The only thing worse than having a 60-year-old challenge for the most important title in the industry is having the Chairman of the most important wrestling promotion in the world come out and make an announcement- an announcement that he’ll have a real announcement to make next week.
During the Monday night wars, Vince McMahon could get away with that; his visage on the TV could get millions of fans to switch from Nitro to Raw in a heartbeat. A decade later however, with no competition and the ebb and flow of the industry currently on uber ebb, McMahon’s appearances on his company’s signature show usually mean nothing. Tonight he proved it.
There wasn’t anything particularly fantastic on Raw this week. A few matches, with a heel commentator, used to push certain stars and belittle others, that’s all. Considering the way people who can actually wrestle are treated on the show, Natty Niedhart and Daniel Bryan especially, it’s hard to understand what the company is trying to push.
It doesn’t appear to be wrestling as an art.
An art? Yes, an art. It takes a special athlete to think you’re watching someone in a fight. However, great workers today couldn’t hold a candle to some of the workers from a decade ago, who worked hard in the ring and could cut a decent promo. A guy that has the ability to be one of them is Alberto Del Rio, who in spite of a repetitive promo (enough about your destiny) and a boring finisher, the guy has undeniable charisma. He just needs the right kind of push. It remains to be seen if having him appear on Raw every week is truly helping him do more than letting the fans see more of him.
The same thing goes for Dolph Ziggler and Vicki Guerrero. Sure, she can get heat, but nothing is ever done with her creative enough to warrant the waste of key minutes on Raw and Smackdown.
On another note, Mason Ryan may look like Batista, but he stole a page out of Brock Lesnar’s book on Monday, using a modified version of the Brock Lock. Although still green, this guy is too massive to not try and eventually put over.
The rest of his Nexus comrades didn’t fare too well though, as CM Punk apparently had his nose broken during the group’s spot early in the show with Randy Orton. Seeing them take him out like that, to only fail to do the same thing to John Cena is puzzling. Why leave the Nexus’ feud with Cena unfinished and have them simultaneously destroy Orton? It’s just too much at once.
But what would you expect creatively from a company that has an over-the-hill mid-carder like Mark Henry destroy a young lion like Sheamus, on free TV with nothing at stake?
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