Raw Talking Points: The Return Of Ryback

Another Raw in the books and WWE survives a rowdy group of U.K fans who were not happy they couldn’t get the WWE Network. John Cena was back with no explanation on where he was last week; Randy Orton was gone with no acknowledgement that he even exists. As much as the WWE attempts to hype up their Survivor Series main event it just is not working to any degree. A.J Lee defending her Diva’s title against Nikki Bella being second match on the under card announced tells you how weak that it will be. So, what are people talking about coming out of this Raw this morning? We take a stab at figuring out your wrestling water cooler talk for a Tuesday.

1. Luke Harper: In a couple of weeks, Luke Harper has invented a new word. Harpering is that word in reference to the creepy promos only showing Harper’s eyes. At the end of the night, we would see all of Harper as he took out Dolph Ziggler, claims to be a team player, and wants to join Team Authority. Harper literally threw a beaten Ziggler at the feet of Triple H and Stephanie kind on like how a cat brings a dead bird to its owner. Insert your grumpy cat joke here I suppose. Harper if he does in fact get booked in this main event it would be a great way to launch his singles career. Guys like the Undertaker and The Rock debuted at this event. While this is not a debut for Harper, it almost feels like one as he rarely spoke as part of Wyatt Family. Now he is cured, according to Bray Wyatt, this remains to be seen.

2. Bray Wyatt Rambles About Dean Ambrose:  Bray Wyatt is treading in dangerous ground with his future. I still enjoy Bray’s work on the microphone, remaining supportive of his work, unlike many others.  Despite that, there is room for improvement with his promos; they need to be tighter and more focused on a message. This feud with Dean Ambrose is a big chance to re-establish Bray as a major player. Ambrose entering this feud was the hottest babyface in this company. Wyatt needs some tweaking if it does not happen he might slide down into the murky and undefined mid-card where no one wants to be these days.

3.  Big Guy Turns Heel and Babyface in the Same Show:  Ryback managed to start the show as good guy turn heel, join the Authority, and by end of the show turn back to being a babyface. Seemed like an unneeded swerve but Ryback is clearly back to where he was a couple of years ago.  It will be interesting to see if they can avoid messing it up like they did a couple years back. We were left to wonder if Ryback would in fact join team Cena as he laid waste to Team Authority to close out Raw. Crowd is 100 percent behind Ryback from Buffalo to Liverpool it does not matter. Fans have slipped right back to where they were in terms of Ryback in 2012. 

4. Stephanie To Bad For The Good Of Everyone Else’s Own Good: It should be stated that I adore Stephanie McMahon and her character on television. I think she is the best female talker in this company by miles and miles. She also gets a reaction that no one can deny. This all stated how Stephanie recruited Rusev and intimidated Lana which I did not like at all. Stephanie also uttered a line that will live forever when she said that "there are no politics in the WWE."Aside from the lack of truth of that statement, I have a problem with how she dominated Lana and Rusev. Stephanie can’t be seen as being weak on communism I guess but she still needs to be evil. I am not sure how that works where you are an American Patriot on one hand and bad evil businesswoman on the other. The Stephanie neutering did not stop there as she called the team that will fight for her job in a sense a bunch of little children. Nothing like taking what you have claimed needs to be the greatest Survivor Series team of all-time and making them look like jokes. Steph sometimes needs to back off a little and share the spotlight with her fellow evil doers.

 5. The New Day Gimmick Promos Add Another: Xavier Woods looked like James Brown last week and we thought was being rebuilt as a solo act. The WWE quickly killed an angle with Wood, Kofi and Big E that resembled a modern re-make of the Nation of Domination. Now we see Kofi appear in the same skit with the choir and all this week. It looks like these three will remain together in a re-branded faction. Will these guys be good or bad seems up in the air at this point. Maybe this is why Big E was trying to sound like a preacher months ago for something to do with this gimmick. Who really knows but this is becoming the longest build to a new faction that I can ever recall. This is all for a group that at best would be upper mid-carders? Seems like a lot of time to waste not having three talents in action that can wrestle when you have injuries piling up.

Other things of note: Adam Rose is turning heel beating up the Bunny. Peta will be notified of this and I am sure protest. Brie Bella continues to be one of the worst babyfaces in history.  This angle with Nikki having control over her has garnered no sympathy from me as a fan for Brie. Zack Ryder can no longer WOO WOO WOO as he has a torn rotator cuff and is on the shelf for 6 months. Sadly, not that anyone will notice he is missing at this point. Zack Ryder is the cautionary tale about what being a John Cena friend will get you. Some faces were missing from Raw last night as they were also running a house show in another party of England that was 4 hours and 30 minutes from Liverpool.

Another Raw in the books and it was a step backwards from last week, which was one of the better Raw’s in recent memory. This is despite having a really hot crowd in Liverpool in comparison. Although WWE likely played with audio, being this show was not shown live here in North America due to the time difference.

WWE Shuffling the Deck With Character Changes.

A lot of people are getting some new hats in WWE coming out of Raw on Monday. A lot of shuffling of the deck is being done both by creative and by the fan base. Let’s start with the one that we all saw coming and was the most needed and that would be Paige.

Why they felt the need to wait to pull the trigger that took so long is beyond me. This was obvious from the night that A.J Lee returned to the WWE. This is perhaps the most obvious change and has the potential to be the most successful in my view. Paige was made to be a heel you see it in the aggressive nature that suits her move set. This is like a reset for her after a horrible start on the main roster and a forgettable first run as Diva’s Champion.

The beat down of A.J followed by mocking her skipping was just an excellent start to heel persona. This is who she always should have been from the beginning.

Another NXT alum, that didn’t take out of the gate, is getting a reset in Xavier Woods. He now has approached Big E and Kofi and looks like he is starting the Nation of Domination 2014. Which calls to question can you be the Nation of Domination in 2014?

The thing that does excite me about this is Kofi Kingston being a part of a heel faction.

Kofi is a good solider and always been a baby face and never been a problem in WWE. I want to see him get an honest shot as a heel run. I am not sure if this gimmick will be able to work and it does seem like a very reactionary move by WWE. In response to some poor press about their record in terms of minorities. It reminds me of when the WWE created the “Right to Censor” in response to criticism from a parental group.

Still I like Kofi and I do like Big E so I am hoping this is a vehicle to help them get over but I am very suspect if it will actually happen and work. We are just at the very start of this so will see how it goes.

Bray Wyatt and his real life brother Bo Dallas both seem to be in the land of Tweenerville. Bray seems to be really getting over and WWE is already testing the waters having Bray do some media recently with Between the Ropes and a few other places. This seems a sure sign they are testing the waters for a face run for Bray Wyatt.

While Bo Dallas on Raw was paired against Damien Sandow in a weird pairing but Bo Dallas has a lot of growing fans that BO-lieve in Bo. It probably is less likely we see Bo become a face as WWE still should keep him as a heel even if his fan base grows.

While Rusev and his push and expected rematch with Jack Swagger maybe on the ropes after a media backlash over the promo Lana cut at Battleground which in all honesty was tame and really made no direct mention of the tragedy in Ukraine. Like I said over on the Between the Ropes post show for Battleground, I felt all four performers had earned the right to continue this program.

Also feel bad for Cesaro who I wrote a few days ago seems to have been left for dead.

Miz has a new coat of paint on his tired persona. I buy Miz as a Hollywood star as much as I do John Cena. The other thing they seem to have in common is endless chances to be successful. Lots of changes in the WWE landscape but the constants remain the same and that is the former members of the Shield, John Cena and for whatever reason Orton and Kane. Oh and of course the returning Brock Lesnar who never changes except he seems to get bigger.

 

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Push,Repackage & Fire: Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio and Kofi Kingston

It’s time to play everyone’s favourite game that you may have learned from Straight Shoot with Aubrey Sitterson. Speaking of that subject, I encourage you to go check out his Extreme Rules Preview show with guest Sam Roberts. The game is one I created called Push, Repackage and Fire. It is a take off from the more well known Screw, Marry and Kill game. We take 3 wrestling talents from the same roster and decide who we are pushing, who is getting re-packaged and who is getting a pink slip like Mason Ryan and a number of others did for real a couple days ago.

I really want to make it interactive so if you have some good ideas on 3 talents you would like to see used for a future edition of this hit me with them @condoonthemoon and I will pick one to use. For this go around I am going to pick our three lucky victims.

So here we go we have Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio and Kofi Kingston you are the contestants for this time around.

Push: Kofi Kingston

We are going push Kofi and not change anything about him except his role. Kofi has been the good guy for far too long and what has it got him. They already teased a turn in that confusing interaction with the Miz awhile back but we are following throw and making Kofi a heel. No more smiling happy Kofi an angry one motivated to have success. We start this by having Kofi on a Raw pre-show and he walks off saying he is not in the WWE to talk about it he is here to be a part of it. He storms into Brad Maddox office and demands a match. Maddox says he does not have the authority to make a match as the card is booked. Kofi says that Maddox is a puppet of the authority he should have just gone to them. Maddox says no wait you want a match fine. He books him against Dolph Ziggler. Kofi has a competitive match with Ziggler and in that match the ref takes a bump and Kofi low blows Ziggler trouble in paradise and ref has recovered 1-2-3 and your off and running with Kofi as a heel.

Repackage: Sheamus

We are all tired of this fella; well most of us are at this point. I am having Sheamus grow a full beard; shave his head and comeback as a loud brash cocky heel. If you are familiar with Conor McGregor in the UFC something along these lines of how he acts.  He will shoot his mouth off and talk about how he is great buddies with Triple H and that he has been promised he will be taken to top. Even give him a few of Triple H’s moves that he can brag he was taught by The Game himself. He will go out of his way to suck up to the authority and try and make it very obvious he is in tight with them without them really acknowledging him to any great degree. In the end we are meant to believe that Sheamus is over exaggerating to flat out lying about his friendship with Triple H. He can keep some of his corny jokes but make them about other wrestlers and the fans. He also will become more a chicken type heel when the fight really gets going he wants no part of it and looks for the easy way out.






Fire: Alberto Del Rio
We have tried him as a top guy and it hasn’t worked well. He had a failed run as a baby face that went worse. Basically he has had a bunch of runs with the secondary world title that have not been anything to write home about. His promos all really sound the same at this point. To which I say his destiny is to be in the unemployment line. I just can’t see a way you can rebuild him into anything that would be considered credible at this point. So adios amigo it is.





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