Think about this, Imagine six men spend an hour to try to tell the story of “earning a United States championship opportunity”. Now Imagine, they spend that hour performing that match only to be told, it means nothing and someone who wasn’t even in the match is getting the opportunity they were fighting for, by doing nothing. Well guess what? You don’t even have to imagine it, it happened last night on Monday Night RAW.
R-Truth, Akira Tozowa, Matt Hardy, Ricochet, Humberto Carillo, and Andrade, had an hour long gauntlet match, and the ending saw the last participant that being Andrade, attack Carillo before he officially entered the match. So the final match in the gauntlet match was thrown out, therefore no winner being declared. While this was happening the United States Champion, Rey Mysterio, would come out during this. While Rey was in the ring Seth Rollins would come out holding the lead pipe that Rey gave to Kevin Owens. Backed up by AOP and they attacked Rey Mysterio. Later that night Seth would say he’s going to challenge Rey Mysterio next week for the United States Championship.
Now as far as continuity goes, the fact Seth is acknowledging Rey gave Owens the pipe is great storytelling. The problem, why did we just have a gauntlet match to determine a number one contender, but since there was no finish to the match, someone who wasn’t in the match can just declare he’s getting a title shot? This all made the gauntlet match very pointless. I want to care about the matches, I want to care about this three hour show weekly. How am I supposed to care about this one match taking up an hour of the show only for the result to mean nothing?
This is a three hour show, how much of it did I actually care about though? About twenty minutes. All of the Seth Rollins stuff, the Becky promo and the AJ Styles/Randy Orton match, and that’s it. Why is it so hard for WWE to make fans care about the show? Why is it so hard for WWE to put together matches that matter and stories that matter? It’s always one or the other with them. That gauntlet match was great and I was really enjoying it, until it ended, and it resulting in meaning nothing. The rest of the show saw squash matches, a tag team match that was way too long and everyone (commentary included) were confused as to whether it was a title match, a Lana/Lashley segment that dragged for what seemed like forever (that I ended up muting), and a good Asuka match, and the main event.
Also, I’ve been saying for years that the matches themselves need to tell the same story being told. The perfect example of this was this past Sunday. Bray Wyatt vs. The Miz, Miz said “I’m not going into this match as The Miz, this is the biggest match of my life because I’m defending my family”, that’s as personal as it gets. So why would he come out in his character’s ring gear? Why would he do his character’s entrance motions? Why would he sit there and let Bray turn his back on him and stand on the announce table and acknowledge the crowd? The storytelling aspect of the match is important too, if there’s a personal feud going on, if Miz is “not going in as The Miz”, he should only care about defending his family and nothing else, he shouldn’t care about anything else, that’s good storytelling. I don’t want to see rest holds in a personal feud, or a street fight, if someone has a knee injury they shouldn’t be doing dives. These all seem like common sense things to me.
All this is, is me wanting to care about three hours of RAW, or a match that is supposed to be telling the right story. As a wrestling fan, I want to care about everything that happens, but if WWE doesn’t, is it even worth it. Then you get the people on Twitter who tell me “Stop watching then”, when people say that they don’t understand what I’m saying. I’m not saying RAW is so bad that I can’t stand watching it, I’m saying RAW shouldn’t be this bad that I don’t care about everything that happens. I’m saying that’s been the problem for way too long. Now, think about that, actually enjoying the entire show.
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