WWE RAW: Superstars of the show - 22/07/13

This week’s RAW was a very good one and furthered the angles well for the upcoming event, WWE’s second biggest pay-per-view, SummerSlam. A solid show, it really helped put a few well-deserving young guns on the map and gave them the best weapon to shine: TV time.

With RAW being a 3-hour show now, it’s hard to watch the entire show without feeling that a few segments are being dragged out. However, last night’s RAW was a pleasant exception to that and every segment was interesting, and all the matches were engaging. Well, maybe the Divas reality show extended promotion was a minor blotch. But then, it was a small one anyway, and it’s always good to see “The King” get slapped around by girls!

That being said, it was a night of exemplary wrestling and Daniel Bryan took another step to becoming what we fans already know him to be, a WWE megastar. Giving him company in this week’s list of Superstars of the show are a couple of other young wrestlers who are trying to kick, scratch and claw their way to the top of the mountain in the WWE. Let’s take a look at them then:

Antonio Cesaro

The Swiss grappler has been with the WWE for over a couple of years now and if you ask me, probably is one of the most under-utilised guy in the company. He clearly has the skills to compete with the best and has a unique look, which when combined with his level of seriousness, makes him a very exciting prospect for the WWE future. And the future is now.

This past Monday night on RAW, he was paired with another independent workhorse in Daniel Bryan and to sum it up in words, they both tore the damn house down! Hold for hold, punch for punch, kick for kick, uppercut for uppercut, Cesaro went step for step with arguably the best pure wrestler in the company today, and by the time it was all said and done and Bryan had his hand raised (as he had to, given his push), Cesaro left a lot of people speechless with an awe-inspiring display of wrestling talent and came out a winner too.

I hope this performance of his made the management sit up and take notice of this guy’s ability and talent, and hopefully, things would pan out better for him from hereon and he wouldn’t get the lame gimmicks he was straddled with, before his current alliance with Zeb Colter.

Titus O’Neil

I have a feeling I may get to be on shaky ground with this pick, but I am mighty impressed with this guy. And on Monday, his performance against Christian was proof that this guy is a main-event in the making. He has all the tools: The look, athletic ability and the personality to make a big impact in the upper leagues and I firmly believe it’s only a matter of time.

He pretty much dominated Christian all throughout the match, and while he lost the match clean, he proved that he has a future beyond being a tag-team guy. What impresses me most about him is also how well he sells for a guy of his size and that one attribute is a sign of good things to come.

Keep up the good work, Titus!

Daniel Bryan

Daniel Bryan, I think, should just get a free pass to this list by now every week, because other than last week (when he was kept as a surprise till the end), he has pretty much been the highlight of every show in the past 6 months. This week, he again opened and closed the show, but for company he had John Cena and a hint at a possible rivalry with Mr. Mcmahon.

Now, given the illuminaries who have had the opportunity to feud with the chairman himself, this week’s RAW could just be the breakthrough event in the young WWE career of ‘The Beard’. He was made to compete in 3 matches on the same show – against Jack Swagger, Antonio Cesaro and Ryback. While Ryback & Swagger were good in their outings, the match with Cesaro was fantastic.

Given that it was a part of the gauntlet match, it was heartening to see both of these talented wrestlers get the time that they did and the entire wrestling world was rewarded for it by being able to witness an absolute clinic of a match. The best thing about this match from a wrestling purist’s perspective was the realism in it and every blow and move looked like it killed the other guy. And both looked like shoot-fighter s than pro-wrestlers, which is a good thing.

This SummerSlam is going to be the hottest event of the year and Bryan might just transition into being the poster-child of not just the fans, but of the global conglomerate known as the WWE.