RAW Deal: A hell for everyone

LAREDO, TX—If the WWE isn’t taking forever to get their stories move through their natural progressions, they’re most likely rushing them.

A quick recap, before we begin: at the very end of last Sunday’s Night of Champions, Kane—the Demon Kane, not Corporate Kane, as the company makes the effort to remind us—returned to haunt Seth Rollins after perhaps months and months of verbal and psychological abuse by the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. 

On this week’s RAW, however, who else should Rollins find ominously standing, face to the wall, in the Authority’s office? None other than Corporate Kane.

This Corporate Kane, however, presumes to have no knowledge of the Demon’s attack the previous night. He spends the whole show convincing Rollins and the Authority that he had no memory of the incident, implying that the Demon was now some sort of Mr. Hyde-ish alter ego. However, the show ends with gleeful, caffeine-powered Corporate Kane sending Rollins an encouraging message, before quickly turning menacing—and revealing he was under the ring all along, dragging Rollins to hell like the episode was directed by Sam Raimi.

Now… what the hell? (No pun intended.)

First of all, I’m aware of the irony should I be jumping the gun on this story and its analysis. Second of all, why spend all this time teasing an intriguing, unusual storyline if we’re going to rush all the way the big reveal after a little over two hours? It may not have been groundbreaking, the premise may have been corny, but it was definitely intriguing. People were sick of Kane at worst and indifferent to him at best, and I thought adding a bizarre wrinkle to his multiple personalities was a good, respectable try at refreshing the character.

Instead, we teleport right into what should be the dramatic climax, with Kane revealing he was faking the entire thing. While the tension between Kane and Rollins had been simmering for a while now, with slightly confusing starts and stops here and there, there is a climax to the climax. Since they decided to introduce this new element, they’ve pretty much deferred the climax. Because Kane decided to reveal his true colors at the end of the show, what then was the point of his earlier subterfuge? He looks stupid for wasting his own time.

This has always been a problem with WWE storytelling, which is made even more damning by Vince McMahon’s own admission that they are storytellers, first and foremost, in the company. How can you be a storyteller when you can’t understand how to tell a story? This could be a swerve, and we could still see Kane return to being ambiguous next week, but the ending was a giveaway. To panic and retcon that little nuance of Kane changing his voice in next week’s episode would be doing even more damage.

Now we’ve got no choice but to witness a four-week game of cat and mouse.

High spots:

• So glad to see the show open with a crazy brawl instead of yet another soliloquy. Having the Shield and the Wyatts brawl was a refreshing change of pace, and that broadcast real estate should really be given to people who need more exposure, not stars who are on the brink of overexposure. 

• Good call on having Orton return and continue what the Wyatts started, but the only way to properly do this is to give some tension between him and the Shield. They’re the guys who didn’t come down to save him, so why should Orton trust them too?
• Much love for the six-man tag between the Cosmic Wasteland and Neville feat. The Lucha Dragons, as well as Dudleys and Dolph vs. The RuDay. If the roster wasn’t already very stacked (and the tag titles already barely well-managed), I’d also cast my vote for a WWE Trios Championship.
• Glad to see Paige finally turn heel. I’m amused that they let her say the things she said (especially concerning Nikki, and the subtext of her relationship with John Cena) but not totally surprised, as it’s almost the exact same thing they let CM Punk do in 2011. Let’s hope this ushers in the real Diva Revolution.
• I’m probably in the minority here, but I loved Big Show’s outburst. I’m a sucker for from-the-heart promos, and Big Show just nailed it. He nailed all the right talking points for his upcoming match with Brock Lesnar at Madison Square Garden, especially their history from twelve years ago. I don’t know about you, but I’m already sold for their match. 

Low blows:

• I don’t do a PPV review so I didn’t get to say this for Night of Champions, but announcing Brock Lesnar’s Go to Hell Tour via video package was such a lazy move. They couldn’t find the time to fly Paul Heyman to Laredo and have him cut one of his usual fiery promos?
• Seth Rollins and John Cena continue to deliver like they always do, but at some point you’ve got to feel for Rollins and wish they’d give him a break. The guy had just come off a marathon back-to-back main event on Sunday, and he’s supposed to work his ass off again the next night. Yes, that’s what champions, main-eventers, and faces of the company do to secure their spot in history, but just because it’s What Harley Race Would Do doesn’t mean it’s the best thing a company should be making its star employee do. They’ll regret this the day Rollins’s body breaks down on him.
• Natalya’s back! I don’t think, however, that it was a good idea to have her lose her first match back. There were many ways she could have gotten a motivation to fight the heel team without having to lose.
• I keep saying it, but I’ll say it again: three hours of RAW is way too long.

Do you like wrestling? Do you enjoy listening to podcasts? Would you want to listen to a podcast about wrestling? If the answers to those questions – especially that last one – are yes, then you should check out the cleverly-named Smark Gilas-Pilipinas Podcast, featuring Mellow 94.7 DJ and PWR General Manager Stan Sy, wrestling writer Romeo Moran, and all-around multimedia person (and voice of PWR) Raf Camus! On their latest episode, PWR head booker Sir Vic joins the boys to talk about how much the company had changed over the course of a year, from Renaissance to Renaissance! Listen to it here! – Rappler.com