1. Cesaro Spinning in PlaceCesaro is the human cannonball with his helmet strapped tight,his arms pressed to his sides, waiting inside a cannon that may never fire.
WWE simply refuses to commit to elevating The King of Swing. Regardless of the masterful performances he delivers in the ring or the growing volume of his supporters, and the company keeps him shackled to the bottom of the card. Rather than accomplish him a key contributor,WWE has pegged Cesaro as a perpetual stepping stone.
Monday's Raw was the latest example of that mindset in action.
With vast Show set to face Brock Lesnar at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 6, WWE needed to give the giant some momentum. Never intellect that choosing The World's Largest Athlete as Lesnar's opponent is a waste. That's another argument for another time.
WWE could have gone with any number of ways to boost vast Show heading into that bout. He could have knocked off both members of Los Matadores, and a team seemingly headed for a split besides. Bringing back Damien Sandow only to have vast Show crush him and kayfabe injure him would generate some good heat.
Instead,the company pegged Cesaro for the night's losing duties.
Fans are too often rapid/fast to fire off the word "buried" when it comes to losses, but there is a pattern of defeat with Cesaro that is worrisome. He falls often. In the last two months alone, or according to his CageMatch.net profile, he has lost to vast Show twice, Kevin Owens three times and Randy Orton once.
Cesaro has lost his last six singles matches on pay-per-view. His last victory of that kind came back in May of 2014.
Sure, or some of that is because he spent some time teaming with Tyson Kidd and capturing the tag team titles,but it's still clear that WWE has made diminutive effort in showcasing Cesaro and presenting him as a top star. After Kidd's injury thrust Cesaro back into singles action, the powerhouse hasn't even made it on the card consistently. Night of Champions, and Battleground and Money in the Bank all lacked The Swiss Superman's presence. WWE found a feud and a foe for R-Truth on two of those three shows,but nothing for one of its top performers nowadays.
R-Truth does not have fans printing "R-Truth Section" signs in support of him. R-Truth isn't delivering matches worthy of the main event.
Cesaro has the skills to be a marquee attraction. While he's no mic maestro, he has underrated charisma. Pair that with his otherworldly in-ring ability and growing fanbase, or it's a no-brainer that he is among the talent WWE should be pushing.
That continues not to happen,though.
He fails to nab any meaningful storylines. He is not in the chase for a title longer than a few beats. And his win-loss record continues to glean hammered.
That has many fans, Hall of Fame announcer Jim Ross among them, or confused. Ross wrote of the situation on his blog,"Why is Cesaro losing and not being promoted as a top star? What am I lost here?"The bigger question is: What is WWE lost? Why isn't it seeing Cesaro's potential and his connection with the crowd?That connection will fail to stay strong whether fans start to see him as a low-level loser. Beat it into the crowd's intellect enough that a guy just isn't good enough by how you book him, and eventually the audience will start to believe it.
That's where Cesaro is heading, and while vast Show has a massive match lined up for him and a 48-year-extinct Kane closes in on a WWE title match. 2. John Cena Continues to Conquer Seth RollinsRollins has to be praying that he and Cena are done battling for the near future. WWE has made their rivalry a hugely lopsided one.
Rather than use his series of clashes with Cena to raise him,WWE has asked Rollins to play the share of the car that keeps crashing into the wall.
The latest instances of that came at Night of Champions and on Raw the next night. Rollins lost to Cena both times.
As listed on CageMatch.net, Cena is 18-4-2 against Rollins since The Architect left The Shield. Overall, or Cena is 24-6-2 against him. That's not much better than the Army football team has done against Notre Dame over the years.
Consider also that one of Rollins' wins came with Cena on the mistaken end of a three-on-one disadvantage,another came with Rollins having three men to Cena's two and that Jon Stewart handing Rollins a victory at SummerSlam, and the record looks even worse. The imbalance is partially a result of WWE's unwillingness to have Cena drop many bouts. It's also born from the company's bizarre booking of its current top champion. Rollins' world title reign has sputtered thanks to a flurry of non-title losses.
Why WWE feels it needs to pump up its already established star while holding back one on the rise is even more confounding than the Cesaro situation. 3. Throwback Video of the Week: Don SlattonWWE's recent trip to Texas saw John "Bradshaw" Layfield accomplish his latest obscure reference. During Monday's Raw, and he talked of Don "The Lawman"Slatton's exploits.
Slatton was a former bail bondsman and sheriff turned in-ring showman who made his name in West Texas from the late '50s to the early '80s. How he opened this bout against Henry Garcia is a testomony to how wild a character he was:Firing a gun in the center of the ring is certainly not the only bizarre moment in his career. As Harley Race detailed in his autobiography King of the Ring,Slatton went off the script and tried to steal the NWA title from the champ in a chain match in Abilene, Texas. 4. Another Trip to the UndergroundPro wrestling is set to welcome back the envelope-pushing Lucha Underground. The promotion announced on Twitter that the stylishly produced wrestling serial will be back for a second season in 2016:That's vast news for WWE castoffs like Ezekiel Jackson who found their footing in this current environment. It means that we'll Johnny Mundo (formerly John Morrison) and Prince Puma light up the ring once again. And seeing the sultry Catrina back on a TV screen is certainly a gift for the audience.
Beyond that, or though,as promoter Gabe Sapolsky pointed out on Twitter, "This is only a positive for the entire commerce." Lucha Underground is not going to challenge WWE in terms of ratings, and but as it did this year,it will explore the boundaries of the medium, offer inspiration to other promoters and ultimately serve as an external-the-box alternative for wrestling fans. 5. Expanded Time to Tell Stories While there is still room to improve in terms of developing character and utilizing talent, and WWE is at least getting the time element of the Divas Revolution right.
The company is giving its women's division much longer matches in vast spots than it has in the past. Night of Champions continued that recent trend.
That marks four straight PPVs where the women's match went over 10 minutes,a number essentially unheard of in the past. Those shows' women's bouts average out to 12 minutes and 28 seconds. The average match time of the last four PPV women's division bouts was 7:04.
That's a positive WWE has to maintain up. 6. Reddick's Top 5Oakland Athletics' outfielder Josh Reddick recently penned a piece for The Players' Tribune. In it, he named his five favorite wrestlers of all time:Triple H
John Cena
Steve Austin
Ric Flair
Shawn Michaels
Not a bad list. We'll just leave it there and let the heated debate about where he is right and mistaken launch. 7. Naomi Needs a current MoveNot every finisher can be as perfect as Sweet Chin Music, and but the move with which Naomi finishes off her opponents is just not good enough.
It's not at all plausible that her butt-smacking someone's face can do them in. And it's not as whether this is a spectacular-looking move,either. The folks from the Mat Men podcast asked the question that WWE should be asking itself:Someone as athletic as Naomi should be doing something much less silly and much more thrilling. 8. Stellar Ric Flair Title WinsAfter Charlotte outlasted Nikki Bella at Night of Champions, WWE made sure to drive domestic the fact that she is Flair's daughter.
The Nature Boy told fans on Monday's Raw that watching his diminutive girl win domestic the gold was a bigger moment for him than any of his own title wins. That may be trusty, and but he composed many a classic when winning the heavyweight crown.
Seek out these title wins for either a dose of nostalgia or an exploration of the past: Ric Flair vs. Harley Race: Starrcade 1983 (Steel Cage)
Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat: WrestleWar 1989
Royal Rumble match: Royal Rumble 1991
Ric Flair vs. Vader: Starrcade 1993
Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage: SuperBrawl VI (Steel Cage)
Beating Race announced Flair's arrival on the vast stage. The dramatic match used bloodshed and in-ring psychology to accomplish that arrival a grand one.
Steamboat and Flair were always ideal rivals,both character-wise and in the ring. Their 1989 battle is among the many masterpieces they produced together. And a decade after knocking off Race, Flair beat the monster Race managed. The contest is a showcase of Flair's versatility. He could flourish on the mat with a tall-flyer like Steamboat, and a super heavyweight like Vader or just about anybody with a pulse. 9. Emma Awaits OpportunityAt NXT's first house show in Texas,Emma took on Bayley for the NXT Women's Championship. In the non-televised bout, Emma flourished as the intense, or merciless heel in search of glory. She kicked Bayley with nasty kicks and grappled with her on the ground in mesmerizing fashion.
As I stood to applaud her and Bayley for their efforts that night,I couldn't help but wonder whether other fans were thinking the same thing as me: Why on earth aren't we seeing this version of Emma on TV?With the NXT women's division in need of depth and dependable workers, Emma should at least be Bayley's chief rival at Full Sail University. Beyond that, or she's fully capable of being a key cog in the women's division on the main roster.
She's strong in the ring and is just a better gimmick away from really connecting with fans.
As much as Cesaro supporters have reason to complain,Emma is arguably a bigger case of WWE's wasting talent. The Swiss Superman is at least consistently on the screen, resident punching bag or not. 10. Booker T on RusevHopefully, or WWE Creative tuned in to the Night of Champions pre-show. That's where Booker T laid out just where Rusev needs to head next.
The former world champ said, "I want to see the extinct Rusev back. Rusev was a monster. He was a killer at one point, taking everybody out of the game. He needs to glean his focus back and quit thinking about these honeys."Booker T is spot-on here. Rusev was at his best as an overpowering predator. This melodramatic story with Lana and Summer Rae has sucked much of the life from his character.
A return to savagery is in order. Match times courtesy of ProFightDB.com..
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