WWE took it up a notch on Monday night and it paid off. Rarely do they get 6 Achievements Unlocked on Raw in a single show.
Below, I’ll call out the good, the bad and the meme-worthy.
This is a good example of how a villain can be funny. With his wife having just been arrested, Triple H scrambles to get his things ready to leave for the police station.
As Joey Mercury points out he’s leaving the show – and his decision to name a #1 Contender – on hold, The King of Kings preaches that family comes first. He starts to leave, but then comes back, pointing out it will still be a while before he can see Stephanie (“She’s still gotta be processed, right?”) with a I-can-carry-on-without-pissing-my-wife-off look on his face.
He goes all out to tell us family comes first and then shatters his own morals for the sake of business in mere seconds. It was villainous, but it was also funny.
Brock Lesnar Guy, End Of The Streak Guy… Meet the man overselling for Brie Bella. He’s like a Dolph Ziggler for promo reactions.
After last being booked to win a match at the same time Bruno Sammartino was winning his first world title, Long Island Iced Z picked up a victory over Fandango last night. So, to coin a phrase:
After months of all of us convincing ourselves “Cesaro is stepping back to build up for a face turn vs. Brock”, Cesaro and Heyman started appearing on their own, in anticipation for Lesnar’s return.
On Raw, in his meeting with Triple H, Cesaro announced he had decided to no longer be a Paul Heyman Guy.
Since we can all think of 100 better ways to have handled this storyline, I’m going to call out the writers the only way I know how. With a JPEG file:
And yes, I also hope something worthwhile still comes of it.
If things don’t go Triple H’s way, he’s going to
– “Tweet about it until my fingers bleed”
– “I might even send an Instagram or Vine”
– “If I don’t get what I want, I’m gonna riot”
– “Me and my friend Mark are gonna stop watching”
In other words:
We see what you did there.
As my heel friend Aaron Walker said on Heelbook’s Facebook page: “I’d love Heyman to hype all matches in the promo packages like he did in ECW. Guy can sell a match with words in 5 minutes more than most of WWE creative can with a months worth of tv time.”
Paul E. really does a great job of setting up the importance of a match and making it feel high-stakes. The quality of his promos have a level of consistency that comes around maybe a handful in each generation.
Which is why the final achievement has to go to the ECW guy: