It’s been a minute, so I thought I’d hit you all up with another edition of Wrestling with Mediocrity. We are now well on the road to WrestleMania and while RAW has certainly improved in recent weeks, SmackDown still remains a hard pass for me. Even listening to audio recaps is a bit of a drag. It was this week’s RAW that urged me to write this article, so let’s get started.
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I thought RAW this week had many ups and downs. Overall I like the show and I still think it is heading in a positive direction, but there just seems to be a few things with Vince’s fingerprints creeping in. For example, the Ricochet push. It’s great that he’s getting a title shot against Brock, but it’s the manner in which they position him.
Because of his abysmal booking in recent months, Ricochet needs all the help he can get to look like a viable contender to Lesnar. On one hand they put him in against another star similar to Brock’s size in Lashley and have him go over clean. Great. Then you listen to the commentary. Jerry Lawler physically laughing at the thought that one of the best wrestlers in the world has a chance of beating the Beast.
Lawler isn’t an idiot. This wasn’t something he just took upon himself to say. Can you imagine if back in Memphis the commentators were acting the same when he fought a bigger opponent? They wouldn’t have been there the next week. This is all coming from Vince, who feels the need to mock a smaller performers size. Worst part is, Ricochet isn’t even small. He’s an average height.
The short superhero stuff has to go, but I can assure you it won’t until Vince is gone. Unfortunately by then Ricochet will almost definitely be slotted at a level that he can’t break out of. A few years ago he could have been the biggest star in the business, now he’s on screen while Lawler laughs and refers to him as “This little guy”. It’s just the latest in a long line of stars massive potential being obliterated on WWE programming.
The Becky/Shayna angle on RAW seems to have divided fans. Personally I hated it. First off, the positives: Becky v Asuka was brilliant and for the first time in what feels like forever the fans were really hot for Lynch. Baszler finally being confirmed for the main roster is also a huge win. That said, the neck biting was horrible.
I have seen many on social media laughing about how Vince has turned Shayna Baszler into a vampire. I don’t think this is some sort of new gimmick for her, instead I just think it was an idea to have a big impact on night one. Dave Meltzer pointed out that Freddie Blassie had done something similar about 350 years ago and that Heyman is a huge fan of his work, so the connection makes sense.
To me though this kind of angle doesn’t work in 2020. Back when Blassie was doing this most of the fans thought it was real and the minority that didn’t were more than willing to suspend their disbelief. Shayna has gotten over by being a legit bad ass, which she is in real life. An angle like this with blood capsules just screams fake and does both the angle and Baszler’s character no favours.
My hope is from here on in they reign it back a bit and build the WrestleMania feud around two kick ass women who want to prove they are the best. Doing this plays into both characters strengths. Take last year for example; WWE started all this crap with Becky, Ronda and Charlotte getting arrested and beating each other up in handcuffs, then the live crowd DIED during their main event and barely mustered a pop when Lynch was crowned champion and face of the women’s division.
The other key here is that while Shayna Baszler is presented as a bad ass and has momentum and heat with the fans Vince will be willing to push her as such, but the second he sees her as just another woman on the roster the Queen of Spades will just be shuffled into the deck. Shayna is brilliant at her character, but once the aura is gone, her limitations as a wrestler will bleed through and Vince will lose interest.
Drew McIntyre is doing a great job so far. Ever since his Rumble win he has a confidence and swagger about him and fans are buying into it as well which is key. He doesn’t feel like he is being shoved down fans throats and the momentum to this point is organic. I hope he is able to keep it up, as a top babyface star in WWE that isn’t hated would be a real novelty.
Most outrage this week on RAW was thrown at the treatment of Matt Hardy. He got buried apparently. Look whether he did or didn’t, he is just about to leave the promotion and almost certainly join Vince’s hot new rivals. I bury Vince McMahon a lot on Twitter and in these articles and rightly so, but squashing Hardy on the way out would just be sensible business. That said, I’m not convinced this was any more of a burial than any of his sporadic appearances in the last year.
Lastly I want to talk a little bit about Rhea Ripley and Charlotte Flair. First of all I am delighted that Charlotte is being paired with Rhea instead of us being subjected to another match with her and Becky. Unfortunately though, instead of holding off a few weeks until after NXT TakeOver Portland, we’re starting now.
Vince, unhappy that AEW are back to beating NXT in the ratings week in, week out decided Charlotte was just the star to give the Wednesday show the boost it needed. As it turns out, “The Queen” 😷 isn’t quite the ratings draw that they thought and now not only do they have too much TV to waste until WrestleMania, but it’s made the Ripley/Belair match feel like an absolute afterthought.
A few have tried to rationalise this by saying they had to start either the Rhea/Charlotte or Becky/Shayna angle early to begin the hype and that it had nothing to do with NXT/AEW ratings. 1) You’re wrong. 2) If that were the case anyone with half a brain would have started the RAW women’s title feud first as they only need to plot out angles for Monday’s, not both RAW and NXT TV.
Well that’s it for this article. The days of this being a weekly occurrence are probably finished as I just don’t have the time, but I do plan to push one out whenever I have the chance, so keep an eye on social media for links as and when I do one. If like many I know you have fallen off WWE TV recently, I urge you to check RAW out. People read for me to poke holes in the product and so I do, but the show has been very much improved lately and is worth another chance.
NXT continues to be must watch TV and they are gearing up for what I predict will be a phenomenal show this weekend and AEW Dynamite since the turn of the year has been on a hell of a roll. There is lots of great wrestling out there just now, so go out and support it. The least said about SmackDown though, the better.
Peace!
-VDZE
Photo credit: WWE.com