RAW Dusts Off an Old Favorite, King of the Ring!

A Merry Monday to You, Enthusiasts!

The weekend treat you well?  Hope it did.  So, tonight we gather for the beginning of the King of the Ring tournament that should set us up for all sorts of stipulations and showdowns for Clash of Champions.   Let’s take a look at the draw.

For tonight's RAW, we can expect to see Cesaro vs. Samoa Joe and Cedric Alexander vs. Sami Zayn to get things started and the buzz is more focused on Cesaro and Samoa Joe.  This means if Alexander and Zayn want to maintain some street-cred, they’ll have to own their matches.  This is at an interesting time because Alexander proved a fair fight for Drew McIntyre which hints that he’s a good worker in the ring.  I’m not saying Zayn isn’t but we haven’t had a lot of opportunities to witness his talent in that regard.  Hopefully, he takes this opportunity to showcase it as opposed to just take the “L” or “W”.  We’ll see what he does.

Also advertised, we have Braun Strowman continuing to remind us that he still exists as he picks his next fight with AJ Styles.  So, it’s the ole David and Goliath story, is it?  Well, since Styles is a Heel at present, Strowman has a good shot at manhandling Styles until The OC comes in and jumps him so, we’ll see how many times that goes around.  We also have word of “Elias’ final performance”, being held tonight.  Now, I believe he technically is holding the 24/7 Title, so I get the feeling here’s a choice spot for hijinks to ensue.  Let’s see if they can make them more funny and less corny.  Either way, I just want them to keep trying.  It may take a while to find this concept’s stride.

In other news, as I was skimming the Entertainment Industry trades, an interesting tidbit caught my eye.  It appears Stephen Amell of Arrow fame has a wrestling TV series in the works set to drop on Starz. It is aptly named, Heels and focuses on a small-time wrestling company and the family who owns it.  Amell is set to be 1 of 2 brothers and as the title suggests, he may not be the most upstanding in his actions but his intentions are good.  I found this interesting because upon this news dropping, Amell drops a shout-out to Cody Rhodes to help him out.  So, you know what this means.  Expect to see AEW members make their acting debuts or cameos on this.  Don’t count out some from WWE and perhaps Impact and Ring of Honor because the reality of it is that you need people available to play but the main stars are busy with the main promotions.  Mid-carders and people on the DL may get some facetime on this platform.  This could add interesting color to the professional wrestling landscape.  We might see more wrestlers across stables suddenly get “injured” only to see that they did a stint on this show, especially if it gets picked-up for a second season.  As of now, they have to come up with 8 shows.  We’ll stay posted and see what they do.

As for tonight, we’ll see how the non-King of the Ring fare goes and see how the 2 matches for tonight do play out.  It’s too hard to call how this will ultimately end but if they have fun with it, we shouldn’t be disappointed.  Funny tweets get retweeted and as for Likes/Favorites, well we don’t have to be too stingy but we should keep a good eye on it.  So far, I’ve liked the content and the hits have outnumbered the misses so, I’m don’t see the need to complain but at the same time, we have to watch for falling into a lull or a sense of complacency.  These are promising times.  Potentials can now be met and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way.  We're usually settling in to watch a shit show but it’s finally shit I want to watch so, at least it’s going in the right direction.  It’s on us to keep the pressure on so that quality can be maintained.  I know there’s an art to this professional wrestling but at the same time, it’s not astrophysics.  Let them demonstrate that they know what they’re doing so that we may revel in it.  That’s all I ask.

See You in a Bit,

-Nicole Alexis (^_~)