WWE Power Rankings, RAW 7/07/2014

Coming at you from Montreal, and it’s another week of busy schedules so I’ll try to keep the yakety yak to a minimum.  It’s a shame because last week’s RAW was a blast!  Fred and I went into detail on the BEARcast - WrestleCast (www.worldofbear.com and subscribe on iTunes) which was a lot of fun last week.  

I can’t wait until this week’s WrestleCast because Fred’s favorite wrestler, no, dare I say, favorites MAN ALIVE is Bret Hart and I’ve already gotten the Bat-signal that we should expect a Hart sighting in Canada for this Monday’s RAW.  There was hot debate on weather Fred should be allowed to watch alone or if he needed supervision.  Check out the BEARcast - WrestleCast later this week to see how he survived.  It should be great.

We must remember that not every RAW will have the abundance of returning stars and surprises that last week’s RAW had but what we should expect is the same level of matchmaking and at least the quality of wrestling those matches should produce.  That’s a very long winded way to say, I like the match ups and the wrestlers are all performing really well.  

We found out on this week’s RAW, when the parents are away the kids will play.  There’s always a bit of unknown truth when it’s announced that HHH and Stephanie are not at a show due to “vacation” (or whatever) but with the drastic change of tone and quality from last week, you’d have to think the WWE creative staff were on their own.  Going through the rankings, there are a lot of great performers but the writing, lineup and ideas were so sloppy.  The show was only saved by the wrestlers’ skill in-ring and on mic.  There was no clear number one just as there was no clear number 20 (This is thanks to El Torito, Kane and Fandango not cracking the top 20.  Sorry, spoilers…).

So with that, let’s get to the rankings as of this week’s RAW on 7/07/2014…

1. Roman Reigns (3) – “Roman is RAW” doesn’t quite have the same ring that “RAW is Jericho” does.  You’re seeing the start of Reigns’ big push.  Early rumors are next WrestleMania will feature Lesnar vs Reigns for the WHC.  I supposed if that’s your main even at the next WM, you need to start building them up now, especially Reigns.  Nice jabs at Cena.  It’s good to see Reigns being able to improvise with the crowd and continually get better on the mic.  He needs to burn through (I suppose the pun’s intended) KANE and get to RKO.  Reigns vs RKO at SummerSlam should be a very good match.  
   
2. John Cena (2) – Peddling a new green cum rag and he’s got the 1-5 backwards.  If you wanted two easy reasons to why mark wrestling fans don’t like Cena, there you go.  
   
3. Seth Rollins (4) – Did some good mic work when it was Kane, RKO and Rollins backstage.  Watching Rollins vs Cena, I can’t help but make the Rollins / CM Punk comparisons.  Ambrose caught Rollins again this week.  Rollins has the chance, especially with Ambrose constantly chasing him, to turn his golden MitB case into a Lord of the Rings / “My Precious” situation.  He’s best served acting like that golden case contains his soul.  
   
4. Randy Orton (3) – Had a decent promo with Kane and Rollins.  I’m pretty sure I’ve got this down: Kane hates RKO and RKO hates Rollins all under the umbrella of one of these three winning the WHC to bring it back to the authority?  Can we get to HHH’s plan B-rock Lesnar already?  RKO got the win over Ambrose but it’s one of those wins that truly means nothing and the match wasn’t anything to remember.
   
5. Dean Ambrose (5) – I love Ambrose but he does have a different style that not every wrestler can work seamlessly with.  Both RKO and Ambrose are great workers but the match was just off.  Clearly they need time together to get on the same page in-ring but I have no doubt if they were to go on a long feud they could have great matches.  Sadly, they’re not so we won’t know how good an Ambrose vs RKO run could be.  Only in Canada would you get cheers from the crowd for a figure four or arm bar submission. 
6. Harper and Rowan w/ Bray (6) – For the second Monday in a row, the crowd is giving us a solid Let’s go Wyatts / Let’s go Usos chant.  How many times, whether the right Uso was pinned or not, have the Usos lost to the Wyatts again without loosing the tag champs?  URRGGGHHHHHH!!!  Expect at least a small fight between Fred and I on this week’s BEARcast - WrestleCast (www.worldofbear.com or on iTunes) regarding this.  Good match regardless.  
   
7. The Usos (7) – Again, showing the lack of depth in the tag division, they fight some version of Harper and Rowan.  The second half of their match was non-stop until the 1-2-3 by Harper.  
8. Cesaro w/ advocate Heyman (8) – Cesaro was great at showing his international mic skills.  I don’t know what he said but I know I liked it.  Not to mention he and Kofi put on fantastic matches.  
   
9. Kofi Kingston (9) – Kofi and Cesaro need a full-length match on a PPV.  They’ve teased us with some great matches on RAW but we need a once and final 15-20 minute spectacular between these two.  I don’t even care who wins.  Having said that, Big E runs in to steal Kofi’s shine and leads me to believe we’re set for a Cesaro / Big E match.  If Big E takes Kofi’s push, can we categorize it as a black on black crime?
10. Chris Jericho (17) – Where does Y2J go when his jacket lights go out?  Do you take it to a tailor or a mechanic?  Jericho did well in his return match.  He got the win to establish some “street cred" before eventually losing to Bray Wyatt.  
11. The Miz (18) – Soon-to-be Oscar winning Miz for his role in The Marine 4 and backstage interviews.  Great new addition to the beginning of The Miz’s intro.  If the Miz can stay healthy, linger around the Bray / Y2J feud and take on the winner (or even loser) he’ll be well served in the next coming months.  Asshole Miz, I’ve missed you.  
    
12. Alberto Del Rio (N/A) – ADR performed the greatest intentional use of the ring apron.  Why hasn’t anyone used that counter to a leg slide before?  What can you really take away from a win cause by Fandango distracting your opponent with some hip action?  Add this match to my theory of a leaderless creative staff this week. 
13. Dolph Ziggler (14) – Yet another sign of Ziggler’s burring being over.  When Lawler is making near death jokes on air and that Ziggler almost killed him the last time he was in Montreal, you have to imagine Ziggler has finished that shit sandwich.  Fingers crossed Ziggler is in the mix for the vacant IC belt or at least set to feud with whomever wins the strap. 
14. Sheamus (7) – It was good that Sheamus took the match with Sand-hart serious because that could have been a mess.  Unfortunately for the Montreal fans, they never see anyone wearing the pink and black win a match.  Sheamus gets the win and continues his solid work.  Here’s the $64,000, what’s he doing?  He’s the US champ but I can’t tell you who he’s feuding with?  Maybe it was supposed to be Bray Wyatt until Jericho made a sooner-than-expected return last week?  Again, where does that leave Sheamus?  I never thought I’d care but he’s earned my attention.
15. Damien Sand-hart (20) – The real “best there was, best there is and best there ever will be” was not Bret Hart, it was Damien Sandow.  He’s been so spot on and creative with every joke gimmick they have him doing, down to touches of a slight Canadian accent.  There was even HBK shots being fired. 
    
16. The Dust Brothers (11) – It’s like watching a Jack Kirby comic come to life.  Goldust and Stardust feel as if they were born in Kirby’s 4th world.  I LOVE IT!!!
    
17. Rusev w/ Lana (12) – Ironically, Swagger and Zeb got held up trying to cross the boarder into Canada.  Rusev’s match with RVD showed that he still has a way to go before we can all jump on the Rusev is unstoppable train.  They should have had him demolish RVD but by letting the match play out, it revealed some cracks in the Rusev wall.  We have to remember, it’s still his first year in the WWE.
    
18. Rob Van Dam (10) – I will always hate to see RVD jobbing to anyone.  He’s one of my favorite wrestlers of all time and carried ECW for a time.  At least he’s embraced his elder statesman role, similar to Y2J, and does what’s truly best for business which is to put these younger guys over.  
19. Bo Dallas (19) – Bo destroying El Torito was all I needed to cement me as a Bo-liever.  The victory lap that knocked over the bull was what sealed the deal. 
    
20. Paige and AJ Lee vs Funadactyls  (15/16/HM) – This was one of the strangest matches.  You’d have thought Paige and AJ would be fighting but now they seem to be besties.  Naomi and Cameron were the ones who couldn’t get along.  It’s no secret that I’m a Cameron hater but if she sticks with the “princess” role, she might have a chance because it’s surely not her wrestling skills that are going to put her over.  The biggest takeaway from this match was that I want an AJ vs Naomi match ASAP!  Those two can work.

Honorable Mentions

Bret Hart – I almost want to rank him but now we can all listen to Fred blast me on the podcast.  I’ll leave him at the top of the Honorable Mentions and let Fred talk about him on this week’s BEARcast - WrestleCast (www.worldofbear.com or subscribe on iTunes).  I love Fred but it’s always amazed me that his favorite wrestler has the personality of a turnip.  This picture was the most enthusiastic he was the whole time.

Kane – It’s gotten so bad that I almost forgot to add him.  He’ll go down as an amazing character.  Is there another character so often forgotten and underutilized but it has never hurt his ability to be a monster and garner heat from the crowd?

Fandango – Another sign that the inmates were running the madhouse was Fandango’s commentating during the Ziggler / ADR match.  Halfway through, he decided to drop the silly accent but then brought it back at the end.  Happy Days and Nick-at-Night references are so old, that even I wouldn’t try to make them work.  Fandango’s real dilemma is that both Layla and Summer are “butter-faces” and picking one of the other is going to be a challenge which is why I suppose he can’t make up his mind.  There is one person who has made a decision on this… this… whatever you call it, that’s ME.  I’ve decided that I don’t give a shit.  

Divas Match: N-Bella vs Alicia Fox – In what must have been some writer’s S&M fantasy, N-Bella got her arm tied around her back.  This is just one of the items that seemed to get slipped in while HHH and Stephanie were away (I hope).  This match was a mess from beginning to end.  Alicia was running around screaming at the fans and pouring soda out.  It’s a shame because Fox can wrestle but you would never know  by watching RAW.

Jerry “The King” Lawler – Who’s idea was it to let Jerry go out and give a personal shout out, like some Power 106 call-in show, to the Montreal medical staff?  Look, I’m glad he didn't keel over on live TV but does Lawler need his own segment to let the fans know how close he was to calling Montreal his final resting place?  I guarantee Lawler isn’t complaining about Canada’s socialized medical system.  

Side Note(s) 

One bit of sad news this week was the in-ring retirement of my personal favorite, The Great Santino.  SAN-TIN-OOOOOOOOOOOOO was awesome.  He never got the run or push of a great wrestler, which he was tremendously underrated.  He was given some of the dumbest gimmicks.  He was given one of the worst finishing moves (this viper with the sock).  But never did he give less than 100%.  From the moment he stepped into the WWE, he never dropped his fake Italian accent.  He took every lame gimmick and owned it.  He sold every stupid move and kiss.  The whole time he did it with a smile on his face.  You never heard of anyone having issues with Santino or that he was a problem backstage.  He always seemed like a team player.  And again, he could wrestle!  The few times he was given the chance to have a “real” match, I was always impressed.  Santino stated that he wasn’t leaving the WWE or the world of wrestling but due to injuries he would be retiring from in-ring action.  I wish him the best.  I hope we see a lot more of him.  I’m sure he’ll transition to this new chapter in his career with the enthusiasm and joy that he’s always had.  I just wanted to say Thank You to Mr. Anthony Carelli aka Santino Marella.    

Until next time…