Well, WWE Raw Was Pretty Damn Awesome This Week!
WWE finally gets it right and listens to the fans.
Finally, WWE got it right. While it was not perfect, last nights episode of Raw worked on almost every level. The emphasis was firmly on the idea of pushing fresh, new talent, evidenced both in what was presented on screen, and with the words of the announcers.
The storyline credit for the much-needed shakeup has been given to Shane McMahon, who for the second week running was given control of the show. Thats an odd one.
WrestleMania 32 was primarily sold on the Undertaker-Shane McMahon match with the stipulation that if Shane won he would control Raw and Undertaker would have to retire.
Shane lost, yet here he is running Raw, with Undertaker seemingly having retired. In hindsight, they should have just put Shane over.
Actually, a lot of the already-baffling WrestleMania booking becomes even more inexplicable with each passing week. AJ Styles is being positioned strongly as the number one contender to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, yet he lost to Chris Jericho at the big show.
What exactly was the purpose of that? Especially as Jericho has moved on to a midcard programme with the zany walking cartoon Dean Ambrose. What exactly was the point of his feud with Brock Lesnar, anyway? It may as well have not happened.
Lets not focus on the things in WWE that dont make any sense though, as we will be here all day. Instead, lets laud the company for finally listening to the fans and pushing the talent that people actually want to see get pushed.
What a difference it makes to have a babyface authority figure at the heart of it all, giving the viewers what they want, rather than heel leaders who intentionally try to annoy the audience. For the first time in months, perhaps years, none of the stars were belittled, emasculated, or made to look stupid.
Shane did kick Kevin Owens out of the building, but that made perfect sense. Owens had threatened to ruin Sami Zayns match with AJ Styles by interjecting himself, so Shane made the call to eject him as a preventative measure.
Quite right. It is not a problem for the heel to succumb to the good guy owner, as long as he gets his heat back next week by taking his anger out on some poor babyface sap.
Click "next" for part 2...