"I select, to face me for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam... I select Daniel Bryan."
I don't know that I'd go as far as to say last night's RAW was better than the Money in the Bank PPV, which I also enjoyed, but - man - the WWE's been really killing it as of late with their post-PPV RAWs. Last night's and the one right after Payback were just really exciting and surprising; good run-ins, great matches, the whole shebang.
And for weeks now, knowing that Cena vs. Bryan was the top match penciled in for SummerSlam, I've been looking for ways that a story would lead them together. Would Bryan's "weakest link" insecurities turn him heel? Would he win the MITB case and then challenge Cena, who's never acknowledged him, for SummerSlam? How would they get there? Then, after Curtis Axel attacked Bryan at MITB, I feared that Bryan's match with Cena would get scrapped and he'd get put in an IC Title program instead - with perhaps Mark Henry getting a rematch.
But then Henry got taken out by The Shield and the entire end segment turned into nothing less than a celebration of how over Daniel Bryan is. I mean, that's really what it was. First off, the whole "champ picking the contender" thing has never really been done in the WWE. In fact, it's more of a TNA-type device. And to have someone face off against Cena who didn't fight to get there, win a #1 Contenders Match, or ambush Cena in the ring, is kind of a milestone. So that last bit, with everyone out on stage, was to publicly call out just how talented and popular Daniel Bryan is. In fact, there was almost a humiliation element to the whole thing; with all the other guys having to either get lukewarm reactions or get totally booed. Or get told basically told that their own World Heavyweight Title was worth squat - like when Cena asked the crowd if Del Rio should challenge him. Del Rio shouldn't have even been out there.
And man, it was risky too. The WWE had to take a chance that the crowd would be more for Bryan than they would for, say, Orton. Bryan had to be, by far, the best pop. Even more than RVD. It was Brooklyn, so it stood to reason, sure. But I'm just saying this segment couldn't have been done in Sioux City. Or even Baltimore, where Orton and some others were huge too. And so it was this weird thing where Cena stepped down from Mount Olympus for a second and gave a title shot to a guy he'd rarely crossed paths with - because, for once, it was what the people actually wanted. Business-wise? We'll see. As a matter of fact, Steph and Triple H gave a little shoot-wink, in a backstage segment, about how Vince was probably going to hate Cena's inevitable choice.
(Cena and Bryan from back in 2003. No Beard! No Jorts! No Outside Food!)
But the upcoming match has to be more than just a straight-up great match, right? There needs to be a story! Tie-ins! And right now we've basically been told there is no story. That is until Total Divas debuts on E in a few weeks and the world finds out that, in real life, Bryan's dating Brie Bella and Cena's dating Boobs Bella. And that the two of them actually know each other outside of the ring more than we think they do because of their respective penis habits. And then the twins will claw their way into the angle and we'll wind up with a Bella in each guy's corner. Which isn't terrible, right? Because even though it provides promotion for the WWE's trash-lite E! show, it's still all based in real stuff. And if it were a contrived WWE story, there's no way they'd have Bryan with a Bella.
This whole business also gave Cena a nice moment to get some reluctant cheers from a New York crowd that wasn't having any of his s***. On a night where the obligatory "He's the most polarizing Superstar the WWE has ever had!" intro was necessary. And a night where Cena, once again, acted bemused by the booing. I know he's a bigger and more giving person than I'll ever know, but all I can ever think when Cena tells us that he's okay with the crowd booing him is that, in reality, it's what he hates most in the world. And that his shrugging it off is an ultimate act of passive-agressivness stemming from the fact that an audience's disapproval eats him alive inside and turns him into a shell of a man. I know it ain't true, but when someone announces over and over that they're okay with something, chances are they're not.
More from last night's RAW, plus MITB, on Page 2...
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