RAW Deal: Extreme Autopilot

LONDON—After all the goodwill WrestleMania 31 surprisingly earned, the WWE’s back to its old meandering self. What should have been an April propelled by a strong train of momentum is now—due to factors both beyond and under their power—looking like an overstuffed 747 on cruise control. It’s not flying high above the Alps just yet, but it’s a bit wayward.

Let’s check in with our big WrestleMania players three weeks after the grand event.

• Seth Rollins, the exciting new WWE World Heavyweight Champion, is locked into a feud with Randy Orton that turned promising to boring really fast. Yes, their matches are sure to be great, but with the exception of Mindgames Orton, Creative has been terribly mishandling the Viper since his return from the sidelines. This rivalry needs drama and fast, and the best way to do that is to bring back Angry Methhead Randy that shined before he was taken out.
• Roman Reigns is stuck in the limbo between main event contention and going back to the midcard. His greatest dance partner so far in Brock Lesnar is out taking his stipulated break, so Reigns is back to his wayward path of not being a convincing enough badass. A heel turn didn’t need to happen, considering what happened at WrestleMania, but a newfound edge wouldn’t have hurt. He pulled it off in the weeks after the Royal Rumble, and I don’t see why he couldn’t do that now.
• John Cena is both elevating the competition for the United States Championship and holding down the rest of its possible contenders at the same time. It’s a mixed bag.
• Daniel Bryan is staring at a convoluted Intercontinental title picture and aggravated injuries, putting a speed bump on what should be a hot environment right now.
• Bray Wyatt is back on his grind, but he may be more damaged than Creative realizes, and needs something drastic to fix his image real soon.
• Paige and the Bellas are trying to rehabilitate a Divas division that saw AJ Lee retire from the WWE. It’s possible to fix it, but it’s slightly painful to watch at the moment, Divas chances aside.
• Tyson Kidd and Cesaro are taking on all comers, but have not experienced any growth since their days of chasing the titles. They’re in danger of losing the belts to popular newcomers Lucha Dragons.

The problem is the WWE has realized that it’s okay for a build to be lackluster, as long as they put all their chips and go all in on a PPV. And we’ll be the ones who’ll sit here and complain and buy it anyway, because we also know the routine. It’s up to you, then, whether you’ll sit here and take all of this. I’m just your humble scribe. 

High spots:

• The problems with Cena’s open challenge persist, but at least Bad News Barrett kicked out of an Attitude Adjustment. Demerits for kicking out of a wickedly stiff Bullhammer, however. 

• Someone in Creative is trying to poke fun at the other boneheaded ideas that… come from Creative. First the Prime Time Players are lambasting the terrible gimmicks that exist in the tag division, and now Naomi’s lambasting the lack of logic at play when it comes to organizing the Divas championship picture. I don’t know who you are, but I like you already. Let’s hope this means “wrestling logic” will be phased out eventually.
• I don’t personally mind another Big Show/Roman Reigns feud because those two have an underrated little dynamic, but I could understand why some people would be against it. If they could build it like how Reigns/Lesnar was supposed to be built, then better. Just have them slug it out and punch each other up and down arenas.
• The Kane story is still ongoing, and if you didn’t believe me last week when I said he was heading for a face turn… well, egg’s on you now!
• Neville/Ziggler. Go watch that match. If you’re complaining about Neville losing two in a row, if you were the booker, would you really have him lose to Dolph Ziggler and the WWE World Heavyweight Champion in his first three matches? 

• ChaChaLaLa is back! 

Low blows:

• Three hours is really handicapping RAW. This show doesn’t need to be three hours, and everyone—from the audience to the wrestlers to the writers—are stressed and exhausted trying to come up with ways to properly fill up three hours every Monday. The thing is you can’t do it like that. It’s not possible. A couple of years of this have proven that it just cannot be done, no matter how talented the roster is. It’s just too much.
• I don’t care who you are (unless you’re a monster in the mold of Andre the Giant or Brock Lesnar), but a single man cannot go over the Tag Team Champions, no matter how small the champions are. As champions, they’re supposed to be booked as an elite team who are unbeatable together. If a single man can beat them at their own game, then why do we still have a tag team division? They’ve just proven that tag teams are meaningless so long as you’re contending for a prestigious-enough championship.
• I don’t like Naomi turning heel. There are very few face Divas on the main roster as it is, and Naomi’s role could have been portrayed by an Alicia Fox or Natalya. Unless, of course, they’re bringing up Charlotte and/or Bayley to buttress the ranks.
• Damien Mizdow is losing more and more steam every time he walks out as The Miz. I’m sure everyone really wants him to break out on his own, and I’mreally hoping the endgame is him coming out as Damien Sandow again to really beat the Miz. As it stands, however, the drama that stemmed from the tension while they were working together is all gone.

Do you listen to podcasts? Would you want to listen to a local podcast about pro wrestling? If the answers to most of 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 the PWR) Raf Camus! On their latest episode, they discuss the post-WrestleMania 31 wrestling world. Listen to it here!