John Cena Broken Nose

The Spotlight On The Week Ahead For WWE 8/3/2015

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Hello everyone and welcome to the week ahead for WWE.  This week WWE continues down to the road to Summerslam, which is being promoted for the first time I can remember as the Wrestlemania of the Summer.  With less than 3 weeks left until the now 4 hour show, it’ll be interesting to see how WWE continues the build this week.  That being said, there’s a whole lot more to look forward to this week if you’re a fan of WWE so let’s get right into it.

Highlights

1) The Beast Returns-  Tonight Brock Lesnar returns to Raw which will emanate live from San Jose, California in his first appearance since his big brawl with the Undertaker.  However, one man who won’t be on hand for the show is John Cena who is still out recovering from his gruesome broken nose at the hands of Seth Rollins.  I’m really interested to get an update on John Cena because it really looked like they were heading towards Cena vs. Rollins for the world heavyweight title at Summerslam.  With Cena not being able to be at Raw, it’ll be interesting to see if they decide to go a different direction with the world title picture (perhaps Kane?) or if Cena will be able to return by Summerslam.

2) Stone Cold Live!-  Stone Cold Steve Austin returns to the WWE Network tonight with his latest installment of Stone Cold Live, this time with his guest Paige.  As I’ve touched on before, this was rumored to have been Hulk Hogan in this slot, but obviously with everything going on with him, he is not going to be featured on the WWE Network anytime soon.  This is the fourth installment of the Steve Austin Podcast on the WWE Network and I’m pretty intrigued to see Paige featured in the role as she is a pretty unique guest for the show.  Certainly, with Paige being positioned at the forefront of the Divas Revolution, I’m sure the new Divas movement will be a big topic of conversation.  One thing is for sure, the Texas Rattlesnake, won’t pull any punches.

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3) Big Guy Down– One man who’s been conspicuous by his absence has been, reigning Intercontinental champion, Ryback.  Well Ryback posted a picture of his current staph infection of his right knee this past weekend and it looks awful.  It’s good that the WWE doctors were able to catch the staph infection before the damage was worse.  With Ryback, not looking like he’ll be ready to return to the ring any time soon, it’ll be interesting to see how much longer he’ll be able to go with the intercontinental championship.  I always say that WWE should take a page of out UFC’s playbook in regards to this and crown an interim champion if the champion can’t compete for an extended period of time.  This allows for their to be a champion to still be on television and sets up for a clear title rematch once the original champion is able to return to the ring.  That being said, we wish the big guy a speedy recovery.

4) RIP Roddy Piper–  I’m preparing for a longer piece on Piper later this week but obviously WWE lost one of their hall of famers, and original Wrestlemania main eventers, in Roddy Piper late last week.  It has been a really tough year already for WWE with the untimely passing of Dusty Rhodes and now this.  WWE has been doing ten bell salutes to Piper during their live events since his passing and I’m sure that will continue tonight.  One of the good things with the Network, is that when someone passes, WWE is usually very good about doing a good amount of tribute type programming to remember that individual.  While their hasn’t been any Roddy Piper material added to the schedule just yet, I’m sure the WWE Network will do the same with Roddy later in the week, like they’ve done with Dusty and Warrior.  Of course, there is already tons of great Roddy Piper footage in the on demand section of the Network for fans to go back and enjoy while celebrating the life of one of the all time greats.

Closing Thoughts

Sorry to end on such a somber note, but I figured I would be remiss not to mention this somewhere, that this morning word came out that WWE hall of famer “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka is currently battling stomach cancer.  The good news is that it appears the doctors were able to get to the cancer in time as Jimmy has undergone stomach surgery to remove part of his stomach and lymph nodes and appears to be cancer free.  We wish The Superfly, a speedy recovery.

That’s going to do it for me but keep your eyes peeled for a few more pieces coming at you real soon on the daily spotlight, including my tribute piece on Roddy Piper, the Spotlight On Wrestling Podcasts which will feature Colt Cabana celebrating five years of the Art of Wrestling and so much more.  Until then, what are you looking most forward to this week in WWE?

The Spotlight on Raw for 7/27/2015

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Monday Night Raw just went off the air and emanated live from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma tonight.  I think Raw did a good job in continuing down the road to Summerslam but before we get into some of the highlights on the show, there were some news bits that came out of Raw that set us up for the weeks to come in WWE that I’ll briefly touch on.  At the top of the show the Authority announced that WWE Summerslam will now be four hours long.  I know this was announced earlier in the day but I think it’s a great idea as it makes Summerslam a big deal and almost like the Wrestlemania of the summer.  I really think WWE can move Summerslam to a stadium show soon enough and wouldn’t be surprised to see Summerslam held at the Red Bull arena next year, or hell, maybe even Metlife Stadium.  Also on Raw it was announced that Stone Cold Steve Austin’s WWE Network Podcast will be returning after a one month hiatus.  His guest will be none other than Paige! I saw some stuff on Twitter surprised it wasn’t Sting or Undertaker (would have been a good time for Taker with Summerslam a few weeks away) but I think Paige is a really unique guest and I’m interested to see the chemistry between her and Austin.  If Austin is going to do these podcasts more frequently, it can’t be a top guy every time and with the give divas a chance initiative, I’m glad to see Paige as the choice here.  Truth be told, I believe that f4wonline reported that Hulk Hogan was supposed to be the guest this time around, and obviously that isn’t going to happen.  Let’s get into Raw!

Highlights

John Cena is Beyond Tough- First things first, I thought that Seth Rollins and John Cena had one helluva match and if this is the direction that they’re headed for Summerslam, then I for one can’t wait.  I wasn’t crazy about Seth Rollins tapping out but if the story is that Cena beat Seth when defending his title so he deserves a shot at Seth’s World Title, well then it made sense.  With that out of the way, kudos to John Cena for wrestling the last ten minutes of the match with a brutal looking broken nose.  His nose looked contorted with blood gushing everywhere from his nose after an errant knee to the face from Rollins.  Say what you will about Cena but he’s as tough as they come and showed that old school “the match must go on” mentality last night.  Even if Cena requires surgery, and I assume he’s going to, I don’t expect that anything is going to keep John Cena off of the Summerslam card.

The Opening Segment–  I loved the way that they did the opening segment last night as it reminded me of segments from back in the attitude era.  Having Triple H and Stephanie come out to set up the entire night full of matches (I believe they listed the four matches for the night) was a great idea as it gave the viewer a reason to remain tuned in and a lot to look forward to over the course of the show.  Say what you will about the Authority but when they’re on the screen, it does bring an extra added level of importance.

The Divas Revolution Is In Full Effect- Other than the main event between John Cena and Seth Rollins, the match of the night belonged to the Divas as Paige took on Sasha Banks.  I thought the match was very good and they ladies got about 14 minutes to really let their match unfold and the story develop.  It made sense for Sasha to get the win as it continues to establish her and doesn’t hurt the more established Paige to take the loss.  I also thought the tag match was very good in that Becky Lynch was profiled, I believe for the first time on Raw since being called up.  It was also cool to see Lynch (again no relation, sadly) get the win and then moments later WWE put up a graphic for a one on one match between Nikki Bella and Becky Lynch for this week’s Smackdown.  This made the whole room of people I was watching the show with go “oh wow set the DVR for Smackdown”, which has to be what WWE was going for.  All in all, the divas got about a half an hour of Raw and two matches again this week.  The divas division continues to have a renewed focus and I’m excited to see where it goes from here.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, i really enjoyed Raw this week as they continue to focus a good portion of Raw on more of the in ring product which is nice to see.  We also saw many of the stories going into Summerslam progress with Bray Wyatt cutting a promo reestablishing the Wyatt Family, the continued tease that perhaps Arrow will get involved in the Stardust and Neville feud, the buildup of the tag team division, the Kevin Owens-Cesaro feud and the Randy Orton and Sheamus feud.  I like the focus that WWE is putting on every match heading into Summerslam, it makes the show feel like the Wrestlemania of the summer.  I honestly had no problem with the Undertaker and Brock Lesnar not being on the show this week as the brawl from last week was so good that I feel it was OK to have a week reliving the brawl.  At the end of the day, Brock Lesnar and the Undertaker were both taken out of the building in handcuffs last week, so having them return this week would have been too much.  Besides, WWE already did a good job in promoting that Brock will be back next week, then you have Taker return the week after that and have both of them return the week before Summerslam.

That’s going to do it for me today but what did you think of Raw?  Are you excited for Summerslam?  I’ll be back later today with the Tough Enough Power Rankings.  Tough Enough airs tonight on the USA Network and it’s being promoted that Sasha Banks, Tamina Snuka and Naomi will all be on hand.