After one of the most exciting RAWs in recent memory, it’ll be interesting to see how WWE follows up this week. Will the crowd in Greenville, SC be as hot as the crowd last week in East Rutherford? How many random chants will they start? What will CM Punk say after being off TV last week? Will The Other Paul Heyman Guy, i.e. Brock Lesnar, make an appearance? Did Ryback actually turn heel when he attacked Cena last week? Or did the crowd hate Cena so much they would cheer anyone who took him out? How will the Hell No-Shield feud progress? Most importantly, how will Ziggler Show Off his brand new title?
Best
Fandango: The angle was plodding along and most people weren’t really expecting much from him, even after a good effort against Jericho at Mania. However, last week changed things as the entire crowd started humming/singing his entrance music during his match. Of course that was one of several off the wall crowd chants, but this one didn’t stop there. They did it when Cena was in the ring at the end of the show and reports are out saying it happened as people were filing out of the arena, honking it with their cars in the parking lot and even starting it up on a local train. The character is hot right now and one of the things WWE is good at is taking a suddenly popular angle and pushing it to the moon while they can.
The Shield: Finally it appears that the Hounds of Justice are targeting Kane and Bryan. Hopefully this means they’ll be the ones to take the Tag titles off the long reigning champs. I’ve said it before, but this is the next logical step for the group. They’ve proven they can take on the best in the WWE and haven’t been Nexused yet. Since they don’t have a guy who stands out as the de facto leader, it wouldn’t make sense for two of them to hold the titles while the third possible pursues a singles belt. Defending them under the Freebird Rule fits in with their group dynamic and is something that hasn’t been done in the company since The Spirit Squad in 2006. Pitting them against Bryan, Kane and Taker in a 6 man tag next week on RAW certainly seems like it should be a PPV match, but then again who knows what Creative is thinking?
JBL: He should absolutely be on every commentating team as he actually makes matches more enjoyable to watch with his wide array of references and background info. He and Cole actually make a good team. They act as the heel/face combo but not to an absurd degree like when Cole was a heel with Lawler. Hopefully WWE has realized JBL’s immense value as a commentator and will keep him on for the foreseeable future.
Worst
Guessing Game: For the past few months the ever popular ‘Will It Be This Week?’ mystery has been when Ziggler is going to cash in his MITB. However after finally doing so last week, the soon-to-be popular mystery is ‘When Will Orton Turn Heel?’. Hopefully it won’t play out as long as Ziggler, but it’s pretty painful to watch Orton in his ‘cheerleader’ phase. He’s trying to pump up the crowd, be all buddy-buddy with Sheamus and play the peacemaker. It’s just so unnatural.
Booking: It had seemed like Creative had no idea what to do with such a great talent like Cesaro as US Champ. He was constantly never booked up to his potential and so how do they fix it? Have him drop the title to Kofi tonight with a ‘feud’ that seemed thrown together? The match itself was good, but the somewhat abrupt change does nothing for the title. Then again it perfectly reflects how much prestige it has left. So does Barrett losing cleanly to R-Truth only a week after regaining the IC Title in front of a hot crowd
Ryback: Speaking of booking, Creative has once again backed themselves into a corner with Ryback. They followed through with the teased heel turn from last week and positioned him as the biggest ‘threat’ to Cena’s WWE title. However, it’s unlikely we’ll see Cena drop it so quickly because it’s no IC Title after all. This leaves Ryback with more big match losses and his credibility as a top star even more damaged.
