RAW Retort - You look at me like that little 12 year old girl

Fight for your life!

Cody Rhodes

This was the first five star match we’ve seen from Cody Rhodes, and it’s sad that it had to be for fear of being fired. I know it makes sense that he’d pull out all the stops for this match, but dang, I wish we’d seen this from him all along! Cody would be leaps and bounds ahead of where he is now if he had.

We all know that Cody isn’t gone from the WWE. He must be taking time off for his wedding and his honeymoon. Besides, the feud with Sandow is far from over! He was the perfect person for Trip to fire, to show what a mean boss he is, and prove that he’s in ultimate control over the roster. I’m sure Cody will be back, and I hope the storyline for him returning is strong, because after the holes in the Big Show storyline, I’m worried.

13 days!

Punk, as always, handled himself really well on mic here. I loved that he said there really wasn’t anything he needed to say, and that he was too riled up to remember what he’s supposed to say next. Punk has such a different style on mic, and because of that I really enjoy watching him. When he’s given the freedom he needs to blossom, you really never know what he might say, and that’s good for business!

I’m going to beat you!

Big Show going to talk to Bryan backstage made complete sense and worked really well. I still don’t believe he’s completely broke, but it’s the direction they’re going with it, and if he’d just stop blubbering, it might actually work.

Divas destroy the flow!

How hard is it for a couple of Divas to beat down AJ? Obviously too hard for them to handle. Total Divas is doing wonderfully, and AJ was just fantastic on mic last week, but it seems as though the Divas haven’t been able to handle ring work for about a month now, and this time it wasn’t that dang ref! Just when the Divas start getting the ball again, they fumble it. What is going on with these girls?

Yawn!

I hate to say this about RVD, but this match was a snooze-fest! I adore Sandow, but it seems as though his matches have not been at all interesting. I adore him, but he’s not been exciting in the ring lately. Even in the ring with RVD, Sandow wasn’t overly exciting, and I think that’s a serious issue. I hope he picks things up soon, because he’s really lagging behind his former bestie Cody.

They put him in polka dots and made him dance!

Cody rocked my socks off with this segment. As great as Cody was earlier on mic, he blew that out of the water as if it was nothing with this later segment. Cody really stepped it up here and I’m in awe. If Cody can continue along at this level when he returns, he could be a top competitor very quickly.

Don’t make me hurt you, please!

Big Show handled himself really well early in this segment, before he started blubbering like a toddler whose ice cream just fell to the ground. It just wasn’t good when he fell apart, but before that he impressed me, as he always does, when working with smaller wrestlers, yet makes them look like a viable opponent. Big Show is one of the few big guys – and probably because he’s one of the biggest he’s figured it out – who can work with smaller wrestlers and make the matches believable. Only when Big Show was in the ring with Rey Mysterio or Spike Dudley did it look really off, but Bryan isn’t a big guy, but I believed that Bryan was able to take Big Show down and work him over.

Bryan sold it well and made it work as well. He always looks strong in the ring, no matter who he’s facing or the beating he’s taking.

But then things fell apart. As I said before, Bryan can only take so many beatings before the fans are not going to believe he can handle himself and won’t pay for Night of Champions. And how long will the fans hold on to the underdog who never gets his moment to shine? I know it’s only been a couple weeks of this, but each show is ending with Bryan in a heap, or worse, and that’s not going to be good for business in the long run.