RAW Retort – RVD And Y2J have still got it

The last two segments of RAW stole the show, but in very different ways.

I’m going to start with Cena, and though it’s out of order, the old guys deserve the main event of this write up.

Cena really worked the crowd well. He played dumb where needed, and gave guys props where deserved. I was a little annoyed that he didn’t mention that Brooklyn Brawler was on stage with the rest of the Superstars. Brawler, otherwise known as Steve Lombardi, works as a road agent for the WWE, so he was already backstage for the show.

Since RAW was actually in Brooklyn, it made perfect sense for the Brawler to be out there with the Superstars, but he just stood there with Khali and Ryder. Cena should have said something about Brawler being out there when he was playing dumb and going through a list of who he should face. Only a few of the chosen names made a lot of sense for Cena to face, but the fans knew who they wanted – even if WWE’s official website hadn’t screwed up by accidentally putting the chosen one up on the page briefly during RAW.

The fans were all about Bryan, and there was no way Cena was going to be allowed to choose anyone else. Furthermore, Bryan sold every moment after being named. The fans love that man, and for good reason. But the way Bryan handled himself after being named had to bring in even more fans. There’s no question that Cena will be the heel in their match at SummerSlam, and the fans will be disgusted if Bryan doesn’t win the WWE Championship – myself included.

The real show stealer of the night for me were the old guys.

RVD vs Jericho

Both of them debuted in the ring before some WWE Superstars were even born. They’ve been wrestling for over 23 years, each, and were able to put on the match of the night, by far. After it was over I thought the match had lasted twelve to fifteen minutes, not almost twenty-five minutes. It was so great that it didn’t feel as though it had lasted as long as it had.

The WWE has stepped things up recently and returned to outstanding wrestling as well as solid storylines and great mic work, something we’ve not seen in a number of years. Punk, Bryan, Rollins, Ambrose, and so many others have been able to show their serious skills in the ring recently, and because of that RVD is back and he was able to have such a match with Jericho.

Those two have always been great in the ring, and RVD is one of the few who’s been able to show it all along, but even Jericho was reduced to hitting and kicking more between his lionsaults and walls of Jericho. Now that the tides have turned back, the fans are getting matches like this one between these two veteran wrestlers. They might be older than many who have been giving us matches that leave us on the edges of our seats, but they can still go with the best of them, and better than the rest.

I’m thrilled with the WWE for giving us matches like this, and allowing these two men to prove how much they still have in the tank, and that two faces can tell such a story in the ring.

It seems to me that Triple H and Steph are doing so much for the WWE and the industry as a whole. The WWE Performance Center in Florida is something the industry has never seen before, because it was nothing the industry could carry. But now with the size of the WWE, and the leadership of Triple H and Steph, big changes are afoot.

The wrestling and mic work can only get better from here with this facility, and after what we’ve been seeing week in and week out on RAW, Smackdown, MainEvent, Saturday Morning Slam, NXT, and PPVs, there’s so much more to come.

Looking back, many of us feel lucky to have lived through and enjoyed watching ECW, ECW, WWF and the Monday Night War, but looking forward, I think we’re going into a whole new level of talent and excitement. Sports entertainment is getting better and better recently, and we should feel lucky that we’re getting to watch it grow and change as it will.