WWE Power Rankings, RAW 3/24/2014

Coming at you from Brooklyn, but all I can think about is “Winter is Coming” and Captain America: Winter Soldier.  I’ve already warned friends and family that two weeks forms now, I’m not to be bothered because it is going to be a very busy “nerd” weekend.  Luckily, or wisely, The Walking Dead’s season finale is this weekend, as to avoid television watchers the realization that one program is a truly great show, Game of Thrones, and the other is a passable adaptation that’s found a huge audience that’s just looking for some Sunday night relief via mindless brain-smashing gore, The Walking Dead, before going to work on Monday.  

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As I mentioned last week, I want to do one of my famous RAW mashups.  What better time to do a GoT / RAW mashup? I’ll tell you what time, next week.  Why wait?  Easy, because this is the last week before what’s usually the most straight forward RAW of the year.  Next week’s RAW is when they sell WresleMania and walk the thin marketing tightrope of bringing out all the stars and hyping up all the matches for WM30 while not showing anything new.  Maybe for the fair weather or occasional wrestling fan the WWE needs to have a show to set up WM30 but We hardcore weekly fans need not a show that recaps what’s been going on over the past few months and what the major feuds are.  With the assumption that next week will be a 3-hour commercial for WM30, that’s when I’ll do the Game of Thrones mashup.  Besides, I’ve got to start re-watching the past 30 GoT episodes to make sure I’m nice and ready for the season premier.  Always remember “beware episode nine of each season of Game of Thrones.”  We’ll travel through WWEsteros next week.

The penultimate episode of RAW before WM30 is the last chance to for anything major to happen.  Even with most of the WrestleMania card set, there’s still some fine tuning, tweaks to be made and a few slots that need to be fleshed out and character’s roles defined.  The biggest question that remains is, What is Shield going to do?  Most everybody is involved in a feud or pointed into the direction of a match.  Even those who aren’t doing anything week-to-week will be thrown into the 30-man Battle Royal.  The Shield are the only major characters that don’t have a set feud or match.  This week’s RAW should tell us what their role in WM will be.  

Love him or hate him, HHH ran RAW last week.  He, Stephanie and the creative team did what’s “best for business” and interjected some life into the main event at WM30.  Some could complain that he did so by making himself the center of attention but you’re not going to hear too many complaints out of me.  Say what you will about HHH and the front and backstage history that follows him, he’s rarely boring and knows how to put on a good wrestling product in and out of the ring.  The last few weeks have been interesting to say the least and have given the wresting universe something to talk about.

The pre-WM30 hype has already begun with a planned appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Joe Manganiello (also to promote their upcoming Sabotage movie).  This duo is eerily similar to the Hogan / Cena team-up from a few weeks ago.  The past his prime superstar and the new generation of action / wrestling star.  At the very least it will be interesting to see how “Big Dick Richie” sizes up to the current crop of wrestlers.  

Oh, and let’s not just skim past the fact the WWE is in Brooklyn, NY.  Some would call the Barclay’s Center the new home of the WWE.  No matter if it’s MSG or Barclay’s, the New York crowd can always be counted as one of the best rasslin’ crowds which always makes for a good show.  

So with that, let’s get to the rankings as of this week’s RAW on 3/24/2014…

1. HHH and Stephanie (1&2) – You’ve got to be impressed with the type of work that HHH and Stephanie are putting into their product.  Take the Mr. McMahon character for example.  It was good.  It was great to have such a villainy villain who seemed to revel in what he did, but it was the same each week.  It wasn’t bad, it was just the same.  HHH and Stephanie are the bad guys but each week they challenge themselves and the audience on how we interpret them as heels.  Each week, the duo is able to keep even the snarkiest heel-loving marks, such as myself, on our toes.  You never know if they’re going to come out and give the audience what they want or choose to care less and give the audience the exact opposite.  They handpick RKO to be the unified champ and then undermine his entire title reign.  They’ll slip in phrases that challenge performers on and off the WWE roster.  They’ll reference backstage rumors from 10 years ago or a tweet from before the show.  They’ll speak their lines without flinching or hesitation with 15-20,000 people chanting for a wrestler that to all accounts is no longer active (CM Punk).  They’ll stop the show to antagonize the crowd, just because they can.  They’re the magicians / puppet masters who are so good and confident that they’re willing to show you how they do their tricks because they know they’ve got better ones lined up next week.  This week, Stephanie came out and displayed balls bigger than any male wrestler in the WWE.  She took on an extremely hot crowd by herself with only her “intellect and character” (I love this woman) and has made Batista and RKO something to watch, whereas a few weeks ago everyone was dreading the WM30 main event.  Last week HHH took the risk of making the show all about HHH but it worked out in part to a high powered, brutality filled ending.  This week HHH decided, in the middle of a fired up NYC crowd, to have a 60 minutes-like sit-down interview AND it still worked.  Any other promoter would have killed to have such a crazed crowd.  HHH had a crazed crowd and decided to stop the show to do a shoot on them and the other wrestlers?!  It’s amazing.  HHH and Stephanie might not have hit the extremes of last week but they did a very good job.  While Mr. McMahon might have ridden out the Batista vs RKO match in past years, HHH and Stephanie are not afraid to switch things up just right up to the last minute to make the WM30 main even better.  Respect. 
   
   
   
   
2. The Shield (7) – If I gave even half a shit about Ryb-Axel, I might have felt sorry for them when The Shield came out.  But I don’t, so I didn’t.  Thank you Shield for taking out Ryb-Axel.  This was a big night for The Shield.  We learned their fate for WM30 and we got them in two matches and one promo, both of which they’re just so fucking cool.  Is there a week that Rollins DOESN’T do something new?  That’s not to take away from Ambrose or Reigns but Rollins has stolen the show / match for the past month and has raised his game.  Once thought to be the odd man out if The Shield were to ever break up, now he might be the best wrestler of the three.  We now know what’s in-store for The Shield at WM30, a 6-man tag against Kane and The NAO.  Is this my dream match for The Shield at WM?  No, but it could be worse.  Other than the main event / HHH vs Bryan match, The Shield vs Kane & Co. has the most chance of outside interference.  What’s great is that I welcome it.  Bring on every obstacle Kane can muster because I believe in The Shield so much that it doesn’t matter who they’re fighting, they’re going to kick ass. 
   
3. Bray and The Wyatt Family (9) – A slight downgrade this week on Bray / The Wyatt’s backstage shoot but considering they’ve been hitting home runs the past few weeks, a double isn’t going to hurt Bray.  Harper is Cena’s natural in-ring equivalent so there wasn’t much expectations to this match.  The match was slogging along until the lights went out and Cena was trapped in the ropes with Rowan’s lamb mask on.  This one visual made up for any faults that this feud had throughout the night.
   
4. John Cena (8) – How focused did Cena really have to get in order to fight against Harper?  The Brooklyn crowd was so split and so loud, it was hard to hear the two sides of Cena’s heat.  Finally, the crowd figured out that “Cena sucks” doesn’t mean anything but instead they chanted “Let’s Go Harper.”  Who knows when Harper will get that kind of crowd support again so I won’t pee on his parade.  As you know, and I repeat all the time, Cena rises to the level of his opponent.  This Harper vs Cena match wasn’t going to cause Twitter to shut down.  We can all be happy that it ended with a pretty cool moment, even if for Cena he was on the wrong side of the moment. 
5. The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar w/ advocate Heyman (N/A&11) – One of the things the WWE has always done well and taken pride in are Undertaker entrances.  There was a little botching of this week’s entrance when you saw the apron moving around as Undertaker hid before reappearing in the casket but considering all the production involved and the fact that the live audience probably didn’t see any missteps, it’s amazing how they pull off the various Undertaker entrances.  The best part was when Brock is tapping on the top of the casket with his foot as in, knock-knock come out and play.  Other than Kane’s fire, The Undertaker is one of the last supernatural gimmicks that the WWE does.  I suppose in 2014 it’s hard to have characters come from “parts unknown” or “the deepest darkest corners of Africa” but there was some magic to those old gimmicks.  I was watching the WWE Networks 10 best entrances and some of the best entrances were totally over the top and impractical or racist or too risky (i.e. jump lining down from the roof) but they were cool.  Remember the Brood?  Rising up through the floor, through a ring of fire and drinking blood?  That was pretty bad ass.  It’s funny to see that Edge and Christian went on to become a great tag team and have individual success while the leader, Gangrel, never really did much.  Just goes to show, in wrestling you’ve got to have the whole package.  The Undertaker isn’t 21-0 by accident and he wasn’t given this streak, which will probably never be broken, just by chance.
   
   
   
   
6. Randy Orton (4) – RKO has been great.  He’s also be oddly quiet and subservient to The Authority.  He’s embraced the “boring” chants and unlike other wrestlers who are actually boring, this feels more part of his gimmick.  It’s tough to embrace an entire crowd screaming that you’re doing a poor job but no one ever said being a heel was easy.  Regardless if he retains the title at WM30, he’s got some good crowd heat, he’s a good worker, fits the WWE heavyweight mold and has been so quite of late that he could go in any direction.  While I’d love for him to keep the championship, I’m kinda interested in what other things RKO could do.  I feel he’s been stuck in the same place for at least the past year.
   
7. Batista (5) – While RKO might get the “boring” chants, Batista IS boring.  As if on cue, when the “boring” chants were at their peak for RKO, Boo-tista comes walking out.  Not even Batista’s mic wants to listen to him drone on and on.  At a quick glance you might think RKO and Batista are the same but after two minutes of mic work and / or ring work, you can see RKO’s superiority.  It’s funny that everything that the WWE has done the last month to make the WM30 main event interesting has all been because they screwed up Batista in January.  Because they misread, or maybe a better word would be misunderstood, Batista’s most valuable qualities, they pushed him as a face when he should have been a heel by the end of his first night back.  He’s been awful as a face.  Watching him try to turn heel has been excruciating.  If day one, he comes back to a big pop but then turns on Daniel Bryan or any other face THEN goes into the “I’m only here to win championships” that could have solved a lot of repositioning and maneuvering by the WWE these last few months.  It’s not a good sign when the three other things in the ring don’t want to work with you; the owner, your opponent and the mic.  At the very least we learned one lesson; you can boo him, you can make fun of him but you do not break Batista’s glasses.
   
8. Cody Rhodes w/ Goldust (10) – Cody got his turn to beat up on Fandango and exact revenge on Fandango for botching a few moves against Goldust last week.  In a weird surprising twist, The Usos are fighting Ryb-Axel at WM30 while the Rhodes Brothers are doing nothing.  Just a few weeks ago, I predicted a tremendous Fatal 4-way Tag Championship match between The Usos, Rhodes, The NAO and your choice of The Real Americans / Ryb-Axel / any other tag team.  As of right now, we’re not getting a Brother vs Brother match nor are Cody and Goldust involved in anything else at WM30?  C’mon WWE, you solved the mystery of what The Shield was doing at WM30, now it’s time to let us know what’s happening with the Rhodes brothers.  You’ve got one more week to give them something more than filler for the 30-man Battle Royal.
   
9. The Real Americans w/ Zeb (11) – How badly would you want to see a Cesaro / Rollins singles match?  That’s no disrespect to Ambrose, who was great, and no respect to Swagger, who was his normal C+ level talent.  Add this team to group of potential WM30 matches that I would have bet heavily on seeing.  Cody vs Goldust / Titus vs Young / Cesaro vs Swagger were all matches and feuds that in previous years would have concluded at WM.  They’re not even involved in any of the top tag matches, or have I already forgotten them?  What was with the Cesaro push if he’s not going to do squat at WM?  I guess this 30-man Battle Royal is way more important than any of us could imagine. 
   
10. Big E (13) – What could have been a brilliant match / feud between Big E and his former mentor Ziggler, we get Christian vs Big E?  Thank god it’s only going to be on the WWE Network so it doesn’t take up valuable room on my DVR.  I’m still in shock that Christian won.  Big E should be pissed too.  What does fighting Christian do for Big E?  Feuding with Ziggler, and ADR to a lesser extent, would have a greater significance for Big E, whether he wins or looses.
11. The Miz (N/A) – I give credit to the Miz.  He finally came out with some old school Miz flavor.  It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the suit and tie douche bag Miz.  He was actually pretty good against Joe, Arnold and Hogan.  There was a time, not long ago where we were all cheering for the Miz as a top contender.  He wasn’t lying about WM27.
    
12. Alberto Del Rio / Dolph Ziggler / Christian / Sheamus (13/13/17/19) – A Fatal 4-way match to see who will challenge Big E for the IC belt, by process of elimination you’d have to say that Ziggler was going to win the match.  Christian and Sheamus are on Who-Gives-a-Fuck-Island and ADR isn’t getting a push if the rumors are true that he’s soon to retire / leave the WWE.  This leaves Ziggler as the odds on favorite to win the match and fight Big E for the IC title.  I couldn’t be happier.  I’ve been wanting a Ziggler / Big E feud for the longest time.  I think it would really help both wrestlers.  I can’t believe it’s taken this long for the WWE to finally put these two together for a great…WAIT, WHAT?!?!?  What just happened?  Christian won?  Why?  What for?  Did the WWE not hear how over Ziggler was?  WTF is going on around here?
13. Korporate Kane (15) – On Smackdown, Kane used just about every tag team to take down The Shield.  He even drew in the NAO as partners to take on The Shield at WM30.  I’d have to say this isn’t the best use for Kane or The Shield but it’s not the worse.  The looser of all these last minute changes are the Usos.  We were all expecting at least a NAO rematch or some sort of triple threat / fatal 4-way at which the Usos could have a great WM moment.  Now it seems that all the Usos get is a quick hand job behind the arena and an easy win against Ryb-Axel.   
14. Titus O’Neil (18) – Is this dude getting a push or not?  I’m cool with waiting until after WM30 to start the Titus O’Neil storyline.  I get the silly St. Patrick’s Day gimmick last week but what was the point of this week’s match with Big Show?  I get it, they’re both in the Battle Royal.  Don’t we have more important things to get to?  Where’s Darren Young?  First no Rhodes brother feud and now no Primetime Player feud at WM30?  A 12-year old could have booked those two matches for WM so what happened?
15. The Big Show (13) – I’m assuming the WWE wants you to believe that Big Show is the giant that will take center stage at the 30-man Battle Royal.  I think we could have safely assumed that.  Let’s get to the real question that’s been bothering me for the past 10 years.  Many wrestlers do this too.  Why is it, when a big wrestler who wears some sort of strap-y unitard gets pissed do they rip down the straps and start to kick ass?  If the straps are so cumbersome, why have them on in the first place?  Right before Big E does his finisher, he essentially takes his shirt off to perform said finisher.  Why not start the match that way and he’d be able to do the finisher ASAP?  For the life of me I can’t figure out why the Big Show’s straps would get in the way of his Mega-punch (or whatever it’s called)?  This seems like poor costume preparedness.  Thankfully, Big Show beat Titus fairly quickly and we could get back to more interesting items.  
16. Damien Sandow (13) – I feel horrible for Sandow.  It’s one thing to be a part of the Yes Movement or jobbing to The Shield but having to put over Sin Cara and Scooby Do?  This was last year’s Money In The Bank winner.  Two weeks before WM30 he’s jobbing to a masked man with a stoner dog on behalf of a cartoon you’re not even in.  
17. Fandango w/ Summer Rae (16) – Fandango should be grateful Summer got a gig on Total Divas because he’s not doing too much these days.  I’m sure he has access to the WWE Network and should check out old tapes of Ravishing Rick Rude or Razor Ramon and see how a seemingly silly gimmick doesn’t mean you can’t become a legendary Superstar.
    
18. Diva’s Match: Naomi w/ Cameron vs AJ Lee w/ Tamina (20) – Last week, Naomi had a cool looking rhinestone eyepatch but this week it looks like Naomi has been taken over by Starro!  At least I got what I asked for last week.  AJ vs Naomi in a quick, one segment match to see if these two really have the goods or are we just so desperate for a quality Divas match we’ll take anything close to it.  Or at least that’s what I thought we were going to get.  Instead of getting a promising Divas match, we got a true heel move from AJ.  Taking her title and walking out on a 10-count is…well, it’s old school heel.  All was good until, Vickie Guerrero stepped in to announce a Divas mini Battle Royal.  It doesn’t look good if you’re hoping that AJ will retain her strap at WM30.  It also doesn’t look good if you’re expecting a well wrestled Divas match at WM30 either.  
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
19. Los Matadores w/ El Torito vs Ryb-Axel (N/A&13) – I’d rather have 19 empty slots on the Power Rankings than to degrade them with taking up two slots with these two horrible teams.  To my amazement, surprise and disgust Ryb-Axel is getting a title shot against the Usos at WM30.  Jimmy / Jon (?) Uso comes off as the second best person on Total Divas (second to Daniel Bryan) and you’d think that the Usos would get a push due to the exposure that they’re getting from that show.  I understand being the tag champs is a big deal but if you’re gonna scrape the bottom of the barrel for opponents, have the Usos fight both Los Matadores and Ryb-Axel?
20. Sin Cara and Scooby Do (N/A) – This had to have been the worst segment.  I know, I know, they’re trying to promote a product.  Here’s just a few of my issues, in no particular order; A) Clearly Sin Cara lost the bet on who had to do this miserable sell job.  B) Was it just me or did it look like Scooby was played by Khali?  C) It’s not a good sign when the guy wearing the mask can clearly see better than the guy wearing the Scooby outfit.  D) Since Sin Cara never speaks and we know it's a different wrestler wearing the Sin Cara mask, who actually voiced the character of Sin Cara on the DVD?  Does it even matter?  I could have been the voice and who would have known the difference?  Am I the voice of Sin Cara?  God, I hope no one has taken @TheVoiceOfSinCara on twitter yet because we could really have some fun with that…
    

Honorable Mentions

Scott Hall – The last selection to the Hall of Fame is Razor Ramon!  Special shout out to Fred “The Oracle” for getting this inside info before anyone else.  Life’s been tough for Hall the last few years but he’s cleaned up and is now going into the WWE HoF.  Now Freddy’s theory of an NWO-like turn by Hogan on Cena doesn’t look so crazy, does it?  If not for HBK vs Razor Ramon’s ladder match, main stream wrestling might never have progressed to TLC?  As with any “what if” who knows if we’d still have tables, ladders, chairs, barbed wire, sledgehammers, or any other multitude of weapons matches but their ladder match brought it to the main stream and assured future success and continuance with those types of matches.  Hall / Ramon was also one of the first Bad Guys who all the crowd rooted for.  “Let’s hear it for the bad guys,” wasn’t just limited to marks and older fans who would cheer for the Randy Savages of the world but whole areas would cheer for Razor.  Along side Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall changed the wrestling world with the NWO storyline.  It nearly crippled the WWE, almost led the WCW to take out the WWF at the time, launched the Monday Night Wars and ultimately caused the WWE to adopt the attitude era.  Those three were also the catalysts for so many wrestlers to be able to have competition and make millions of dollar more than ever before.  Hall is a well deserving member of the Hall of Fame.  There’s very few people who you can point to and say, without him wrestling wouldn’t be where it is today and Hall is one of those people.

Daniel Bryan – When talking about good for business, it’s funny how Bryan works the weekend “dark” shows but not TV because he can essentially be on RAW and have his story continue via clips and the reading of tweets.  Congrats on a night off.  Rest up because it seems like you’re going to be very busy the next few weeks.

Side Note(s)

Brooklyn / NYC crowd – As in many instances, the people of the NYC may have bought into their own hype too much.  Usually one of the best crowds and they certainly brought the energy this week but they were almost too ahead of the game.  Two instances stuck out in my head.  “You sold out” to Triple H?  REALLY?  Not only did he sell out, he bought the farm, put a ring on it and gave up his seed to the business.  He clearly loves the business and works hard at it so you can’t chant “you sold out” to the real CEO of the WWE.  Also, they were a bit too quick to scream out “this is awesome” on every little move.  There needs to at least a few minutes of superior ringwork or a move never before seen to get “this is awesome.”  I respect you NYC, just take it down a notch.  “The world does not start and stop at your convenience you miserable piece of shit.” (what’s that from?)

Quick thought for a fantasy booking.  RKO has never given up the 2 belts / combined them into one belt and the WWE makes him carry them around.  Maybe if HHH wins, he takes the WWE belt and wears it as champion while RKO retains the World belt and has to defend it on a weekly basis?  This is how HHH can become champion but not have to defend it.  He could have a surrogate wrestler as co-champion and HHH can come out on the big shows?  It sounds silly but there’s got to be a reason that they haven’t combined the two belts into one?

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Until next week…