WWE Raw 10-14-13

[Patrick B.]

Given recent history, it could change to Zack Ryder between now and tonight.

[piranesi]

 

 

I know shitting on WWE creative is pretty fun, and often the right attitude to take. But going back a month and a half ago, before Cody was fired, was anyone thinking "You know, this whole HHH/Bryan thing would be a great gateway to put a title back on Golddust."No? No. I wasn't thinking that. I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years. It just wouldn't have occurred to me.Even when Cody Rhodes is all of a sudden thrown in a "you're fired" match with Orton, I'm not watching thinking "Ah...endgame for this is Rhodes brothers tag team title reign!"Nope.But clearly they were. This fantastic moment was planned out at least 6-8 weeks ago and unfolded perfectly without any swerves or giving up on the angle, or hotshotting it too quickly or putting it off too long.I got to give credit...probably two months ago, the WWE writers came up with an absurd and beautiful idea that no one could have predicted would go this well...and they executed it pretty well flawlessly.

Your positive attitude has absolutely no place here ... fucking NONE.

No worries, I can poke a hole in it! If this Rhodes' victory was the plan for 6 weeks, why did they make the Uso's the #1 contenders recently (and they still haven't received their match)?

 

 

 

[piranesi]

Given recent history, it could change to Zack Ryder between now and tonight.

 

 

Damn, Dolph.

 

just...

 

 

 

...damn.

[The Man Known as Dan]

Seth Rollins could legitimately stand a chance against Bryan come March.

[Jrag]

I thought the main was good but not as good as the tag match from the PPV. HHH totally blew the segment though. Good lord did he kill what should have been a great moment. It's amazing how he just cannot resist killing other people's heat.

 Exactly, bro!  HHH fired them, degraded them and disrespected their family, but now that the crowd is behind them for completely unrelated reasons, it's really shitty of him to cut that moment short.

 

You think Bryan, Show, Cody and Goldust are over now?  Wait til they get rid of this strong heel authority figure who is clearly sucking their heat.

[w. josh]

So, one thing that I am curious about... Xavier Woods. Is this how they introduce him to the main roster? Does he get called into Triple H's office for starting a petition to get Big Show back and forced into a match with somebody (where of course Big Show interferes leading to a win for the NXT upstart)? I love the different layers to the overall story right now where so many people are getting the rub from it.

 

 

My guess is it's just a way to further bring the main angle into weekly NXT programming, and we'll see JBL/HHH send some main roster guys after Woods to put him in his place. If they could somehow manage to put together a face Nexus with guys that are ready for the main roster (Woods, Ohno, Zayn, Neville) who offer to counteract the Shield for Bryan/Rhodeses/etc., I could see that going very, very well...particularly if it meant fifteen minute six-man tags with any iteration of those guys.

[JRV]

Reigns is turning into my favorite big man wrestler since Batista

Plus he could probably do a sitout powerbomb without looking like a nearly immobile action figure.

[Overly Critical Man]

 

 

Kinda unrelated, if people are sold on ADR just because he can't do much outside of working the arm, there were matches on Superstars in which that's all Brie did. If you watched them, would you excuse her for being heat-less, charisma-less, and pretty much a dime a dozen too?

 

 

6'5 luchadores with legitimate Olympic-level amateur wrestling and MMA backgrounds are a dime a dozen now?

 

 

 

If they can't do anything to make more than like 5 people want to watch them, then yes. And those 5 people probably post here. ADR is terrible.

 

Pfft...there's at least 6 people here that enjoy ADR matches. ADR rules.

[cool arrow]

I don't believe ADR is terrible, nor do I believe he rules.  He usually has good matches but the character does nothing for me one way or the other.

[MORELOCK]

Pfft...there's at least 6 people here that enjoy ADR matches. ADR rules.

His ability to weakly punch the air a foot above D-Bry's head and still hurt him is particularly impressive.

[Overly Critical Man]

 

Pfft...there's at least 6 people here that enjoy ADR matches. ADR rules.

His ability to weakly punch the air a foot above D-Bry's head and still hurt him is particularly impressive.

 

If you're going to throw punches...steal from the best in the business.

 

[MORELOCK]

I don't think Del Rio is a bad wrestler, but I've seen people on here call Christian-Del Rio a MOTYC, which is just laughable to me. If his matches were that great, couldn't he convince the crowds to give a shit about *any* of them? I would have said the same about Cody Rhodes just a couple of months ago, but they finally gave him just a fraction of the protective booking that Del Rio has gotten since his debut and he ran miles with it. What has Del Rio done? Passable *** matches in which he works the arm to build up to his finish do not warrant the praise he gets as one of the best workers in the company.

[JRGoldman]

The issue I have with Del Rio is that while he consistently has good matches, nothing he does makes me think he should have his spot over other guys who also have consistently good matches. Like, in a perfect world, Del Rio would be featured in the Matt Hardy Smackdown role from a few years ago, where he was in the upper midcard and you could count on him to have an awesome TV match basically every week, but he was no where near the major storylines or the World title. Del Rio would be great in that role, face or heel. Unfortunately, Del Rio is consistently pushed beyond that point, where his weaknesses are constantly accentuated by comparison to the wrestlers portrayed as his on screen peers. 

 

Del Rio's current run reminds me of Drew McIntyre's Chosen One run, albeit Del Rio is pushed more and I thought Drew's in ring work was more novel. Del Rio's focus on the arm is really no different than McIntyre's use of the ring as a weapon in that it is basically the major factor in making them memorable from an in ring stand point, and the character work from both runs is equally shallow. 

[Jrag]

I don't remember anyone calling Del Rio/Christain a MOTYC.  The Del Rio matches with the most buzz this year are the Dolph/Del Rio double turn and the Del Rio/Show LMS match.

 

I'm firmly in the middle with you on Del Rio.  Good matches and a shit character, but HIS KICKS ARE FUCKING AWESOME!  The only reason that double turn worked was because of how vicious Del Rio's offense was.

[Overly Critical Man]

They problem is that they give Del Rio nothing in terms of storylines or giving you a reason to care about him beyond his in-ring work. He just goes out there, dominates some random face by working over the arm and makes them tapout to his armbar. His face run had something going after the LMS with Big Show...and then suddenly they forget he's a rich millionaire Mexican and instead he's fighting for the common man...which is obviously a huge character inconsistency that the fans didn't buy into.

[NintendoLogic]

Alberto Del Rio is Spanish for Jeff Jarrett.

[mattdangerously]

 

 

HHH losing his cool and forgetting for a sec that he isn't a rassler anymore was absolutely perfect. It's really such an amazing character. He wants you to think he is this purely corporate entity, telling The Shield about "best practices" and "opportunities not failures" but in the back of his mind all he is thinking is "I'm still the best. I could pedigree all three of these morons right now and pose down while listening to Motorhead and no one would say a goddamn word. I'm still the Game, baby".

 

 

Character?

[Joe Fixit]

Why has Del Rio never actually used his money for evil purposes?

[Sky Blue Sam]

Del Rio going into Payback and kicking the living daylights out of the cocky twat who took the world title when ADR was at his weakest was the face move of the year in my eyes.

[Patrick B.]

 

Given recent history, it could change to Zack Ryder between now and tonight.

 

 

Damn, Dolph.

 

just...

 

 

 

...damn.

 

 

I was referring to WWE's brief tendency to hype a match for Main Event on the previous Monday's Raw, only for that match to not take place with zero explanation.

[ebbie]

Alberto Del Rio is Spanish for Jeff Jarrett.

 

Nah. Jeff Jarrett's MMA run triumphs ADR's MMA run:

 

[caley]

Reigns is great but his headbutts looked like shit. He was clearly headbutting his own hand. The headbutts ADR gave DBryan looked much better.

That being said he's got the best combo of look and ring presence I've seen in years.

Eh, I'll take a weak headbutt that doesn't give he nor the recipient a concussion over well-worked ones that can legitimately injure a guy.

 

 

 

Kinda unrelated, if people are sold on ADR just because he can't do much outside of working the arm, there were matches on Superstars in which that's all Brie did. If you watched them, would you excuse her for being heat-less, charisma-less, and pretty much a dime a dozen too?

 

 

6'5 luchadores with legitimate Olympic-level amateur wrestling and MMA backgrounds are a dime a dozen now?

 

 

 

If they can't do anything to make more than like 5 people want to watch them, then yes. And those 5 people probably post here. ADR is terrible.

 

I've never understood this line of thinking.  So, what you're saying is 5 people like him (the implication being those 5 people are dumb/uneducated/being contrarian about wrestling) and those people post here (the implication being that this board is full of "Contrarians"/idiots/uneducated wrestling fans), so why would you post here?! I'm sure there are a zillion wrestling places on the net that don't profess a love for ADR so why complain about people here doing so?!  It's not about conforming, but if you go to someone's house and they serve tacos for dinner and you don't like tacos, do you sit around and complain about them eating tacos?!  No, you shut up and eat them, or go somewhere where they don't serve tacos.

[ebbie]

You're thinking too hard. I guess 6 people would want to watch ADR instead of the 5 I mentioned. Mah bad.

[JonnyLaw]

Say what you want about that Big Show punch in the gif above, but that is some quality selling by Vince.

[goc]

I like ADR. He usually has good matches, especially on PPV. But I have no interest in watching him and don't care about the World Title by proxy. Not much of it is his fault however. I think they were planning on setting up Sin Cara to be his foil, then that didn't work so they tried to turn him face and that didn't work so good so he's back to being a heel treading water as the World Champ. But the guy hasn't had a real feud since Rey Mysterio, as someone here said a while back.

 

In 2012 on PPV he came back from injury in a Four Way with Sheamus, Orton & Jericho. Then he loses 3 straight PPV matches to Sheamus for the World Title in a feud that dragged on forever with nothing ever really happening. Then he lost to Orton the next month and ended up in a really badly booked traditional Survivor Series match that had a lot of changes in the weeks before the show. Then he does the weird face turn helping Miz & Brooklyn Brawler fight 3MB at TLC 2012, a really strangely booked face turn after completely killing a guy off as a heel for the past 6 months.

 

His face turn as "man of the people" after being the dude with super expensive cars and a man servant was a bit hard to believe. And they really didn't do anything to put it over, like show ADR engaging in philanthropist activities. So he has a fairly weak run as babyface champ, then has a really good double turn match out of nowhere. He was interesting again for a few weeks before it became obvious he was back to doing the same old thing and not having anyone to feud with. 

 

I don't think it's fair to blame ADR for being an uninteresting character. There is a lot of stuff to do with his character, they just never do it. He attacks people from behind and puts on the armbar until the PPV where he loses unless he's the champ. They could be trying to put over ADR as Cena's worst post injury matchup due to ADR focusing on the arm. They could speculate it's an attempt by "The Authority"(not a fan of the name they've gone with) to put Cena back out. But they haven't. They've booked an angle around ADR having to physically kiss Vickie's butt to get out of wrestling Cena because he's scared.