RAW Retort – RVD And Y2J have still got it

After Money In The Bank,it was pretty much guaranteed that RAW was going to be a fantastic show, and it was.

I was a bit worried with Maddox starting the show, then Cena cutting him off, but then Orton turned things up a notch, and Fandango was a hugely unexpected addition – as he was in the MITBLM. I wouldn’t have thought that Orton would lower himself to work the ring with Fandango, but then the match was set and they proved that while unexpected, the match was stellar.

I’ve been saying all along, especially since I interviewed Fandango’s very first trainer, that Fandango’s ring work is strong, he just hasn’t had the chance to prove it. Well, he was able to prove his ring prowess last night in the MITBLM, and even more so in his match with Orton to start RAW.

Orton has more than stepped up his ring work the past couple months, especially in the ring with Bryan, but it was great to see that Orton can work a seriously strong match against someone other than Bryan, especially against someone who hasn’t been able to show his ring work since coming up from developmental.

Orton is finally putting out the work he’s capable of, and Fandango is finally getting the chance to show what he can do. The fans are just the ones lucky enough to be tuning in to see this growth each week. I might not have picked Orton to win the All Stars MITBLM, but he sure is going to be a great carrier of the case.

I think it’s been pretty much guaranteed that Ziggy and AJ would be breaking up, and that Ziggler would be feuding with Big E, but the way they went about it was so much better than I expected. Of course AJ was going to try to apologise and get into Ziggler’s good graces, but we all knew that wasn’t going to work. That she did so much to mess with Ziggler’s match showed a serious evil streak. If she’s able to keep her crazy in some sort of check, she’s going to be a force to be reckoned with, but I don’t see that happening.

So after a while, after Big E has managed to work Ziggler over, as he did after Ziggler was almost able to beat ADR on his own merits, Ziggler will be coming back to take out both Big E and AJ, as he should.

Henry has made so many changes and swerves since he joined the WWE, but I think this is way too soon for him to turn face. Henry pulled off one of the biggest swerves in WWE’s history less than a month ago, really showed his heel, and now he’s turning face because he’s seen that Cena can beat him? That’s lame and bad writing all the way around. I’m not impressed, and it’s creative who’s looking low on this one.

Normally I’m great at blaming Henry, but not this time, he actually sold his segment quite well. I also have to say that the ring work between him and The Shield was solid! That triple powerbomb was sick!

I really don’t know why R-Truth was the next victim of The Wyatt Family, but using his name the way Bray did was really great. Last week we got a tiny taste of The Wyatt Family and what they could do, but this week we got a better feel for Bray and what he can do on mic.

That man is a master as turning a phrase, and delivering it. I cannot wait to see what that man has in store for us, though I have to admit I’m more than a bit annoyed at Dusty Rhodes for all the changes he made in some of these young wrestlers years ago, making them into characters that were not at all interesting or creative.

It’s Dusty’s fault that Ryback was Skip Sheffield, Curtis Axel was Michael McGillicutty, Bray Wyatt was Husky Harris, and Johnny Curtis was only interesting enough to spill milk. These four men have stepped out of those horrid characters and are really proving that they’re a lot more than the crappy hands they were dealt by Dusty, but it’s taken them years to do that.