Instant Feedback: FRIENDSHIP. Friendship, Again?

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Photo Credit: WWE.com

RAW started tonight with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, strolling to the ring to Trips' evil mogul theme song, hand in hand for a good bit of the entrance. The show ended with Daniel Bryan and Big Show leading a rousing chorus of YES! chants from the cab of a tractor trailer that the latter had driven into the arena. In between was a show that appeared unrecognizable from the WWE of the last decade-and-a-half. The iconoclast had exited the building, at least for one night.

WWE's biggest flaw, at least narrative-wise, has been leaning on the antisocial antihero a bit too hard when Steve Austin was their head bee guy. The bad guys were allowed to huddle up, because hey, what's an evil conglomerate without some honor among thieves? With that in mind, the Authority and the Shield and even 3MB showing solidarity should not have been surprising. However, the continued buddy-buddy relationship between Show and Bryan, the Rhodes Boys, and especially Big E Langston and CM Punk was what has been missing in WWE for a good long time.

I was ready to yell at my television when Langston was taking on the entire Heyman Guys Fun Times Club by himself, a 2.5-to-1 disadvantage (Curtis Axel's the half in this equation, mind you), but Punk remembered what Langston did for him on Smackdown. He made a save, which in WWE feels almost like a rarity nowadays, so much so that it was refreshing.

I don't know how long this era of friendship may last within the company. Survivor Series is coming up, and I felt the pull of at least one eight-or-ten man elimination tag tugging at my fan heartstrings. In order to do a tag main event the right way and not the half-assed hot shot way WWE has done the traditional matches the last few years, major groundwork has to be laid out. Would they throw all that build away and let bonds evaporate in the wind after the Thanksgiving(-ish) tradition this year?

I would think the situation a shame if they did. Tonight's RAW, aside from the most throwback performances on the show in awhile (and by throwback, I mean back to the '80s when everyone was on cocaine), felt different because the heels weren't the only ones who decided that friendship was fun. Although with R-Truth doing his best Don West, Paul Heyman acting as if he suffered a stroke, Zeb Colter straddling that line with a bullwhip he acquired from another lifetime, and Santino Marella leading a cadre of decidedly non-flying Elvises to the ring, the narcotics seemed to be strong backstage at RAW tonight. Then again, I dug all that crazy shit. I like my wrestling absurd at times.