Raw 3-7

[Airfixx]

I completely agree with the above two posts and Cena's promo WAS pretty shit to be fair.

As much as I'm looking forward to the Punk/Orton one-on-one. will they please just stop with the half-assed attempts to build a faction around Punk? SES was such a waste of a concept which could have run and run whilst conversely there's clearly no mileage in the New Nexus. After Mania, build him up and let him run solo again.

Was it just me or did JBL get hit by a can of beer as he was getting up in preparation for his 2nd stunner? LOL

Josh is getting worse, not better. Why is he calling the ref out for a fast count against Sheamus? His smarmy "hello" to Vicki and a few other things on this week's show, but they escape me right now... Bring back Striker and fast! What with Cole putting himself over at the expense of anything that may be going on at the time, the commentary for WM, with the added interruption of no Cole OR Lawler whatsoever during their segment(s), could be absolutely disastrous.


Lastly, for what it's worth, as a 'kid' of the 80's, the current format is working fine for me, just that a lot of what's going on is feeling kinda thrown together..... Pretty indicative of the fact that the current 'creative' are not used to (nor up to) building angles for an entire PPV card... Let alone for Mania.

 

[noumenon]

I dunno... to me Mania was always the culmination of long lasting epic feuds and sagas, not quickly slapped together/just started for the fuck it feuds. It seems that's pretty much all this Mania is about. It seemed that for once they were actually looking ahead this year building all of these young guys, planting seeds..ect. Then somewhere along the road the writers were hit with spontaneous ADD.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

Lastly, for what it's worth, as a 'kid' of the 80's, the current format is working fine for me, just that a lot of what's going on is feeling kinda thrown together..... Pretty indicative of the fact that the current 'creative' are not used to (nor up to) building angles for an entire PPV card... Let alone for Mania.

I disagree. As far as the past 14 Manias go, this as good as build up gets. What do you expect from the World title match? It ALWAYS has a two month build up. The secondary title match, the WWE title match gets as much build up as every other secondary title match has gotten since 19, which is usually the Raw/smackdown following the No Way Out/Elimination Chamber PPV, so I fail to see how that's been "thrown together". By that logic, every Mania card since the E went to the monthly format has been "thrown together". Then there's Punk and Orton, which has been absolutely fantastic in it's build and has been brewing as long as the world title match, if not longer. Lawler-Cole has been brewing for 5 or so months and Taker-HHH has been built well as a battle of legends. That's FIVE key matches with 6 weeks or more of build up. How does that feel "thrown together"? 95% of all the WWE PPVs since the monthly format change have had less build up, the only feud that has had intense-long build up over those 15 years has been Austin-McMahon, which had a year long build up and HBK-Taker which had been teased since the 2007 Rumble. The rest of the card can be thrown together, it doesn't matter when you have such great build up to your top five matches. There hasn't been a Mania so superbly built with so many quality matches since 19. This is shaping up to be one of the best Manias ever.

A-Ri honestly would have been far more appealing that SCSA in this scenario. Stack the deck against King and all of that. JR making a surprise return bring SCSA with him may have worked a little better. It does seem a bit sloppy at this point.

Not to the casual fan. No one gives a shit about Alex Riley. If it weren't for him riding the Miz's coat tails he'd probably be half way future endeavored by now. This isn't about logical sense, this is Mania, Lawler's first Mania match. This is built to be a "Mania Moment" and you aren't going to get that with Alex Riley. Swagger is there to get stunnered, Austin is there to stun Swagger, Cole and have a beer with Lawler, and most importantly, Austin is there to do things that no one involved in this match sans Lawler to a certain point can do, draw back the lost fans and draw mad money. You think the E wants Mania to do 800k buys again? Fuck no, and that's why they've spared no expense bringing back the two of the three biggest draws in the industry's history instead of involving B list celebrities that don't appeal to their core base. It's smart pandering.

 

[nation]

Holy fuck, that promo from Cena fucking buried himself! His first rap was pretty funny, this was just beyond gay.....Seriously Mark Wahlberg and Vanilla Ice are much better then this garbage, I know Cena isn't a respected nor accomplished rapper by any means but he claimed to have come up with all of his raps himself, how he can freestyle and back in the day on Smackdown, they were pretty funny and entertaining to hear. I've never been anti-Cena but it's about time right fucking now he turns heel or his character gets a bit more fresh in general.

Also, to all of this Rock hate about him not being there, he's shooting a movie right now. He explained this himself, fuck some of you people act like he's just sitting at home, he has commitments, obligations and contracts to abide by. Perhaps it could have been worked out so he could appear weekly on RAW but apparently it can't, not until he has finished shooting his current obligations which sounds like and hopefully will be soon. If anything he deserves credit, he's been very active on twitter and everything, furthering his program with Cena. He has brought a shit load of buzz back to wrestling as expected and hopefully everyone around today is taking notice and it influences them because like Jericho has said and is just the truth, The Rock is THE BEST on the mic, period. Not to mention the guy in general is in the top 10 greatest of all time.

 

[...god...]

The addition of Stone Cold is obviously setting up the return of JR at WM to call the match. Was just hoping Stone Cold would have a more prominent involvement than just being the special ref again, but it was still nice to see him and of course JB FUCKING L. God, please bring JBL back on commentary, fuck Booker T's black ass.

 

[Airfixx]

^^^^ WM with Booker, Josh & Cole in the booth will be fucking awfull.... Look no further than what SD has become.

I disagree. As far as the past 14 Manias go, this as good as build up gets. What do you expect from the World title match? It ALWAYS has a two month build up. The secondary title match, the WWE title match gets as much build up as every other secondary title match has gotten since 19, which is usually the Raw/smackdown following the No Way Out/Elimination Chamber PPV, so I fail to see how that's been "thrown together".

Kinda missed my point. The crux of my comment was about having to build storylines for an ENTIRE card..... ie. including the mid/lower carders due to the apparent absence of MITB. That said, if it wasn't for the Christian stuff they had on the back burner, the WHC ME would have nothing more than current Champ vs his latests challenger to get your teeth into (+ if Christian DOESN'T screw Edge on the night the whole Christian angle would have been meaningless, Del Rio comes out on top without even embarking on a revenge fued and Christian trickles even lower down the card.).

SCSA as guest ref has killed the heelish advantage that Cole needed to be seen to have. It's now advantage Lawler IMO and it reeks of just shoeing SCSA in somewhere just cos he's under contract. It would have been far less disruptive to have him ref one of the other matches.

Sheamus v Bryan if it goes ahead seems like nothing but pure afterthought having gone cold on the idea of a blow-off match with HHH... And I'm not anticipating guys like JoMo, Kofi, Ziggler and a few other notables to get any better. (Besides, we've been complaining forever that WWE have forgotten how to, or even that they need to, build mid-card fueds.)

Furthermore, due to these examples, I'm actually concerned about them undoing some of the good work they HAVE done.



Side note, the card HAS captured my imagination, it's just that, to me, the most exciting/intriguing outcomes to all the big matches would require run-ins and screw jobs (i.e Christian screws Edge, HBK screws HHH, Rock screws Cena, JR shows up.) which isn't good for a show like Mania.... I'm a big advocate of WM being about blow-off matches, not setting up the following few months.

 

[Luke Flywalker]

^Stone Cold has proven in the past that he can be an unbiased referee, and IMO, this sets everything up perfectly for a possibility of SCSA being the Raw GM (if they do possibly go that route). This is even more intriguing based on the fact that WWE just copyrighted the Sheriff Austin moniker, what a perfect way to set up a Cole firing the Raw after Mania to send him over to Smackdown and bring JR back, although JR seems content to stay off of television. Not suggesting any of this actually goes down, but the prospective future does build itself from this.. it gets fans talking about what if's and could be's. Besides, we've still got time to cement Austin in this match, and you're totally forgetting of the possibility of Rock getting involved in that match as well for an epic staredown to close out WrestleMania with the Rattlesnake.

And why you need Christian to turn on Edge is absurd. To me, it's looking like they're trying to find a way to shoot Christian into the match. The build has been cool, but how many times can we see Edge get his arm attacked and not believe he has further damage to the point he has to back out? Bringing in Christian has given them outlets to not bury Edge and avoid the old "he can't use the Spear with a bad shoulder" crap. Again, we're still looking at time to build this up, and I like the possibility of Smackdown after Mania having Christian challenge Edge (if he retains) as payment for his helping him out and having Del Rio interfere in Christian's title matches. You'd have a solid three-person main event feud to build around for months.

The Rock doesn't need to interfere in the WWE Championship match, and nothing has suggested it will have to. We might see a face-off early, or we'll more than likely see on after the match. Miz vs. Cena is intriguing enough without Rock, but with Rock (of course you have to write him into it with Cena and hosting Mania) it has skyrocketed, and we're assuming that means a Rock interference? It doesn't need to happen, and I'd honestly be more surprised if it DID happen. Miz has done an incredible job building to the fact that this feud doesn't need the Rock, but he's capitalizing off of Cena being distracted, yet at the same time, trying to skyrocket himself. (BTW, just to speculate as a fan, but could you imagine the heat Miz gets at WrestleMania if he gets the upperhand after his match and hits The Rock with the SKF!?!?)

And why on Earth would HBK have to interfere and screw Triple H? That honestly kills the build of Triple H having to die trying to defeat Taker. This is honestly one match that I now want to take for what it's worth. Triple H is getting his own super-build leading up to Mania with an out of shape Taker (whom they can bury all year until next January for all I care to play up to this "all he has left to do is defend the streak") and if Triple H crashes and burns, it's spectacular. If Taker crashes, who the Hell would have imagined it? No-DQ stipulations or not, I want absolutely no outside interference in this match.

Oh, and you can count on Sheamus not being a part of WrestleMania. I'll put money on him losing next week and he'll make his return in June sometime (hopefully to build the Celtic Connection).

 

[MizMasta3000]

^The Celtic Connection?

 

[Luke Flywalker]

^The Celtic Connection?

That's reportedly what Sheamus & McIntyre have gone by (Cole even referenced it in the Rumble when the two started working together). Their brief tag-matches overseas inbetween their rivalry, they were billed as the Celtic Connection.

 

[Axis]

SCSA as guest ref has killed the heelish advantage that Cole needed to be seen to have. It's now advantage Lawler IMO and it reeks of just shoeing SCSA in somewhere just cos he's under contract. It would have been far less disruptive to have him ref one of the other matches.

This I 100% agree with, and it disappoints me. The Lawler/Cole feud has been building for four months and it was been done so perfectly. Arbitrarily adding Stone Cold is both lazy and it overshadows that amazing undercard storyline that has unfolded. Swagger adding to it brought nothing because he was not involved in the basic premise of the feud. Stone Cold is the same way, but it additionally overshadows the match, so it has the big negative against it as well.

 

[noumenon]

Exactly. Stone Cold was uneeded in every way shape and form. Advantage to King now... which pretty much cements his victory. Let's face it, we all know he was going to come out on top but now this just makes it brutally obvious. As I said, if they really wanted to use him then a run in via JR or some other reason would have been far more preferable. And who cares if the "casual fan" is into Alex Riley being involved... IT FITS! Stone Cold makes absolutely no sense no matter how you cut it. A-Ri would have made perfect sense.... even JBL as cool as it was to see him made absolutely no sense.

 

[Axis]

And if they were desperate to get Stone Cold onto the card, which there is a strong argument for, then do it in a place where a storyline hasn't been brewing for FOUR MONTHS.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

Well from whats been floating around, Lawler was going to have Jimmy Hart manage him, which makes sense since Hart managed and feuded with him back in the Memphis days. I don't know how much truth there was to that, but again, it's about the bottom line, money. Plus this is nothing more than a spectacle than a match.

 

[nation]

Well from whats been floating around, Lawler was going to have Jimmy Hart manage him, which makes sense since Hart managed and feuded with him back in the Memphis days. I don't know how much truth there was to that, but again, it's about the bottom line, money. Plus this is nothing more than a spectacle than a match.

Yeah, Hogan went and revealed the plan being a douche just like how he's being a douchebag about The Rock coming back, show some respect like Rocky did for you when he gave you that epic moment at WrestleMania 18, who gives a fuck if you work for the other company, it's called respect.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

Hogan's always been that way and will always be that way. I almost feel sorry for that bastard the way things turned out for him, but for all the people he cost vast amounts of money through politicking and being a prima donna, I don't.