I know what you're thinking. Aside from pondering Guardians Vol. 2, Persona 5, and how icky those Taco Bell commercials are where the taco and burrito finally engage in a drunken 2am hook up. You're thinking "Are we in a slump like the headline says or is this just, kind of, WWE's standard factory setting?"
Well, to be fair, long gone are the days when RAW was must-watch, despite what Miz decrees. There's no longer an onus to deliver every single drop of creative passion into a typical three-hour Monday show. There's a lot of wheel-spinning and going-through-the-motion and most times you feel like you've watched a house show/live event because nothing's changed after the show. The status quo still holds.
But, this type of flat-us quo feels extra slumpy following the first post-Mania PPV. Mania doses us all up on a big high. Then there's the post-Mania RAW and all the call up and returns and debuts and turns. That fills our bellies for a few weeks and then the next big show, which this year was Payback, goes down like a fine after-supper spirit. Then... we start dragging up against the coral. Things fizzle out and until we start ramping up for SummerSlam, we tread luke warm waters. We'll get a spike around MITB, but until then things get chewy.
And it feels extra slumpy right now because of the world title situation. I wrote about that whole deal last week and how both RAW and SmackDown have world title pictures that feel non-vital either because they simply don't exist (Brock won't defend the title until July) or they involve a guy so new to the main event scene (in any company) that it doesn't feel real.
It doesn't bode well for the Universal Championship, which is such a new, un-tested belt that it feels wrong to make it vanish like this, or for the WWE Championship. To be fair, Jinder's doing his best in his new spot, though his finisher looks less devastating than half the mid-card's mid-moves. Why not just make it a Full Nelson Slam? Why lock in a Cobra Clutch at all unless you're going to hold it on the guy for a bit and then slam him down?
Anyhow, add to all of this the fact that we got both RAW and Smackdown from London this week and you get some pretty disposable programming. Not terrible, just non-essential. Nothing big can ever happen in these overseas shows. Firstly, not everyone gets flown over. Also, since they need to pre-tape, the fact that spoilers are up online for those wanting to read ahead diminishes the chance of huge surprises.
RAW doesn't have a PPV for another month so that show was mostly about Miz and Ambrose. Bray got a main event win out of the situation, but nothing else came of it. Nothing even happened to further Finn vs. Bray. Everyone just showed up to have pretty standard matches. The biggest news coming out of the show, and it's only semi-ring related, is that Braun actually IS injured, though it's his elbow and not his rotator cuff. Roman came out, to a British barrage of boos, and worked over Braun's injury. Like a true hero. You know, just to prove to everyone that he wasn't a coward.
Yes, I know, Roman's not supposed to be an honorable guy. He's just THE guy. He's not good, he's not bad, he's bland. His gimmick is that he has no discernible anything. He'd rather punch you in the mouth than argue with you, which is the case for all babyfaces. Words are hard, fists are easy, and if you don't like what someone's saying, you attack them. It's American Hero 101. But other than that, Roman's just free soft serve at Jason's Deli. He's certainly not big and he's certainly not a dog. He's just a jeer generator.
/this week's typical roman rant
Continue on for more from RAW and SmackDown...
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