RAW Deal: Brands are doing more with less after split

It’s easy to get hyped for big headlining angles like Finn Balor vs Seth Rollins or Brock Lesnar vs Randy Orton, but if there’s one thing we can commend the WWE for at the moment, it has to be their work making the little stories work.

I’ve already pointed this out with their dragging but compelling and stellar unfolding of the saga that would eventually become Golden Truth and Breezango, but it seems that when Creative isn’t being forced to rush plots for big tentpole events, they can work magic (Who knew?). Give them a bunch of guys who are willing to make things that aren’t necessarily huge angles work and a lot of time to for these to unfold, and you can make a little magic.

SmackDown seems to be the best environment for these minor storylines to blossom, but RAW also has space for them. Heath Slater’s seemingly-quixotic quest to land a contract on any one of the two WWE brands has seen him appear on both shows and find himself in these insane situations, but Slater’s willingness to always make himself the butt of the joke makes him amazingly compelling—and why shouldn’t he? It’s something for him to do, and it’s something to make people care about him and the other midcarders he interacts with.

We also have the ongoing story of Eva Marie, female professional wrestler extraordinaire (that’s tongue planted firmly in cheek, before you decide to stone me), who keeps finding ways to delay her debut match on SmackDown. Everyone knows by now that the voluptuous Diva is a throwback to the last decade of women’s wrestling in the WWE, and not in a good way—she’s one of the last model-turned-wrestler holdovers from that era, meaning she can’t wrestle very well. So the geniuses over on the writing team have decided to get her over as a cowardly villain who’ll find every excuse not to wrestle instead. 

It’s not as compelling as Slater’s storyline, but it’s an excellent, Heymanesque use of a talent that has clear weaknesses, and it’s a testament to SmackDown’s new direction of being the tighter show that maximizes its shorter runtime. That Eva Marie angle last week gave way to the debut of NXT graduate Alexa Bliss, a quick promo from her opponent Becky Lynch that did a fine job of building her up, and the whole segment hits two birds with one stone as Eva Marie returns to cost Lynch the victory and advance their feud. They’ll still need something bigger to play for, but if you can manage the little things well, then your show isn’t doing so bad.

RAW is also tighter thanks to the brand split, but 3 hours is still a chore to get through, and the roster is still stacked. That’s without the cruiserweight division that’s still apparently imminent. They’ll need to figure this out soon, or they’ll lose the brand wars again despite winning the draft.

That thing called Ibushi vs Alexander

The Cruiserweight Classic has finally moved into the second round after a month of preliminary matches, and you can tell the competition is truly beginning to heat up as the game kicks it up a notch. Instead of the 4 short matches we’ve gotten used to over the beginning of the run, we get two long ones, and if you really, really love wrestling, it’s quite the treat.

I’ll gloss over Gran Metallik vs Tajiri because it’s a great match you need to see, and I have no issues with it. What I do have issues with is the main event—but don’t worry, they’re not really terrible issues; they boil down to a matter of personal taste and opinion.

Cedric Alexander vs. Kota Ibushi is one hell of a match. I’m not sure if I’d go and call it a strong Match of the Year contender, but it’s definitely in the top 10 matches of the year just for how historic it was within its context. I do feel, however, that Cedric Alexander should have won the match.

I understand that international star Kota Ibushi is definitely being primed for a longer run in the WWE, in whatever capacity he’s willing to perform in. But Alexander made a strong case as to why he should have advanced, and why he shouldn’t have been made the sacrificial lamb to Ibushi this early, at least. In my eyes, he proved himself to be the smarter, more solid wrestler and storyteller. Ibushi became transparent—he’s magnificent, but he’s willing to wreck himself to entertain the fans, and he’ll destroy psychology to try and get over. That’s not to say he isn’t great, but more of he’s an extremely talented one-trick pony. (Okay, maybe two tricks.)

I can’t really support a wrestler as reckless and dangerous as Ibushi, especially when you consider that he left NJPW after a string of injuries, declaring that he was going to try and find a different, possibly safer way to work. Instead, he goes to the States and continues to do what he does, even though some of what he does is extremely unnecessary. That’s really not smart at all. I can’t get behind him.

Triple H’s onscreen acknowledgment at the end of this week’s CWC episode felt like an audible in the truest sense of the word. It felt like he realized somewhere in the middle of the match, perhaps in the moment where Alexander finally lost after all that he’d given, he shouldn’t have made this match and prescribed this result so early on in the tournament. If his breaking kayfabe to raise Alexander’s hand high wasn’t a symbolic contract offer right then and there, you know Alexander’s making it to the WWE sooner or later.

*****

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