So I finished up my taxes earlier and watched portions of Raw thereafter. I didn’t get a chance to view the whole show until the next day as I took a long nap (or maybe it was my actual rest) because my sleep schedule is completely off. That said, if it weren’t for the release of stress from dealing with taxes, this show could’ve easily knocked me out. There were one or two good things and a whole lot of rotten rather than rosie.
Thankfully, this was the last of the international shows for a while. The crowds honestly have gotten on my nerves to the point where instead of enhancing these shows, they serve more as another distraction that require me to fast forward. This show was at the O2 Arena in London, England and that’s what I felt I needed as this show seemed to suck the O2 from my brain as I tried to get through this mess.
John Cena / Cody Rhodes in Ring Promo
This easily was my favorite part of the show. Poor Cena comes to the ring and doesn’t manage to get a single word in as it’s Cody’s turn to interrupt with his extraneously lengthy entrance. And as mentioned previously, the crowd disallows the real part of the “show” to start with their chanting, singing and opinions. By the time the first words came in from Cena, it was 9 minutes in. 9 minutes to start a fucking show. Luckily, they actually pulled this off quite well.
As I had been complaining up until now, the primary issue I’ve had with Cena’s heel turn is establishing the “why”. Here, he finally gets to the point: he’s mad at Cody in particular for stealing all his advice and becoming a farce to represent the company. He feels insulted and disrespected for all that he fought for, the times he tried to mentor Cody for which Cody thieved Cena’s goodwill to become a fake version (or faker) of Cena, a facade where people could see through Cody’s disingenuous disposition with the suits and neck tattoo. It was such a great speech that Cena got the crowd to slightly turn back for him especially when Cody (almost seeming to prove Cena’s point) that the crowd chose him rather than McMahon.
In that brief moment of fakedom that Cody exuded by pandering to the crowd, he nearly lost them. But he got them back when Cody pointed out that the now unnamed owner Vince was the one who selected Cena. They’re really digging deep in these promos. Eventually, Cody still feels Cena is his hero but now is a piece of shit. LOL. So much for the PG era of Cena. As Cena turns to leave, Cody tells him, “At least, they never told me I can’t wrestle.” Now, that triggers Cena to come back and confront Cody. Cena tries to go for a cheap shot but Cody leaves the now unsuper Cena laying in the middle of the ring.
Honestly, this was a fantastic segment. Easily the best of the three they’ve had. The thing that made me happy more than anything was establishing Cena’s personal anger towards Cody and why he needs to face Cody and beat him to get his championship back. This might’ve been Cena’s ultimate promo. There was still one major problem: Cody points out that he never sold out to the Rock. Great line, but now we’ve opened that hole back up, meaning why did Cena need to turn to the Rock to sell himself out? Cena already would’ve had the clout, the legacy and good will to deserve the chance to be in the Elimination Chamber. But why was his alignment with the Rock even necessary? The personal reason between himself and Cody makes perfect sense for me but without establishing his relationship with the Rock, they still need one major part of the story resolved in this.
When we take the Rock with his desire for Cody to sell his soul to him, it still never made any sense. As I’ve stated before, no one in this world ever goes up to anyone and asks for their soul (except Vince McMahon but he’s the exception). If Cena already had sold his soul to the Rock prior to his Elimination Chamber win, why would the Rock bother asking Cody? If Cody had said, yes would that have changed Cena’s response towards Cody? So that’s the biggest wrench in the story to me.
The only way I can make any sense of where this may lead is that Cena and the Rock feel disrespected by these young kids like Cody who have used social media to move up. There’s a disrespect of the establishment from the younger generation that wants to do their fancy moves or bad wrestling whatever that need to be taught the harsh realities of wrestling that these older generations paid their dues for. The people who stuck it out for the WWE rather than hightailed it because they couldn’t deal with the pressure. That is the real disrespect. So if they used that type of idea for Cena and the Rock joining up, two people who would mutually understand this situation, it makes plenty of sense. Either way, they need to still establish why Cena would need the Rock in the first place especially after the rivalry they had where now it’s Cody’s turn for the baton to be handed down but without acknowledging with deference those that came before him. Something like that.
From here on out, it’s all downhill.
The New Day vs New Catch Republic
The new New Day came out ahead of time and tried to do their spiel in complaining about getting a tag shot. Someone pointed out that they lost a lot of momentum since their heel turn and I couldn’t agree more. Even if they won here, I don’t understand why they turned heel nor where they’re going at this rate. I think they got put in against those luchadores and pretty much killed off their heat because those matches were competitive and didn’t really go anywhere. This was another match that seemed mostly as a warm up for a come back of someone that was injured but I didn’t care. Afterwards, the new New Day confronted the War Raiders and I’m guessing they’ll have a tag team title match soon.
Jimmy Uso vs Gunther
There was some stuff between Jey and Jimmy earlier where Jimmy is trying to give Jey confidence going into WM. Truthfully, I think these segments are killing Jey and I honestly don’t believe he’ll beat Gunther at this point (especially if my CM Punk theory comes true). The match between Jimmy and Gunther felt more like a glorified squash. Thereafter the break, there’s a LONG ass beat down from Gunther on Jimmy where Jey had chased Gunther to the back but Gunther sneak attacked them and tied Jey to the ropes with a zip tie then proceeded to jack Jimmy up. Jey’s reactions sucked in this whole thing. He just stood around most of the time and watched. This wasn’t like Elizabeth having an emotional breakdown when the Macho Man was tied up in the ropes and Jake Roberts put a (defanged) cobra on Randy’s arm. If HHH is thinking of Jey be the one to beat Gunther, he should seriously look at this and realize that the iron ain’t hot anymore.
Dominik Mysterio & Finn Balor vs Bron Breakker & Penta
Bleh match with a semi surprising finish of Finn picking up the win over Penta. Announcers mentioned this was Penta’s first pin fall loss despite it being a tag match. But I’m willing to bet this is to eventually set him back up with his brother Rey Fenix whom the announcers also mentioned is coming in and is tag partners with Penta.
AJ Styles and Logan Paul in Ring Promo
Basically, setting up another WM match. Styles seemed to get lost in his interview when the crowd distracted him and Paul had to pick up the last part off. Always funny hearing that. Logan is boring as fuck to me. He’s like MJF when MJF gets redundant in terms of insulting the audience and praising himself for cheap heat. The thing is that unlike MJF, Logan is a legitimate heel, meaning people actually hate this fucker. Either way, that was another segment that took too long to accomplish anything.
Lyra Valkyria Backstage Segment
Lyra is just too generic to me. But the point here was to setup her and Natalia…I mean Bayley. See, Bayley does herself nor anyone in that division favors in trying to be like Michelle Yeoh in being everything everywhere all at once. You know she’s going to put someone over in trying to help train them and make them look good. But if you’re someone who’s given this position that’s on the downslide of her career, it shouldn’t be this obvious. Lyra needs help but it won’t come from having a gratuitous match against Bayley.
Iyo Sky vs Rhea Ripley
This was the championship match with Bianca as the referee so you know that something screwy was going to happen. The match itself needs to be addressed due to how rotten it came off. Some people are putting the blame on Rhea but I think it’s Iyo who was god awful. Iyo is like a slightly better and slimmer version of Emi Sakura at this point. But anytime I watch Iyo she comes off as sloppy. Her punches don’t come close, she tries to go too fast, her selling is spurious at best and worst yet she tries to do things that are far more complex than she should be doing. Rather than adjusting her style, she continues to wrestle as though she were 10 years younger.
This match made me wonder if they were jetlagged because moves were missed and nothing really made an impact. Worse yet the crowd was convinced that they were witnessing a 5* classic, which is why I’m glad that this tour is ending. Bianca looked and acted clueless as a referee. I get that was part of her “role” but there were moments of the match like someone throwing a punch where Bianca just stood around. The only times she became “activated” again like some Roomba vacuum was when she had to make a three count. Otherwise, she was as bad as Rick Knox. Is this why so many women’s matches are bad? The women don’t even know some of the basic rules to make their matches look like actual matches?
But holy god this was a car crash to watch. Of course, Bianca declared a double DQ and there was a sloppy brawl with Rhea going nuts because her WM slot is fading. So she attacks both women without the support of the crowd and Bianca gets a gnarly looking Riptide from the 2nd rope. I don’t excuse anyone for this mess. This whole thing was unbearable to watch.
Final Thoughts
The only thing really worth caring about is Cena vs Cody. They’re closing in on really sealing the deal in making their match intriguing. I mean, when was the last time you saw Cena’s super armor penetrated? Maybe there have been other moments but he was left laying lol. I still think this turn came 10-12 years too late. That said, will we get to see more Cena leading up to WM? It seemed that Cody hinted at it being a while or perhaps only at WM where we’ll get to see Cena again, which would be a shame because Cena not only has been on fire but he’s started to make sense right here. Again, without that Rock connection explanation, there’s still more of the story that needs to be developed. And they still have a few weeks before WM.
As for the rest of the show, it was absolute garbage. Just filler where the WWE knew they could throw the less important people on the show. Take the New Catch Republic as an example with this Tyler Bate guy. I’ve never heard of him. Apparently, he was on NXT and tagged with Pete Dunne on NXT. But if Pete Dunne is deemed that important, why relegate him to NXT? In short, you had two unimportant job guys where one guy made his return in his home country to a mild pop appearing like one of those 80s job guys who’d get an early hope spot but inevitably losing. A match like that helps no on, especially the new New Day if we were meant to care.
Next, let’s address the Iyo Sky issue. I’ve seen only one match where she was impressive and that was against Bianca Belair. Since then, I haven’t seen her do a single impressive thing. Her style just doesn’t work well and either there’s miscommunications or she’s trying to go too fast but nothing is clicking. Despite a lot of online people liking her, I can’t see why. At least if she was fast and crisp, I wouldn’t mind. But to be put into that spot and just botch things up over and over again then people trying to convince others that she’s good…something ain’t right. It’s not just this match either. And I don’t fault Rhea here.