WWE RAW Report (December 8, 2014): Slammys prove yet another fan disconnect

Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat’s face said it all as he read the match of the year. A look of pure confusion, a far from confident voice that screamed “how in the hell is this match of the year?!”

Normally, I wouldn’t pay much attention to worked awards. The Slammys are supposedly voted on by the fans, but the “major” awards suspiciously fit oh so perfectly into the WWE’s storyline. Seth Green even poked fun at this fact at the beginning of the show, managing to say with a straight face that unlike the other major award shows, this one wasn’t rigged.

I also don’t want to bag on Dolph Ziggler who did an incredible job in this “match of the year” and is deservingly benefiting from the rub that both that match and Sting provided. However, the main event from Survivor Series, much like the other match of the year nominees (the Shield/Evolution trios match excepted) simply isn’t match of the year caliber. Oh sure, it was a great moment in kayfabe, much like Daniel Bryan’s title victory at Wrestlemania (which wasn’t even his best match that night), but great moments in kayfabe do not fantastic wrestling matches make.

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To put it another way, this is the same “sports entertainment”/”pro wrestling” sparring match that Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon took part in last week. Vince, and thus the WWE as a whole, values the moment and the memory. The work in the ring is so buried on the depth chart that is isn’t even listed on the two-deep.

And while, as a fan, I will always love moments and memories like the debut of Sting or Daniel Bryan finally achieving his dream, I value the work done in the ring as that’s what gets me to even remotely care about these guys in the first place. Without Bryan’s previous work, he’s just another guy. The same goes for Ziggler and the handful of times he has opened a PPV with a match that set the crowd on fire. My love for Dean Ambrose ignited when he and The Shield put on trios matches unlike anything the WWE has ever seen before.

This isn’t just a minor disconnect by the WWE here. This might as well span the Grand Canyon. And if you’d like to confirm that the WWE really is out of touch right now, look no further than Roman Reigns snagging the superstar of the year award.

It’s no secret that the WWE wants to push Reigns to the moon. Backstage rumors aside, just look at how they’ve handled the guy. The Shield breaks up, but Roman gets to keep everything cool about it–the look, the music, and the entrance–while Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins crafted new ones. Ambrose and Rollins took to feuds below the title picture while Reigns immediately found himself there and into programs with John Cena. And while Reigns has been injured, he has gotten more screen time/reminders of his existence than last year’s superstar of the year, Daniel Bryan.

The WWE has a strange way of shoving something down the WWE Universe’s throat and then pretending like it listened to the fans all along. Daniel Bryan’s Wrestlemania run bucked this trend.

When Bryan won the award last year, it felt like a hat-tip and a pat on the back, the epitome of a B+ player award, to a guy that the WWE knew damn well they weren’t going to put in the main event of Wrestlemania, much less put him over twice in one night. That was supposed to be his ceiling and his payoff, but CM Punk’s departure from the WWE coupled with Bryan’s ever-growing momentum and crowd reaction simply didn’t allow that to happen. The only logical conclusion quickly became Bryan finally winning the WWE Championship against all odds in a journey that began at Summerslam. It fit together so perfectly, the WWE acted like it was the plan all along, complete with WWE Network specials on Bryan’s journey.

Now, the WWE is taking the springboard that Bryan used last year, the superstar of the year Slammy, and using it as a rub for a returning Roman Reigns. Reigns has been involved in some great matches, but as a part of The Shield trio. His solo work hasn’t been awful, but it certainly isn’t anything remotely close to Vince’s challenge of “stepping up” and “grabbing the brass ring”, which now seems to be fun phrases that every talent wants to use in promos (Cena included, which is hilarious because Vince and Austin specifically stated Cena was the only one that has done as much). This reeks more of “remember you are supposed to think this guy is important even though he’s the least over superstar on this list of nominees”.

There are other people on the main roster killing themselves trying to reach Vince’s “brass ring” while Vince stands on top of the glass ceiling holding them back while giving Reigns the final boost to reach it. If the plan is to have Reigns be the guy to take Lesnar down, I’m not going to be even a fraction of invested in the main Wrestlemania angle as I was last year. Further, that would be a terrible waste of Lesnar and his part-time contract at this point. But here we are, shoved on that train which seems to be going to that final destination and nowhere fast all at the time.

Enjoy the ride, WWE Universe, as you “voted” for this! The WWE is “listening”!

Five Takeaways from the Night

1) Slammys being won by talent not even at RAW was also quite telling.

Sting, Brock Lesnar, and Chris Jericho all “took home” hardware despite not being on TV last night and for most of the year. That’s your current WWE in a nutshell. Big moments are created by/provided for part-time talent while the rest of the roster is looked at like filler.

That isn’t to say some of the moments provided weren’t great. Sting’s debut was awesome and Brock Lesnar breaking the streak and destroying Cena has created a legit top-tier monster heel. It’s just a damn shame that a similar focus isn’t on the talent that’s there week after week that isn’t named John Cena.

2) That’s how you debuted Charlotte?!

Yeah, Charlotte, I’m stunned that’s how they debuted you too. Photo credit: WWE.com

What was the point of this match? The daughter of Ric Flair, the woman putting on consistent, stellar matches on NXT, gets a two minute match that ends via mystery rollup (that doesn’t even make the WWE’s YouTube channel)? Not to mention, her opponent, Natalya was one in which she went toe-to-toe with on NXT and they put on a fantastic match.

Yet push it up to the main roster and it becomes hot garbage.

I’m practically at the point in which I’m hoping NXT divas stay on NXT forever for their own sake. Paige right now is the lone exception for this actually working out, but now she’s even getting shuffled into limbo now that the Bella Twins have risen to feud with A.J. Lee. The WWE has never really run multiple angles in the divas division well, so I’m now terrified for Paige’s immediate future.

I have so little hope for these talented women once they leave the nurturing and rewarding environment of NXT. There is however, one last glimmer of hope…

3) A.J. Lee puts over the entire NXT divas roster even when the WWE refuses to.

Now this was awesome. A.J. channeled a bit of her husband and did a nice worked shoot to give the divas in NXT their due even though Charlotte got relegated to a terrible match. While I still have very little hope that the WWE will ever do anything meaningful with this rub, I’m still glad it happened, as did every NXT diva who took to Twitter thanking A.J. for the mention.

Also, if you are wondering why these ladies were worth A.J.’s airtime to mention, I’d highly suggest watching a few episodes of NXT to watch these divas actually get a chance to work a match (as well as all the other awesome talent on that roster). That show alone is worth your $9.99 monthly subscription fee and that isn’t hyperbole.

4) “LOL Moment” is WWE-speak for legitimately good things that the WWE will now take a dump on.

WEE-L-C was a joke match concept turned into probably my favorite PPV pre-show match ever. El Torito and Hornswoggle knew they had a rare opportunity to shine so WWE tropes be damned, they were going to tear the house down and the did. But hey, let’s do a highlight reel with some goofy music to make that effort look like a joke, why not?

Mr. T’s speech about his mother equal parts heartfelt and off-the-wall. Regardless of your final reaction though, it was something completely organic that simply couldn’t be duplicated. So of course the WWE decided to splice it with the racist and ill-conceived Brodus Clay dancing mama bit. LOL, y’all!

Then of course you get Vickie Guerrero taking it in the shorts one last time since the last time. Her final moment on WWE TV was, in my opinion, a poor attempt at giving her final revenge and she deserved far better. However, the moment was still hers and still her final stand against all the crap she had to put up with now. Last night, it was a LOL moment focused on Stephanie McMahon getting a pudding bath and not Vickie’s revenge.

Yes, I know I’m deciding to dig deeper into worked award nominees, but this all seemed particularly egregious. This is why we can’t have good things.

5) Damien Mizdow remains the best.

I don’t think I could sing his praises any more than I already do. He’s starting to get individual success outside of Miz’s stunt double routine, so you know the eventual breakup is coming. My hope is that he is able to get enough of these solo achievements so that the WWE Universe stays behind him once he’s back to being Damien Sandow no longer has the stunt double gimmick.

I’m going to enjoy the ride as long as it lasts though as watching Mizdow do full bumps to absolutely nothing continues to be one of the best things every week on RAW.

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