5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw: Day 1 (Results & Review)

2. Even Cody Seems Bored

The Cody Rhodes/Shinsuke Nakamura feud seemed like a good idea to occupy Rhodes during the December doldrums before Royal Rumble season takes over and dominates the American Nightmare’s focus.

But the rivalry has been a rollercoaster of mini-developments, riding up and down week to week, but never peaking very high. It’s been nothing more than a placeholder feud, and it’s never felt like anything more than that, despite WWE’s insistence otherwise.

Monday, Cody talked about being stuck on Shinsuke because “this should be over.” Saying it that plainly and then insisting Nakamura come out to end the feud that night felt like a bit of reality seeping through, like he was done with playing along with the vignettes and comic book animation segments and wanted to skip ahead to the last page of the chapter.

Nakamura, of course, was having none of it and offered up a pre-taped, subtitled video telling Rhodes that he’d have to wait one more week before they tangled. Hopefully, that ends this feud and they don’t bait-and-switch things again, because it clearly doesn’t have the juice, which is a shame because there was a chance of this being a fun distraction.