Rasslin is CHA CHA LA..LA,LA,LA,LA,LA

[Ultra Peanut]

RAW. IS. FANDANGO!
#AJALL

[keg in kc]

heh

TheRock Dwayne Johnson

Cena - get back on your tour bus, call up your favorite yum rocket, take your apology and stick it straight up your phony ass.

[Demonpenz]

Mr. Perfect. Perfect plex. SNES royal Rumble.

[BryanBusby]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

And as far as "was that Russo booking?" goes, well, they had straightforward matches with clean finishes all night, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, that wasn't Russo booking.

It was probably a mere coincidence if anything, but Russo is capable of booking clean finishes sometimes.

Would of rather of seen the focus on Miz vs. Mysterio, which is capable of being a great match with good booking. Instead Raw closes out with more McMahon family bullshit. Ugh.

[58kcfan89]

Disclaimer: Sorry if any of this doesn't make sense or it's repetitive or whatever. I should be asleep but had to watch Raw. I don't think I have a lot to add that hasn't been said before, but here goes...

Like was said earlier, anything they did tonight was going to be a letdown after MITB. And as was mentioned, the 8 guys in the tournament were lackluster to say the least.

That said, what's made the last few weeks so great was the authenticity and realism of it. No one seemed to know whether Punk was really leaving or how they would send him off. Once he left Chicago with the belt, tons of people were hooked, with so many twists and turns possible involving Punk's future, Cena's future and the title.

Then they started Raw and for awhile they wanted to act like Punk didn't exist and essentially create a new WWE Title and that "authentic" feel all of a sudden seemed lost, at least to me. Maybe it's the fact that when a champion gets hurt, a tournament is the automatic default solution and I feel like this has been done before. Or maybe it's because it's hard for me to take any of those 8 guys seriously as the WWE Champion. It could be the fact that we all know they can't have Raw right now without either Punk or Cena and that one of the two was going to "come back" by the end of the night. Or maybe it's that I feel like this whole tournament is pointless, as the new Champion won't really be the WWE Champion, because CM Punk's refrigerator holds the real belt. Whatever it is, I didn't get that "big show" or "realistic" feel to Raw like we've had in the past few weeks.

Which is why I'm torn on the HHH-Vince thing. There's a lot of things they can do with it (how many times have we heard that?), but will creative be able to capitalize? If they can turn this into something that feels authentic and something fans can get emotionally invested in (Punk's anti-hero vs. HHH's corporation?), they can keep this momentum going. If this is just their "farewell" to Vince's on-camera character and it'll just be HHH taking over as the evil boss from here on out (or they just don't put a lot of effort into the angle), color me disappointed.

Final thoughts:
1. I already miss CM Punk. Hope they have something big lined up whenever he comes back (And I think he will be back soon, because I have to hope for it. I've lost HBK, Jericho and Edge and RVD's in TNA. I need one of my favorite wrestlers to stick around.), because it could be epic. I was also happy to hear a few "CM Punk" chants during the show.
2. I still don't like Del Rio. In-ring work is fine, but I absolutely despise his promos as they sound horribly scripted and don't feel like he belongs in the main event just yet.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by BryanBusby

Would of rather of seen the focus on Miz vs. Mysterio, which is capable of being a great match with good booking. Instead Raw closes out with more McMahon family bullshit. Ugh.

Everything that happened tonight played off of Punk's original promo:

"I’m just a spoke on the wheel. The wheel is going to keep turning and I understand that. Vince McMahon is going to make money despite himself. He’s a millionaire who should be a billionaire. You know why he’s not a billionaire? Because he surrounds himself with glad-handed, non-sensical, douchebag (censored) yes men, like John Laurinaitis, who’s going to tell him everything he wants to hear, and I’d like to think that maybe this company will better after Vince McMahon is dead. But the fact is, it’s going to be taken over by his idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law and the rest of his stupid family."

Where else was it it ever going to go...

[LTL]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I'm not sure how I'd handle Punk going forward. I liked the idea of doing vignettes of him out with the belt, but that wouldn't fit in with the whole "ignore him and move on" bit. And they have to find a way to bring him back. There's an automatic feud in place with whoever wins the title (I'd like to see it be Miz, but Punk works so well with Rey, as much as I can't stand Mysterio), but there has to be a reason for him to come back. Because right now, why would he even care if there's another champion..

They haven't done this in probably 20 years or more I would guess, but every now and then if it had been a few weeks since the belt was defended they would break out the the belt has to be defended every 30 days otherwise the champion vacates the belt.

They could do something similar with Punk. They announce that Punk has so long to defend his belt and that even though he doesn't have a contract with the wwe we are going to work on that and recognize him as the champion but he only has till the next PPV to defend the belt if not then it will be vacated. The tournament then serves as whom his opponent would be. That way they could do away with the whole ignoring him bs, they keep the story line going for another month and have people wondering will he show up or not and it brings him back in smoothly and as the champion.

[BryanBusby]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Everything that happened tonight played off of Punk's original promo:

"I’m just a spoke on the wheel. The wheel is going to keep turning and I understand that. Vince McMahon is going to make money despite himself. He’s a millionaire who should be a billionaire. You know why he’s not a billionaire? Because he surrounds himself with glad-handed, non-sensical, douchebag (censored) yes men, like John Laurinaitis, who’s going to tell him everything he wants to hear, and I’d like to think that maybe this company will better after Vince McMahon is dead. But the fact is, it’s going to be taken over by his idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law and the rest of his stupid family."

Where else was it it ever going to go...

I don't think the actual storyline bothers me, as it's just it overtook the tournament and will probably be abandoned when idiot investors freak out (see: Trump "buys" Raw) and tank WWE stock price.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by BryanBusby

I don't think the actual storyline bothers me, as it's just it overtook the tournament and will probably be abandoned when idiot investors freak out (see: Trump "buys" Raw) and tank WWE stock price.

Looks like it actually went up today.

However, overnight's say last night's rating was only a 3.2. Probably not what they (or I) were expecting.

Curious to see what the numbers were for the PPV. You'd think after a great show like that, and how excited the supposedly 'lapsed' audience from the attitude era was, more would be tuning into Raw.

[Brock]

LOL. Finally have somebody on your show people want to watch. GET HIM OFF OF TV IMMEDIATELY /WWE

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Brock

LOL. Finally have somebody on your show people want to watch. GET HIM OFF OF TV IMMEDIATELY /WWE

As I understand it, it was his choice. He's been asking for time off for months.

But I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, I'm not sure that this is the point where I would have taken it were I CM Punk.

[58kcfan89]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

As I understand it, it was his choice. He's been asking for time off for months.

But I agree with the spirit of what you're saying, I'm not sure that this is the point where I would have taken it were I CM Punk.

Eh, that's part of what makes this story so awesome. I want to see him there all the time, so I miss him, but I think at this point, he's got the fans hooked to see him whenever he comes back. This is WWE's chance to make us care about something other than Punk on Raw or build another compelling story that he can get involved in down the road.

That said, I'm interested, but not as invested as I was on Sunday night & the weeks before.

[keg in kc]

I'm interested mainly because I have no idea where this is going. I didn't expect to see suit-wearing HHH taking over the company (although it's heading that way in real life, apparently). I don't have any idea what his role is going to be now. I think if they keep him 'corporate', in suits and acting like a completely different character than he's been in the past, it will be a good thing. If he turns back into his regular old HHH "I am the game" character and starts heeling it up next week, bossing people around and flattening everybody, it won't be a good thing at all. I like that I'm not sure what Cena's going to be up to next week, who he'll be working with, and that he's not (so far) part of the new title match-up between Miz and Mysterio (a match that itself seems like a new thing). I like how they're setting up a future feud with Punk, whoever it is, although I'm not sure how happy I am knowing/expecting Cena to be a part of that, too (there's always a rematch clause). I like that the Punk thing is open-ended, no idea when he's back. I like that I have no idea what Vince will do going forward.

It just feels different to me, like there's been a little bit of a shake-up. But it's WWE so they could decide next week that the ratings are too low, bring Orton back from Smackdown and have him feud with Cena for the 9374th time.

[keg in kc]

Alvarez on wrestling observer/figure four weekly site traffic yesterday:

With the exception of two instances where we got plugged in Dave's Yahoo column, Monday was the biggest day by far in the history of this site in terms of traffic. Bigger than any WrestleMania or UFC, bigger than Benoit, bigger than everything. By nearly 20% in fact.

[58kcfan89]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I'm interested mainly because I have no idea where this is going. I didn't expect to see suit-wearing HHH taking over the company (although it's heading that way in real life, apparently). I don't have any idea what his role is going to be now. I think if they keep him 'corporate', in suits and acting like a completely different character than he's been in the past, it will be a good thing. If he turns back into his regular old HHH "I am the game" character and starts heeling it up next week, bossing people around and flattening everybody, it won't be a good thing at all. I like that I'm not sure what Cena's going to be up to next week, who he'll be working with, and that he's not (so far) part of the new title match-up between Miz and Mysterio (a match that itself seems like a new thing). I like how they're setting up a future feud with Punk, whoever it is, although I'm not sure how happy I am knowing/expecting Cena to be a part of that, too (there's always a rematch clause). I like that the Punk thing is open-ended, no idea when he's back. I like that I have no idea what Vince will do going forward.

It just feels different to me, like there's been a little bit of a shake-up. But it's WWE so they could decide next week that the ratings are too low, bring Orton back from Smackdown and have him feud with Cena for the 9374th time.

For our sake, let's hope to God that they don't do this. I think [read: hope] they're setting up for a big, long-term storyline and that the last two days are just the beginning of it and that it might take a bit for it to gain some momentum.

The unpredictability and idea of a possible "new era" is something I haven't felt in a long time. There's nothing like a great football game, but when wrestling gets it right, like they did the past few days/weeks, it can be pretty incredible to watch.

[Reaper16]

Read this: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...rked-shoot-era