RAW this past Monday came from the O2 Arena in London and we were expecting a similar crowd to what we got two weeks ago in New Jersey 24 hours removed from WrestleMania. Did we get it? Yes and no. The crowd had its moments but it was just doing the same thing we saw two weeks ago. A lot of people complained about the crowd not being creative but you have to remember, UK fans get WWE twice a year, once a year if you can’t really travel around the country. So there are a lot of children who go to these events as well as your hardcore fans because it’s a small window of opportunity for all fans to see this kind of event on our shores. With that being said the crowd were still better than last weeks and maybe we expected too much from them.
The show also felt watered down a little in some ways because we knew certain people couldn’t be on the show due to performing on a SmackDown show at another venue on the same night. This was a good and bad thing. Bad because we had to watch the Sandow/Rhodes and Tons of Funk match get made in to two singles matches rather than just having a tag but it also gave performers time to provide us with matches that weren’t as time constricted as usual, Dolph Ziggler/Jericho and the big 6 man tag being case and point.
Antonio Cesaro continued to plummet as we witnessed another loss to R Truth and I can’t help but feel that Cesaro needs to go on a break like CM Punk. The guy is one of the best athletes you have and he’s lumped with a terrible gimmick of yodelling and losing every week, with or without a midcard title.
The Shield arrived by chopper for some unknown reason but it looked cool and the only thing I could have suggested as an improvement was for them to hover the chopper and have the Shield descend on ropes like they were a SWAT team and standing on the outside of the vehicle as it drove off instead of getting in. (Sorry, I’ve watched Speed too many times.)
Daniel Bryan brought us another piece of comedy gold as he explained to Kane that he had DIAGRAMS to demonstrate his game plan. It’s something so simple and yet so funny because everything Bryan has done recently has always appeared to be something he has enjoyed doing. When he enjoys it, we enjoy it.
Zack Ryder lost to Big E. Langston and should have showed off his new line with his new haircut. “Job with Care, Comb you’re Hair!”
Fandango got a sing-along again but it wasn’t as impactful as two weeks ago, but it was a smart move to book him against William Regal who got a hero’s welcome. The dancer segment was quite funny with Chris Jericho and the look on Fandango’s face was priceless when his dancer couldn’t resist taking Jericho’s hand.
The Shield got a big victory of a returning Undertaker, Kane and Daniel Bryan. The match was quality and gave The Shield another notch on their belt.
AJ Lee won a battle royale for the number one contender’s spot for the Divas Championship. It made me a little sad that AJ will probably get her match at Extreme Rules when they could have simply given her the same match at WrestleMania in front of her home crowd. Either way, I hope AJ takes the ball and runs with it.
Then we got “The Ryback” promo. I’m not sure what to say when it comes to Ryback on the mic. He is far more talented on the mic in terms of his content, but his delivery is slightly odd. I can’t help but feel that every time he talks, it feels like he has just finished a marathon and he’s out of breath. Either that or his body wants to do the chicken dance during every promo because he bobs his head constantly. The work he did with Foley was ok in principle but it didn’t grab the crowd. Even with the swearing at Foley it still seems that something is missing.
The final segment made no sense to me whatsoever. Whenever The Shield comes out it appears that all you have to do is walk up to the ramp and they will leave you alone. Last week when Ryback deserted Cena is made sense but why did The Shield attack Ryback this week?
Why oh why did Cena HAVE to come back and fight off The Shield? Someone said on Twitter that if Cena got any friendlier he will have to change his finishing move to a handshake! (Bet he’d still manage to injure Rock with that one in Rock/Cena III?)
Cena VS “The Ryback” isn’t drawing me in at the moment and Ryback needs to deliver some monster attacks on Cena to make himself look like a threat, because he doesn’t have such a good record on PPV wins recently!
I feel like the match at the moment feels like a lose-lose situation. Ryback will lose another PPV match or Cena drops the title after just winning it. Not even the thought of Ryback changing the side plates on the WWE Championship to hamburgers even draws my interest at the moment.
WWE still have a few weeks to generate interest in this PPV and hopefully we aren’t just going to fall in to another down period where WWE don’t make some effort to keep the product moving.
You can contact me at beansontoastuk@msn.com or get in touch via Twitter @BeansOnToastUK.
