even though he said upon his return that the WWE Universe needed a hero and that he was going to be that hero, nothing that happens on YouTube is cannon, so Ryback says that he doesn’t need The Authority behind him, but that he doesn’t see John Cena paying his checks. He gives Cena a spinebuster, Stephanie McMahon taunts Cena by mocking Daniel Bryan’s “YES!” chants, and we have us some more odds for Cena to overcome. Or do we? This is something the announce team bickers about all night, because Cena needs a team but joining him would be career suicide, so the story of the evening is a will-he-or-won’t-he affair with Ryback’s fresh face turn (and the surprising amount of support that garnered him) hanging in the balance. Oh, and the left-field choice of Jack Swagger as a member of Team Cena, which leads us to…

Seth Rollins vs. Jack Swagger: Swagger is something of an aimless face (further made plain by his manager Zeb Coulter‘s xenophobic American gimmick seeming completely out of place when folks are meant to cheer for it), but he and Seth Rollins are pretty good against each other, which makes Swagger’s normal awkwardness moot. Swagger gets some impressive height on a leg drop and is in control of the match, the Liverpool audience chanting “WE THE PEOPLE” for him, but Rollins hits him with a dropkick. This only angers Swagger, who throws Rollins around the ring like a rag doll. Rollins gains the advantage during the commercial and when we come back, the crowd is bored enough already to start chanting for the announcers, who are already hinting that Ryback might not be on Team Authority after all. Swagger gets the Swagger Bomb in for a two and kicks out of a sunset flip attempt by transitioning into an Ankle Lock, which is very pretty. Rollins gets to the ropes, then sends Swagger to the floor. He rushes him, but Swagger trips him mid-air and goes for the Ankle Lock again. Rollins escapes from the barricade, allowing his security team of Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury to distract Swagger. Rollins leaps over the barricade and shoves Swagger head first into the turnbuckle, which stuns him to the point that Rollins is able to hit the Curb Stomp for the win. Rating: B-

The match was built around the spot where Rollins shoves Swagger into the ring post, and until that point the whole thing felt like the two were stalling for time. The referee calls for the ringside physician to check Swagger for a concussion, but he is pulled away by Rollins’ goons so that Rollins can hit Swagger with another Curb Stomp. Jack Swagger, it’s safe to say, is no longer on Team Cena. After recapping a confrontation between Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt that happened on SmackDown!, they cut to a pre-taped backstage interview with Ambrose, who responds by telling Wyatt about his mile-long rap sheet in professional wrestling. Ambrose says that he isn’t anybody’s hero, and that he fights demons and ghosts that are scarier than Bray Wyatt. It’s a good promo, but I have no idea why Ambrose is in the back talking to a camera when he is one of the best on the roster at playing a live crowd. He never shows up live, which probably contributes to the crowd’s quickly deflating mood, and they announce that Ambrose and Wyatt will wrestle at Survivor Series, which will likely be the best match of the night. Backstage live, Ryback flexes and grunts while Kane (who I will not call Corporate Kane) talks about what’s on the line. Ryback says he wants to be alone, but Kane is all like “I’m a business man and this is a business, so let me manage you,” and Ryback is like “fuck you, meatbag,” and now we have drama.

Alicia Fox vs. Paige: Michael Cole says that Alicia Fox is “slightly off,” which means “CRAZY BITCH” in WWE-speak, and Lawler says that she “has more curves than a race track” because he is a 64-year-old bag of garbage. Paige gets a very nice response from the crowd and Lawler talks about how attractive a woman a third of his age is because that’s what really matters here. Fox attacks immediately with a Thesz press because they have an actual issue that gets less coverage than their bodies, but Paige takes the advantage quickly, kneeing Fox in rapid succession from the apron. Paige is wearing Union Jack Doc Martins for Queen and Country, and they do not look like they’d be fun to wrestle in. Fox hits a nice Northern Lights Suplex and quickly moves into a Bow and Arrow hold, which she uses to slam Paige face-first to the mat. Paige kicks out of a backbreaker, counters a tilt-a-whirl slam into a cross body, hits her Rampaige DDT, and that’s it. I guess the Fox/Paige feud is over in three minutes because writing for women is hard. Rating: C+

Backstage, the evil Russian Rusev and his handler Lana are walking around with our United States Heavyweight Championship, those bastards. Stephanie McMahon sees them and calls them over so she can ask Lana if Rusev will be on their team at Survivor Series. Lana says that she’ll have to check with Vladimir Putin (which is such a great gimmick), and Stephanie snaps. Rusev looks a bit pissed when Stephanie calls Lana a “stuck up Russian twit,” but things blow over because it’s time for Rusev to celebrate his conquest of America in England. Before we can get to that, though, we get a promo for Xavier Woods’ new gimmick, which is a James Brown/gospel preacher riff. While Woods is obviously charismatic enough to pull something like this off, coming from a (mostly) white writing team (I assume) and a company that has had its history of embarrassing gimmicks for persons of color that involve singing, dancing, and other racial stereotypes, I’m not entirely looking forward to his re-debut. Stephanie McMahon and Triple H aren’t watching Xavier, though, because why would they? They’re talking about why Vince McMahon is challenging them and figure that they’re gonna crush Cena like they crush everything. “What if?” Steph wonders. What if, indeed?

Rusev and Lana hit the ring to gloat over our fallen American heroes, which is my favorite thing in professional wrestling in 2014. Seriously, Rusev plays the awkward super-athlete so well that you’d figure he was born and raised in a lab somewhere, and Lana, though she’s as Russian as a cartoon character, she’s the best regular manager on television right now. Some chump says that the Kremlin is proud of Rusev and puts up the world’s most awkward picture of Putin, who has never heard of any of these people. Rusev demands respect for and plays the Russian national anthem, which rules. Sheamus interrupts this with his terrible theme song, and we have us a rematch.

WWE United States Championship – Sheamus vs. Rusev (Champion): After letting them clear the ring, Sheamus and Rusev pick up where they left off on last week’s WWE Network exclusive match, beating the absolute hell out of each other. Rusev is a tank, an absolute throwback of a human being who is beautiful and terrible to behold, and Sheamus is one of the more underrated wrestlers on the WWE roster because he is John Cena without a tan: Capable of classic matches against anybody, but stale. Everything about this match looks painful and great. Sheamus starts the match with his hair gelled and spiked, but midway through it is a sweaty, orange mat on top of his head. That never happens to Sheamus, but that’s how hard he and Rusev are going. Hammer blows, headbutts, knee lifts, side kicks—this is a fight, and a very well-paced one. Rusev is one of the best in WWE at selling the effects of a match, and everything you do to Sheamus shows up on his skin. They keep developing Rusev’s in-ring offense, too, as he breaks out a guillotine choke hold that he hasn’t used before. I’ll probably never get tired of his throwback gimmick, but his matches are another story. So long as he keeps developing as a wrestler, he’s gold to me. Sheamus and Rusev continue trading strikes into the commercial, but Rusev is pretty clearly ahead on points. when we come back. Rollins’ goons show up at ringside to watch what’s going on, and Sheamus dazes Rusev with a series of strikes. But Rusev responds with a dropkick of surprising grace, given the man’s size. Sheamus hits Rusev with a powerslam for a two-count and JBL, on commentary, pronounces “Putin,” “PEW TIN.” This mispronunciation gives Sheamus the strength he needs to try a cloverleaf on the champion, but in a nice twist you don’t see very often, Rusev’s legs are too thick for Sheamus to figure out the move. He eventually hits White Noise, but again, Rusev kicks out. Rusev ducks a Brogue Kick and rolls out of the ring, but Sheamus climbs the turnbuckles and dives onto him! Rusev makes his way back into the ring at an eight count, Sheamus is attacked by Noble and Rollins, and Rusev wins via countout. Rating: B+

No clean finish, but eventually the two will get a pay-per-view match that settles their excelent feud. Right now, what’s important is that The Authority has managed to convince Rusev and Lana to join their team. Stephanie McMahon doesn’t care about Vladimir Putin, because everybody in WWE hates the very idea of Russia. But she loves saying the word “CRUSH” like she’s on Rocky and Bullwinkle. Seth Rollins visits Ryback in his locker room, where he is doing some resistance band exercises. Rollins goes on and on about teamwork and The Authority, and Ryback only listens when Rollins brings up their problems in the past. Then Rollins says Ryback can take orders from him, “okay big man?” Ryback’s response: “It’s not big man. It’s The Big Guy.” Ryback is the greatest.

Los Matadores vs. The Miz and Damien Sandow: Sandow is still firmly in “Damien Mizdow” mode, and his impersonation of The Miz is the most popular The Miz has ever been. Because Los Matadores are accompanied by El Torito, Hornswoggle accompanies Miz and Sandow to the ring as “Mini-Miz,” and the Torito/Hornswoggle feud rolls on. Hornswoggle isn’t as good at The Miz’s mannerisms as Sandow is, but that’s part of the joke. The crowd chants for Mizdow, and the Miz is upset about it. On the ring apron, Mizdow is stunt doubling Miz’s mannerisms and reactions to moves, as he has been doing for some time now, only when he bumps for something Los Matadores do to Miz, he has to fall off the apron. It works in continuing to irk The Miz, who finally tags in his stunt double to rapturous applause. It’s a tease, though, as he blind tags back in. Mizdow is cool with it though (the first time this has been true of any tag team in history), and goes back to falling off the apron as Miz takes abuse. He’s eventually responsible for the win, holding down the foot of one of the Matadores while Miz has him pinned. Unlike when he was the fourth member of Three Man Band, Hornswoggle didn’t really add anything to the act, but it looks like Miz and his stunt double are heading towards a Tag Team Championship match. Rating: B-

Dolph Ziggler points out that at five on two, his and Cena’s odds aren’t looking so good. Cena offers Dolph a chance to back out, but Dolph refuses, saying that The Authority has been holding too many people down for too long. “You’re telling me,” Cena says, completely serious despite his being a fifteen time WWE Champion. Cena says he’ll be at ringside, but Triple H was eavesdropping and puts the kibosh on that. Then he does a little dance.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Mark Henry: Usually this would be a very exciting match. Ziggler against any large man usually results in Ziggler bouncing around the ring like a pinball. Before Mark Henry comes out, a video of Luke Harper‘s eyes plays, threatening Dolph. Then Three 6 Mafia plays Mark Henry to the ring, which, honestly, is scarier. Henry throws Ziggler around, negating Ziggler’s speed advantage at every turn. There’s a very awkward attempt at a schoolboy into the turnbuckles that goes nowhere, and another hard-to-describe flying whatsit that doesn’t look good but stuns Henry regardless. Once they go outside the ring, Henry tosses Ziggler into the barricade, but he’s able to move out of the way of a charging World’s Strongest Man, who ends up flying over the barricade. Henry picks up a chair and throws it into Ziggler’s face, giving the Intercontinental Champion the win by disqualification. Rating: C

Henry continues to wear Ziggler out after the match, putting the ring steps into the ring and setting his opponent up for a World’s Strongest Slam upon them. Having suffered this last week, The Big Show saunters his way down to the ring, ribs taped, and the two have a slow battle of behemoths over the stairs, which Show eventually throws at Henry. Show gets on the mic, calls Henry a hoss, and announces that he’s joined Team Cena. We get another New Day promo for Kofi Kingston, who embraces and welcomes pressure, because pressure makes diamonds, haw-haw. I’m glad a choir got a payday, I guess, but man. Big Show catches up with John Cena backstage, who can’t believe Show is on his side. That’s fair since they’ve only fought each other a billion times. Big Show says that nobody hates The Authority more than he does, which is also fair because they shredded a pretty sweet contract the old regime gave him and made him cry a lot last year. Gallons of tears. Sheamus joins the squad because Rusev, handshakes are had, and Big Show says “I think business just picked up a little bit here,” which, along with “hoss,” makes him either the eager dude in the action movie who gets killed first, or a small town boy visiting the big city gay bar for the first time. Either way, I’m a fan.

AJ Lee vs. Brie Bella: Brie Bella is her sister Nikki‘s personal assistant for the month. Tonight, that means that she was made to wear a suit and serve tea. I’d say this is embarrassing, but Brie’s little butler suit is actually the least embarrassing thing either Bella Twin has worn in ages. Nikki stands outside the ring and yells stuff at her sister, like “HARDER!” and “WIN!” and it’s all mean, I guess. Nikki has a Diva’s Championship match against AJ Lee at Survivor Series, and so Brie’s task is to soften AJ up. The mutants in the crowd chant “CM Punk” because that is who AJ Lee is married to, but the match is aimless and short, so I guess they have to amuse themselves somehow. The Bellas have vastly improved in the ring, but I think my problem with them is that they punctuate every move with a big, exaggerated grunt, like children doing karate. AJ, who has actually been pretty listless since her return, picks up the win with the Black Widow in about three minutes, because that’s what women get. Rating: C-

Nikki gets into the ring and blindsides AJ. She takes off her tiny varsity jacket and hurls it at her sister, yelling “YOU’RE A LOSER!” like she’s trying to score a role on Pretty Little Liars. She then hits AJ with the Rack Attack, which is a good looking, terribly named maneuver. “That is how the number one Bella does it,” she says, but the jersey she’s wearing has the number two on it. Jerry Lawler asks if Bruce Wayne did everything Batman said to do, but JBL also mucks up Alfred’s name, so the two bicker uselessly about comic books because Brie couldn’t follow her sister’s orders and win. Mark Henry visits Ryback in his locker room, and this is the best segment of the night in Ryback’s dimly lit rage cavern because The Big Guy is all weird charisma and Mark Henry is the best in the world at what he does, which is talk shit and be amazing. It’s the best. Grumpy Cat is going to be on Raw next week, so hopefully that meme is dead.

Adam Rose vs. Tyson Kidd: Adam Rose is my least favorite gimmick in the history of wrestling. Tyson Kidd has been the most underrated member of the WWE Roster for his entire tenure. Right now, they’re turning Rose heel by having him in a disagreement with member of his entourage that dresses like a bunny. He keeps getting involved in matches, which costs Rose. It’s actually interesting, which is something of a shock. Rose and the bunny dance around like nothing is wrong. Kidd and Rose get things going, and Erick Rowan walks down to the ring, looking for a woman. This…is the kind of gimmick that gets you future endeavored. The fans are really into Adam Rose’s theme song, more than Adam Rose. Regardless, Rose gets the advantage and the bunny gets involved, climbing the turnbuckles for a frog splash. Rose waves him off because that’d be a disqualification and yells at the idiot, and Tyson Kidd quickly locks in the Sharpshooter for the win. Grade: C

While Kidd’s terrible theme music plays, the bunny tries to make good with Rose. Rose replies to the bunny’s hopping around by kicking him in the gut. Michael Cole tries to say how terrible this is, but dude, it’s a man in a bunny costume, and he is fucking Adam Rose over. A close-up of Rose’s face makes him look like a man absolutely worn-down by his non-stop party, and it’s, again, interesting. We’ll see how interesting it is in three months when they’re still doing a will-he-or-won’t-he thing with Rose and the bunny. The announcer plug the WWE Network’s being free for the month, which seems cruel since the UK doesn’t have it yet. Team Authority meet backstage, and Mark Henry asks if he has to stand next to Rusev because, oh my God, he remembers that he had a serious issue with Rusev a month ago. Kane says that Ryback has an attitude problem, and Triple H starts to worry because nobody is on the same page. Ryback shows up angry that everybody is gossiping behind his back, but Triple H doesn’t care about that. Just go out and crush John Cena. That’s all Triple H wants. He bans Cena’s team from ringside. Stephanie McMahon tries to rally the troops, but egos, man. Bray Wyatt cuts a promo on Dean Ambrose and society. It’s good because Bray Wyatt is good, but the decision to have the two most interesting characters on television not appear before the crowd? Terrible.

John Cena vs. Ryback: John Cena is secretly one of the best wrestlers in history. I happen to be one of the biggest Ryback fans on the planet. This match, one would think, seems right up my ally. But part of the reason Ryback’s huuuuuge push in 2010 stalled out was because nobody really knew how to work with him for more than eight or nine minutes. That’s still a problem in 2014, which is too bad because Ryback has actually evolved quite a bit as a character since then. They play this match smart at first, having Cena try to figure out Ryback’s otherworldly strength, but no match is just its feeling out process, so things fall apart when Cena stops running into Ryback’s shoulder. That being said, the first few minutes are pretty good, and while I’ve come to expect people reversing Cena’s signature moves, I’ve not seen his bulldog turned into a powerslam. Kane tells Ryback to do his job while Ryback is doing his job, and Cena manages to knock Ryback off the apron into Kane. Drama. Ryback pulls out some new moves, both of the uranage variety, but everything is so slow and awkward that those moves, which should get big reactions, play to silence. Ryback goes for his finish but Cena counters and tries to go for his shoulder blocks, only to be taken out with a powerslam. The two counter each other until Ryback comes out on top. Kane keeps yelling at Ryback while Seth Rollins astutely points out that Ryback has everything under control. Then Ryback powerbombs Cena across the ring, which is just ridiculous. Ryback goes for a Razor’s Edge, but Cena counters into the STF. This is unquestionably the best match Cena and Ryback have had (and is maybe the best match of Ryback’s career), but it still doesn’t feel right for some reason. Cena gets Ryback in the STF again, but Ryback muscles Cena up into the Shellshock. Cena wiggles out and hits Ryback with his powerbomb, Kane gets involved, and before Ryback can finish Cena off, Kane climbs into the ring and attacks Cena, ending the match. Rating: B-

Ryback gets into Kane’s face and Kane takes off his jakcket and tie. Seth Rollins tries to break things up, but Ryback decks Rollins and Kane takes Ryback out with a big boot. Team Authority mugs Cena in the ring, so Team Cena responds with the smart wrestling strategy of emerging one at a time so they can all have their asses kicked by five much fresher men. Some of Team Authority’s combinations look like they might be fun within the context of a match, so there’s that. Ryback gets back into the ring after hanging out for a bit and wipes out the entirety of Team Authority, who are quickly without a fifth member. Cena watches all of this from the corner, but Ryback is out of there before he can join Cena’s team. Still, just when things are starting to look even, Raw ends backstage, with Dolph Ziggler thrown at the feet of Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. Luke Harper is there when the camera pans over to him, clutching his denim vest like a proud nerd might hold the straps of his suspenders. “A’hm a team playuh” is what he says, because he’s from the swamp, and Triple H and Stephanie look at the dude real confused. They don’t want any swamp people on their all-beefcake team.

Rating:

November 11, 2014
Wrestling Review: WWE Raw (10/22/14)
Last night, I watched wrestling. This is admittedly nothing new. Since the advent of the WWE Network, I watch wrestling every day, sometimes for hours. I’m writing a book of poetry about wrestling, I run a few Tumblrs about wrestling—it all comes with the territory. But last night I watched Raw, which I haven’t gotten a chance to do much this summer because the work that I’ve done this summer and the reason I do it often leaves me scrambling to bask in the warm glow of nostalgia. Though I can’t imagine a scenario where my friends and I don’t gather in my new house to watch the WWE Network’s less-than-stellar stream of Summerslam this Sunday, anything going on right now serves as a less-than-welcome reminder that soon enough I’ll be sitting down in front of a computer to listen to the rich talk about the problems inherent with having only a million dollars put away in an IRA. But it’s Hulk Hogan’s birthday, and even though The Hulkster now exists largely to talk about the virtues of the WWE Network (which, at 700,000 subscribers paying $9.99 a month to watch video footage Vince McMahon acquired for pennies on the dollar, is somehow considered a failure because the world of business has rules as made up, impenetrable, stupid, and fake as professional wrestling), I love the big orange bastard and always will. True fact: I went to WrestleMania XXX this year mostly because I wanted to see a 60 year old man rip his shirt off and flex his ancient muscles. When he messed up and called the Superdome the Silverdome (where he body slammed Andre the Giant some 27 WretleManias earlier), I was the only person in the arena not booing, because that was my WrestleMania, brother. The one in Detroit. The one that set the records. The Greatest Night In the History of Our Sport.

I had to get through three hours of Raw for Hulk Hogan’s birthday celebration, which, frankly, is insane. Exactly zero things on television this side of a holiday marathon of The Twilight Zone should last three hours, but that’s exactly what Raw does: It lasts. It staggers. It lurches. It finishes, out of breath and somehow overtime, maneuvering its various pieces around in an effort to hide the fact that nothing is happening. The recurring theme of an episode of Raw these days is the price point of the WWE Network, where, oddly, you can’t watch Raw, because even though Vince McMahon has cast his lot with the future, he still finds his business shackled to the mediums of the past. 700,000 is, to me, an impressive number of human beings who are willing to pay for access to a staggering number of frankly mediocre wrestling shows, but the last I checked, the average episode of Raw manages to pull in 3,000,000, and they sit through ads for things like Juicy Drop Pops and Sonic Chili Cheese Dogs. They’ll sit through the not-infrequent advertisements that air during an episode of Raw, too, where the comedic wrestlers on the show shill food or beverage in a way that makes me wish I couldn’t ingest things. But I can, and I do. Often during wrestling. Tonight, it was curry. Sunday, when my $9.99 will allow me to watch Summerslam? Who knows? Summerslam was the focus of tonight’s episode of Raw, as all of the men and women who will have matches on the show did their bit to advance their storyline to the point where that match would take on some semblance of meaning. Some of the matches on Summerslam, you can tell, are just there to eat the clock. While I know a lot of people are looking forward to Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins, and while I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense that a feud based on one man’s quest to hunt down another who keeps running away would come to a head in a lumberjack match—that’s a match where the ring is surrounded by the wrestlers who will not be wrestling that evening—Ambrose and Rollins work much better when they have the arena as their playground. Similarly, an old-school Russia vs. USA Flag Match—the winner is the man who retrieves his flag from a pole that rises high above the ring—seems like a fun idea, but the WWE writer’s room stopped having interesting-if-poorly-informed things to say about the current political situation in Russia a few months ago, and Tea Party Patriot cum hirsute manager Zeb Coulter (picture Yosemite Sam on a fly fishing trip) constantly making reference to Rocky and Bullwinkle isn’t going to make Rocky IV feel any fresher in 2014.

But WWE can do a remarkable job of promoting a big match, and that is the axis upon which Summerslam revolves, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship clash between 15-time champion John Cena and unleashed Kraken Brock Lesnar. I like John Cena. I really like John Cena. I think the first John Cena match I saw was against Rob Van Dam at a WWE-produced revival of Extreme Championship Wrestling, a 90s entity that is responsible for revolutionizing wrestling in a number of ways large and small, one of which was to turn every professional wrestling fan over the age of 25 into an overly-entitled rage monster. I wasn’t watching wrestling much in 2006, but I remembered and liked ECW, so I went to a Buffalo Wild Wings in Taylor, Michigan to watch the somewhat local ECW legend Van Dam (from Battle Creek, MI) finally ascend to the WWE Championship (something I’d “borrowed” my mom’s credit card a few times to see in 2001, though Van Dam never clinched the title). ECW One Night Stand took place in the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, which was a major hotbed for the organization when it was a real thing and not a marketing tool, and which remains a magnet for large independent wrestling events to this day. When John Cena’s music hit, 2,460 adult human beings really got on John Cena’s case for daring to be a professional wrester. He wore jean shorts, sneakers, and useless sweatbands, sure, but watching Cena go to work in that environment, 2,460 human adults chanting things like “Cena swallows” (a “hardcore” addendum to the time-tested chant of “Cena sucks”), I was won over by him immediately. By the time the people in the Buffalo Wild Wings, several thousand miles from New York City, started joining in on the chants emanating from the Hammerstein Ballroom, I knew I had a new favorite wrestler.

And so it’s been for me since then, which is a decision that’s treated me well. I’m into wrestling for the wrestling matches these days, and more often than not, on big shows, against big opponents, John Cena has one hell of a match. My favorite John Cena match in the past few years was the one that he had against Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules in 2012, a stupidly named and often poorly booked show of “hardcore” matches that exists as a way to get a few thousand extra orders on a show that isn’t WrestleMania or Summerslam and that should go away post-haste, since the WWE Network exists, and, for $9.99, I’d watch WWE Singles Match if that’s what they wanted to call the damn thing. Cena vs. Lesnar had happened before, when John Cena was new and Brock Lesnar was thinking about quitting wrestling to try out for the National Football League, but I wasn’t watching and neither man was the symbol they’d become by the time 2012 brought Lesnar back to the world of fake fighting. Cena was the face of the WWE. Lesnar had gone legit, capturing the UFC Heavyweight Championship and maneuvering that sport towards an atmosphere that looked and sounded a lot like WWE, just without the benefit of goosed narratives. Diverticulitis took Lesnar out of the UFC, and a gigantic contract brought him back to a limited schedule of dates for the WWE. Now he functions much like Godzilla: When a major event comes around, he surfaces, wrecks a bunch of stuff, and leaves. He is the closest thing we have on this planet to a legitimate movie monster, and he is a glorious thing to behold. I love John Cena, but I want to see Brock Lesnar break him in half. I want him to make it look easy, like he’s hanging out on his ranch, shooting rifles with his brother, and eating a pile of terrible submarine sandwiches. Because John Cena is at his absolute best against guys like Lesnar, who are so good at the work they’ve been put here to do that they hate that work and the people who’d pay to witness it. Cena is great when he has to work for something, and ridding the WWE of the guy who crushed The Undertaker at WrestleMania, whose 21-0 streak going into WrestleMania XXX was the only thing in wrestling that could be said to mean more than any given title, is the only something left.

This episode of Raw presented something of a debate between Lesnar—represented by his advocate, Paul Heyman—and Cena; two extended interview segments that were both quite good. Heyman rapped, which, when you’re a 48-year-old man who was once prominently billed as “The Psycho Yuppie,” sounds more like Dr. Seuss than N.W.A., and Cena spoke largely about passion, how he has it, and how Lesnar’s lack of it means that he doesn’t deserve the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Heyman hit his peak a few weeks ago when he brought Lesnar out as the man who would conquer John Cena’s 15th reign as champion and has been coasting a bit since—making fun of Cena’s origins as the horrible white rapper from the mean streets of West Newbury has been a thing since Cena was that character—but that’s kind of the point. He’s the dude standing behind King Kong. He doesn’t need to try very hard, because even a subpar effort from Paul Heyman on the microphone is museum quality compared to anybody else in the game.

This was made painfully obvious by the evening’s other large piece of non-physical storytelling, the ongoing saga of Brie Bella and Stephanie McMahon. An offshoot of last summer’s program that saw the rise of bearded populist hero Daniel Bryan in the face of a heartless corporate power structure that didn’t get why arenas across the country were making a big deal out of a guy they’d branded “goat face,” Bryan’s triumph at WrestleMania XXX (he beat Triple H, the head of the Authority, and then defeated Randy Orton and Batista to become the WWE World Heavyweight Champion) quickly turned sour, as his father died and he suffered a severe neck injury. This has caused him to relinquish the championship and largely disappear from television as he rehabs en route to an eventual return. Since, they’ve shunted the Bryan vs. Authority storyline to Brie Bella and Stephanie McMahon, the wives (in reality and in wrestling) of Bryan and Triple H.

Sometimes, when Stephanie McMahon is leading Brie through segments, everything is fine. Stephanie McMahon has grown considerably as a character over the past 15 years of her being in the spotlight, and is perhaps the second best Evil Boss character in the history of the medium, behind only her father. Brie Bella…is not good at talking. That’d be fine in a reality television show, where she actually thrives, but in a storyline that requires her to garner sympathy from an arena full of angry dudes, it’s going to take more than blackmailing the boss and calling her a bitch every week to get people invested. So this week, Stephanie brought out Daniel Bryan’s personal trainer, who awkwardly admitted to having an affair with the former champion, Brie’s husband, etc. This was, I guess, supposed to embarrass Brie Bella, but the segment was mostly terrible because, for starters, the woman playing the physical therapist was an atrocious actor even by wrestling standards. McMahon intimating Bryan’s cries “Yes! Yes! Yes!” in a tone suggesting the fake pornographic moans of an Herbal Essences commercial was funny, and I guess it makes sense that a heel would resort to slutshaming (the poor physical therapist is there in the corner watching McMahon imitate her during sex) in an effort to make the live fans cheer for Brie, but I checked out on this angle around the time McMahon was thrown into a gigantic kiddie pool of human waste, and whatever loyalty I have to Daniel Bryan doesn’t automatically transfer over to his spouse, because that isn’t how well-developed characters are created. Still, McMahon vs. Bella is the second most important match on the second most important show on the WWE calendar, and the crowd absolutely eats it up whenever the two get into a physical confrontation. There’s probably something to be said about the fact that these confrontations have been built around the signature moves of their husbands, but I’m not swimming through the kiddie pool of human waste to retrieve it. Therein you’ll probably also find a salient point about the biggest insult hurled by McMahon or Bella, beyond “bitch,” is the insinuation that Brie Bella is not good at sexually satisfying Daniel Bryan, which is, I guess, the job you sign up for when you get married.

Finally, Brock Lesnar crashed Hulk Hogan’s birthday party, because of course he did. “Party’s over, grandpa,” he said, leering like the villain of an 80s film. Brock Lesnar is there to beat up the collective childhoods of everybody in that arena—beyond Hogan, the ring had filled with Roddy Piper, Ric Flair, the nWo of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, Jimmy Hart, and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff. John Cena saved the day, because of course he did, but that doesn’t matter much. Nothing happened between he and Lesnar, because that can wait until Sunday, until Summerslam, until you’ve given up $9.99 for it and the rest of the card. Before those two had their final confrontation, and before all of the old-timers came out and Scott Hall had a bit of fun running through his old nWo catchphrases and Hogan ripped off his red and yellow Hulkamania shirt to reveal the black and white New World Order shirt beneath, Gene Okerlund directed Hogan’s attention to the video screen, where a legitimately touching tribute to Hogan played. It was set to Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.” Hulk Hogan is 61 now, and while he can come out and run through the catchphrases and rip his shirt off and do the same bodybuilding poses I saw as a four-year old, he’s never going to wrestle again. Time has officially caught up to Hulk Hogan, and seeing clips of him dropping leg after leg to Dylan was strange at first, somehow dissonant to what Hogan was, until it hit me that, well, it kind of fit. The Ultimate Warrior died this year. Randy Savage died in 2011.”When you turn 61-years-young,” Hogan said, bringing down the energy after mustering a bit of that vintage Hogan hype, “you start to reflect back on a few things.”

Nothing Hogan could say on a night that ended with him cutting into a birthday cake festooned with candles spelling out “9.99” was going to reach the zenith of what turned out to be the final public appearance of The Ultimate Warrior, but last night, The Immortal Hulk Hogan pondered his mortality. And while the footage of his staring down Brock Lesnar will likely be replayed over and over for the next year, if not longer, the fact that there was no physical altercation between the two—not even Lesnar shoving Hogan to the mat, which would have blown the roof off of the building—speaks volumes about what Hulk Hogan is capable of in 2014. Hulkamania may be willing, brother, but all the training, prayers, and vitamins in the world can’t stop time. Beyond a paycheck, this is why someone like Hulk Hogan might be interested in forking over $9.99 for the WWE Network. Not for Summerslam, which will be there regardless, but because he’ll be dropping legs and shredding t-shirts on it forever, immortal, as promised. For a wrestler—for the wrestler—that’s not a bad legacy.

Results:
- Paul Heyman addressed Brock Lesnar’s upcoming match against John Cena by “rapping.” Since he did so without a beat, one could even say he freestyled.
- Roman Reigns def. RybAxel (Ryback and Curtis Axel) via disqualification.
- Bray Wyatt and Chris Jericho had a face-to-face confrontation that was lifted entirely from The Silence of the Lambs.
- Seth Rollins def. Rob Van Dam via pinfall. After the match, Dean Ambrose emerged from a giant gift box to attack Rollins, who ran away through the crowd.
- Stephanie McMahon interviewed Daniel Bryan’s physical therapist, who admitted to having an affair with Bryan. This led Bryan’s wife, Brie Bella, to slap the therapist and attack McMahon, putting her in Bryan’s signature finishing maneuver, the Yes! Lock.
- Jack Swagger def. Cesaro via submission. He then stared down Rusev, their inactivity a metaphor for the Cold War.
- Eva Marie def. WWE Diva’s Champion AJ Lee by pinfall due to a distraction by Paige, who then read a terrible poem to mock her “frienemy,” which is an awful word to hear a trio of middle-aged men repeat seven or eight times in six minutes.
- John Cena called out Brock Lesnar, who did not respond.
- Brie Bella vs. Stephanie McMahon did not occur, as Brie Bella was arrested for assaulting Daniel Bryan’s physical therapist.
- Heath Slater def. Dolph Ziggler via count-out, as The Miz was distracting Ziggler from the announce table.
- Randy Orton def. WWE United States Champion Sheamus by pinball.
- Hulk Hogan’s birthday party was interrupted by Brock Lesnar. The assembled old folks there to celebrate Hogan’s 61 years of Hulkamania running wild were saved from a beating by John Cena. Rather than fight, Lesnar ditched the ring, saving the inevitable clash for this Sunday’s Summerslam.
Rating:

For no reason other than that they played him down to the ring to it last night, be sure to listen to Paul Orndorff’s brilliant theme song:
August 12, 2014
Wrestling Worth Watching 10/22/12 – 10/28/12

Welcome to the new, hopefully improved edition of Wrestling Worth Watching. Back when Fear of a Ghost Planet started, this post was a way of looking at everything that happened in the world of televised wrestling that was good, from Chris Jericho trolling the crowd to Brodus Clay debuting as a funk-loving tubbo from outer space to a decent match on some indie fed’s YouTube channel. It was an ambitious project, and one that ultimately failed. In 2012, there is just too much wrestling out there to keep track of it all as it happens. So I’ll be forward and honest from the start of this new project: I don’t watch Impact Wrestling, as they don’t make an honest effort to make their shows available beyond airdate, and Ring of Honor doesn’t air where I live, though I’ll try to catch it whenever possible. These posts may seem like they’re dominated by the WWE, but that’s the reality of nearly every wrestling fan’s situation: the promotion who airs the most free wrestling is the one that gets watched the most. If you’d like to chime in with matches from elsewhere that should be noted, hit me up in the comments section.

Monday Night Raw (8/22/12)

Team Rhodes Scholars vs. Rey Mysterio & Sin Cara: For a month now, the WWE has done everything in its power to revitalize its tag team division, waking the dead by calling a time-tested audible in the long-running Daniel Bryan/Kane feud by pairing the two up and giving them the Tag Team Titles, running an angle where a rival team formed as a result of the champions’ dysfunction, then having a month-long tournament featuring several new teams. The only team that’s broken up as a result of not winning the tournament was the one pairing Kofi Kingston and R-Truth, the previous champions. Now there’s a power tag team (Primetime Players), a team of brothers (The Usos), a high-flying tag team (Justin Gabriel and Tyson Kidd) and these two teams, the most popular/hated and established of the bunch. Theirs was the best tag team match of the week, setting up the long-anticipated slight-letdown of a match between the Rhodes Scholars (I think putting “Team” in front of everything has been the worst part of the division’s rebuild. Team is implied!) and Team Hell No (the exception to the rule, as “team” is meant pseudo-ironically, though “Team Friendship” will forever be the better name). The only reason this wasn’t the best match on Raw is because Dolph Ziggler and Daniel Bryan would later take the floor for 15 minutes.

Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler: For a long time, the only person the Money in the Bank briefcase turned into a star was Edge, and really all his surprising title victory over John Cena did was solidify his place as a top-tier talent. The second person to benefit from the odd bump the briefcase provides was C.M. Punk, though it took two tries—and an incredibly good feud against Jeff Hardy—to get it right. Everybody else either wasn’t ready, or wasn’t given something beyond that moment of glory, but in Edge and Punk, the briefcase has found purpose: either a crafty, dickish heel cashes it in and proves himself, or a mawkish good guy cashes it in and quickly turns evil. Dolph Ziggler and Daniel Bryan are the next generation of men who’ve somehow taken that gaudy briefcase and turned it into a platform from which better careers are launched, Ziggler by taking Edge’s role, and Bryan by taking to Punk’s. While both remain a title reign away from true greatness, their match Monday on Raw was a gift from the ghost of WWE’s future, a thrilling contest teasing at the possibilities a full-blown rivalry between the two contain. The point of this was to reestablish the dysfunction between Bryan and his tag team partner Kane, and while that mission was accomplished and the work those two have done together has been very good, matches like this mean I can’t wait much longer to see Bryan on his own again, a mean little man with a nasty beard and a worse submission hold.

C.M. Punk vs. Sheamus: Though they didn’t mention it, there was a nice synergy to this contest, the 30 or so men around the ring not only serving as flesh-and-blood metaphor for the inescapability of the Hell In a Cell structure, but as closure to the mini-issue between Punk and Sheamus that started at the Raw in Chicago, when Punk bolted on a slated title vs. title match to eat at The Wiener’s Circle and hang with Paul Heyman. I haven’t seen every Lumberjack Match ever, but I feel pretty confident in claiming this as one of the best. The match is a throwback to a time when a sheer mass of humanity was enough to pique a crowd’s interest, and lately has been relegated to the typical blow-off match between Divas, the lumberjill match, if you will. Anymore, they’re confusing affairs, the lumberjacks rarely doing their job—containing the action in the ring—and instead clubbering on any poor bastard who ends up on the floor. So it was a sigh of relief when C.M. Punk landed on the floor, in a sea of humanity, and was merely tossed back into the ring. And it was surprisingly O.K. when Sheamus was thrown out there and got beat up, because he landed amongst a crowd of heels and wound up brawling back. Barroom brawls are an environment Sheamus thrives in, and lumberjack matches are a situation where crafty bad guys have to be their most cunning. C.M. Punk was just that, Sheamus was in his element, and the result was the most satisfying Raw main event in some time. The stuff with Ryback I covered last week, but having 30 men around the ring, overkill in any other match, was worthwhile just to see them split when the dude’s music hit.

WWE Main Event (8/24/12)

Dolph Ziggler vs. Ryback: There’s really no better opponent for Ryback than Dolph Ziggler, a wrestler who is, in every aspect, the second coming of “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig. If you’ve ever seen Hennig pinball around the ring for a larger, more muscular opponent, then you know what I’m talking about. Ryback’s an act only the most cynical wrestling fan doesn’t like, a monster in the Goldberg fashion who steamrolls through opponents with a variety of ridiculous power moves and stiff-looking strikes. Ziggler flopped around the ring for Ryback’s routine like a mad-man, putting over the legitimate danger presented by the monster while also showing that there’d be no escape for C.M. Punk on Sunday, even without the presence of a gigantic steal cage. The match did its job very well without tanking Ziggler. Credit for that goes to the length of the match—thus far the longest match of Ryback’s run—and to The Miz’s commentary, which pointed out that, against Ryback, everybody is off their game.

WWE Hell In A Cell (8/28/12)

The Miz vs. Kofi Kingston: The third match between these two in as many weeks, and, in many ways, the best of the bunch. Hard to believe that their issue began when Larry King’s wife threw a cup of water in The Miz’s face, but I’ve come away from their series as a fan of both men, when before I was ambivalent towards both of them. The opening two minutes or so were great, Miz and Kingston both fighting and failing to apply their finishing maneuvers, the fact that spots from previous matches evolved and became something else was a very nice touch, and the finishing struggle between the two, with Miz keeping the full nelson he uses in the Skull-Crushing Finale on as the two rolled to the ring and got back up to their feet, was tremendously exciting. Lately, Kofi’s Trouble in Paradise kick has been a devastating-looking, come-from-nowhere move akin to Shawn Michael’s Sweet Chin Music. That’s worked a lot better than the old set-up, where Kofi stands in the corner and tries to pump the crowd for it, much like Michaels did for his kick. And while you wouldn’t know it from the anemic crowd, the last three or four minutes of the match, from when Miz started targeting Kofi’s leg with a weird-looking, over-the-shoulder knee-breaker to the finish, was tremendously compelling stuff. Knee braces and leg casts are things the heel usually removes on an injured opponent, but they took things a step further here, with Miz injuring Kofi’s leg mid-match and stripping his boot and knee pad to further exploit the injury. I loved everything about it, even The Miz’s awkward execution of the half-crab.

The Big Show vs. Sheamus: For me, this was the match of the week, but I’m a big fan of Hoss vs. Hoss battles, something they featured plenty during the championship run of Mark Henry, and not enough during Sheamus’s time with the belt. Built up as a showdown between two knockout blows—The Big Show’s Knockout Punch and Sheamus’s Brogue Kick—the story of this contest wound up being much more complex, with Sheamus withstanding a number of Big Show’s past and present finishing moves, including the giant punch, and Big Show kicking out of the Brogue Kick, becoming the first man to do so in the process. The crowd—dead most of the evening—came alive when Sheamus picked up The Big Show and dropped him with a perfect-looking White Noise, and for good reason: however good Sheamus’s matches as champion have been (and however much he’s been built as the best champ in 10 years), they’ve lacked effective spectacle. The only other guy on the roster who has picked a guy like Show up on his shoulders is John Cena, but you expect that from him. This was built as blow vs. blow, a straight brawl, but that maneuver, more than Sheamus’ triumph over Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania, will be the defining moment of his championship reign. The finish, which saw Show sidestep a second Brogue Kick while throwing a K.O. Punch the champion’s way, was the best moment of the week, two semi-trucks playing chicken in the rain, only one driving away without jackknifing. This one wasn’t pretty, but boy was it effective.

C.M. Punk vs. Ryback: The most controversial match of the year, as even anti-Ryback partisans realized the risk of this match: Ryback loses the “wrong way,” and the WWE is out one potential game-changing superstar. Popular wrestling journalist (a three-word oxymoron, if ever there was one) Dave Meltzer says that he read through dozens of bad-to-middling ideas for the finish of this match, and that all of them were better than the one chosen here. Whatever. In 1998, Ryback’s ancestor Bill Goldberg defeated Hulk Hogan in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, ushering in what many felt was a new era in WCW. He was undefeated. He was slightly green. But he was at the apex of his popularity and ready for the championship. At Starrcade that year, he was defeated by Kevin Nash, who was aided by long-time running buddy Scott Hall, who used a taser to put “Da Man” (Bobby Heenan’s spelling, not mine) down for the count. It was an awful finish, an anti-climax that didn’t make a whole lot of sense (Hall and Nash were feuding, Goldberg was on the verge of reaching Hogan-esque levels of global fame), and Goldberg—and WCW—never quite recovered. The finish to the Hell in a Cell match between Punk and Ryback is similar in a way—Ryback was screwed over—but the circumstances are different. It doesn’t matter if the “GOLDBERG” chants that follow Ryback are now affectionate, if the same people who chant that stop to join the rest of the crowd in Ryback’s WWE-mandated “FEED ME MORE” chant, Ryback was not ready for the WWE Championship. To my recollection—hardly a useful tool, but one that probably feeds the WWE machine better than a photographic memory of every Ryback match—the man hadn’t bumped for move one of any opponent he faced before this match, from the jobbers named after presidents to the duet of former champions he faced leading into his main event this week. Here’s what Punk needed in order to win: the most biased official in wrestling history. Brad Maddox, last seen close to a month ago missing C.M. Punk’s foot on the ropes, stopped Ryback while he was marching around the ring with Punk on his shoulders. He low-blowed the man, slipped behind him, and quickly counted to three as soon as Punk pushed him over the ref and made the cover. I don’t want to say that it was brilliant, but it clearly shows that someone in the back learned from the essential mistake of the Nash/Goldberg issue, which was never successfully resolved. This was a FIRST TIME ENCOUNTER. That it happened in one of WWE’s most legendary matches was something of a head-scratcher, a calendar-based necessity, but really, it’s the only place it should have happened. Ryback’s destructive ways aided and got in the way of his goal. The cage provided a place where he could look momentarily weak, but also like the freaking monster he is. It allowed Paul Heyman to be at his panicked best. It meant that Punk and the referee would be unable to escape swiftly into the night. It meant Ryback would get his revenge. And he did so memorably, tossing Maddox into the cage as if he were Bam Bam Bigelow and the poor referee his Spike Dudley before chasing Punk up the cage and delivering Shellshocked 20-feet in the air. The show ended with Ryback nodding his head to his own music, foot planted firmly on Punk’s chest. Those who don’t think Ryback got his due last night, that his star was aborted rather than born, aren’t paying attention. The focus of this match, after all, was Punk establishing his legacy, finally gaining the respect of the WWE Universe. Punk is an asshole. A dick of the highest order. His legacy is that of a great, long-tenured heel champion. He stands in defiance of what the fans want to see. He makes those fans want to see his comeuppance even more. He finds and exploits the loophole and expects you to respect him for it. I’m going to come just short of calling this match brilliant, but it’s another example of why Punk’s run as WWE Champion, of late, has been one of the most effective such runs in memory. You wanted Ryback to win? You’re upset with the finish? That’s exactly how WWE wants you to feel. Tune in tonight on Raw to see that snide jerk get what’s coming to him.

October 29, 2012
Wrestling Review: WWE Monday Night Raw (10/15/12)
For weeks now, the narrative of WWE Monday Night Raw has been this: to cement his legacy as an all-time great champion, CM Punk would need to defeat John Cena within the confines of Hell in a Cell, WWE’s steel cage warzone that’s seen its fair share of company defining moments. On one level, this makes sense: many of the company’s top feuds, from The Undertaker’s battles with Shawn Michaels and Mankind to Triple H’s beefs with Chris Jericho and Cactus Jack, have wound up there, and Cena/Punk is certainly worthy. On another, it’s a complete mystery: Punk’s been involved in two Hell in a Cell matches and hasn’t outright lost to John Cena since before last year’s WrestleMania. The cell has mostly loomed in the background as another specter of WWE past, taunting the long-tenured WWE Champion like Bret Hart, Mick Foley, Jim Ross, and Vince McMahon have over the past few weeks. Tonight was billed as the night CM Punk chose between John Cena and Ryback as his eventual challenger, and also as an evening during which Vince McMahon would potentially choose Punk’s opponent. In a move unsurprising to folks who follow injury reports but inconsistent in terms of overall narrative, neither Punk nor McMahon chose who would be stepping into Hell in a Cell, but John Cena, who abdicated the ring and led the audience in Ryback’s chant of “FEED ME MORE.”

This swerve came despite Cena telling Vince McMahon that he was ready, if need be, for the challenge of the Cell. Despite weeks of him telling Punk that respect and a lasting legacy would only be his if he agreed to the match. Obviously, Cena’s elbow is still an issue, but stepping away from a fight he was previously begging for is something completely outside his character, even when he was a white rapper of questionable associations nearly a decade ago. Ryback, fortunately for the WWE, is an able substitute. Listen to the response he gets, even after failing to lift up the monstrous Tensai for his finishing maneuver a week ago. There is no hotter act in wrestling. The only thing the WWE has to fear is that Ryback’s luster is diminished by a loss, or that a championship victory is too much, too soon. It’ll hurt the narrative a little, but not enough to seriously damage Vince McMahon’s unsinkable ship.

Ryback, love him or hate him (I’m a fan), is the best example of the WWE’s seemingly newfound ability to turn its new stars from awkward newcomers into characters worth investing time into over a short period of time. The law of diminishing returns has effectively caused the Funkasaurus to go extinct, but acts like Damien Sandow and Antonio Caesaro have done well for themselves; Kofi Kingston, The Miz, Cody Rhodes, and Sin Cara have gotten a new sense of purpose; and the much maligned Tag Team and Divas divisions have had an energy to them that has been largely absent for years.

A lot of this, oddly, has been a side-effect of Jerry “The King” Lawler’s heart attack and subsequent hiatus from the broadcast position. That night forced play-by-play announcer Michael Cole to drop his evil ways and return to simply reporting on matches, rather than actively picking favorites. He’s been joined at the table by Jim Ross and John Bradshaw Layfield, both of whom are gifted analysts with whom Cole has tremendous chemistry. Layfield was not on Raw tonight, but Ross has a way of connecting with wrestling fans that, as an announcer myself, is both enviable and hard to describe. Cole, sitting beside him, is tremendously effective in making Ross’s points digestible to the WWE’s young demographic. If the aim of broadcasting this format is to make the wrestlers in the ring look as good as possible, few recent matches have befitted as much as the one between Kofi Kingston and The Miz, which was meant to hype a title fight between the two on WWE’s new Wednesday night show. I’ve been disinterested in Kofi Kingston for some time and have never really been a fan of The Miz, but listening to Ross talk about Kingston’s history and Cole put over The Miz’s accomplishments, it really felt like their match meant something. Considering that the issue sprung from an incident where Larry King’s wife through water in The Miz’s face, that’s saying a lot about both the commentary and the match itself.

Similarly, the WWE has found a way to make The Big Show a compelling character again: a disgruntled carnival strongman with a right hand that’s literally lethal, facing down a grinning goofball Irishman whose most compelling argument for success is that a mutual opponent once beat Show in 45 seconds. Tonight, The Big Show demanded to face Daniel Bryan in a match so he could “erase the memory” of his 45 second title reign and handily defeated the WWE Tag Team Champion. The match achieved the dual purpose of establishing Show as a legitimate threat (something that’s proven hard in the past, despite the man’s size) and further gelling the team of Bryan and Kane, the unlikely champions who belittle each other but are growing into a semi-functional unit. The odd man out here is World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus, who would probably be one of my favorite wrestlers were he not involved in a mind-boggling amount of lame sketches that’ve resorted to bullying, racial stereotyping, and grand theft auto, none of which have utilized his natural charisma, nor the size and strength that make him so impressive.

The result of this episode of Raw is that the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view is now much more full, though it remains unclear as to what matches will actually end up in the cage. There’s Punk and Ryback, as mentioned by Vince McMahon, and I presume Big Show and Sheamus will also end up there. Daniel Bryan and Kane may face the winners of next weeks Rey Mysterio/Sin Cara vs. Damien Sandow/Cody Rhodes encounter in Hell in a Cell, but that’d be three first-time matches taking place in a structure formerly reserved for the end of a long-standing conflict.

In this regard, give CM Punk and manager Paul Heyman most of the credit for selling the upcoming show. Punk, as always, has really taken to the role of smarmy jerk, and if anybody deserves to go through the crucible of Hell in a Cell, it’s him. Punk has been through two such matches, as previously mentioned, but neither of them were classics. Paul Heyman, though, was a big part of one of WWE’s best such brawls, a bloodbath between his client Brock Lesnar and Hell in a Cell staple The Undertaker. He may be pivotal two weeks from now, worrying outside the cage as his man stares across the ring at a young challenger with nothing to lose, unheard of momentum, and an unbeaten record. The vitriol aimed at Punk since he attacked Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on the thousandth episode of Raw crossed into the realm of reality last week, when Punk punched a fan, retaliating to a hostile crowd trying to push him down a flight of stairs. The WWE Universe is out for his blood, meaning that there was no bad choice for Hell in a Cell. If only that choice had followed the WWE’s already established logic.

Rating:

Stray Observations:
- Raw General Manager A.J. Lee has become less and less essential to the show since she was given power and granted a last name, but they’re still portraying her as an emotionally unstable woman who doesn’t like the word “crazy.” This resulted in an odd verbal gaffe by Michael Cole, who noted that he shouldn’t “call A.J. the ‘C-word.’” That’s a basic rule of thumb for all women, Mr. Cole.
- Vince McMahon’s reply when Ryback said “FEED ME PUNK?” “I’ll take it under consideration.”
- Paul Heyman is perhaps the greatest slimeball manager in wrestling history. The way he tries warming up to Vince McMahon while also setting him up for a match against Punk was great. His response to Vince when McMahon said he’d only take a match against Heyman (“That’s not what I pitched! That’s not what I pitched!”) was golden.
- I like Wade Barrett a lot, but I can never tell if he has a new theme song, or if they’ve just given him something that bland and generic. Considering how many times they changed Barrett’s music when he was a member of Nexus and The Corre, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just haven’t settled on one generic rock song or another. Entrance music is a big part of professional wrestling (for one, it lets the audience know exactly how to respond the moment a wrestler enters the arena), and Barrett’s considerable mystique would only be enhanced by something recognizable.
October 16, 2012