Raw 4/7: The End and the Beginning

RVD should appear; Ezekiel Jackson certainly won't.

Apparently "Cameron" had her top fall off during the Diva's match ... I didn't see it because I was taking a leak ... in a bathroom for a change.

The advertised dark main event for tonight's RAW is Daniel Bryan, John Cena, and Batista vs. Bray Wyatt, Kane, and Alberto Del Rio. How that works out is well beyond me.

As I write, WWE stock is literally down 20% today. This is apparently due to not having enough network subscribers (about 670,000 at present).

Hopefully Cesaro gets a nice segment tonight.

You have to think Lesnar & Heyman get a segment or two tonight, which hopefully means Heyman cutting a fiendishly good promo as the advocate for his client, BRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrOCK! LlllllllllllllllESNAR!

Undertaker was hurt early in his match. He was taken to a hospital (as opposed to a generic 'nearby medical facility') by ambulance.

I'm sure they'll bring out all the HoF inductees (I still think they should roll a coffin out for Bill Moody). Let me know why Ultimate Warrior wants to look like a mini Kevin Nash.

Will The Shield finally start to break up? Will Roman Reigns be the next John Cena or John Morrison?

I'm tired of writing this, you're tired of reading it. See you fruits at showtime (not a Sting reference).

I'm guessing they start to build the Bryan/Orton rematch, with no skinny jeans. Thinking about the Brock/Taker match today, it was really awful. Those supplexs by Brock were ridiculous, Taker got about 6 inches off the ground. I still think something happened, and Taker told Brock he would get the win. Makes no sense to have a part timer be the one to end the streak. The guys on XM radio last night said that Brock needs be around full time now, since he would be a big time player now. Said that he has no love for the business, that's why he pops up every couple of months.

Taker didn't change the finish in the ring! Goodness gracious. Some things were definitely modified. Taker could barely go before getting concussed. He looked like a dude that knew he was done. I really hope Vince and Co. used this to get a better plan around Brock. I'm not a big fan, but he needs to be a regular top player now. At least for the next year. A build to WM31 with Bryan v Lesnar for the title could be huge.

The belts have been updated.

http://instagram.com/p/mgPB7UgFBY

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This bit will never get old.


Cranky Vince ‏@crankyvince 2m
SEXUALLY HARASSING SOMETHING.

Currently showing to the right of the picture:

thebest_intheworld
Wwe spoiled the whole show..The Undertaker is supposed to be immoral till the end

I read something that stupid and I all I can hope is that an aptly named group fulfills his biggest wish very soon.

(don't tell CiJ I made another joke like that ... I understand to a degree why it might bug him though ...)

Bryan starts us off.

It'd be nice if The American Dragon could get over with the fans .... </s>

Where's gold Wrath?

This could use Vince.

Hunter went full purple face right there.

you know, i have to confess to you guys that i really came around on HHH before the start of mania last night. i realized that with d-bry the whole screwjob/championship-chase going for, what, 9 months? yeah that was great booking as when i saw d-bry come out for the lidlifting match with trips with his shoulder all wrapped up i was like "jesus christ they might as well give him a slingshot while they're at it" ---- and yeah, with ~20hrs hindsight to give me a 20/20 perspective, the whole d-bry "moment" felt completely forced/manufactured/synthetic/etc.

when the proper mania was kicking off last night (not to be confused with the 16hrs of pre-show coverage) i found myself really hoping that HHH would find a way to anoint himself the championship and go nuclear heel on us, turning marks and smarks alike against him by using our pre-existing disdain of our perceptions of paul levesque coupled with storyline to make someone that you'd truly despise by living up to every stereotypical bad thing you could say about him (i.e. oh look it's HHH grabbing his shovel and burying somebody else! he never does the job! he wont put anyone over! whenever someone else has something huge going in the business he forces himself into the picture like when he was literally the special guest ref to kick off the summer of punk! etc etc etc) combined with the storyline to make a guy literally rubbing his taint all over the 4th wall by saying "fuck all of you guys i run this company so enjoy my 9001st championship reign"

yeah, i wanted him to leave with the belts last night.... even tho i knew it wouldn't happen because he's not going to put in the training/ringwork to go with being a champion.... and then we literally got forcefed our 100% organic and don't you dare question it daniel bryan "moment" because the E decided to finally co-opt people's desires and say "it's ok now. here you go"

so yeah, in lieu of HHH becoming the supermegauberultra FUCKYOU heel they had bork lazer end the streak and now he's gotta be the huge endgame first big fucking deal thing to do for champion d-bry. i realized about a month or two ago that the d-bry "thing" was all about the underdog crap (hence my david and goliath slingshot crack earlier) and then when he's champ.... what's left for him?

i'll be truly disappointed if they end up going LOLBORK and having him face d-bry at extreme rules. he has to be a summerslam/survivorseries/rumbel caliber "problem" for d-bry, meaning that somehow some way d-bry has to embark on another 3-9 month quest to finally get his shot at brock lesnar. i have no idea how they'll do it..... or if they'll just give in to the contemporary social-media-driven-instant-gratification thing and try to capitalize on bork's "big fucking deal" streakbusting by having him face d-bry in the match to end all matches....... at extreme rules (cuz with the network getting its 650k already, yeah, are PPVs and raws just gonna continue blending together like they have been for years?)

so yeah it'll be interesting to see what they do with this.... cuz now they've gone out of their way to take whatever was organic and genuine about the "yes movement" and formally laminate/package it as the #YESMOVEMENT and now it's on them to actually have interesting things for champion d-bry to do. in one sense a nice long title run could help give him long-term credibility.... but in another sense some sort of horrible injustice against him (hopefully without "the authority" involved) that takes away his title.... again, and gets him having to overcome insurmountable odds to get it back? well that could work. cuz clearly d-bry flourishes in the david/underdog role. vince has plenty of goliaths around cuz you know he likes his men (PILEDRIIIIIIIIIIIIIVVVEERRRRRR!!!!!!) and they already did the whole "people's champion becomes an egotistical douche tweener/heel" thing with punk pretty recently, so yeah, surprise me WWE. do something interesting other than YET ANOTHER FUCKING ZZZ D-BRY/ORTON MATCH CUZ OF THIS "REMATCH CLAUSE" WHICH MAKES YOUR WRITING ROOM LAZY AND COMPLACENT.

then again, cole's proven time and time again that they figure the audience doesn't even remember what happened 3 months ago (like when he's on a PPV saying NOBODY HAS EVER KICKED OUT OF AN ANGLE SLAM! NOBODY HAS EVER KICKED OUT OF AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! and in both cases it happened 3 months earlier on raw) let alone 1yr ago.... cuz when they say that this is the first time d-bry has ever faced batista you're not supposed to remember that one "beat the clock" match on raw when he was a NXT guy. so what the hell why not have him pull a punk and eventually become a smarmy egotistical douche tweener/heel just like punk did last year? nobody remembers punk.... well unless they happen to buy one of those new under armour WWE shirts with punk on it. or hell, didnt d-bry do the egotistical douche thing when he finally won the WHC and was "dating" AJ and all that? the WHC got to his head and he changed? yeah whatever. i don't even remember what happened last night cuz taker/bork caused me to black out and wake up in a bloody bathtub missing various vital/ish internal organs. c'est la vie.

/me chuckles as he goes to click the "post quick reply" button.

Wyatt needs a pin victory tonight.

Cutting to a commercial right when Bray comes in does not seem smart.