WWE TV - 2/5 - 2/11/2024 - Hey Hey, My My, Rocky Pushed Cody Aside

[Dolfan in NYC]

I really wanted to make this thread title Melo Didn't Miss ,   but it would be silly to not acknowledge (!) the Rock taking the Mania main for himself. Especially a month from now when we all realize they just did a reverse gaslight and made us think we made this Rock/Roman/Cody three way on our own. 

 

ANYWHO....  

If you haven't been following Drew McIntyre's twitter, you reallly should:

 

[The Natural]

Good luck to Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins tonight trying to get over their World Heavyweight Championship WrestleMania XL match tonight considering:

• Since Cody Rhodes returned at WrestleMania XXXVIII defeating Seth Rollins, it's been about finishing the story, to hold the WWE Championship which his Father never held.
• Cody Rhodes shockingly lost to Roman Reigns in the WrestleMania XXXIX main event for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship and has set out to right that wrong.
• Cody Rhodes becomes the first wrestler to win back to back Royal Rumble matches at the 2024 Royal Rumble match.
• Roman Reigns buried Seth Rollins and the World Heavyweight Championship on last week's Smackdown.
• Cody Rhodes steps aside for The Rock to face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania XL going against everything I've said. So stupid. Rhodes is made to look a cowardly moron. Bad booking.
• Cody Rhodes had already beat Seth Rollins three times. Only way Cody can be made to look even worse than he already has is losing to Seth.
• The World Heavyweight Championship is a consolation prize for those who can't beat Roman Reigns.
• The World Heavyweight Championship is billed as the top title in RAW but let's be honest, it's not. That's the Intercontinental Championship thanks to Gunther's amazing reign as the longest in the belt's history.
• Cody Rhodes first world title win of any in WWE should be for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. Winning the World Heavyweight Championship will dilute that.

Edited February 5 by The Natural

[Curt McGirt]

Quote

Hey Hey, My My, Rocky Pushed Cody Aside

There's more to the booking than meets the eye...

The king is gone but he's not forgotten, indeed

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

5 minutes ago, The Natural said:

Good luck to Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins tonight trying to get over their World Heavyweight Championship WrestleMania XL match tonight considering:

• Since Cody Rhodes returned at WrestleMania XXXVIII defeating Seth Rollins, it's been about finishing the story, to hold the WWE Championship which his Father never held.
• Cody Rhodes shockingly lost to Roman Reigns in the WrestleMania XXXIX main event for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship and has set out to right that wrong.
• Cody Rhodes becomes the first wrestler to win back to back Royal Rumble matches at the 2024 Royal Rumble match.
• Roman Reigns buried Seth Rollins and the World Heavyweight Championship on last week's Smackdown.
• Cody Rhodes steps aside for The Rock to face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania XL going against everything I've said. So stupid. Rhodes is made to look a cowardly moron. Bad booking.
• Cody Rhodes had already beat Seth Rollins three times. Only way Cody can be made to look even worse than he already has is losing to Seth.
• The World Heavyweight Championship is a consolation prize for those who can't beat Roman Reigns.
• The World Heavyweight Championship is billed as the top title in RAW but let's be honest, it's not. That's the Intercontinental Championship thanks to Gunther's amazing reign as the longest in the belt's history.
• Cody Rhodes first world title win of any in WWE should be for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. Winning the World Heavyweight Championship will dilute that.

So aside from all that, you’re on board, right?

[The Natural]

13 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

So aside from all that, you’re on board, right?

 

[hammerva]

If it wasn't for the fact they are trying to make Cody the next Daniel Bryan even though the logic is completely messed up, the only way to make Cody vs Seth relevant is to actually turn it against Cody and make it a Seth story.   The only way to make Seth vs Cody worthy of a Night 1 main event is to not do what the WWE just did which is talk about the history. 

By the way, what the hell are you going to do with Drew McIntyre now.   He should be in a top WM match and I can't think of one opponent to put him in since Punk will definitely not be wrestling.   As great as this heel shit is it seems wasted

Same with Gunther.   I guess the winner of Elimination Chamber gets that match

[The Natural]

24 minutes ago, hammerva said:

If it wasn't for the fact they are trying to make Cody the next Daniel Bryan even though the logic is completely messed up, the only way to make Cody vs Seth relevant is to actually turn it against Cody and make it a Seth story.   The only way to make Seth vs Cody worthy of a Night 1 main event is to not do what the WWE just did which is talk about the history. 

By the way, what the hell are you going to do with Drew McIntyre now.   He should be in a top WM match and I can't think of one opponent to put him in since Punk will definitely not be wrestling.   As great as this heel shit is it seems wasted

Same with Gunther.   I guess the winner of Elimination Chamber gets that match

I thought it was going to be Seth Rollins vs. Gunther for the World Heavyweight Championship until Smackdown. Gunther vs. Brock Lesnar sounded likely until the Wall Street Journal/Lawsuit. Could do Gunther vs. Drew McIntyre but we only just had that at last year's SummerSlam. I think it'll be Drew McIntyre vs. Sami Zayn. As for Gunther? Chad Gable? Sheamus? Bron Breakker?

[Cobra Commander]

Would the NXT event featuring a mid-match cash-in make it more or less likely that Cody/Seth ends with Damien Priest cashing in?

[Craig H]

I still don't get why it's such a mountain of a problem to do Cody vs Roman on one night and Roman vs Rock on another night. It's two fucking nights of WM. So who the fuck is blocking this simplest of ideas and solutions? Rock? Roman? There's no reason to do a triple threat unless, of course, it's the only thing Roman and Rock would agree to. Roman doesn't strike me as someone with that big of an ego to not work both nights of WM and take an even bigger payday. Hell, I don't even see why the Rock would give a shit, unless of course the Rock is trying to weasel his way into winning the title. Or creative is really that braindead. This shit isn't hard to figure out.

[dragonzombie]

Cody Rhodes vs Shinsuke Nakamura in a bull rope match tonight.

Gunter will celebrate 600 days as IC Champion.

[odessasteps]

I was going to make a joke about Dusty never winning the North American title, so Cody could win that for his dad. But sadly, Dusty won it briefly in 1971 (as documented in Al Getz’s 1971 book on the McGuirk territory).

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I think the most interesting thing they can do is start the show by announcing Sami/Drew and then Rollins accepting the challenge of Gunther instead (maybe in response to Reigns' promo, and perhaps conceding that his title isnt as important, but it would be by beating the title reign that matters most), and leave Cody without too many options.

But that would also render the Elimination Chamber highly irrelevant (unless you made it for the IC title).

[Cobra Commander]

2 hours ago, Craig H said:

I still don't get why it's such a mountain of a problem to do Cody vs Roman on one night

except that Cody's not beating Roman for the title (which would lead one to ask why Cody went over at the Rumble, but...), so having Cody lose to Roman in back to back Wrestlemanias isn't gonna be made up for easily

another Cody thing is that through no fault of his own, a portion of "what did Cody do in 2023" is now tied to Brock Lesnar, who isn't coming back to the WWE and who they'd prefer not talking about right now

I figure there's lawsuit-related downsides to burying Brock on air

[Craig H]

What? You need to stop taking such huge leaps in logic. Cody feuding with Brock for a part of last year has literally no bearing on anything happening right now.

Also, why wouldn’t Cody beat Roman for the title?

[Cobra Commander]

7 minutes ago, Craig H said:

What? You need to stop taking such huge leaps in logic. Cody feuding with Brock for a part of last year has literally no bearing on anything happening right now.

Also, why wouldn’t Cody beat Roman for the title?

The whole Cody/Lesnar feud is basically a resume gap for "hey what has Cody been up to in-between his matches with Reigns", also the Cody/Lesnar feud started the last time that Cody and Roman were supposed to face each other in a match

As for why they won't have Cody beat Roman for the title. Because Roman is 5ish months away from his Universal title reign passing Hulk Hogan's 1984-88 title reign and they're not throwing away that opportunity when they're so close to it.

And that's not even getting into the whole thing that the WWE regimes keep changing in the background during this Cody run.

[blitzkrieg]

Also announced for Raw:

Miz/JD, Tozawa/Maxxine vs. Ivar/Valhalla, and Shayna/Becky in an Elimination Chamber qualifying match. (Rhea also confirmed to face the winner of the Women's Elimination Chamber at WM.)

[dragonzombie]

Liv Morgan is so pretty.

[Greggulator]

Fun night of wrestling. Drew McIntyre is on the run of his career with his character. What a great manipulative scumbag to worm his way into everything. Plus, that shirt… 

That Fatal Four Way was wicked fun. Great combination of reckless dives and the like. 

Am I alone in thinking Becky/Shayna was at another level? Match had a really good story and flow to it. It felt like peak NXT Shayna when she was THE heel and did the nastiest limb work. 

Women’s tag match was fun. Good Rhea/Nia brawl, too.

Jey vs. Gunther with his old frienemies The New Day having his back in their hate feud is a really great way to tie in the past of the epic New Day/Usos feud and rivalry, all while Gunther sets his own legacy. Has anyone had a better 2.5 years than Jey Uso? The guy is absolutely mega over. 

That Sami promo was an all-time great babyface promo. Sami really is just the best at being sympathetic and expressing the struggles of wrestling. 

The main event was fun. Shinsuke was perfect for selling nutshots from the bullrope and the like. 

[Cobra Commander]

11 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

Would the NXT event featuring a mid-match cash-in make it more or less likely that Cody/Seth ends with Damien Priest cashing in?

I mean, the "Drew pins Seth Rollins in a three way with Cody" scenario is still in play too

[Phantom Lord]

12 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

Am I alone in thinking Becky/Shayna was at another level? Match had a really good story and flow to it. It felt like peak NXT Shayna when she was THE heel and did the nastiest limb work. 

Shayna vs. Becky was everything I hoped their Wrestlemania match should have been. But Becky I think just found out she was pregnant at the time so she had a reason to not go all out back then. But tonight was a really good match between the two.

RAW it self was good tonight. I thought they handled WE WANT CODY very well. Man The Rock is in for a rude awakening these next two months if he thinks he can just charm the crowd like he used to.

[Cobra Commander]

some eras of WWE booking would consider giving one of their NXT guys a promotion to the main roster with the first name "Rocky" and then acting like any "Rocky Sucks" chants are for him, despite the lack of any such heat during his actual matches

but from the summary I read (i'm not watching Raw over regular season college basketball), it doesn't appear the overarching angle from Friday makes any more sense but they didn't hide Cody at least

that being said... he doesn't need the Seth title or to take a pinfall in a match for the Seth title

[Andrew POE!]

35 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

some eras of WWE booking would consider giving one of their NXT guys a promotion to the main roster with the first name "Rocky" and then acting like any "Rocky Sucks" chants are for him, despite the lack of any such heat during his actual matches

but from the summary I read (i'm not watching Raw over regular season college basketball), it doesn't appear the overarching angle from Friday makes any more sense but they didn't hide Cody at least

that being said... he doesn't need the Seth title or to take a pinfall in a match for the Seth title

WWE could also panic and have it be Rock vs Roman vs Cody vs Drew McIntyre vs Seth Rollins for all the titles. Personally, I hope they don't panic book this. Let it stay as Rock vs Roman for Roman's titles. The WWE brought this upon themselves and wanted The Rock to be on their board of directors. If the Rock gets booed out of Philly, oh well. He politickied his way into it, let him spin the way he wants it. If he wins the titles at WrestleMania, he's going to get pelted with so much garbage and would likely blame the fans afterwards.

[Eivion]

Opening segment did little to settle what directions things are going in with the World/Universal titles, but I enjoyed the hell out of Drew continuing to be tremendous asshole.

The 4-way tag was good chaotic fun. 

Becky/Shayna was damn good and definitely felt like the two trying to make up for their Wrestlemania match from 2020. Hopefully we get more of that Shayna.

Miz/JD was solid with Truth's late match antics delivering the expected fun. Kind of like Miz arguing Truth is really just a genius playing the long con.

Tozawa/Maxxine vs. Ivar/Valhalla was short but fun despite the messiness from the women's side. Maxxine is not good as she was rushed out of NXT, but I still find myself baffled by how Logan never seems anywhere close to as just solid as she should given her experience. 

The Rhea/Nia segment/brawl was neat and drew some good heat to Nia. Curious to see what main events Elimination Chamber. Now feels like a good time to give it to the women either with the chamber match itself or Rhea/Nia.

KC Squared vs. Kabuki Warriors built into something solid though you can still tell by the crowd reaction just how little momentum there is in the division beyond those at the highest like Becky and Rhea.

Dug the Gunther/Jey segment. Glad to see it tie back into New Day's feud with Imperium. Jey/Gunther is going to be good whenever it goes down.

Sami's interview was good stuff and really makes me hope he at least gets a PLE title shot later in the year.

Cody/Nakamura was pretty nice by the end. Really dug the finishing stretch. Post match attack by Dre was expected and fine.

Pretty fun show with some solid-good matches and segments. Will always be too long at 3 hours, but the power of DVR always helps. Was interesting to seeing how they pushed Roman/Rock as the main event less and less as the night went on. Its clear they know they fucked up to some degree. Hopefully they just go with Cody/Roman, but I guess we shall see. 

[Cobra Commander]

1 hour ago, Andrew POE! said:

WWE could also panic and have it be Rock vs Roman vs Cody vs Drew McIntyre vs Seth Rollins for all the titles. Personally, I hope they don't panic book this. Let it stay as Rock vs Roman for Roman's titles. The WWE brought this upon themselves and wanted The Rock to be on their board of directors. If the Rock gets booed out of Philly, oh well. He politickied his way into it, let him spin the way he wants it. If he wins the titles at WrestleMania, he's going to get pelted with so much garbage and would likely blame the fans afterwards.

if they didn't have an elimination chamber PPV coming up, they could have 6 elimination chamber matches to determine who'll compete in the ultimate survivor elimination chamber match to end the show

As for fans and reactions.. I think aside from twitter people trying to go after the Rock's NXT GM daughter, people haven't taken this to the point of trying to involve people unrelated to the title scene.

I do appreciate Ava tweeting in kayfabe like she's actually running the NXT show as the GM. That's some quality commitment. Hopefully this whole thing doesn't work towards the Rock becoming the new heel authority figure because as much as heel Rock is fun.. heel authority figures are still ubertired and we don't need them.

[HumanChessgame]

Drew's shirt in the opening segment was hilarious and looks like it's up in the WWE store. I'm assuming Punk/Drew was the original plan before Punk's injury so now my prediction is that Drew wins the EC. Do they stretch out figuring out who Cody is going to challenge until then though? Drew/Rollins will be fine, but just like with any other potential challenger, it's a foregone conclusion that Rollins is going to lose given his injury status. Maybe he ends up not being cleared and they decide to make the EC for the vacant title?

As messy as the men's WM title picture is, the women's is the opposite. Every once in a while they gas Shayna up and she comes off looking legit dangerous and puts on a great spectacle. Tonight's match was one of those times. I was worried they were going to stretch the Nia/Rhea program to Mania, but it looks like that gets done with at the EC and Becky wins to set up their match. For the other title we got the setup of Bayley and Io who have the whole partner turning on stablemate storyline to add intrigue to the match.

The women's tag match was good but not as good as last week's.

I guess Uso ends up being Gunther's Mania opponent? He wouldn't be my first choice but it'll be something fresh.