Watching WWE is a gamble. No matter how excited you are, or how good things are looking, there's always a risk that the next show is going to stink. Wrestling fans – myself included – are quick to point out what stinks on a regular basis. They make it easy. Veering away from the depressing but understandable cynicism and apathy which makes up much of the wrestling discussion, here are five things I enjoyed about the week that was in WWE.
Warning: you're almost certainly going to see recurrent themes here.
(NOTE: My Sky+ box decided not to record this weeks SmackDown. The next repeat of SmackDown isn't until Tuesday, so this list is almost entirely comprised of what happened on Raw.)
1. WWE reads my blog:
Last week, I requested that WWE give us at least one Bray Wyatt match or promo a week. This week, after Daniel Bryan wrestled Erick Rowan (how long have I been spelling his name wrong?) in a decent match, Bray spit out a fantastic promo from the titantron. He made a brilliant comparison between Bryan's quest to the Wyatt's, and it was all true. Bryan is attempting to overcome being judged on his appearance and not fitting the office's idea of a Superstar, and nobody in WWE is judged on their appearance and looks less like a typical WWE Superstar than Bray Wyatt.
I worried that they'd screw this up, but so far, so good. We're only, what, two weeks into this story, but it's rapidly becoming my favourite thing. The more I think about this, the more Daniel Bryan has to become a member of The Wyatt Family. He just has to. Not only because he's already had a history of being mentally unstable and the fact that Bray is making fantastic and logical points, but because it's too good a story to pass up. There's so much gold to be mined out of a situation where Daniel Bryan has been brainwashed by Bray Wyatt that if they don't do it, I will physically, actually cry.
2. A Number One Contenders Match!
It's hard to remember the last time a thing happened when there's as much weekly content as WWE provides, but it seems like forever and a day since a lower-level male Title (because the Divas seems to get one every other week, in battle royal form) was given a Number One Contenders match. But the Intercontinental Title was actually deemed worthy enough of this honour, and what made it even better was that WWE put some forethought into setting up a pay-per-view mid-card match more than six days before the pay-per-view itself.
I also liked that they made the climax of the Damien Sandow-Dolph Ziggler mini-series something meaningful. They traded wins for two weeks, but this week not only would we find out who was superior but the person who was superior got a Title shot out of it. Yeah, we can argue how much as shot at the Intercontinental Title means to anybody, and it's easy to point out that two weeks ago WWE probably didn't know they would do another two Ziggler-Sandow matches, let alone that this would be the climax. But still, 10 out of 10 for effort. And it was another enjoyable match between the two, which Sandow won. Perhaps, just perhaps, he will recover after being farted on for months on end as Mr. Money in the Bank.
3. A Sin Cara who doesn't break:
The Sin Cara vs. Alberto Del Rio match was enjoyable for two reasons. Firstly because of how funny I found it that I was sitting there actively waiting for the moment that Cara breaks again. But secondly, in retrospect, because I honestly thought that Sin Cara had just got a new tattoo. I didn't know it was Hunico until someone pointed it out. Yes, how observant I am.
There's a lot to be said for the Sin Cara character sticking around, and it's savvy of WWE not to let it die. And the beauty of having a masked character is that anyone baring remote resemblance to the original performer can play them because kids can't tell the difference, and nor can people like me who clearly still haven't figured out how to use eyes properly. Hunico might not be able to do as much as Mistico could, but he can be convincing enough that it doesn't make a difference. And he can do what he does without shattering into a thousand pieces taking a backdrop.
This is all for nothing, though, if WWE doesn't do Sin Cara vs. Rey Mysterio. It's a dream match, both for people who are ten and people who have a mental age of ten and still get excited because THEY BOTH WEARS MASKS SO DREAM MATCH.
4. The Shield vs. Big Show, Cody Rhodes and Goldust:
I don't really need to explain this one, do I? All the time The Shield are still putting out six man tag team matches like this, they have an argument-winning case as to why they should still be together. That's not to say that it doesn't hurt when they're against three very capable opponents. This was just a really great six man tag team match, where everyone pulled their weight and carried off something memorable.
5. The 'name our new championship poll':
WWE allowed their fans to pick their favourite name for the Title either Cena or Orton will hold coming out of TLC. What I loved about it was the WWE.com interview Triple H did when he just said : “We're probably not gonna use that.” He may as well have come out when the poll results were announced, waited a few minutes, said “No.” and left again.
4. The Shield vs. Big Show, Cody Rhodes and Goldust:
I don't really need to explain this one, do I? All the time The Shield are still putting out six man tag team matches like this, they have an argument-winning case as to why they should still be together. That's not to say that it doesn't hurt when they're against three very capable opponents. This was just a really great six man tag team match, where everyone pulled their weight and carried off something memorable.
5. The 'name our new championship poll':
WWE allowed their fans to pick their favourite name for the Title either Cena or Orton will hold coming out of TLC. What I loved about it was the WWE.com interview Triple H did when he just said : “We're probably not gonna use that.” He may as well have come out when the poll results were announced, waited a few minutes, said “No.” and left again.
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