WWE has a pattern where they do like two or three really good RAWs in a row and then follow it up with an absolute turd bomb of a show that is an absolute chore to get through. Tonight was one of those nights. It got so bad that I was yawning during a Daniel Bryan match. That never happens.
It wasn't like there were things wrong with the structure of the show. We got variance in matches... well, except for Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston. And we got WrestleMania announcements too, even though the one that should have been the most epic was actually as feeble as a knock-kneed school boy trying to ask out a girl from the popular clique. Seriously, you have Mark Henry and Ryback ready to rip each other's musculature from their skeletons, and we're relying on Vickie Guerrero delivering a wooden decree to make the match? Really? They set up the Tag Title match too, but it was in a gauntlet thrown down that seemed worthy of Payback or whatever milquetoast summer PPV they have going for them this year, not WrestleMania. I dunno.
I guess the sort of good-intentions in a shit pudding could be described best by the bookends of the show. The top of RAW started promising with Pancake Patterson doing his best to toe the line between edgy and flat out racist, and doing it well. For as bad as he is in the ring, Titus O'Neil is awesome as a character dude. But then John Cena did what he always does with people way lower on the card than he is, and the subsequent match with Darren Young spanned a commercial break without any semblance of offense on either end. Was the point having the Prime Time Players as a proxy for Rock telling Cena that no one liked him?
Then there was the end. There's only so much of "cool guy tough dude" Triple H I can take, and tonight, the needle was pegging so hard. Paul Heyman was the only saving grace. The only saving grace.
(Oh, and Punk ruled too, but I think I wanna write about that tomorrow. Sorry.)
It wasn't like there were things wrong with the structure of the show. We got variance in matches... well, except for Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston. And we got WrestleMania announcements too, even though the one that should have been the most epic was actually as feeble as a knock-kneed school boy trying to ask out a girl from the popular clique. Seriously, you have Mark Henry and Ryback ready to rip each other's musculature from their skeletons, and we're relying on Vickie Guerrero delivering a wooden decree to make the match? Really? They set up the Tag Title match too, but it was in a gauntlet thrown down that seemed worthy of Payback or whatever milquetoast summer PPV they have going for them this year, not WrestleMania. I dunno.
I guess the sort of good-intentions in a shit pudding could be described best by the bookends of the show. The top of RAW started promising with Pancake Patterson doing his best to toe the line between edgy and flat out racist, and doing it well. For as bad as he is in the ring, Titus O'Neil is awesome as a character dude. But then John Cena did what he always does with people way lower on the card than he is, and the subsequent match with Darren Young spanned a commercial break without any semblance of offense on either end. Was the point having the Prime Time Players as a proxy for Rock telling Cena that no one liked him?
Then there was the end. There's only so much of "cool guy tough dude" Triple H I can take, and tonight, the needle was pegging so hard. Paul Heyman was the only saving grace. The only saving grace.
(Oh, and Punk ruled too, but I think I wanna write about that tomorrow. Sorry.)
