As we enter August, we enter the
final month that I will be posting regularly once a week. Come the second
week of September, I start university so I am going to be too busy to write a
blog post every single day between two blogs. I will talk about this
situation in more detail when the time comes for the change, but I would like
to give a little warning so I do not surprise anybody with the news. Now
with that news out of the way, let us get on with the regular scheduled
blogging.
While not a home run, Raw 1001 was a success. WWE successfully put on a rather good three
hour show that had a great balance of promos and wrestling. While there was a fair share of promos, they
all felt like they had a purpose and were all fairly entertaining. The main focus was on the wrestling as Raw
1001 had three matches that easily went well over the 10 minute mark. If you can, you should go out of your way to
watch the Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler and Miz vs. Christian and
Chris Jericho. Both easily among the
best matches I have watched on Raw all year.
Raw 1001 did drag for a little bit thanks to incessant amount of recaps
the WWE decided to put us through. There
was a recap for everything that happened on Raw 1000, a recap of the opening
promo and recaps of those previously mentioned recaps. It was overkill and hopefully next week, WWE
does not bombard us with all those recaps.
CM Punk Embraces the
Cult of Personality
The big question going into Raw 1001 was why CM Punk did
what he did at the end of Raw 1000? WWE
made the right choice of kicking off Raw 1001 with Punk’s explanation. In all honesty, I do believe WWE should have
promoted this promo kicking off Raw on last week’s Smackdown instead of mere
hours before Raw 1001 because it would have helped establish the new start time
for Raw with the people who missed Raw 1000 or just forgot. Nonetheless, CM Punk started off Raw with one
incredible promo. CM Punk called out
Jerry Lawler over his call at the end of Raw 1000 saying Punk turned his back
on the WWE Universe saying it was untrue.
Then Punk went on to say that The Rock disrespected Punk at Raw 1000 by
making the show all about him and only recognizing Punk to say he has been
handed a WWE Championship match at the Royal Rumble. So Punk took it upon himself to give The Rock
a sense of who The Rock will possibly be dealing with at Royal Rumble and ended
Raw 1000 the same way every episode of Raw in Punk’s opinion should end with
the WWE Champion standing tall. It was a
very effective promo that did not paint CM Punk as either a face or heel. While CM Punk is leaning toward a darker side
of his character, everything he said in that promo was true and to the point. Maybe we are getting the slow reemergence of
the renegade that dropped the Pipe Bomb heard around the World over a year, maybe
we are getting a new incarnation of the classic heel Punk we all know and love. Right now much like CM Punk’s first heel turn
in the WWE, we have to patient because it will be a slow burn. CM Punk will not show his true heel colours
right away, it will take weeks, possibly even months before we see CM Punk’s
heel turn is complete. As evidence to
the end of Raw where he attacked both Big Show and John Cena and his screaming
at AJ, he is showing more and more heel qualities. We will have to continue to watch Raw in
order to see the end result. So far CM
Punk’s embrace of his own Cult of Personality is getting off to a great start.
The New Smackdown GM,
Booker T. Now Can You Dig That, Sucka?
On the 1000th episode of Raw, AJ was named the
new General Manager of Raw by Mr. McMahon.
That left many wrestling fans wondering who would be the General Manager
of Smackdown. Well we did not have to
wait too long as Booker T was named the General Manager this past week on
Smackdown. Actually WWE broke the news
of Booker T being named GM of Smackdown on their website on Tuesday in order to
entice fans to tune into Smackdown and possibly stop the wrestling websites
from spoiling the news. The way things
have gone with GMs for the past year, I am hoping Booker T and AJ stay the GMs
for a while. It gets very annoying to
have a new authority figure every few months.
You stop to care who actually is in the role of authority figure when it
changes at such a rapid rate. Hopefully
WWE starts to build Raw and Smackdown around AJ and Booker T as the authority
figures for the coming year or so instead of having them be another set of GMs
that last only a few months on the job.
The best thing with Booker T being the GM of Smackdown is that we will
longer have to listen to his atrocious colour commentating on a weekly
basis. Rest in Peace Shuckey Duckey Quack
Quack, we will not miss you.
Orton’s Return
Complicates the World Title Picture
When you thought Heath Slater had no other purpose on Raw
and Smackdown after the conclusion of the Raw Legends storyline at Raw 1000,
the One Man Rock Band made his way down to the ring this past week on Raw to
challenge any superstar in the locker room.
Lo and behold, Rev Theory’s Voices boomed from the speakers and out came
Randy Orton. Returning from his
suspension, Orton squashed Heath Slater on Raw.
On Smackdown, Randy Orton faced Alberto Del Rio in the main event. It was an okay match at best that saw Ricardo
Rodriguez get involved, which caused Orton to get the win by DQ. Following the match, Del Rio ate a RKO thanks
to Sheamus throwing the Mexican Aristocrat back into the ring after the
match. Yes, Alberto Del Rio is set to
face Sheamus for the World Heavyweight Championship at Summerslam, but there is
one question that is my mind after the Orton’s return this past week. What is WWE going to do with Randy Orton
going into Summerslam? With the way
Smackdown ended, it looks like WWE will find some way to add Randy Orton to the
World Heavyweight Championship match at Summerslam. The only other possible match WWE can add for
Summerslam is a No. 1 Contender’s match with possibly Randy Orton, Rey
Mysterio, Kane and Daniel Bryan, which determines who will face Sheamus at
Night of Champions. The fact that Randy
Orton is still booked as one of WWE’s most dominant superstars after two
strikes against him (one more Wellness Policy infraction and Orton will be
fired), I cannot see WWE leaving him off of the biggest PPV of the summer. While I believe it would have been better to
have had Randy Orton return after Summerslam, these are the cards the WWE has
dealt all of us. Let us see if they can
get out of this complicated situation without making things more convoluted.
