Choke's WWE Raw Rant and Smackdown Preview 6/21/2014 - 6/25/2014
Posted by: choke Jun 27, 2014 | 1408 views | 5 comments
Running late this week. By the time most of you see this you'll probably have seen Smackdown so you can laugh at my awful predictions. I'll address the Brock Lesnar Summerslam poster stuff and Bread n Butter's injury in rising/falling (can you guess which one is on which list?)
RAW Rant
This week's Raw didn't do much for me. Story-wise most of it made sense; the tag team solo matches set up the title match for this Sunday nicely, Naomi got an enhancement win over the former #1 contender to set up the Divas match for Sunday, the faces won another lopsided tag match against the heels but set up an eight entrant in Kane. Kane's inclusion is odd, and the fact that Bryan and Kane were going to have a matchup at MITB originally leads me to believe the WWE will somehow still have that match, possibly setting it up on the pre-show with Bryan challenging Kane for his spot in the MITB match, or Bryan savagely beating Kane and knocking him out of the match. Is there any other purpose to having Kane in it other than Bryan's future with the belt? Bo Dallas won again but I'm shocked they didn't throw him into the MITB. I suppose they didn't feel like giving him the case and also wanted to protect him by not having him take a loss, even though generally those group matches don't "count" towards that. It does make sense though to keep his sheet completely clean. The Vicki stuff, as anyone could have anticipated, was a complete train-wreck. Proud is not how I would think to describe Eddie if he could have seen that. I could go a lot more into MITB but I'll save that for my Predictions story coming soon
Smackdown Preview
1. Bad News Brown vs Dean Ambrose in a non-title match. This is where Barrett gets injured and is likely going to be out MITB and maybe not back until after Battleground. Gotta guess that Rollins interferes as neither of these men should be taking a loss in this spot.
2. Paige vs Cameron: Well Naomi has a title shot Sunday, and they're clearly going a heel turn route with Cameron, so maybe after Paige wins clean they'll have Naomi try to console Cameron only to be attacked. Something will make the three of them mix it up eventually.
3. Bray Wyatt vs Sheamus: Should be a good match. Hard for me to see either guy losing clean, so the easy call is to say Harper and Rowan interfere and the Usos make the save.
4. RVD and Ziggler vs Del Rio and Cesaro: Am I overboard thinking all these matches could/will end in a schmozz? Since Del Rio and Cesaro are in the title match and RVD and Ziggler are in the case match, my personal logic would say that Del Rio and Cesaro should take precedence as far as "story". I could see both teams ending up fighting each other so that Cole can yell out something about it being "every man for himself this Sunday!" I'll go with Cesaro taking the win since I think he's getting more shine than the others currently.
5. Rusev vs Sin Cara: Rusev crush. Big E confront. They wave flag.
6. Roman Reigns vs Kane: This has to end with at least a handful of the top guys in the MITB match fighting with each other right? Surely Orton will be out there, and Cena is likely as well. Since the other 4 all had matches earlier in the night, maybe they'll abstain, but I think Reigns takes this win, then all hell(fire?) breaks loose
OVERALL: A few opportunities for good matches, but most likely to be ruined by interference or general fuckery. MITB looks exciting but this show doesnt look like it'll do much more to sell it IMO. 3 jameson shots out of 5.
RISING
1. Dolph Ziggler: He's been relatively irrelevant (I like that combo of words) for the last few seasons, but slowly but surely the WWE has been working him back into the bigger picture it seems. Is it all a smokescreen? Possibly. But I dont think gold is out of the question for Dolph in the next few months, especially considering Wade's injury
2. Cameron: Clearly a feud is developing with her and Naomi, and with Naomi getting the title shot this Sunday, if she wins it then that would mean Cameron within a month or two might be getting title shots herself. Even if not, a heel turn usually results in some victories over lesser opponents for a while, so having her beat the holy hell out of Natalya or some other random Diva could be in the cards with a back and forth win/loss feud against Naomi, for the title or not.
3. Brock Lesnar: You've probably seen how much the WWE seems to be hyping a Cena/Lesnar match at Summerslam. While I dont know if I believe the WWE would show those cards this early, I do believe that's pretty much a lock that Lesnar returns by then. Not sure if he's worth holding for a month and a half just waiting, but now is about the appropriate time to pick him up I'd say just in case.
Also: Daniel Bryan has to be back wrestling soon, but it's not like he's available.
FALLING
1. Wade Barrett: I mean if you're the doctor who takes an X-Ray on Barrett, dont you have to start it with the "Wade, I'm afraid I've got some....." You just have to right? This is a pain in the ass if you have him on your team as you have to probably stick it out with him even though he might not get you a point for the next month. Then again if you drop him and someone else snatches him up in 3 weeks and he makes an early return to win the title back, you cant really risk that? Tough times.
2. The Usos: I got a bad feeling about Sunday. Prediction thread spoiler alert.
3. El Torito: ¿Donde es?
I'll be back soon with my MITB preview and predictions!