RAW Retort – Cena breaks tables and Ryback

After Money In The Bank, considering the fact it was a really strong pay-per-view, stronger than anything since and including WrestleMania, I was worried that the WWE would again go into a slump.

There was always the huge chance that MITB was just a fluke and they would be dropping off again, and some storylines have, but the bigger stories and feuds have only gotten better since then. Many of the storylines each week are getting stronger, they’re not pushing characters and feuds too quickly, and best of all, the quality of the wrestling only gets better and better.

There’s some things that the WWE is struggling with, most likely because they don’t have any competition, but that’s nothing to be helped at this point, with TNA not doing anywhere near as well as they’d need to be to be anything more than a slightly annoying buzz of a fly in McMahon’s ear.

And while they are a little more than that, McMahon wouldn’t admit that they’re more than nothing on his radar. Until the WWE has some serious competition, they will never again regain the heights they once were, and where they need to be again to truly make many of the fans deliriously happy, the way we were back during the Attitude Era. I’m not saying that the WWE needs to be crass and raunchy the way they were back then, just that they need the competition to get themselves to the next level.

That RAW was was taped this week could have made the show less than it truly was, but some of us avoid spoilers at all costs. So while I could have known what happened on RAW, I was delighted to go into the show as unknowing as I always do when the show is live. And as with live shows, there were good and bad moments of RAW.

I enjoyed how the show started. Art imitating life imitating art is a lot of fun, especially when the whole thing is a load of bull and the IWC taking things said by various things taken way out of proportion. McMahon’s dislike of Bryan threaded through the entire show; giving the fans bits and pieces here and there added a lot to the flow of the show.

Even the involvement of Triple H and Steph backstage added so much more to it all. And, all the while McMahon says that Bryan cannot win, all he wants is Cena to lose. That McMahon is being so strong against Cena makes me wonder what the long term plan for Cena’s character really is. When I say long term, I mean WrestleMania.

Going into the first match, I was a bit confused. They pushed Henry and the Uso twins against The Shield, and while they all work the ring together quite well, I really wonder where they’re going with this, and why they basically keep showing us the same match over and over again. The ring work is solid, but it’s already starting to feel old. Not sure what they could do to shake things up, but they need to shake things up in a huge way because it’s getting very boring, very quickly.

Speaking of confused, what’s the plans for RVD? That man returned to a huge match with a part-time contract, yet he’s been on every show, and while the matches have been both good and bad, none of them have had any weight or bearing on anything.

His match with Jericho was the best, but even that didn’t set up for anything going forward. If RVD is going to be in the WWE, he needs someone to feud with. At this point almost anyone would be good, because these random matches are not helping him. After watching RVD in the ring with Fandango, I think a feud between the two could be fun, and not too strenuous for RVD.