The good news is that all four showed improvements this week. I say Bryan showed improvements only because he had a really bad botch last week. He's sandwiched that between two really awesome performances though, so maybe it's a bit disingenuous that I say he's improved. Again, I feel like this isn't a learning experience for Bryan as much as it's an acclimitization for him. The same might be able to be said for Gabriel, because he seems at home in a WWE ring. Otunga and Barrett though need the seasoning, and I saw some pretty good improvements this week. Barrett looked very stiff against Bryan last week. This week against Gabriel, he looked a little looser. Still, I'm wondering how much time he actually spent wrestling in Florida and how much time he spent announcing. Otunga also looks very much like a rookie in the ring, but he showed a lot of promise in the tag match as well. I think he needs to spend some time in a tag team when he gets to the main roster to iron out his kinks and let someone else do heavy lifting for him.
But again, for the second week out of three, the stars of the show were Miz and Bryan. I have to say, all us Internet smarks who were skeptical about Bryan going to the WWE are looking like we're going to have our patience and fanboyism rewarded. Bryan is going to be the US Champion by June. Mark my words. I mean, they're already having him integrated into the main storylines by having him interfere in Miz's match with R-Truth on Smackdown, which segues right into my Smackdown thoughts.
My one other thought about that match is how bad R-Truth looked in the ring. John Morrison gets a lot of flak for being the embodiment of the flippy indie style in the WWE, but Truth's offense is weak strikes with dancy-bullshit or flips or twirls mixed in to pop the crowd. That Lie Detector would be the worst finisher in the company if it weren't for MVP's Playmaker. Miz kinda looked like he was wrestling in pudding at some points too. Very disappointing match other than the Bryan interference that advanced their angle.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, John Morrison and the Big Show had a really good match. Again, I don't see why Morrison gets the flak he gets just because he likes to jump and flip. Aside from Starship Pain, any flippy jumping he does fits in context, and it showed in this match, where he worked a smart offense against Show and bumped for him when he needed to. The finishing sequence where Show delivered the KTFO punch as a counter to the Chuck Kick was epic. Kane and Luke Gallows also had a really good match. Reports of Kane's demise are premature, I think.
But speaking of Gallows, discussion of this show has to begin and end with his mentor, CM Punk, who is in some kind of can-you-top-this heel antic competition with Batista right now. He utterly killed it with his interrupting promo to begin the show. Honestly, I wish that Punk/Rey were the title program and not Edge/Jericho right now. I love Jericho, I really do, but Edge as a face, building his title program around throwing the weakest spear in wrestling history just isn't doing it for me. It's like the revenge angle has taken a backseat.
Rey and Punk, however, are in the hottest feud on the brand and it all began because Punk got pissed off over losing to Rey. Imagine that, a feud that begun over what happened in the ring. I really wish they'd stop booking the SES as a better written, higher-profile RTC and let Punk win the World Title with a long, strong reign, but for now, I'll take the mic time and I'll take the verbal genius that is CM Punk each week, please.
