Venting

By Chad Smart

@ChadSmart on Twitter

Those of you reading this who follow my123cents on Facebook and Twitter probably read all my negative postings about Monday night’s episode of Raw. For a go home episode before a major Pay Per View the show actually made me less interested in SummerSlam.  This will be the third consecutive SummerSlam to take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and the third consecutive SummerSlam that I will choose to watch on TV instead of attending in person. That slightly angers me as I have not attended a SummerSlam and would like to eventually attend all four of the major PPVs.

Part of my anger towards Raw was the way Triple H appears to be setting himself up as a major player in the feud between CM Punk and John Cena. Trips naming himself as guest referee when there has been no reason given for the need of a special referee, along with how he made himself seem like the most important person in WWE, turned the spotlight from Punk/Cena onto the already stale beyond belief authority figure. At the end of the show when Cena and Punk got into a scuffle, Triple H got involved.  This set off alarms as I don’t see the match at SummerSlam ending without either a Survivor Series ’98 or Montreal ’97 type screw job taking place. Both scenarios make for lazy and nonsensical storytelling in this situation.

In addition to Triple H inserting himself into the title vs. title match on Sunday, there was also another video from Dwayne insulting John Cena during the contract signing. Yes Cena and The Rock are fighting at Wrestlemania. Yes, it’s the biggest match at Wrestlemania in several years. It doesn’t need to be referenced every week. When tickets for Wrestlemania are about to go on sale, having Rock show up to hype the match is a good idea. When he has nothing to do with the match at hand it is not necessary to have him repeat childish insults. By the way the contract signing was handled, for the first 90% of the segment, CM Punk was the 4^th important person in the mix. The guy who was the hottest commodity in wrestling 4 weeks ago is now regulated to playing sidekick to two guys who barely wrestle anymore.

Take all that and mix in no matches being added to round out SummerSlam, and a couple matches happening on Raw that would have been logical inclusions on Sunday and you have one frustrating show. But the more I thought about the show there were a few things happening, or not happening is more accurate, in WWE-land that make me wonder what the writers are thinking. Vince McMahon has often said over the last decade WWE is not a wrestling company they’re an entertainment company. They make movies. Well, he needs to examine all the plot holes in his script. Here are a couple of the issues I spent too much time thinking about.

Ever since CM Punk said he was leaving WWE there has been no interaction between him and the New Nexus. If you were part of a group and you’d spent months getting your butt kicked trying to help your leader win matches, when the leader says he leaving would you not confront him? How about when the leader leaves for a week then comes back? Would you not ask what was going on? So why have David Otunga and Michael McGillicuty been MIA for the past 6 weeks?  One of my biggest pet peeves in wrestling is how storylines get dropped with no mention of them ever existing.

Speaking of never existing, is the RAW General Manager on vacation? Ever since Vince McMahon got involved in the CM Punk angle there have been no emails from the GM.  Not only have there been on emails, there has been no mention of the GM. Yet his podium is still ringside. I understand Triple H is the new COO so he is the focus of being in charge. Why can’t he simply say he got rid of the GM or until he leaves, the GM is on hiatus? Again, a prominent weekly fixture seemingly disappeared into thin air.

In the grand scheme of things, these are probably minor complaints. Guess I’m just really frustrated because the CM Punk storyline had such great potential and it appears to have a shelf life of 7 weeks.  Hopefully I’m wrong and the match at SummerSlam will lead to something exciting.

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