Hello one and all and welcome to the second part of a pair of articles that relate to some booking issues within the WWE. This is The Stockwell Section and this time round, I’m going to discuss the current Raw main event scene.
For the sake of argument, I’ll take into account the events post CM Punks now famous promo and particularly the events that followed Summerslam.
Since that famous promo, we have seen Punk rise to the peak of WWE, and with reports that his merch sales are surpassing that of John Cena, there is no denying that Punk has finally joined the elite group of WWE stars – you know. that ones that dominate the PPV scene.
Anyhoo, We saw Punk rise up and defeat Cena at two consecutive PPVs before watching Alberto Del Rio cash in to become champion and of course, Punk was quickly ousted from the title picture in favour of John Cena.
Del Rio finally achieved his destiny, only to be beaten a month later by John Cena who then held the belt for a short time before dropping it back to Del Rio after what was supposed to be a historic WWE title reign.
Of course, Del Rio won at Hell in a Cell by managing to isolate John Cena and take out CM Punk because it’s clear that Del Rio has no trouble handling Punk, but he can’t seem to manage the man Punk owned at recent PPVs.
You see, the reason Mark Henry has worked well is because he has been booked as a dominant champ but it would seem that on the Raw side things, WWE can’t decide on who they want as their champion. Del Rio lost the belt after a month and that made him seem less convincing, Cena lost to Punk twice and beat him because the later was distracted which made him look weak and Punk was made to look weak at Hell in a Cell when Del Rio opted to take him out rather then the powerhouse Cena. I mean, it’s easy to say that Punk should have dominated the red brand or Del Rio should have had a long and dominating run but the fact is, neither have. The problem is that now, the title picture is as loose as the divas division, but hey, at least they made their choice to push Kelly. The question of who is going to win is only exciting when the odds are stacked in someones favour but in this case, a win for any man seems within reason and quite frankly, it makes for a dull dynamic.
In the mean time, we’ve seen Punk enter a feud with Nash which had no payoff – I’m not saying they needed a match but to finish it up would have been nice – then again, the same could be said for the Anonymous GM story arc. We also had a rushed feud with Punk and Triple H which was quickly forgot and to top it off, the two were having a laugh together on Raw with the announcer and times keeper situation after the walkout which happened the week prior and one week after that, they are ready to fight side by side against the team of Miz and Truth. It seems that the major personal issues the pair had a few weeks ago are now gone. Seriously, thinking that we wouldn’t remember a past Wrestlemania match between Taker and HHH is idiotic but thinking we’d buy into these guys acting like buddies a mere few weeks after they were at eachothers throats is downright fucking retarded.
On top of the mess that had been highlighted, the title picture is currently playing second fiddle to this ongoing Miz and Truth saga, which in itself holds multiple indiscrepancies – such as who are they actually targeting and why is it suddenly an unsafe working enviroment, not to mention how Smackdown strangely became a safe haven from the head of WWE operations.
Now for anyone who has read my previous columns or people who know me personally – you would know that I love using the example of The Beatles. You see, John, Paul, George and Ringo had a particular quality in that they understood (at least for the most part) that sometimes the key to success is simplicity. The Raw main event scene is far from simple and calling it a mess is an understatement. The fact that I’m even starting to wonder and believe that Vince Russo could do a better job then this speaks volumes – OK, maybe that’s a tad too far.
Until NXT Time…..
