4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Monday Night Raw (17 November - Results & Review)
2. The Field Is Set… And Is A Letdown
When it was first announced, The Last Time Is Now Tournament sounded like a pretty novel idea to determine John Cena's final opponent. 16 men vying to be the person to retire the "Never Seen 17" could make for good, compelling television at a time of year when WWE programming typically cools.
The concept also sounded like a fun one, potentially pulling in NXT superstars, legends, current wrestlers, and even outsiders to compete. Instead, WWE opted for the most midcard tournament bracket known to humankind.
Of the 16 men, only four (Rusev, Sheamus, The Miz, and Dolph Ziggler) had a serious rivalry with Cena. The two “surprises” were former WWE career midcarders, one who has been gone for barely two years, and the other wrestled in NXT (and lost) last month. Nothing against Ziggler and Zack Ryder, but when they’re your “big” surprises for a tournament, it’s far from a prestigious bracket. Je’Von Evans (more on him later) was the only truly inspired choice.
Of the six matches that have taken place so far, only Evans/Gunther and Ziggler/Solo Sikoa really captured fans’ attention. The others could have been any Raw match from the past year, and none of them have stood out in a positive manner. Next week, we’re presumably going to get Rusev/Sheamus and Jey/LA Knight – two matches we’ve already seen on WWE television within the past three months. Truly an inspired tournament.
No one was expecting Batista to come out of retirement or Adam Copeland to get a dispensation from Tony Khan to don the Edge moniker one more time, but whatever daydreaming WWE allowed fans to do when they set this tournament up, the actual brackets are nothing short of a tremendous letdown.