WWE: Flops from 8th July RAW

The penultimate stop before the Money in the Bank PPV saw a couple of good television matches, along with a few shocking moments. The long awaited debut of the Wyatt Family resulted in Luke and Erick taking out the big red machine, Kane, as Bray Wyatt kneeled before the injured superstar with a sadistic laughter.

Other than that, Daniel Bryan defeated Sheamus while CM Punk defeated Randy Orton in the main event, after which Daniel Bryan came down to the ring and decked both the superstars out of the ring, and climbed the ladder to retrieve the Money in the Bank briefcase which was hung on top, to send a message to the remaining participants of the match. Let us now look at the flops of the show.

5. Christian is the new Michael McGillicutty!

In what was an epic botch on the part of the production team, while Christian was making his way out for his match against Kane, the entrance screen showed his name to be ‘Michael McGillicutty’. For those who don’t know who he is/was, that was the former persona of one Curtis Axel when he was in NXT/a part of Team Nexus. Although that reduced the crowd and the fans to chuckle, I don’t know how they got confused between ‘Christian’ and the other name. Maybe Sin Cara was a part of the production team? We can only imagine.

4. No Smackdown Money in the Bank stars involved

Why call it a ‘Supershow’ if you don’t involve the other participants of the Money in the Bank ladder match? WWE has messed it up by naming the RAW Money in the Bank ladder match an ‘All Stars’ match, which would automatically imply that the other ladder match isn’t as important, while all the younger talent is on the Smackdown ladder match, and it wouldn’t surprise anyone if it turns out to be the show stealer at the end of the night. The Smackdown Money in the Bank competitors were reduced to a mere segment, which ended with Wade Barrett knocking out Fandango when he tried to say his name. If that’s how WWE treats its younger talent, it isn’t a good sign of things to come.

3. Matches end abruptly, and no one cares

This week on RAW, Del Rio took on Sin Cara and the match ended in a No Contest when Del Rio attacked Dolph Ziggler! ‘Wrestling 101’ suggests that Del Rio should have been declared the winner by a DQ or something, but nobody cared. Sin Cara reminded the fans he was a part of the match by splashing Del Rio on the outside. But that wasn’t the only match of the night which ended abruptly. The Divas match suffered the same end when Kaitlyn speared AJ on the outside. Maybe WWE should spend some time editing their matches rather than botching everything up.

2. Brad Maddox replaces Vickie Guerrero

This was something I predicted, but hoped wouldn’t happen. At least Vickie Guerrero had experience as an on – screen authority figure. Maddox had relatively less exposure as an in – ring competitor, but is now the General Manager of Monday Night RAW? I can find at least five things about that which don’t make sense, and say this is a bad choice. If Vince meant ‘This is what we deserve’ as ‘Now you have to deal with Maddox’, then that doesn’t speak very highly of what Vince McMahon thinks of the WWE Universe. I remember a time when Vince delivered a promo about how WCW tested our “intelligence”. That’s irony.

1. Curtis Axel loses to Chris Jericho

If Axel lost to Punk, I’d understand. If he loses to Daniel Bryan, I’d probably say that’s a good move. But when you make a guy whom you consider to be the future (In hindsight, it might just be a bad joke on the legacy of Curt Hennig) lose to someone who will be bowing out of the company soon, that doesn’t speak well about ‘the future’. WWE messed up in building Axel, but just when everybody was taking him seriously as the IC champion, he lost to Chris Jericho. Jericho will more than likely lose to Ryback this Sunday, which doesn’t speak much about the trust WWE supposedly had in Heyman and Axel.