RAW made me feel intense feelings tonight in back to back segments. They were of the polar opposite variety, and I bet if I gave you a guess as to which one made me want to ragequit watching wrestling forever and which reaffirmed my faith in humanity, I bet you'd definitely pick Triple H for the former and a good chance you'd pick Mark Henry for the latter. And here we are, predictable as always.
When I first saw that they were teasing an "office invasion" as one of the marquee segments on the show tonight, I groaned a little bit. It was something out of the Bischoff-era Nitro playbook, only unlike those WCW bait-and-switch specials, it actually had a decent payoff. I could watch Brock Lesnar intimidate office peons and destroy Corporate America workspaces for longer than I thought I would before the segment's climax happened. If that was the end of story for this evening, it would've been a success, but that's never the end of anything, is it?
Triple H had to come out. He had to ask the man who created Extreme Championship Wrestling if he knew what extreme was, all the while insinuating that Degeneration X was more integral to the fabric of the Attitude Era than ECW's ever burgeoning influence was. Seriously, why are they letting Trips write his own scripts? Then, this office invasion that we were supposed to believe was devastating and a major blow to Trips, he shrugs it off like it was nothing. This is why I can't ever get emotionally invested in any kind of feud he's involved in. He doesn't show weakness, and then when it comes time to pay the piper, he withholds the gold and then gives everyone a Pedigree for their troubles. The worst part is, unlike a guy like, oh, Steve Austin (who had a similar kind of style, if we're being honest with ourselves here), he's nowhere near as cool or good at the actual wrestling part to pull it off.
So, when Mark Henry came out and told Michael Cole he was "all ate up with stupid" for slyly trying to insult him on commentary, he could have been referring to the previous segment, the one he was tasked with redeeming. Redeem he did. I'm not going to blindly sit here and say that Henry, the character, is blameless for his role in starting the feud with Sheamus at all. Sneak attacking a guy is right out of the heel playbook. But again, there's a cool factor involved here. Watching Henry come out of nowhere and waylay the Celtic Warrior backstage? That's a cheapshot, but it is Law of the Jungle-levels of bad-ass. Reliving it was needed in the wake of seeing lameoid Sheamus cheat at games he was clearly losing.
Then to see Henry follow it up by stealing the belt off the EMT and whipping Sheamus, all while working his best-of-all-time shit talking game? It soothed my angry soul. Hate is a strong emotion. Men like Triple H can do unspeakable damage to my psyche, but the best thing about RAW tonight, and about Mark Henry in general, is that my favorite performers can come out, do their thing, and make it so that I feel not as good as I did before Triple H ruined things, but better. It wasn't just Henry either. It was Daniel Bryan standing up to Ryback, even though he was still battered and bruised from The Shield's attack on Smackdown, only to have Kane jump in for his partner when Ryback refused the challenge. It was seeing the Usos get a shot to be great on RAW instead of Superstars, and Kofi Kingston doing a headstand on Dean Ambrose's finisher. It was Dolph Ziggler selling a soccer kick to the back like a gunshot, imagining Great Khali trying to do recon on Kaitlyn's secret admirer while dressed up as a palm tree, or ESPECIALLY Damien Sandow clowning Randy Orton via theme song parody.
But most of all, it was Mark Henry doing what he do. If the question was "What is my personal antidote for when Triple H spews his toxic spray all over RAW?", then the World's Strongest Man was the answer.
When I first saw that they were teasing an "office invasion" as one of the marquee segments on the show tonight, I groaned a little bit. It was something out of the Bischoff-era Nitro playbook, only unlike those WCW bait-and-switch specials, it actually had a decent payoff. I could watch Brock Lesnar intimidate office peons and destroy Corporate America workspaces for longer than I thought I would before the segment's climax happened. If that was the end of story for this evening, it would've been a success, but that's never the end of anything, is it?
Triple H had to come out. He had to ask the man who created Extreme Championship Wrestling if he knew what extreme was, all the while insinuating that Degeneration X was more integral to the fabric of the Attitude Era than ECW's ever burgeoning influence was. Seriously, why are they letting Trips write his own scripts? Then, this office invasion that we were supposed to believe was devastating and a major blow to Trips, he shrugs it off like it was nothing. This is why I can't ever get emotionally invested in any kind of feud he's involved in. He doesn't show weakness, and then when it comes time to pay the piper, he withholds the gold and then gives everyone a Pedigree for their troubles. The worst part is, unlike a guy like, oh, Steve Austin (who had a similar kind of style, if we're being honest with ourselves here), he's nowhere near as cool or good at the actual wrestling part to pull it off.
So, when Mark Henry came out and told Michael Cole he was "all ate up with stupid" for slyly trying to insult him on commentary, he could have been referring to the previous segment, the one he was tasked with redeeming. Redeem he did. I'm not going to blindly sit here and say that Henry, the character, is blameless for his role in starting the feud with Sheamus at all. Sneak attacking a guy is right out of the heel playbook. But again, there's a cool factor involved here. Watching Henry come out of nowhere and waylay the Celtic Warrior backstage? That's a cheapshot, but it is Law of the Jungle-levels of bad-ass. Reliving it was needed in the wake of seeing lameoid Sheamus cheat at games he was clearly losing.
Then to see Henry follow it up by stealing the belt off the EMT and whipping Sheamus, all while working his best-of-all-time shit talking game? It soothed my angry soul. Hate is a strong emotion. Men like Triple H can do unspeakable damage to my psyche, but the best thing about RAW tonight, and about Mark Henry in general, is that my favorite performers can come out, do their thing, and make it so that I feel not as good as I did before Triple H ruined things, but better. It wasn't just Henry either. It was Daniel Bryan standing up to Ryback, even though he was still battered and bruised from The Shield's attack on Smackdown, only to have Kane jump in for his partner when Ryback refused the challenge. It was seeing the Usos get a shot to be great on RAW instead of Superstars, and Kofi Kingston doing a headstand on Dean Ambrose's finisher. It was Dolph Ziggler selling a soccer kick to the back like a gunshot, imagining Great Khali trying to do recon on Kaitlyn's secret admirer while dressed up as a palm tree, or ESPECIALLY Damien Sandow clowning Randy Orton via theme song parody.
But most of all, it was Mark Henry doing what he do. If the question was "What is my personal antidote for when Triple H spews his toxic spray all over RAW?", then the World's Strongest Man was the answer.