Seriously, no one watched. Well, you missed a great Sting commercial for a video game franchise that is spinning its wheels. HHH and Steph have plans which involve Heyman. The push of Reigns contains while Cesaro seems lost. Jericho/Bray is leading somewhere. Flair is back, but again no Sting. Miz and Dolph won while the fans lost when all the new NXT guys got talk time. AJ is crazy again. Did I mention no Sting?
Ric Flair's only purpose for being around is to keep Cena from winning World Title #16, right (provided he doesn't eff up)? He is John's biggest fan as long as John only has 15 title reigns. That'd be a pretty awesome story.
Hearing "Boring" chants during Bray Wyatt's ramblings is something I would've expected a year ago, not now, after the way Bray got over with the crowds during the past 6+ months. I still don't know why I should care about Bray attacking Jericho.
J.J. Abrams should change the name of his production company to Bad Giant.
Please tell me that AJ coming over to have a BFF convo with Paige was ad-libbed. That was awesome.
The Authority already has its Plan B. Paul Heyman dropped by to talk about a much better Plan C. So it begins.
The closer we got to the end of the show, the more excited I got about the prospect of my Sting prophecy coming true. It was not to be. That video game commercial was SICK, however. I won't buy the game, but still, that commerical...
So what if Sting wasn't there in person? That commercial was FANTASTIC. The crowd went apeshit when the orchestra players all turned around and saw the Sting facepaint on them. S ting looked more badass there than he did for most of his crow run in WCW. I honestly had big goosebumps after seeing Sting turn around and sneer.
Flair holding big gold again warmed my heart.
Did you catch Cole saying: "Johnny's ego is out of control!", talking about Fandango?
Speculation the Rollins messed his knee up in the ME. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but honestly, wasn't it written on the wall when Ambrose got taken out in the opening segment and "was taken to a local medical facility", that he would come out to make the save at the end? If Rollin's really did mess it up, (at the time, WWE.com is now saying 'tweaked'), that might be why Dean didn't come back out.
Have Layla and Summer been reading online about Zig's ex going on about their sex life and how "athletic" he was and want to find out for themselves?
Seriously, how come Kane didn't confont HHH about being called "just a pawn"? Instead, "I don't trust Orton." W.T.F.
If Dolph gets the dancers AND the IC belt, that augurs well for him. What am I saying? Just getting an angle of any kind is a sign of progress.
It was a good first half of a show, except for the talking backstage segments (Authority and Steph, the Sonic commercial), but that Wyatt double-team movie is weak. It's like a two-man Razor's Edge, but it just seems soft. But having an official tag finisher implies they're getting the belts.
I enjoy the refreshed Miz gimmick. It seems as natural as breathing for him. Not crazy about the all black gear. That's pretty mundane for a Hollywood star.
Nice audience noise for the Sting ad. I have high hopes for a refreshed game after the THQ hand-off.
"To be the man, you gotta beat demands." -- The Lovely Mrs. Tracker
I really liked the Miz/Shaemus match. Turns out, I missed heel Miz more than I thought I did. Putting his headshot up during his matches is a great gimmick, and I hope it hangs around a while. Cesaro was my easy pick for the IC title until last night, but now, I don't know what they're doing with that guy. I assume that Heyman's back to working with Brock, and that's what's going on there, but the whole thing was very weird. Rollins tweaking his knee in the main event looked pretty bad, but hopefully it's nothing that a week or two of rest won't fix, and it's not another case of a hot performer going out for several months when they have no one around to replace him.
I'm finding that the go-home shows aren't really very interesting these days. They don't do much to actually sell the PPV, they just kind of remind you of what's on the card. A little sizzle would go a long way here.
Of all the completely insane things Rollins has done to himself in the course of putting on amazing matches over the last two+ years, THAT'S how he finally gets hurt?
Originally posted by BigDaddyLocoRollins missing any kind of real time will suck for everybody. It gave me flashbacks of the Kevin Nash injury and mad scramble to cover.
I thought of this, too, and how it speaks well to Michaels' legacy as a true ring general vs. the guys in the ring last night. When Nash famously injured himself by walking, Michaels got in there and put together a revised finish ASAP, whereas everyone last night looked mostly confused and terrified.
That said, there were probably more (literal) moving parts to the intended finish this time, since we have to assume the ending would have included Ambrose returning to a monster reaction (my fantasy booking would have had Ambrose literally driving to the ring in a stolen ambulance and repeatedly ramming it into the ring with it, becauase some animals are just jerks). Things seem to have dissolved when Reigns hit a big move and then just sheepishly rolled out of the ring - you have to figure the transition there would have been Rollins teleporting in to curb stomp Reigns at that point. Cena never seems to actually figure out what happened, as one of the last shots was him yelling over to Robinson, seemingly to confirm the match was over. I'm guessing either Kane or Orton was the one who figured out/got word that everything was blown up and got the other to do the lousy DQ ending.
Re: Cesaro and what they're doing with them, with Bryan out and Barrett out and Rollins possibly out, boy, it sure would have been nice to not do whatever it is they thought they were doing by disassembling everything great about Cesaro over the last three months.
I skipped past every desperate, begging, pleading Network plug, so I watched the show in about 25 minutes.
Enjoyed AJ/Paige.
The Sting ad was great, but can we cut the talk about Sting coming back to wrestle? He's very old, not that good anymore, and was never as good as some people like to say he was. And we already have Rob Van Dam.
Speaking of, I LOVED the spot where ADR tried to crotch RVD on the apron, but RVD missed and did a hilarious scramble to try to get out. Tumblr has yet to give me this in animated gif form. I'm disappointed.
Did Bob Barker actually knock out Chris Jericho? I remember Barker knocking out Chavo Guerrero, and I remember scowling Jericho with his nametag stuck to his bare chest.
Also, instead of that whole segment, they should have just replayed the musical chairs bit from years ago. If Raw has to be three hours, they should devote an hour every week to reruns of that segment and also the one with Rock and Austin singing together.
- Word from backstage at last night's RAW is that Seth Rollins is fine and is not injured. A source said Rollins was just selling the knee injury from the main event and doing a good job of it. It was noted that it was suspicious how WWE kept the cameras off Rollins when he went down. - Since fans have asked, Dean Ambrose is fine after the beatdown angle with Kane, Seth Rollins and Randy Orton on last night's RAW. Apparently he was busted open in the mouth but did not suffer any significant injury. -----------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by KJames199I skipped past every desperate, begging, pleading Network plug, so I watched the show in about 25 minutes.
Enjoyed AJ/Paige.
The Sting ad was great, but can we cut the talk about Sting coming back to wrestle? He's very old, not that good anymore, and was never as good as some people like to say he was. And we already have Rob Van Dam.
Speaking of, I LOVED the spot where ADR tried to crotch RVD on the apron, but RVD missed and did a hilarious scramble to try to get out. Tumblr has yet to give me this in animated gif form. I'm disappointed.
Did Bob Barker actually knock out Chris Jericho? I remember Barker knocking out Chavo Guerrero, and I remember scowling Jericho with his nametag stuck to his bare chest.
Also, instead of that whole segment, they should have just replayed the musical chairs bit from years ago. If Raw has to be three hours, they should devote an hour every week to reruns of that segment and also the one with Rock and Austin singing together.
I disagree with the Sting comments. From the early to mid 90's he was a awesome worker. Check out his matches with Vader and Cactus and tell me different. I think Sting can be carried to good matches as he had very good matches with Angle,Christian, Jarrett, Joe and Styles and had a shockingly watchable match with Hogan at BFG. I dunno what a match with the Undertaker would look like though. I'd say passable.
Poor Adam Rose is the new Santino, only not as funny.
I'm fully behind the idea of Ric Flair being John Cena's best friend until he gets the next title reign. I don't support the idea of Ric Flair, the World's Most Creeptastic Flirter, circling around Renee.
Goldust and Stardust desperately need to be out there wrestling on a weekly basis, but you can only wrestle Rybaxel for so many consecutive weeks before everyone gets burned out. Looking at the roster, I can't really think of two heels you can throw together for a tag team except... Fandango and Heath Slater. Could work.
Cena and Reigns are AWFUL partners to Dean Ambrose! That beatdown went on for a good five minutes and not one of these uber babyfaces makes an attempt to go back there and stop it?! For shame! They deserved their handicap match! Assholes.
Dean Ambrose's "Is that all you guys got?" was the line of the night. And that Curbstomp looked SICK. I think he busted open Ambrose's chin on that.
I hadn't watched Smackdown so I had a hearty chuckle when they recapped Layla and Summer Rae's turn on Fandango. That was fantastic.
Was it just me or was Zeb a little off his game during the detente? It seemed like he flubbed his lines more than once, something I haven't seen from him before. But by god, WE THE PEOPLE. The production crew just needs to zoom out a second earlier to catch the crowd rising to its feet as Zeb beckons them. It's a grand visual.
Khali, you fucking sore loser.
Pwinsider is reporting that Rollins is not injured and was just selling hard. I'm not sure how much credence there is in that, considering that Charles Robinson made a fairly discrete "X" signal to send medical personnel scurrying over to him and the finish of the match certainly seemed altered.
(edited by used2bcool on 15.7.14 1029) In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws
And mine are long and sharp, my lord, as long and sharp as yours!
Originally posted by SchippeWreckHaving Sting manage The Ascension would be a good way to get him on TV.
Maybe if you ignore the fact that Sting absolutely has to debut as a face and The Ascension would be ruined by bringing them to Raw as faces. And the fact that Sting was never that great of a talker.
If Sting were going to do anything in ring, I would bringing him back ala the beginning of his Crow days where he just comes down and beats up everyone with a baseball bat and then leaves. Eventually have it revealed that his main target is HHH or Vince McMahon, then have them choose seconds to wage war on their behalf.
Originally posted by SchippeWreckHaving Sting manage The Ascension would be a good way to get him on TV.
Maybe if you ignore the fact that Sting absolutely has to debut as a face and The Ascension would be ruined by bringing them to Raw as faces. And the fact that Sting was never that great of a talker.
Sorry to derail the thread, but I'm not sure how The Ascension would be "ruined" by debuting as faces. They're big dudes who squash their opponents to a face reaction in NXT. I don't even remember them doing anything heelish except look mean.
I grew up watching Sting. I saw his entire run in WCW and a good chunk of his TNA tenure. I do not want him back in the ring (even though a WWE singles title would be a nice hat tip to his career).
If I were gonna pair him with a current performer, I'd make him the mostly silent figure behind the Wyatts. Just long enough to freshen up their gimmick (Wyatt realizes he's treading water, pleads to the higher powers for direction, Sting emerges).
"To be the man, you gotta beat demands." -- The Lovely Mrs. Tracker
I think I need more/official word on the Rollins thing. If he just thought he was badly hurt and turns out he's fine, that's fantastic.
If "sell the knee like you're hurt" was the direction he got and he just sold it like a champ (which he has done before, and I briefly assumed until that messy ending, he was doing it again), that's no good. That show NEEDED to end with Ambrose returning like a maniac and the crowd tearing the roof off for him and the only way it's OK that it didn't end like that is if Rollins went down and they had to panic and improvise. If it's "we don't want Ambrose to get a bigger reaction than another week of Reigns going 'OOOOOOOOOO!'", well, that's no good at all.
Meltzer also confirmed it was a worked knee injury too...
Originally posted by Dr UnlikelyIf it's "we don't want Ambrose to get a bigger reaction than another week of Reigns going 'OOOOOOOOOO!'", well, that's no good at all.
...it didn't sound like it was exactly that, but that they wanted to specifically focus to just the four guys in the main event and so they had to figure out a way to get Rollins out of there after Ambrose was eliminated either. It's not as much "Reigns > Ambrose" as "title match > shield breakup match".
WWE's done injury angles to MitB winners on Raws before a PPV or on the PPV itself to explain why they don't cash in on that show and I think this was a little of that. They've been pushing Rollins as Plan B if Cena wins that they may have felt they needed an extra reason why Plan B isn't happening.
Enjoyed AJ/Paige.
I hope the winner on Sunday is friendship.
(Also, Meltzer doesn't think frenemy is a word so I doubt everything he has to say.)
It's generally tough to get into a show built around IC level guys fighting each other after a plenty of conditioning that IC level guys don't really matter. I know there's a battle royal to fill the vacant title because filling vacant titles is what they do - but why do it? why does it matter? why not just have Barrett be champion until he's back? why not just let it disappear forever or ever? (No one is ever going to care about unifying these belts - heck, the PPV buyrate indicated no one really cared about unifying THOSE belts, so I feel like I'm pretty safe here.) Putting the belt on a nice table cloth is not really convincing me I should care.
Originally posted by Dr UnlikelyI think I need more/official word on the Rollins thing. If he just thought he was badly hurt and turns out he's fine, that's fantastic.
If "sell the knee like you're hurt" was the direction he got and he just sold it like a champ (which he has done before, and I briefly assumed until that messy ending, he was doing it again), that's no good. That show NEEDED to end with Ambrose returning like a maniac and the crowd tearing the roof off for him and the only way it's OK that it didn't end like that is if Rollins went down and they had to panic and improvise. If it's "we don't want Ambrose to get a bigger reaction than another week of Reigns going 'OOOOOOOOOO!'", well, that's no good at all.
You don't end a show like that on purpose. Rollins not being hurt would be good news, but Rollins or somebody sure thought he was hurt.
I'm not a big fan of guy runs in from the hospital spot. Just sell the beating and make Rollins look tough. Wiping out Rollins during the match makes sense if you want to focus on the final four, but there are tidier ways to do it. So, something happened even if it turns out it was nothing.
Edit: cubs beat me out here. I guess this was the plan all along, but it sure was a sloppy way to do it.
I never really noticed but Reigns is very very limited in his in-ring moves. Clotheline, Samoan Drop, running apron dropkick, Superman paunch Mackle, Spear. He really is the new Cena with his 5 Moves of Doom. I wonder how long it will take The Universe to turn on him?
Ambrose man, he's gonna be carrying this company soon.
Cole: "Yeah, thanks to Kane. You should buy Kane a Rolex watch for what he did for you."
Rollins: "Oh don't be silly, Kane doesn't wear watches."