Raw Recap 9.15; Become Vengeance, John. Become Wrath.

Sometimes it is very hard to trust WWE to actually properly execute a storyline. It feels kind of sad, but it’s true. That storyline would have to be the John Cena/Paul Heyman buildup to Night of Champions where John Cena would rematch Brock Lesnar. The narrative that Heyman has been pushing is that John Cena needs to become a monster to defeat the monster that is Brock Lesnar, otherwise he can expect to be crushed yet again.

John Cena has been resorting to some, well, rather confusing tactics in the past few weeks. They are actions not of a superface, but that of a weird hell that is losing his grasp on reality. The problem is that a lot of this stuff isn’t really that far out or strange for professional wrestling or for John Cena. John Cena has kind of always been this way and pro wrestling has kind of always been this way. It’s fun to point out how ridiculous it is that superface John Cena is threatening to sue to get his rematch or how he’s all about Make-A-Wish and B. A. Star but then threatens to beat up Paul Heyman, then locks him in a room for two hours under the premise of beating him up when time is up and Brock Lesnar isn’t there.

That’s kind of not something that a good guy should be doing and at times it feels that WWE isn’t really aware of this. Thankfully, they were this time around and the whole thing was to set up Heyman saying, “but this is what I wanted you to do.” It isn’t wrong to think that this whole angle was set up poorly or that it would end with Cena, the good guy, beating up Heyman, the bad guy, even if Heyman is a defenseless dude. This is wrestling that we are talking about and Steve Austin hit stunners on good, defenseless guys all of the damned time. Then again, that was the Attitude Era and this is the PG Era (sometimes called the Reality Era?!).

Tonight’s Raw was either WWE working the long con or WWE reading feedback and realizing the error of their ways. We’ll probably never really know, but if Heyman’s input has been listened to since the beginning, we are willing to say it was the long con.

The other issue is that man, sometimes Raw feels REALLY FUCKING LONG, right? Like wow, this was three hours and we felt all of it. Not even a pretty good Reigns/Rollins match could save us. Also, why the hell was Mark Henry/Rusev in a weird showdown the main event? What the hell?

Anyway, on to the show.

Paige is GREAT

Man, Paige is really improving leaps and bounds every time we see her. The Ram-Paige, or Cradle DDT, is one of the coolest goddamned moves in wrestling and hasn’t been seen in quite a while on a big stage so I’m super pumped to see it back again as her finisher. Also the way that she moves, her facial expressions and everything else is just becoming so good that she made me forget that I was watching a match featuring the Bellas.

This is More Like it for Bray Wyatt

Bray Wyatt has been a dude who doesn’t seem to make sense in modern WWE because they have no clue how to book him. Like at all. They have no clue whatsoever and it’s frustrating. This feud that he’s sparking with the Big Show won’t be the most exciting thing in the world, but I like how this stuff went on Raw.

Bray doesn’t have to be booked as a beast, just a heel. The Wyatt Family at ringside working as his henchmen again is perfect and how it should have been for ages. Bray watching the aftermath and acting like he was in control is perfect. Where was this in the Jericho feud?!

The Fun Six-Man Tags Continue!

Yep, you take two feuds and mix them together into a match and you move everything forward and have a good match to boot. Sheamus is a work horse when you give him the chance and pretty much everyone in the match can go. Really fun finishing run in this one and now I want to see both matches at Night of Champions. Crazy how that works, right?

Miz is Still One of the Best Things on Raw

The unlikely run of the Miz being a highlight of Raw continues with this week’s tag match with him and his stunt double vs. Dolph and R-Truth. Not much to say about this other than it just being fun and they need more people in Miz’s entourage.

Cena/Brock/Heyman Makes Way More Sense

Like I was saying before, this was a solid payoff to a confusingly strange angle. The angle makes perfect sense, but we just don’t have this level of trust, WWE. I’m sorry. We just didn’t think that you could handle something like this. But you did. Bravo. Fun little brawl, too.

Reigns/Rollins Was Fine, But Why?

If anything this match should solidify that Seth Rollins is being seen as a major player. Why? Because MMA Math doesn’t work in MMA, but in pro wrestling it does. Reigns got the better of Orton in their feud, now Rollins was within a hair of defeating Reigns. I’m still confused as to why they gave this match away for free, especially considering that it wasn’t all that great. It was pretty good, but it was kind of lacking any fire or passion that you’d expect from two former best friends fighting after the third best friend was taken out of action in brutal fashion.

What’s the motivation for the rematch? Am I actually going to have to watch Smackdown to find out? Sheesh.

Published on September 16, 2014 at 4:02 am
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