Despite RAW having a better week than Smackdown overall, Monday night once again failed to feel like a go home show. With Extreme Rules just around the corner, not a lot of effort was put into building extra excitement towards the show. In fact, it was Smackdown that did a better job of working towards its own PPV, which is not for another three weeks.
That being said, there were some interesting developments this week in WWE and here is a look at what we managed to learn from them:
#1 WWE is, once again, embracing the art of storytelling
With the steady rise in popularity of indie wrestling since the turn of the century, the WWE have occasionally been forced to adapt their own content to suit the change in audience demands. Smaller, more athletic guys are now getting title opportunities that they would not have received in the 80s or 90s, and the company has slowly had to admit that it is possible to become a big star in wrestling without Vince McMahon’s help.
One noticeable feature of the current WWE product is a distinct lack of storytelling. In today’s WWE, you rarely get anything that stretches beyond two guys both wanting to defeat the other to show who is the bigger man. There was a time when professional wrestling was referred to as a soap opera for men.
Matches would have lengthy backstories involving love triangles, backstabbing or old family rivalries involving burning funeral homes, incest and forced marriage. While not always tasteful, these little additions to feuds would make fans more emotionally invested in the outcome and give them something to talk about with their friends at school on a Tuesday.
This week, there were some small indications that the WWE are again willing to embrace a more soap opera type feel to their product. RAW currently has two stories of interest going on right now. The first is the mysterious occurrences involving GM Kurt Angle. Corey Graves got up from his commentary booth in the middle of the show to take something to Angle which left the Olympian visibly shaken.
It’s too early to speculate as to what this was about, but at least it’s given us something else to think about other than the in-ring action. Secondly, we have the story surrounding Enzo Amore. Amore has been attacked backstage for two consecutive weeks now, and all evidence points to the Revival as the culprits. However, this appears to be far too easy an explanation. Perhaps there is something deeper going on.
It may be true that people watch wrestling for different reasons, but fans from an older generation will recognise that today’s WWE product is very heavy on the in-ring action, more so than it ever has been.
For too long, it has been hard to differentiate the WWE from any indie promotion you can easily watch online. I, for one, am hoping for more intricate backstage build up to matches, as opposed to the stale formula the company currently employs.
#2 Fans are more critical than they used to be
Perhaps it’s the increasing influence of social media on professional wrestling, but when the WWE puts out a segment the fans don’t like, it feels like fans can’t help but continuously and mercilessly shoot it down at a more intense rate than they used to. This week, the WWE attempted something different with their women’s division on RAW, placing Alexa Bliss and Bayley in an ambitious ‘This is your life’ segment, similar to the ones we have seen involving Mankind and The Rock.
And it’s safe to say the segment was not well received.
It’s fine for fans to voice their opinion when they think something is bad, but judging by the sheer amount of hatred towards this, you’d think it was the worst thing the WWE have ever done. Whether it was Dave Meltzer lambasting the segment on a podcast appearance or the droves of internet fans commenting and sharing their disgust; the WWE really took a hammering, and it was all just a little too unnecessary.
The segment did drag on a little, but at least it was relevant to the story they are telling with Bayley. The basic idea, for those who haven’t seen it, was that Alexa wanted to prove to everyone that Bayley is just a sweet innocent girl incapable of going extreme.
To show this, Bliss brought out people from Bayley’s past who claimed she couldn’t do anything without her father being there and was far too innocent in her approach to life. Some fans were even arguing that Alexa was going too far, and this was an example of the WWE promoting bullying. I’m not sure about that one myself, as Alexa was clearly being portrayed as the heel in this, and the point of a heel is to garner this exact kind of heat on themselves to help get the babyface more over.
In terms of the WWE’s all-time worst or most distasteful segments, this wouldn’t even make the top 100. Think about times in which superstars have fondled corpses, or when the boss made Trish Stratus strip and bark like a dog in front of the audience.
The WWE fanbase is obviously very different from the days of the Attitude Era, and many won’t have been alive to see the more R-rated product; but take it from us older fans, this really wasn’t that bad of a segment.
#3 Bray Wyatt is benefitting from being on RAW
It’s been said countless amounts of times by now. The WWE have not utilised Bray Wyatt correctly, and are in danger of throwing away a great opportunity to build a real star. The main thing has been Wyatt’s win/loss record, but there are deeper problems going on as well.
Bray’s whole persona is meant to be based on putting fear into his opponents, but far too often, the people he faces don’t seem at all fazed by him. As a result, he comes across as a decent wrestler with a rather unnecessary gimmick.
His time in Smackdown Live, after the brand split wasn’t that much better either. Bray did go on to win the WWE Championship, but despite that, he has not really progressed higher up the pecking order and is basically in a similar position to where he was just after his debut.
However, his transition to RAW does seem to be working slightly better for him. In a perfect world, Bray would thrive on a roster like Smackdown’s, where he would be able to stand out and provide something different to the other guys around him. But the WWE, for one reason or another, are incapable of making that work, so it seems like they have gone back to the drawing board a little.
Placing him in a more stacked roster like RAW’s means he has better, more experienced opponents to work with. Despite his character failings, Bray is still a very talented in-ring worker, and this week he was able to demonstrate as much against Finn Balor and Samoa Joe.
Bray doesn’t feel as out of place as he normally does anymore, which means fans are able to respond to him a bit better. He is still nowhere near where he needs to be, but at least the WWE have bought themselves a little time in order to reassess where to go with him.
It’s unlikely he will be winning the fatal five-way match and going on to face Brock, but you can see a decent feud developing with Balor or Samoa Joe in the near future. At the very least, Bray doesn’t feel out of place at the moment, and that in itself is a good sign.
#4 Randy Orton is still very one-dimensional
Randy Orton has had an impressive career with the WWE. Seen as second in command to John Cena throughout much of the PG era, The Viper has won multiple world titles and been involved in some very decent feuds over the years. His talents in the ring are obvious to anyone with an appreciation for technical wrestling, and whilst not having the most original gimmick of all time, he has certainly built up a recognisable persona for himself as the unhinged viper.
One problem a lot of fans have always had with Randy is that his promo work has been very monotonous. He seems to rely far too strongly on the basic WWE scripted formulas that prevent him from really standing out on his own in the way John Cena or CM Punk are able to. It has been difficult to get too emotionally invested in a Randy Orton storyline throughout his time with the company because every rivalry and every match kind of blends into one.
This week, Randy had the perfect opportunity to add some layers to his rivalry with Jinder Mahal. On the surface, this is a man who was humiliated at WWE Backlash, being responsible for allowing a random jobber to get his hands on the WWE’s main championship belt.
Randy could have utilised this in his promo by coming to the ring looking dishevelled and embarrassed, but nevertheless determined to right the wrongs of what happened a couple of weeks ago. Instead, he relied on the same old promo, acting like nothing big had even happened. Jinder’s victory was one of the most shocking moments to happen to the company in quite some time, but in this week, Smackdown chose not to utilise this at all.
If Randy does indeed win back his championship at MITB, it’s hard to see what the point of all this was, as it’s pretty obvious the WWE aren’t willing to tell a proper story from it anytime soon.
#5 Nia Jax was right to say what she said
This week, Nia Jax caused a bit of controversy by tweeting her reaction to Smackdown’s announcement that it will hold the first ever women’s Money in the Bank ladder match. Jax’s point was that the blue brand consistently manages to utilise their entire female division every week, while on RAW there are some superstars that don’t even make an appearance. Nia was 100% correct about this.
RAW even has an extra hour on Smackdown, so it makes no sense why the latter is able to do more than its Monday night rival.
When you look at actual star power, RAW should have the advantage. Sasha Banks, Alexa Bliss and Bayley are all highly talented performers, but only one of those three are actually being used correctly. Jax herself offers something different to the typical female WWE look but is also not being utilised to her full potential.
Charlotte’s departure has clearly hurt RAW, as the WWE are always going to be determined to give most of their attention to the daughter of Ric Flair, whichever show she is on.
The MITB match was a genuinely positive step for Smackdown to take. RAW may have the advantage in other areas at the moment, but when it comes to the women, Smackdown is still the brand to watch.
#6 The United Kingdom Championship is good for NXT
Traditionally, the WWE have always liked to showcase more than one single’s belt on their various shows. The IC and US titles, while not holding quite the same amount of prestige as they used to, are always able to give the mid-card division something to focus on. When you have just the one single’s title, the main event scene comes across as the only thing fans should be interested in, and everyone else below just looks like they’re treading water until they get up there.
This has been a bit of a problem with NXT in recent years. The NXT title is the main prize on the show, but you can normally only have two or three guys involved in trying to capture it, leaving the mid card with not a lot to work towards. Now, given the increase in popularity around the WWE UK Championship after that exceptional match at Takeover Chicago, the opportunity is there to keep the belt on NXT for good.
In a few weeks, the WWE will be showing its UK Championship weekly special on the WWE Network, but it would be a mistake to move all of the attention over to that show at the expense of Wednesday nights. It’s far from clear whether fans will be interested enough in watching the show, and there are a lot of competitors involved that deserve to be showcased more.
Pete Dunne, for example, is a real promising talent that could definitely thrive on WWE’s main roster. It will do him no good if he is stuck on a WWE Network special that struggles to compete with a popular brand like NXT.
The UK Championship would flesh out the NXT roster a lot more, and provide depth to the Takeover shows. There’s no reason why the belt can’t be defended against non-British wrestlers either. Imagine Pete Dunne going against guys like Johnny Gargano or Cien Almas on NXT’s main stage. The possibilities are there to make this championship an important part of WWE’s developmental show, let’s hope they consider it.
#7 And the superstar of the month is... Alexa Bliss
As we enter the month of June, it’s important to reflect on some of the superstars that have had an impressive month of May. There have been a few candidates such as Dean Ambrose, whose transition to RAW has rejuvenated his rather stagnant WWE career, or Charlotte Flair who has made the Smackdown Women’s division must watch television. Jinder Mahal would perhaps be the name of a lot of people’s lists, going from obscurity to WWE Champion in the space of a few weeks.
However, I believe the real credit must go to someone who has shown a consistently impressive amount of talent over the past four weeks. Alexa Bliss, not originally part of the Four Horsewomen group, has managed to make the women’s revolution very much about her. She is a special talent both in the ring and on the mic.
It’s rare to see such a personality emerge from nowhere in today’s WWE. Normally a superstar needs the right feud or opponent to showcase what they can do, Alexa has this ability to make anything work, regardless of who is standing across the ring from her.
She has taken a bit of flack this week due to that less than ideal segment with Bayley, but it is to her credit that she was able to see it through. Most fans are not blaming her for the slip-up, instead channelling their negativity towards WWE creative.
Let’s hope the RAW women’s champion continues doing what she has been doing for quite some time, and let’s hope she never has to do another This is your life segment ever again! Congratulations, Alexa Bliss.
