Why Daniel Bryan will wrestle again

WWE gave Daniel Bryan a send-off on RAW fit for a Hall of Famer. After months of uncertainty, the company finally closed the ongoing issue of Bryan’s likelihood of returning to a ring. In private they made it clear they were never going to clear him to wrestle. But that doesn’t mean the former World Champion is finished with wrestling.

It’s been a standoff that has dragged on for months. Bryan has been cleared by a multitude of private doctors but has been unable to convince WWE medical staff that there is no danger after years of consecutive concussions.

The writing was on the wall for him when they failed to give in to his demands despite Vince McMahon’s outfit suffering injury after injury to top level stars. There must have been a temptation to agree with Bryan’s private doctors. But the WWE is currently being sued by former wrestlers (that never made the main roster) for concussion injuries. They just couldn’t take the risk.

Vince no longer sees the point of in-ring dangers, or even entertaining storylines, his risks are all on the stock market. The days of making the best product to ward off WCW have been replaced by keeping profit margins up. This method is bearing financial fruits; there was no reason to take a risk that could have cost him millions.

Bryan is somewhat tied to WWE. They handled his autobiography release and helped market it. His wife works for the company on the active roster and they both feature in Total Divas. His unique connection to the WWE Universe forced the company to elevate him to the main championship.

But before all this he is a wrestler.

Severing ties with WWE was his way to seek his thrills elsewhere. In July 2015 he told Sirius XM 92's: “I told them, regardless of them, if they won't clear me . . . we're independent contractors, in theory . . . I will wrestle again. I am cleared by the neurologist in Phoenix that I've been going to see. It's not like he's a quack doctor. He was the neurologist for the Super Bowl.”

That was a not-so subtle warning to WWE: “Use me or lose me.” After much deliberation they have decided to let him go.

Why they took so long only Vince can answer honestly – and probably never will.

Did they want to ensure they had all the facts and gave the docs enough time before axing him? Did they want to kill his momentum before he competed elsewhere?

It’s likely a little bit of both.

One thing’s for sure, even though WWE said, “No!” to a return we’ll see Bryan back in the ring before he retires for real.

Am I happy about this?

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” 

Why I’m Cancelling the WWE Network . . . for now.

After this week’s Monday Night Raw I made the decision to cancel the WWE Network. I can usually put my trust in the company with storylines. In the past the road they’ve been on has been shaky but I’ve stuck it out, often with scant reward. But recent events culminated in an ideology I can’t be a party to. WWE doesn’t seem to care about Raw’s pathetic weekly ratings so the only place to make a stand is by removing my payment of 9.99.

The bone of my contention is the deformation of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. We all get that John Cena is the company’s main guy. I acknowledge without any gripes that this has been his year. He’s given the US Title credibility and in the process put over performers such as Cesaro and Kevin Owens. This should have existed while the main title looked strong and its champ – the supreme Seth Rollins – was given legitimacy. Never the twain shall meet.

But they did meet. There could have been other ways to get the belt back to Cena, beforehand they could have afforded Rollins one clean win over Super Cena. Now it is unclear the benefit of the whole Cena/Rollins program. Cena certainly doesn’t need a boost. It’s etched in the fans’ minds that he is the man that runs the place. All it’s done has made the World Champ looking like he’s only good enough to be top of the mid-card.

This is diabolical. Rollins on the mic has no equal right now, and in-ring he’s shown signs he could be not just the greatest of this generation but of all time. His reward for this is a match against Kane going into Hell in a Cell with a belt that’s now worthless.

This poor writing from WWE Creative – the best example of an oxymoron ever – will be masked by the interest in the PPV. Thanks to Undertaker and Brock Lesnar being on duty it’ll appear to be a successful event. In reality it will paper over the cracks.

This is the future of WWE: Poorly managed talent and badly written stories. But as long as the t-shirt sales stay up, kids are buying toys, and the Network bounces around 1.2m subscribers, Vince won’t make a change. Until then I won’t be sending him my ten British pounds each month.

Okay, I’ll probably crack before then. Maybe. Definitely Maybe.

They were Right to Bring The Undertaker Back

 

The title above is half a sentence. It should read: They were right to bring The Undertaker back but they’ve told the wrong story.

WWE needs a boost, there’s no doubt about this. Weekly ratings are continually low, which I fear will continue to be the case whilst WWE Creative flounder through Raw episodes three hours in length, and the winter season is always a lull before the road to WrestleMania kicks off via the Royal Rumble. An injection of the Phenom ensures there’s less of a plateau.

The episode of Raw that saw a massive in-ring brawl continue to the backstage area was one of the best moments the Monday night show has produced since the Attitude Era. That’s no exaggeration. It had believable tension and brutality. It felt like something was unfolding naturally. We were witnessing an incident. Unfortunately the script to accompany the action isn’t as strong.

The Undertaker needed to return as a heel. Don’t boo me, it makes sense. He’d already received the massive pop – as a returning legend is always guaranteed – when he turned up at Battleground. After which WWE should have placed the product over sentiment. He’s played the bad guy before, he could again. Brock Lesnar is – or was, depending how this story plays out – over with the fans. More over than anyone could have ever reasonably expected. Current planning ruins this.

The blocks were in place for a heel Undertaker appearance. It’s more believable he was getting revenge for his brother’s (kayfabe) broken ankle than some annoyance regarding Heyman’s eighteen month bragathon.  To whine about Brock boasting now makes him appear weak. It also damages the growing powers of Bray Wyatt having The Undertaker declare this is his real return.

The chances are The Deadman will get his revenge at SummerSlam, if anything it gives WWE the option for a third and final showdown further down the line (WrestleMania perhaps, if Sting never shows up in a WWE ring again?). And this probability adds further weight to an evil Undertaker plan. To beat Lesnar he had to go to dark places, tap into a side he’d long since abandoned. It makes for a more plausible story.

It’s only the appearance of a more viscous side that will make Brock’s disappearance post-SummerSlam more believable. Only bad guys cause long-term injury in the WWE. Heel tactics also mean less wrestling, and witnessing the way the Tombstone Piledrivers were delivered at Battleground (awkward and cumbersome) leads me to believe the less in-ring action the better for the Man in Black.

The WWE could do with the ‘Taker ratings boost right now, it just needs the right sort of ‘Taker to maximise the potential of the Beast Incarnate.




Clive Balls's memoir Balls To You is available here from the Amazon store.

WWE Extreme Fools

The fools I refer to in this instance are, of course, WWE Creative. They managed to save a Wrestlemania Main Event, where the world was braced for the crowning of Roman Reigns, by giving us a good contest and a Seth Rollins cash-in. It played out perfectly and left viewers with a great sense of occasion.

Only WWE Creative has the ability to quickly undo all their good work. The slippery slope started at Extreme Rules. In a quick defence, it has to be acknowledged such a concept is hard to pull off in the PG era, but there are ways to get around it while providing plausible entertainment. To keep the theme relevant the envelope has to be pushed or shocks delivered.

There’s certainly no room for a “Kiss Me Arse” match. I’d argue this stipulation never needs to find its way to any card, let alone one that is supposed to be Extreme. But it’s what we got. To make matters worse they handed the victory to Ziggler and immediately halted Sheamus’s intimidating return. Already we know he’s not unstoppable.

The Russian Chain Match should have been renamed: Cena’s Continuing Chain of Wins over Rusev Match. WWE Creative has worked hard at removing all the fear surrounding the Bulgarian Brute. An extreme setting allows for an upset. Instead the action was very PG, the result very predictable. Thankfully we could look forward to an end of the rivalry. Oh wait, WWE wanted to drag it out to drive home how Super Cena had the number of Mother Russia.

You know a PPV is failing when Big Show takes plaudits for match of the night. That’s what happened at Extreme Rules as the always excellent Seth Rollins and the Viper couldn’t save a convoluted main event.

Payback offered WWE Creative the chance to do just this: pay us back for dropping the ball. Instead they further compounded certain problems and made new ones. They restarted the campaign to bury Damien Sandow. The Macho Man act was more than cringe. It was disrespectful to the legend that was and the man made to play “Macho Mandow.” Aaron Steven Haddad, the man who plays Damien Sandow, must have been caught with his pants down and in the wrong person’s wife. It could be argued Creative are playing to his comedic strengths and re-establishing The Ascension. But there were better ways to achieve these two aims.

Sheamus and Dolph Ziggler did provide us with a good match with a finish that would have better suited Extreme Rules. The two Brits, King Wade Bad News Barrett and (Adrian) Neville, had the weakest of their recent bouts but it was a great match regardless. It shows how good the two performers are. They have a good chemistry and fill the blanks in one another. A perfect balance. Like how Barrett has several forenames and Neville would be happy to be given just one. However, they shouldn’t be fighting one another, and so often, it devalues the winning streak and prowess of two wrestlers deserving of pushes.

Before you say Barrett has just been made King, the less we say about the revived tournament the better. King of the Ring deserves to be one night and less rushed. Much like Elimination Chamber which we’ll get to in a minute.

In the “I Quit” match Cena passed out and Rusev never actually said the words in English. But Super Cena got the rub and following episodes of Raw have tried their best to undermine Rusev. To make things worse Lana has now teamed with Ziggler. Dolph must be happy that after years of always delivering he’s back to the upper-mid card as an arm for a female object of attention.

Payback’s main event did deliver. We saw original Shield do the Triple Power Bomb. Creative avoided a finish that saw Ambrose take the pin for Seth. And the extra characters, J&J and Kane, added rather than took away from the action. A sign of hope moving to the chamber that all is not lost.

As for the Elimination Chamber, the card itself looks very healthy. What is worrying is how this great event (the structure always provides top matches) was removed on grounds of cost and modern arenas unable to lower and raise the chamber. Yet, out of the blue, it was reinstated. Not even the wrestlers knew until the eleventh hour. I understand plans have to be fluid, always ready for change. But this isn’t a tweak, more a complete change in programme. And the lack of time between PPVs has harmed the effective build-up. WWE Network figures, and the constant chase of them, shouldn’t give rise to knee-jerk reactions.

Still, this aside, as I mentioned, it is a good list of matches they’ve produced. New Day is over in a way Creative couldn’t have dared dream of when their original gimmick was failing so badly. The prospect of a Tag Team Chamber match is more than mouth watering. I suspect it will steal the show and could be a spectacle spoken about for years to come. Hats off to each performer too. They haven’t had months to work out the spots and the dynamic. It’s just a bunch of hungry guys throwing it all on the line.

Another hungry guy is Kevin Owens. He has been the man in NXT and gives Cena a credible opponent (after the more than credible Rusev). The fact he holds NXT gold means if (when) he loses to Cena at the Network exclusive PPV he won’t go down clean. It’ll be a beating for Cena afterwards. A painful one that could kayfabe injury him.

The Intercontinental match has a strong field. The money seems to be on Sheamus. This is logical. I expect a Ziggler/Rusev programme to start following this Sunday’s match, Barrett has the King moniker to carry around, Ryback is still suffering from the strange choice to pit him against the ever-at-loose-end Bray Wyatt, and R-Truth is just fun-filler.

The weaker matches are the Divas triple-threat match. The only threat regarding this championship is that the main roster looks weak compared to the female matches witnessed on NXT. This isn’t because the main roster has worse Divas, just weaker bookings. Neville and Bo Dallas has all the hallmarks of a clean win for Neville. It’s about time Dallas joined his real-life brother in the Wyatt Family.

The main event will provide a great wrestling match. Rollins and Ambrose always deliver when in the squared circle together. The questions are around the support cast. Will Reigns accidently cost Ambrose? How will The Authority intervene? It’s highly likely (like, 99.9%) that Rollins will keep the gold all the way to SummerSlam, a bout with a Beast awaits him there, but with the abilities on display in Elimination Chamber’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship match mean a few twists can still be delivered.

Let’s hope they make us smile and not groan.

Remember when Titles Had Meaning?

Currently in WWE the World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar makes fewer public appearances than Bin Laden did before his demise. As such the main belt is void of screen time, an act that threatens to devalue it. The second tier titles, the United States and Intercontinental championships, should have been used to cover the gap. Instead these once illustrious titles have been floundered further by WWE creative. It used to be so different. It used to be so much better.

Regardless of storylines and the characters involved, during the boom periods of sports entertainment championship gold meant everything. The gravitas of results revolved around which side of a rivalry ended the night with a belt held aloft. From the dawn of the new brand of wrestling, sports entertainment as we now know it, in the 80s, personalities that transcended the ring and fell into popular culture came into being. Characters like Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. Their defining moment came at the start of 1990 when WWF champion, Hogan, faced the Intercontinental Champion, The Warrior, at Wrestlemania VI.

What added to the bout, one already soaked in electricity, was the two main titles. It was like a pro-wrestling unification bout, the type only seen before in boxing rings. Hard to call, a unique chance to see the two great titles face off. The belts weren’t an added gimmick, they were revered and desired. They made a win all the more credible. Of course, Warrior triumphed that night, vacated the I/C title, but not before holding both belts high above his head with pride.

Moving through the 90s the titles still had great value. So much so that Vince screwed Bret (or Bret screw Bret, depending on your take) to keep his main belt from appearing on WCW television. An era when the WWF Womens Championship was dumped in a bin on WCW Nitro by Medusa, a shock at the time, a title that disappeared without fanfare. Before that The British Bulldog defeated Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Title in a packed-out Wembley Arena. That was when 90,000 Brits believed it was a belt worth holding. Nowadays it’s a tool to place a ceiling on the mid-card.

Back then belts were an extension of a performer’s power, a visual representation that validated them, never better emphasised than when Ric Flair brought the Big Gold Belt from WCW to WWF. Now they feel like awkward afterthoughts. Something the WWE hates to accommodate but does so to shift kids’ replica merchandise. The last time they had genuine importance was after the Invasion storyline. They went to great lengths to enforce how important championship gold was. They had, after all, just bought WCW’s history; they had to drive home how important each championship aspect was. It culminated in belts becoming unified, separated, and unified some more.

For example, Chris Jericho became the first unified champ by holding the WWF belt and WCW world heavyweight title. That became the unified belt and then singular WWF title again. Due to the brand extension they soon brought the big gold belt back, in doing so it saw the I/C title, US title, European Championship and the Hardcore Championship all being unified, across a period of time from Survivor Series 2001 to No Mercy 2002, into the World Heavyweight Championship. The US and I/C titles did re-emerge at Judgement Day 2003, but by then the stage had been set to devalue the once highly regarded belts.

Recently we saw the World Heavyweight Championship – the Big Gold Belt’s ghost title – unified again, this time by Randy Orton. WWE tried to remind us the great lineage of both titles, successfully reminding us how mistreated all the current titles have been in recent years. Now Lesnar holds the belt without making any appearances for months. I’m all for the main belt having reduced screen time. It makes it feel more special. But an absence of one month is enough. One PPV, tops. Never more than this. It should be defended at every monthly event that requires subscribers to pay more or headlines the network during that period. Now the WWE World Heavyweight Title doesn’t feel special, it feels unnecessary.

In its absence the secondary titles could have been used to fill the void. It was a great chance to return their former value. The higher mid-card could have evolved to the main event scene, like Warrior did with his I/C title in 1990. With the I/C title becoming the new top title, the US champ could have become a good number two, like the Intercontinental title of years gone by.

Instead we witnessed Sheamus holding the belt without ever really defending it. It was prop, not authentic. And Ziggler went on a losing streak while holding I/C gold. Even though he was the holder of such an illustrious title, there was no way WWE creative could allow him to overcome Seth Rollins. In doing so they told the viewers that the I/C champ was good, but not that good. That a higher level existed beyond the title.

To enforce this, Ziggler himself overcame the current holder, Luke Harper, this week on Smackdown. Telling us that Ziggler is now in the top group. The Intercontinental Championship should be validation of the top group by them holding it, not by the champ jobbing to them. Top tier and the upper mid-card shouldn’t face off on regular programming, especially to the detriment of titles. Only Rusev holding the US title has stemmed the tide for now.

The WWE needs to address its current title problem. It’ll take time but the long term benefits are worth the efforts required to restructure its current stance. Would a ladder match for the I/C title tomorrow have the same aurora as Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramon did? No. And it’s not for a lack of talent, but the title has zero importance now. Does anyone actually care who the WWE Champion is now? No. And it’s not because WWE lacks main event star power. Better titles creates bigger buzz around PPVs. Prestige on the belt gives holders a step closer to immortality, and instant validation with the WWE Universe.

A competition without a main prize isn’t sport at all. It’s not even entertainment.

Out of Nowhere!

They say a week is a long time in football (soccer to American readers) and that can be applied to life in the WWE. Never better expressed than the resurgence of Randy Orton. To such a degree even BBC Sport reported Dundee players celebrating a recent goal by imitating Orton’s famous finisher, the RKO ("Randy Orton: Dundee celebrate goal with WWE move"). It comes off the back of videos and Vines that went viral online, each depicting real-life slips but with The Viper superimposed applying the killer move. It put Orton over in a whole new way. Suddenly the third-generation superstar transcends sports entertainment.

Before the 20^th October Monday Night Raw, not many people had the stomach for another Orton/Cena clash. The match had no relevance. Orton had drifted – through no fault of his own – during his reign as the first WWE World Heavyweight Champion. It was doomed after poor scripting, the idea he was ‘first’ to hold both belts when we all remember Chris Jericho unifying the titles, and being overshadowed by Daniel Bryan’s emergence. Since then he has been part of The Authority. Out of the main title mix, seemingly far away from a shot at the MIA Brock Lesnar.

Then it all changed. Those Vines must have helped. Exposure is always a good thing. Initially the idea of presenting Cena or Orton with a shot at gold, when many saw their match behind Ambrose and Rollins, was absurd. What nobody foresaw was the fire that had been lit beneath Randy. Getting attention gives anyone a boost, combined with the spotlight being thrust back on him, a fresh version of the Apex Predator emerged. This is usually unheard of for established stars. Once a main character is formed it goes stale (can you ever see Cena changing now or The Rock altering his act?).

Delivering multiple RKOs was a must after the recent internet sensation. Giving one to sirs Cena and Heyman ensured the fight at Hell in a Cell had extra spice, and the one he gets afterward (hopefully Lesnar) suddenly got personal. Combining this with tensions surrounding Seth Rollins reaching a crescendo, should ensure he’s about to break out on his own once again.

WWE needs to build on the new public awareness surrounding the RKO. Down the line I’d like to see him counter Brock Lesnar’s F5 for the title win. Before this he needs to shown popping unexpected RKOs off everywhere. Not just in-ring, or backstage, but vignettes filmed from real-life set-ups. Let’s see him drop people in shopping malls and banks; movie theatres or as a spectator at sports games. When something is hot, use it. Make videos and clips the way WWE managed in the attitude era. Orton is now over with the fans, and this is before a face turn. They shouldn’t drop the ball like they have done, and keep doing, with so many other stars.

This week he described himself as ‘Third generation royalty,’ it’s time to make Randy Orton a powerful King. Most fans have had their fill of Cena, Bryan is injured and Reigns isn’t ready yet for main event status. As for Ambrose and Rollins – they’d be good to offer a challenge to a newly crowned Viper.

Best of the RKO Vines YouTube Link