WWE RAW Recap 5/19/14: What Happens to the WWE Championship Now?

DATE: 5/19/2014

LOCATION: London, England

RESULTS:

Cesaro def. Sheamus
Big E def. Ryback in a Beat the Clock Challenge Match
R-Truth & Naomi vs Fandango & Layla Didn’t Officially Begin
Rusev def. Heath Slater
Rob Van Dam def. Alberto Del Rio in a Beat the Clock Challenge Match
Seth Rollins def. Batista via Disqualification
Alicia Fox def. Paige
Dolph Ziggler vs. Mark Henry Ended Before Either Man Could Beat the Clock
John Cena def. Luke Harper via Disqualification

HIGHLIGHTS:

Stop it, Cena, you’re killing the Wyatt’s!

“Hey, let’s take this unique monster heel faction with tons of potential and feed them to SuperCena early in their careers.” – The WWE Creative Team

The Wyatt’s/Cena feud has been getting progressively less interesting as Payback approaches, and while this week’s announcement that Bray/Cena’s third meeting will be a Last Man Standing Match has certainly upped my interest a little bit, it’s still a shame to see the Wyatt’s being wasted in a go-nowhere angle that’s only serving to make them seem less of a threat and cowardly. I know that traditional heels are supposed to be cowardly, but the initial pitch for the Wyatt’s was far from traditional.

After last week’s RAW failed to further progress the feud, at least this week’s RAW began with a nice little promo from Bray that focused, weirdly, on classism, and John Cena’s “plastic smile” in particular. In theory, a Bray/Cena feud would be perfect, if not for the fact that the WWE can’t do anything to harm Cena’s image due to his extra-curricular responsibilities like the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Because we know exactly where this story is going, it automatically makes this a stopgap feud until Cena goes for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship again, and the Wyatt’s target their next “victims”. Hopefully those victims will be The Authority, as this Cena feud has pretty much solidified the fact that the audience isn’t going to boo them, so turning them into NWO-esque anti-heroes attempting to destroy “the machine” from the inside seems like the perfect fit. We can but hope.

“John Cena just had Bray Wyatt in his hands… and he dropped him!” – Jerry Lawler

Bray’s promo was inevitably brought to a halt when Cena’s music hit, and as Erick Rowan and Luke Harper made their way down to the ramp, Cena ambushed Bray from behind with a sneaky AA. The Wyatt’s would get their revenge at the end of the show, though, but I’ll get to that later.

The Intercontinental #1 contender was decided in a Beat the Clock Challenge.

While I’d still prefer to see an actual feud centred around the Intercontinental championship, it’s good to see the title receiving a lot of coverage in an episode of RAW. This week saw the number one contender for the championship being decided via a Beat the Clock Challenge, with Big E, Ryback, Rob Van Dam, Alberto Del Rio, Mark Henry and Dolph Ziggler all competing for a match against Bad News Barrett at Payback.

The Goldberg chants persisted during Ryback’s match against Big E, which saw Ryback finished off cleanly in just over 5 minutes after The Big Guy found himself on the receiving end of the The Big Ending.

Rob Van Dam and Alberto Del Rio continued to display their awkward lack of in-ring chemistry during their Beat the Clock Challenge match, which ended in RVD winning via a roll-up before the 5-minute mark and was only really notable due to the absence of Del Rio’s kneepads. A wrestler without kneepads just looks like a man wearing underpants and fetish boots. Please put them back on immediately, ADR.

The final match of the Beat the Clock Challenge was Dolph Ziggler vs. Mark Henry, with neither man able to beat the other before the time ran out. Rather than going into detail regarding why Ziggler should’ve won the Beat the Clock Challenge over RVD, I’ll instead quote Bob “Hardcore” Holly: “I love this guy [Ziggler]. He is the best talent. He has everything it takes to be number one. They (WWE) sit there and they’re always preaching that you gotta have the heart, desire, and will. You gotta work your butt off and on and on, and it’s like, Sheamus was the world champion within six months. How did he deserve to be world champion?

“Don’t insult the fans intelligence by telling them it takes this, this, this, and this to make it to the top when it doesn’t. It’s Hunter’s choice or whoever is at the round table. It’s their choice, but Dolph Ziggler does sell tickets. How many times does Dolph Ziggler have to step it up and say ‘hey, look at me’? Every time he’s stepping in the ring he’s saying ‘look at me, look what I can do’. That guy steals the show every single night at house shows, I will guarantee it.”

“I LOVE THIS GUY, MAGGUL!” – JBL

After the Ziggler/Henry match ended with neither man able to beat his time, RVD made his way to the ramp to celebrate before being hit in the back of the head with the Bullhammer by Bad News Barrett. The London crowd erupted in cheers, before Barrett cut a hilarious little segment on how RVD’s time didn’t matter because the UK operated on Greenwich Mean Time. Or something. I didn’t really understand what he was getting at, but the crowd cheered, I laughed and JBL said something along the lines of “I LOVE THIS GUY, MAGGUL”, before Michael Cole pressed the ‘Off’ button underneath his Stetson so he could charge his batteries before The Usos appeared. “When I say “Oos”, you say “Oh!” I LOVE THESE GUYS, MAGGUL.”