WWE Power Rankings, RAW 7/14/2014

Coming at you from Richmond, and yet again I’m crazy busy this week.  Luckily this week’s show was a bit of a dud so I’m happy not to struggle writing a 5,000 word dissertation.  Instead of complaining, I’ll chalk RAW up to being a placeholder for this weekend’s Battleground PPV.  

Oddly, the two main events of Battleground are my least anticipated matches of the PPV.  The Fatal-4-Way of Cena, RKO, Kane and Reigns couldn’t intrigue me less.  I’m only interested in seeing if we see a Plan B or Plan C at the end of the match which Cena is almost guaranteed to win.  

I’ve stated before that the Royal Rumble is the greatest of all matches but Battle Royals are some of the worst.  The only interesting part of this IC Battle Royal is that there’s no clear frontrunner.  All the mid-carders are involved.  As Fred and I have discussed on the BEARcast - WrestleCast (www.worldofbear.com or on iTunes) it seems that Kofi, Ziggler or Cesaro are the most likely to win the IC belt but a dark horse winner is just as likely.   

The individual matches this Sunday are the most anticipated part of the PPV.  It wasn’t surprising that RAW was mostly filler matches to get us ready for Battleground.  

So with that, let’s get to the rankings as of this week’s RAW on 7/14/2014…

1. John Cena (2) – Still screwing up the “fifteen” hand sign.  It’s been two weeks running and he’s still throwing up 5-1 instead of 1-5.  Does someone in the WWE have the ability to tell Cena that he’s doing this wrong and it’s embarrassing?  Even the dumbest wannabe gang-banger gets this process down.  I suppose when Cena is charged with so much to accomplish in the show opener, making sure he gets his hand signals are the least of his concerns.  Not only was he responsible for a huge chunk of exposition for Battleground but he had to pump up the crowd and shill for the WWE Network.  You have to admire all that is asked of Cena and that he delivers on 99% of it.  Having said that, he could get the “1-5” fixed. 
   
2. Roman Reigns (1) – Normally, it’s unlucky to be the closing shot on the RAW leading up to a PPV.  It didn’t do him any good before last month’s MitB PPV.  But look at this guy.  I can picture Vince McMahon orgasming over Reigns being one of the top Superstars in the WWE over the next ten years.  
   
3. RKO / Kane / Rollins (4/HM/3) – These three have what the French call, that certain “I don’t know what”.  They should remake Three Men and a Little Lady (only an insane person would remake the masterpiece that is, Three Men and a Baby).  Let’s cut to the chase.  It seemed as though Rollins seriously injured his knee.  I leave the dirt sheets to Fred, so listen to the BEARcast - WrestleCast (www.worldofbear.com or on iTunes) to get details.  I hope that Rollins knee injury is just a “work” because I’m so excited for the upcoming Rollins / Ambrose feud but the injury seemed legit.  Also, a fake injury angle doesn’t seem to fit in the current storytelling, but with the state of recent WWE storytelling, I wouldn’t put it past the WWE creative to do something incredibly strange.  What throws me off more is that the rest of the 6-man tag match participants played it off so well which makes them the greatest performers or the injury was a work.  I guess we’ll find out at Sunday’s Battleground.
   
4. Dean Ambrose (5) – Maybe not a good sign that the most coherent person in the opener is Ambrose?  Batshit crazy Ambrose gave the best part of the opening promo from the back, which of course meant he was going to get jumped by his three opponents.  Haven’t we learned anything, ‘You’re always safer in the ring.’  It’s one of these unwritten laws in the wrestling handbook, like big men shouldn’t go to the top rope. The Ambrose beat-down surely meant that he was going to make an appearance at the end of the show.  Whether it was actually planned for him not to return or due to a possible real injury to Rollins, check into the BEARcast - WrestleCast (www.worldofbear.com) and Fred “The Oracle” will give us the inside gossip.  I’m sure I’m repeating myself but if Rollins was truly hurt, it will be a shame because we all want to see the Ambrose / Rollins feud.   
   
5. Harper and Rowan (6) – Is their new version of a double choke-slam going to win them the Tag belts?  Probably.  Am I done doing my own Q&A with the Wyatts and Usos?  Not yet…
6. The Usos (7) – At Battleground, it will be a best 2 of 3 match against Harper and Rowan.  Should we expect a good match?  YES.  Am I concerned that this might get tiresome considering you would think the WWE is going to string this out for a conclusion at SummerSlam?  YES.
7. HHH and Stephanie (N/A) – Clearly still in heat from their romantic vacation.  I’m not against love or even some healthy porn but what was the deal with the HHH / Steph PDA?  As WWE fashion expert, I can’t sign off on the green semi camouflage dress, C-minus.  Back to the show; for the love of baby Jesus, just come out and say Plan B is Brock Lesnar.  There might be an interesting twist to all this… Heyman hinted that if HHH’s “Plan B” didn’t work, come see him for “Plan C”.  1) Does that mean HHH’s Plan B isn’t Brock and if so, what could it be?  2) Does “Plan C” refer, in any way, to Cesaro and a push for him (highly unlikely but stranger things have happened lately)?  There could be an additional twist but I wouldn’t bank on it.
   
    
8. Cesaro vs Big E w/ Kofi (8&N/A&9) – Cesaro was Paul Heyman-less?  Interesting.  He’s put on great matches with Kofi of late and this week put on a killer match with Big E.  To pull off two different type of matches is incredible.  Side note; I’m glad to Cesaro has finally given in and started wearing knee pads.  It should be industry standard for all whores and wrestlers to wear knee pads.  #OccupationalHazards  
9. Chris Jericho vs Bray Wyatt (10/6) – With his jacket at full power, Y2J gets almost too much respect from the crowd.  The audience is eerily quite when Jericho speaks, which seems like it is a dead crowd or that Y2J isn’t over but given the chance, they’ll chant whatever he wants.  Wyatt got his first “boring” chant???  I can’t really defend Wyatt this week because it was, well, kinda boring.  I think we all just want to get to, what should be a great match, Jericho vs Wyatt at Battleground.  Besides, the shoots don’t makes sense with this feud.  It’s a classic, “We just want to see it” match.  BTW, what's the deal with Bray's shiner? 
   
   
   
   
10. Rusev / Lana vs Swagger / Zeb (12&N/A) – A detente?  Sometimes it feels like the WWE writers learned a new word and simply want to work it into the show.  Maybe they’re afraid to offend the Indian fans (feather not dot) by not calling this a Pow-Wow.  At least Lana has established who and what is stupid.  I’m no history major but I don’t think Lana and Rusev’s geopolitical lesson is 100% accurate.  I’m still in shock on how in the blink of an eye, Zeb and Swagger went from being a tired and slightly offensive gimmick to actual Real American heroes.  Zeb, America’s favorite terrier, came out swinging.  You know he was speaking truth when his usually flawless delivery was thrown off by real passion and truth about his military service.  Swagger hasn’t gotten a face (or heel) pop like that in years.  It would certainly push the heel of Rusev if he won at Battleground but the standard m.o. for the WWE is to have the USA (Swagger / Zeb) win these matches.  But by winning, Swagger’s face heat might go away.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out at Battleground and the weeks to come.
    
    
    
    
11. Alberto Del Rio vs Rob Van Dam (12/18) – ADR vs RVD in the battle of acronyms.  ADR pulled another variation of the “ring apron” trick.  They’re an odd pairing and don’t really do anything for each other except put on solid matches.  Fifteen years ago, this would have been an ECW main event!  Neither are winning the IC belt Battle Royal, just thought you should know.  
12. Dolph Ziggler (13) – If last week’s dip into the Summer pool wasn’t good enough, how about another win, huge fan pop and took home both Summer and Layla.  Plus, the internets feel like finally Ziggler is going to get his long deserved push.  Life is good for Ziggler these days.  Fingers crossed! 
    
13. AJ Lee vs Eva Marie (20) – Paige was at ringside for commentary.  This is a matchup where only an injury can occur.  Eva isn’t even in the same universe as AJ.  Luckily AJ made it out without injury and Paige wasn’t bad on the mic.  At first, the ending came off weird but upon a second viewing, it all came together for me.  I enjoyed it and can’t remember a Divas match I’m more excited for.  
    
14. The Dust Brothers (16) – I can’t pretend to tell you what’s going on, but I can tell you I love it.  I caught a bit of SmackDown last week.  Goldust w/ Stardust in his corner, demolished Axel w/ Ryback ringside in a great match.  A match that was followed by a great Bo Dallas match.  That 20 minutes of SmackDown might have been the best 20 minutes of WWE product last week.
    
15. The Miz (11) – I’m still enamored with Miz’s revamped opening.  I also loved his “moneymaker” being up on the jumbo-tron during the whole match.  Personally, I always love the heel who pimps himself and calls out to “his fans” and the response from the crowd consists of 4 people.  RKO was great at that.  
    
16. Sheamus (14) – A match so thrilling that they cut away to a video montage of the entrants of the IC Battle Royal.  I’ll give this Sheamus match a pass because he’s been doing great lately and it wasn’t his fault that they throw a commercial and a clip package to breakup the flow of his match.  I am shocked that Sheamus is being thrown into the IC Battle Royal (someone correct me if I’m wrong) since he’s already the US Champion but I suppose it gives him something to do at Battleground.  Suffers a cheap loss to The Miz.  Is this a preview of the next feud for Sheamus?  I wouldn’t have pitted Sheamus against Miz but there could be worse feuds for both wrestlers.   
17. Bo Dallas vs Khali (19&N/A) – Bo was just trying to lift the spirits of Khali and what does he get?  A chop across the face.  Very disrespectful. Obviously Khali does not Bo-lieve in himself nor the inspiration that is Bo Dallas.  What’s funny is that Dallas could be the first eliminated from the IC Battle Royal or in the final group and the crowd will love it. 
    
18. Fandango (HM) – As much as I want to bury Fandango and the silliness of the Summer / Layla feud, you can’t forget that he can wrestle which he showed for a minute until his match with Ziggler was interrupted by said silliness.  Here’s a pic of a guy who knows his gimmick is going down faster than Laker’s fans hopes for a solid team in the coming years. 
    
19. Damien Sandow / Adam Rose (15&N/A) – Fred called it last week on the BEARcast -WrestleCast (www.worldofbear.com and on iTunes), Sandow is taking Santino’s place for character to do the live commercials (which I guess these commercials are a permanent thing now?).  Who gives a shit about Rose?  I’m more concerned that Sandow looks too comfortable in that Sonic outfit.  
    
20. Diva Match: N-Bella vs Cameron & Alicia Fox (HM) – In yet another handicap match… excuse me while I check my emails…

Honorable Mentions

Ric Flair – WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!  That wasn’t a whoooo for the Nature Boy but for the fact that he didn’t say or do anything too inappropriate.  Thankfully Renee Young handled the situation well.  At this point, a Flair cameo has the same awkward tension as when your drunk uncle starts to give a speech before Thanksgiving dinner. 

CM Punk – I rarely do this but I implore you to watch the CM Punk special, Best in the World, on the WWE Network.  It’s great.  Also, I can’t help but think this is another sign that the lines of communication between Punk and the WWE are open.  Hopefully we’ll see Punk back sooner than later.

STING – Maybe the best / most exciting / meaningful promo in wrestling history?  We now have official acknowledgment of Sting working with the WWE by having Sting as a playable character in this year’s WWE video game 2k15.  It’s safe to say that it is only a matter of time before we see Sting in a WWE ring.  How or when, listen to the BEARcast - WrestleCast (www.worldofbear.com and subscribe on iTunes) when Fred gives us the latest rumors.  

Side Note(s)

Look, I want the WWE Network to be a success but for god’s sake, The King is begging, literally begging, people to subscribe.  Have some respect for yourself WWE.

Is it just me or the new TMNT movie look really good?  Keep in mind, I was tricked already once this summer with the Transformers / Dinobots debacle, which was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, but maybe this time we’ll be pleasantly surprised?  

Until next time…