With a three hour RAW, a four-way match for a vacant WWE Championship and a big announcement slated from Vince McMahon himself, the WWE had a lot of potential to really make things interesting for The Bash, which is only two weeks away and had not really started its build yet. They had two stagnant but long-running feuds going on. Triple H and Randy Orton have feuded for the better part of the year thus far, and even when Trips was out on "injury" leave, Batista was there fighting in his stead. John Cena and Big Show have faced off at every PPV since WM except Backlash, and at that event, Show played an integral role in Cena's match.
It's clear they were going to continue both feuds for the long haul, most likely to SummerSlam. Okay, in the WWE nowadays, overkill is the name of the game, but that doesn't mean that fans don't get restless and weary. Ratings often dip in the summertime. Part of the reason is because it's the summertime and people don't watch TV. I seem to think that the WWE could do a better job of giving viewers a reason to tune in. Not with gimmicks like three-hour RAWs (although I must admit, I am pretty randy at the prospect of a commercial-free RAW next week), but with fresh matchups. While conventional TV is bound to run its big guns during Sweeps Weeks, the WWE has to up their game year round since they have to run fresh material week in and week out. Unless this is their way of doing reruns... which I wouldn't put past Titan Towers.
So you have a chance with RAW to shake things up a bit, to have your own sweeps in the middle June, get some people talking, even if it's just the fans you already have. You could have done one of many things. You could have strapped Big Show and added a new dimension to his feud with Cena. There's a feud that has needed a title attached to it, since Show and Cena really didn't have any visceral, personal reason to hate each other other than wanting to get ahead. While that's a great idea for a feud, for two guys of that caliber, I would have liked to have seen the title involved.
Add that to the fact that the title has been booked as an afterthought throughout the entire Trips/Orton feud, and you had the opportunity to hit F5 on two feuds. But what do they do? Strap Randy Orton again. Seriously? If that was the plan all along then why take the title off him in the first place? Was it because Batista kept asking Vince "I can has one-day title reign?"
But they had the chance to redeem themselves. Ten-man battle royale, Cena is involved. Okay, it wouldn't make sense to have Show win it with Orton as the Champ, but Cena... yeah, Cena and Orton haven't worked with each other for awhile now, at least a year. They teased tension earlier in the show. It was a great opportunity to pull the trigger on a nice diversion without really derailing the master plan of Trips/Orton at SummerSlam, since you know that's where they're going (and really, at this point, nothing else makes sense for either guy).
So yeah, I was excited. Maybe they're going to do it. Maybe they'll break the cycle for a PPV or two and we'll get a fresh matchup... nuh uh. Trips wins.
Add that to the fact that MVP, who was a major player against Orton a month ago, was now being treated like an afterthought, eliminated second in the BR, and that they blew a golden opportunity for Miz to get more heat on Cena without pinning him by having Cena and Trips toss him like day old garbage... well, it fell flat. Very flat. Just more of the same from the WWE. But hey, Vince sold RAW to Trump! That'll get the casuals back, right?
Fuck that. Right now, Vince needs to concentrate on getting the wrestling fans back and keeping the crowd that likes wrestling but has fallen out of favor with the WWE, the people who order WM and that's about it for their wrestling viewing for the year. If he can get people talking who already watch and get them talking positively, then you got something. Strapping Show or Cena, giving a newish matchup in Cena/Orton, or even, GASP, elevating someone like MVP for a trial run in a PPV main, kinda like the shot Austin got at Undertaker after his face turn at WMXIII. That wouldn't have brought in a million fans, but it would have gotten people talking positively.
But then again, what do I know?
One really cool note about RAW though. While the announcers didn't mention the passing of Misawa, there was a tribute in the form of CM Punk's arm tape, which had Misawa written on it in green Sharpie. I didn't expect the announcers to mention it, because Misawa's a name that the Internet would know, but probably not the regular fans, but for Punk to do it in tribute was fucking aces. He's quickly becoming one of my favorites, and not just for the cool stuff like that he does.
0 comments:
Post a Comment