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| (insert Chris Tucker gif here) Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Why were Big E. Langston and Fandango teaming together against the Usos? Unless it was to show Fandango being cowardly again or that he can pull off a .2 Breeze, there wasn't one--they were just there to fall at the hands of the most popular tag team the E's got to offer, two guys with their eyes on the prizes held by the Shield.
Why did the final match turn into a Nexmildpiffle instead of a NEXPLOSION between the Intercontinental Champion and Justin Gabriel?
Axel needs something to do being the basement in the Heyman foundation and Gabriel needs to...actually connect with his Roaring Elbow attempts and La Magistral cradles. Stuff happened, hangman's facebuster. Feh.
Questions about the situations this week on Main Event have come up, but they're easily answerable in the next breath. That's what makes the past generally solvable; Qs are married to As. Of course when you try to have an answer about the future holds, that's when things can get cloudy (or, for lack of a better term, interesting.) So here's a question on the table this RKOCorp™ storyline brings up definitely worth getting into:
Doesn't the most logical step at Battleground involve Orton winning the WWE championship after Stephanie forces the Big Show to KTFO our main man D-Bry right there?
Think about last month, when Corporation Nouveau was so dominant the Coast to Coast had to come out of mothballs to address the balance or lack thereof going on. Since then? Daniel Bryan's beaten everybody in the wholly gold-plated Shield by kneeing their face off. Randy Orton having gone through his public dressing-down and failure to get the WWE Championship back has turned him into the sort of humanoid killer he barely functions in society best as. It seems pretty obvious to say that the only thing that could stop one in WWE is the other, which is why you don't hear the usual complaints of a rematch when this is another iteration in a series. In order to know where we are, we need to know where we've been, so let's review:
Bryan and Orton fight on RAW to an Orton win pretty much handed to him by the medical staff and Daniel Bryan trying too hard to kick his ass.
This pisses DB off and he wants a rematch, which he wins by countout. That's not enough for the supervirtuous babyface with anger issues, and once another match goes to a double countout he wants an extreme rules match. Later in the evening Orton taps out to a kendo-stick-assisted Yes! Lock in the middle of the ring, and that result and the post-match handshake pretty much rekindle the sparks of evil Orton. Keep in mind at Money in the Bank it took Paul Heyman to inadvertently put the briefcase in Orton's arms after nullfying Bryan and then Punk winning it thanks to the actions of him & Curtis Axel. Orton "earns" the briefcase, but he doesn't earn it. The oh-by-the-way-look-at-this-new-treasure-I've-found teases happen for a few shows, and then Bryan goes into SummerSlam and upsets the apple cart by busaikuing Cena out of his title reign. In the final seconds before the Glass Ceiling Driver stops him? Orton is in the aisleway walking away while Bryan, who'd just fought and beaten the biggest name on WWE's full-time payroll after a half-hour war, is literally daring RKO to come after the newly minted champion. (Again, he's got anger issues but his virtuousness -- maybe even in part thanks to Dr. Shelby -- can't be questioned for the time being.) Orton cashes in and wins, sure.
But again: Orton wins the WWE Championship. There are entire oceans between the way he gets it in comparison to earning it the way Bryan has, and does again at Battleground. Sure, Bryan had gotten the crap kicked out of him for five shows, and then the knees started flying and the Locks started being put on and even the collective of champions the Shield can only slow him--they can't beat him in a fair fight.
You know, the same fair fight the overlords put their investment in and kept the Shield & Big Show out of at Battleground to test the viability of their hypothesis. And while true the count was fast, as Bryan pointed out that Busiaku had Orton beep flatlined for well past 3 and at least 10.
To simplify? Orton is Goofus. Bryan Gallant. Bryan, the 99%er, works and scraps only to be held down by the machinations of corporations who want to turn his labor into money-making grist for their T-shirt mills while all he wants at the end of the day is a cute girlfriend, a nice dog to scamper along with, and occasionally makes a child's wishes come true. Orton, the defintion of L/legacy in so many ways, has his shady military history overwritten, burns through attractive on-camera wives the way Beyonce does costume changes in her live shows, consorts with Barney, and is born on third base thinking he hit a home run. It's been apparent all year that Orton, as good as he is and has become once again this slither around, isn't Daniel Bryan good, and needs the field titled in his favor if he's to live up to the moniker of being the WWE's face.
And hey, since the most effective heel is Stephanie McMahon lately and she's got the World's Largest Athlete by the short and curlies, he might be the one who has to pull the trigger come next Sunday.
This all came to mind in the virtual squash of Damien Sandow (who at this rate is to be the first MITB holder who walks into a weakened champion's finisher and gets pinned) that formed the creme center in the Main Event Oreo. They showed him rewatching what he did to the Miz on Monday, and while he didn't seem joyful about it he wasn't shedding tears or providing a soft landing. Given a match against an inferior he could punch the everloving bejebus out of without any lasting emotional repercussions? Here's some skillet chops, your offense I find a nuisance, and then you get PUNCHED IN THE FACE. He even was kind enough to put the briefcase on Sandow's chest after ripping it off of the ringpost on his way out. At first he doesn't like doing it but he has to.
Then Stockholm sets in. Pretty soon he can barely shrug, and then all he has do is close his eyes and think of England, as it were, so long as the RCers keep him from being financially irrelevant. And he may even get to do it to the man who gave him a forty-five second World Championship reign and berated him after an accident to the point where he wept openly.
Perhaps it's only masochists who think the way to lessen the pain of their own misery and tears falling is to cause someone else's.
For Daniel Bryan's sake, he better hope the Big Show thinks differently and that moment isn't coming on the first Sunday of October, or Orton will just be standing on home plate with his prize and the new brute squad behind him faster than you can say "knock him out".
It's amazing how clear your thinking crystallizes when the television show you're watching makes you think about everything surrounding what's being put on-screen instead of the actual product sometimes.
Why did the final match turn into a Nexmildpiffle instead of a NEXPLOSION between the Intercontinental Champion and Justin Gabriel?
Axel needs something to do being the basement in the Heyman foundation and Gabriel needs to...actually connect with his Roaring Elbow attempts and La Magistral cradles. Stuff happened, hangman's facebuster. Feh.
Questions about the situations this week on Main Event have come up, but they're easily answerable in the next breath. That's what makes the past generally solvable; Qs are married to As. Of course when you try to have an answer about the future holds, that's when things can get cloudy (or, for lack of a better term, interesting.) So here's a question on the table this RKOCorp™ storyline brings up definitely worth getting into:
Doesn't the most logical step at Battleground involve Orton winning the WWE championship after Stephanie forces the Big Show to KTFO our main man D-Bry right there?
Think about last month, when Corporation Nouveau was so dominant the Coast to Coast had to come out of mothballs to address the balance or lack thereof going on. Since then? Daniel Bryan's beaten everybody in the wholly gold-plated Shield by kneeing their face off. Randy Orton having gone through his public dressing-down and failure to get the WWE Championship back has turned him into the sort of humanoid killer he barely functions in society best as. It seems pretty obvious to say that the only thing that could stop one in WWE is the other, which is why you don't hear the usual complaints of a rematch when this is another iteration in a series. In order to know where we are, we need to know where we've been, so let's review:
Bryan and Orton fight on RAW to an Orton win pretty much handed to him by the medical staff and Daniel Bryan trying too hard to kick his ass.
This pisses DB off and he wants a rematch, which he wins by countout. That's not enough for the supervirtuous babyface with anger issues, and once another match goes to a double countout he wants an extreme rules match. Later in the evening Orton taps out to a kendo-stick-assisted Yes! Lock in the middle of the ring, and that result and the post-match handshake pretty much rekindle the sparks of evil Orton. Keep in mind at Money in the Bank it took Paul Heyman to inadvertently put the briefcase in Orton's arms after nullfying Bryan and then Punk winning it thanks to the actions of him & Curtis Axel. Orton "earns" the briefcase, but he doesn't earn it. The oh-by-the-way-look-at-this-new-treasure-I've-found teases happen for a few shows, and then Bryan goes into SummerSlam and upsets the apple cart by busaikuing Cena out of his title reign. In the final seconds before the Glass Ceiling Driver stops him? Orton is in the aisleway walking away while Bryan, who'd just fought and beaten the biggest name on WWE's full-time payroll after a half-hour war, is literally daring RKO to come after the newly minted champion. (Again, he's got anger issues but his virtuousness -- maybe even in part thanks to Dr. Shelby -- can't be questioned for the time being.) Orton cashes in and wins, sure.
But again: Orton wins the WWE Championship. There are entire oceans between the way he gets it in comparison to earning it the way Bryan has, and does again at Battleground. Sure, Bryan had gotten the crap kicked out of him for five shows, and then the knees started flying and the Locks started being put on and even the collective of champions the Shield can only slow him--they can't beat him in a fair fight.
You know, the same fair fight the overlords put their investment in and kept the Shield & Big Show out of at Battleground to test the viability of their hypothesis. And while true the count was fast, as Bryan pointed out that Busiaku had Orton beep flatlined for well past 3 and at least 10.
To simplify? Orton is Goofus. Bryan Gallant. Bryan, the 99%er, works and scraps only to be held down by the machinations of corporations who want to turn his labor into money-making grist for their T-shirt mills while all he wants at the end of the day is a cute girlfriend, a nice dog to scamper along with, and occasionally makes a child's wishes come true. Orton, the defintion of L/legacy in so many ways, has his shady military history overwritten, burns through attractive on-camera wives the way Beyonce does costume changes in her live shows, consorts with Barney, and is born on third base thinking he hit a home run. It's been apparent all year that Orton, as good as he is and has become once again this slither around, isn't Daniel Bryan good, and needs the field titled in his favor if he's to live up to the moniker of being the WWE's face.
And hey, since the most effective heel is Stephanie McMahon lately and she's got the World's Largest Athlete by the short and curlies, he might be the one who has to pull the trigger come next Sunday.
This all came to mind in the virtual squash of Damien Sandow (who at this rate is to be the first MITB holder who walks into a weakened champion's finisher and gets pinned) that formed the creme center in the Main Event Oreo. They showed him rewatching what he did to the Miz on Monday, and while he didn't seem joyful about it he wasn't shedding tears or providing a soft landing. Given a match against an inferior he could punch the everloving bejebus out of without any lasting emotional repercussions? Here's some skillet chops, your offense I find a nuisance, and then you get PUNCHED IN THE FACE. He even was kind enough to put the briefcase on Sandow's chest after ripping it off of the ringpost on his way out. At first he doesn't like doing it but he has to.
Then Stockholm sets in. Pretty soon he can barely shrug, and then all he has do is close his eyes and think of England, as it were, so long as the RCers keep him from being financially irrelevant. And he may even get to do it to the man who gave him a forty-five second World Championship reign and berated him after an accident to the point where he wept openly.
Perhaps it's only masochists who think the way to lessen the pain of their own misery and tears falling is to cause someone else's.
For Daniel Bryan's sake, he better hope the Big Show thinks differently and that moment isn't coming on the first Sunday of October, or Orton will just be standing on home plate with his prize and the new brute squad behind him faster than you can say "knock him out".
It's amazing how clear your thinking crystallizes when the television show you're watching makes you think about everything surrounding what's being put on-screen instead of the actual product sometimes.