The COO of WWE and leader of The Authority reminded us all why, when he wants to be, he can be one of the more entertaining promo-men in the business. Last night’s RAW opened with a heavily sarcastic shot at the WWE’s Internet community, specifically the multitude of fans on Twitter.
Now, as someone who has spent far more time than is healthy on Twitter in the last week (the benefits of an actual teacher’s schedule), I can say he was right on the money. While there are some absolutely stellar wrestling fans out there dedicated to intelligent conversation and articulate, respectful debate (Head over to @The2Contenders and you’ll easily find who I’m talking about), the vast majority of Internet wrestling fans do nothing but whine, complain, and threaten to take their friend Mark and stop watching if WWE doesn’t listen to their demands.
So Triple H started out the show by giving us “smart” fans a verbal shellacking, condemning us for our constant complaining.
The next 3 hours showed that they were listening, however, as last night’s RAW could have been subtitled “A Love Letter to our Twitter fans”.
Dolph Ziggler, who most Internet fans feel is ‘the best wrestler on the roster who never seems to get the push he deserves and should have totally won that Battle Royal instead of stupid dopey Miz’, (not saying they’re totally wrong in bemoaning Ziggler’s push, but as I said last week, he is the Miz and he is AWESOME!) picked up the victory over the IC champ.
We finally got the Paige heel turn fans have been screaming about online for weeks now.
Zack Ryder, with his 1.5 million Twitter followers and, on average, 1.5 minutes of weekly RAW screen time, defeated Fandango. Read that last sentence again. Zack Ryder picked up a singles victory! As @WWEStats (another absolute must-follow)informed us, that’s the first RAW win in over a year and a half for Mr. #WWWYKI.
It wasn’t even just the social media aspect of the Internet that WWE played to. Over the last few weeks, the issue of race has been all over wrestling websites, podcasts and blogs. WWE seems to be addressing that mainstream issue on screen (as well as satisfying those ardent Kofi fans who, like me, think he’s got major potential as a heel), as Xavier Woods looks poised to start a Nation of Domination-esque stable.
Not to toot my own horn, but I totally called it, though I didn’t think Woods would take the lead.
Then we have our main event. Cesaro, Internet golden boy and seemingly the soon-to-be the enforcer of The Authority, taking on Dean Ambrose, another Twitter darling, in singles competition. Now, it helps that John Cena was off being a movie star, but last night’s main event featured the two wrestlers who, if the average Twitter fan or my partner Doc Manson was booking, would be World Champions 20 times over before their careers were done.
(Note: Since this is a family blog, I will refrain from speaking too much about the wardrobe malfunction or the boss’ daughter in handcuffs. Needless to say, both were highly popular topics for online discussion.)
By the time we got to our final segment and Brock Lesnar made his inevitable return, the Twitter-verse had stopped its moaning and groaning for the most part. Sated by seeing their favorite wrestlers pick up victories and storylines heading in what they deemed to be a positive direction, the predictability of Lesnar’s appearance was welcomed by the Internet community. Buoyed by Paul Heyman’s absolutely gleeful performance and the fact that everyone wants to see Cena completely destroyed at SummerSlam, Lesnar is poised to ride a wave of popularity into “The Biggest Party of the Summer”.
While last night proved that Triple H would really, REALLY like to take his sledgehammer to the keyboards (and in some cases, the craniums) of the wrestling world’s rabid Twitter following, our lesson is that the powers that be in the WWE do hear your concerns and will, from time to time, address them.
So, as @NewAgeInsiders is fond of saying, be heard, fans. For my sake, though, would it kill you to use a little proper spelling and sentence structure? I am The Teacher, after all.
Class dismissed.
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