The
RAW Deal, 6/16/14
By
ekedolphin
It is my considered opinion that the
main event of any wrestling program should be one of the most compelling
matches on the card—if not the most
compelling.
Great matches share common
features. They contain great workers, or
at least a group of workers that mesh well together. They have a built-up history—there has to be
a convincing reason why these workers
are fighting. And there has to be some doubt about the outcome—at least, a
little.
Last Monday night’s RAW main event,
a stretcher match between John Cena and Kane to determine the last entrant to
the ladder match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Money in the
Bank on June 29, came up short in every way.
Cena and Kane plodded their way
through the Same Ol’, Same Ol’, with Cena showing signs of packing it in. It was the fourth-best match on the card,
behind the battle royal, Rollins/Ziggler and Ambrose/Barrett, in no particular
order. Neither Cena nor Kane gave their
best effort. The match was poorly
choreographed, and the run-in by Orton and Rollins (and subsequent save by
Ambrose) petered out too quickly. Making
things worse, Cena—who has won Last Man Standing matches using duct tape and
gigantic equipment containers—didn’t even bother to come up with an innovative
ending to the match. Say, rolling an
empty stretcher across the finish line, and simply dropping Kane onto it with a
drop toe-hold or something.
At no time was I convinced that Cena
was in any danger of losing the match, and that’s perhaps due as much to Kane’s
reputation as a glorified jobber to the stars as to Cena’s record of being
nearly unbeatable. Man of steel, demon
of cardboard.
And now, a word about Heath Slater.
If you’re going to give Heath Slater
a face turn now that 3MB is out of the picture, you could at least let him last
longer than 15 seconds before being beaten by Rusev. This could have been a breakout moment for
Slater. A frantic five-minute sequence
in which he threw everything but the kitchen sink at Rusev, but to no avail,
would have made both men look
tremendous—Slater, because he’s trying as hard as he can despite being
obviously overmatched, and Rusev, standing there, absorbing the blows, and
beating Slater anyway when the One Man Rock Band can’t quite dodge one kick
fast enough.
This could have cemented Slater in
the fans’ eyes as a great WWE underdog face, akin to Rey Mysterio or Zack
Ryder. I would have even considered
going a step further by having Slater actually win the match. Imagine how
the ensuing vicious retaliatory beatdown would have rallied the fans into
Slater’s corner. Hell—they might even
have rooted for the recently-released Drew McIntyre and Jinder Mahal to make
the save!
Why is it so difficult for WWE’s
creative team to come up with these kinds of things when their creative team is
being paid to do so?! I mean, I dug the
battle royal, and the finale between Roman Reigns and Rusev was awesome to
watch. But Reigns didn’t need the rub
from eliminating Rusev. Besides, how
much more terrifying would Rusev have been in that battle royal if he were on
the warpath, apoplectically juggernauting through everyone immediately
following his first loss? After all,
Rusev is scary enough when he’s an ice-cold Bulgarian brute. How much more horrifying would he have been
if he’d actually been angry?
WWE must take the opportunity to
build new babyfaces when the moment is right.
Only two weeks earlier, Rusev had been awarded a star medal reminiscent
of the Soviet era, and stood on a platform while the Russian flag was unfurled
behind him and the national anthem played.
This guy seriously needs to be taken down a few pegs. Why not establish a new fan-favorite at the
same time, instead of building up a monster simply to feed him to an
established superstar like Roman Reigns?
…Dang, you know it’ll end up being Cena, Sheamus or Daniel Bryan who hand this
guy his first singles loss.
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