Looking at the Future – Raw in 2012/13
Raw 1,000 didn't just set up the next month's worth of action, it really laid groundwork for the next year leading into WrestleMania 29.
The Rock will face the WWE Champion at the 2013 Royal Rumble – instant money. It's looking more and more like that Champion will end up being CM Punk, despite John Cena still being the company go-to guy. I say it's not Punk. I'm guessing he loses the belt before hand, and wins the Rumble match itself to set up the WrestleMania main event.
The obvious question is, why the Rumble? Why not have the Rock win the title at WrestleMania on the biggest stage possible? Because they've been there, done that. Rock beat Cena clean in the biggest promoted match in the history of the company; trying to convince the fans that another year of Rock standing tall at the end of Mania is a very bad move for the future.
Rock needed to go over Cena. Rock does not need to go over CM Punk. My guess is that WWE gives the Rock a short Championship run to sell tickets for WrestleMania, and they book him against CM Punk for the big payoff. As much as a nostalgia run with the belt might sound good, there's little money in a part time Champion after Wrestlemania. So let him have his fun from January till April, then on the big stage reign it in and do what's best for the company: CM Punk goes over the Rock at WrestleMania 29.
So there's that. But we also have the more pressing future to look towards. It appears Chris Jericho and Dolph Ziggler are headed towards a collision at SummerSlam. My money is on Ziggler putting up his Money in the Bank briefcase against Jericho's career. Y2J wants yet another way out, and Ziggler will need a big push to get him into the World Championship picture. Everybody wins. You know, except any fans that Chris Jericho did have, that now couldn't care less because he's in the midst of the single worst run in his wrestling career…
And then there's Brock Lesnar and Triple H. I wouldn't be surprised if we're just looking at a one-off match for SummerSlam to utilize Lesnar's dates and sell PPV's. There's definitely potential to drag it out though, and it could serve as a decent secondary feud to whatever CM Punk does in the main event. Assuming they don't put Triple H, once again, over the WWE Championship. Fingers crossed.
If the WWE wanted to complicate things like they did last year, adding a newly heel CM Punk into Paul Heyman's camp would be easy as pie. They don't even have to pair him with Brock Lesnar, just allow Heyman to manage two clients and watch the money roll in. Heyman could do great things for Punk's career – greater things than even Punk has done for himself. With Paul E in his corner, CM Punk could go over just about anybody, Rock included.
The future has some really interesting things to look forward to. I don't care about Brock Lesnar at all, but Triple H does wonders with personal feuds. Dolph Ziggler is a guaranteed future World Champion; is there anything better to look forward to? CM Punk has turned heel and opened up a new world of choices for his character and the direction of Monday Night Raw. AJ is the General Manager, which is an incredibly odd decision, but you never know what good may come from in.
There's enough coming up in the immediate future that I'm back on board with the WWE product. It's been an incredibly difficult couple of months to get through, but they've set the stage for some highly entertaining television.
Why 3-Hour Raw Isn't Terrible (Potentially)
If you're still with me after five pages of rambling, I sincerely appreciate it. One more quick thing and I'll let you get on with your life…
When you make a list of the biggest complaints wrestling fans have with the current product, "too many PPV's" is always among the most mentioned. For the past several years – basically since they merged Raw and Smackdown PPV's – WWE has been trying to make four weeks of television enough to build $50-60 worth of payoff, 12-13 times per year. It's exhausting.
What they have done is essentially add another two weeks of Raw programming to the calendar each month. but instead of having six weeks where they are forced to focus completely on the main event with each episode, they are still on a four week rotation, just with an extra hour. What that means is that they're going to be forced to work more on the mid-card matches. There's only so much you can do with John Cena and CM Punk in three hours; WWE is going to have to spend some time working on their severely neglected stars, Championships and angles.
If they can avoid getting lost in stupid comedy skits, pushing their merch or terrible Sonic advertisements, this could actually be a really great move for WWE. It's like they're throwing themselves into the water and forcing themselves to swim. Either they're going to keep doing what they're doing, and bore the fans with 3 hours every week, or the creative teams will have to step up and fill that void. I'm hoping they're up to the challenge.
Follow Mike Killam on Twitter @MikeKillam.
