John Mayer as virtue signal is a new high for Elias. I sincerely hope that John Mayer is secretly a WWE fan, who will eventually appear at a WrestleMania to play the Alice Cooper to Elias’ Jake “the Snake” Roberts like so much WrestleMania III. If not, at least we’ll always have the memories:
And for those who might say that Seth breaking a gift like that would constitute a heel act, if pop culture has taught us anything (which, not convinced) it’s that it’s never a bad thing to break someone’s guitar. Never in the history of music, television or film has smashing a guitar ever been a bad move on the part of the smasher.
Okay…. maybe this one time:
***
While I find the Riott Squaddd‘s reenacting the Joker-in-the-museum scene from Batman a bit nauseating, as I’ve mentioned roughly 1000 times (including at least once in this column), giving every performer a character (even if it’s in service of another character) is the only thing left for the WWE to do to reach the next level and be treated as actual players in the world of entertainment. The closest that the WWE ever came was when everyone from Kaientai to Crash Holly had a story with some meaning or significance to themselves or the overall story of the WWE. Now that they have the talent, an actual writing staff and enough TV time on a PPV week to run a season of a prestige cable drama. So, if messing up stuff backstage and doing this:
to Bayley is how they get that done for Ruby — who continues to be one of the very best parts of Raw ever week without much pomp or nearly any circumstance — that’s fine by me.
***
I mean, for fuck’s sake, how does no one on the entire WWE staff plan have time to get three stationary chairs instead of making the hype segment for what might be the main event of one of your five biggest PPVs look like it’s an impromptu study session in a computer lab. The only thing that was missing was Coach curled up on the chair with his hair tied up in a ponytail while holding a bright pink highlighter and a copy of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.
Though I suppose this all matters less if the can make their entire match even 1/5th as holy shit awesome as the last two minutes of their segment was. Ronda’s unbelievable physical intelligence — her almost innate understanding of the manner in which her body can be leveraged against another to achieve her goals — matches so well with Nia’s sheer presence that this feels like it could sincerely be one of the most surprisingly great matches in WWE history on atmosphere alone. And if Nia can continue her considerable growth a performer to carry the load for a long enough match to make them both look good, it could be a genuine special event.
***
Not as special, of course, as Curt Hawkins’ first win…
… will eventually be. For now, he just has to be his mostly sad self, hoping that some day the Gypsy woman who cursed his specter will allow him to bask once more in the glory before wishing him well in his future endeavors.
It’s time to find out who is destined to become WWE World Heavyweight Champion… with the help of a ladder and a briefcase. Will Money in the Bank make Andy angry?
