3 Things You Need To Know About Raw (4 Weeks Until TLC)
But Raw was a mixed bag. I was bored throughout much of it, but there were bits and pieces of good stuff.
1. Punk has been the champ for a full year.
It really is amazing that they’ve kept the belt on him for so long. There was a show long anticipation for the ceremony of him holding the WWE championship for 365 days and his promo at the end was very good. He and Heyman compared Punk to stars like HBK, Bret Hart, Steve Austin, and Rock, who never held the belt in one run for as long as Punk has. It made you realize how different this is compared to old eras.
Some of it has to do with hot shot booking, but really, there were so many more stars back then, they were all deserving of holding the title and it made sense. Today, very few WWE guys seem to be championship “worthy”.
Ryback came out and was jumped by the same three men who jumped him at the PPV. And again, they put him through a table with a power bomb. Punk put his foot on Ryback and held his title in the air. All that was needed was a, “Come on baby!” No, we didn’t get it.
This will probably lead to a Tables match at TLC with Ryback and I imagine, the three henchmen will have something to do with that finish as well.
2. John Cena and AJ must continue.
I’ve stated here how much I’ve been bored with the AJ/Vickie/Cena story, but it’s mostly because I don’t think their heart is into it. It seemed like Cena just needed something to do while he was injured. Now, he’s not injured, or at least we don’t think he’s injured.
The storyline is that Vickie is in control and she wants to call AJ out for using her powers to bed wrestling stars when she was in power, even though she’s not in power anymore. So, she has footage of AJ and Cena together even though AJ isn’t in power anymore and I don’t think there are any rules against wrestlers and divas fraternizing together. Just ask Dave Bautista.
So really, this entire thing doesn’t make any sense. Cena and AJ have always said that they weren’t hooking up even though Vickie had some doctored proof. And then on last night’s show, out of nowhere, Cena just slobbed down AJ who then slobbed down Cena right back. So what does it all mean? I think it means that the writing sucks and they have no idea what they want to do. Because as a build to a John Cena vs. Dolph Ziggler TLC match at the TLC PPV, it sucks.
After Cena and AJ finished slobbing each other down, Dolph hit the ring and Cena chased him to the back. When Cena jumped out of the ring, his left knee went sideways and it looked like he hurt himself. But now people are saying it was a worked injury. Well, maybe he has rubber knee ligaments. The storyline was that Cena had a hurt knee and it allowed Dolph to get over on him as they fought once more in the back.
3. Wade Barrett’s slow push is happening.
I’m one of the bigger Wade Barrett fans out there. I just think his look is perfect and his talking is nearly perfect. A couple years go, they threw him into the thick of things as the voice of the NXT crew and after that was done, just started beating him, which is how they do business. And now, after an injury, he’s back to being great.
He beat Kofi Kingston in a non-title match, which I hope means he’s getting the IC strap soon. He needs to be at WrestleMania against Sheamus for the World Title. I truly believe that’s where they need to go. There are probably going to be three big WrestleMania matches (Cena/Rock, Brock/Triple H, Punk/Taker or something like that) and I think Barrett/Sheamus can be a big fourth.
The rest of the show was just there, though the tag match with Team Hell No against Rey Rey and Sin Cara was fun and the Prime Time Players were good on commentary. Also, Miz had a match as a face and he is trying to play slightly dark and cool face, which isn’t yet working. But he did beat David Otunga for a decent pop. Sheamus and Big Show had a confrontation that’s leading to a chairs match more than likely at the TLC PPV.
