Stars in Progress – Feb 5, 2014
It's weeks like these that I wish Voice of Wrestling was back in full force…like it WILL BE following Monday, February 24th, when VOW officially returns!! (See what I did there?)
Seriously, what a week. Punk pulls an Austin, stealing Daniel Bryan's thunder as a result, only for Bryan to get it right back due to WWE's desperation. Oh, and news broke that Matt Hardy and Reby Sky got arrested early last month for "real wrestling" in a hotel room. Yet, they wisely stay hush-hush in hopes it will drift off into the night sky before people start second-guessing all of Matt's recent good behavior.
First, let me start with this:
Vince McMahon – Many Steps Down
Where do I start?
Vince deserves blame for so many things this week, on so many levels, it's actually a little comical. "Hey Vince! Over-compensate much?"
RAW this week was full of exaggerated attempts to "right their wrongs", from Triple H and Stephanie's initial promo on Orton teasing Daniel Bryan as the new "face of WWE', to Daniel Bryan actually winning the match, to the way they handled Batista's segment, all the way to Dolph Ziggler and The Miz (more on that in a moment).
I can only imagine this new "fan hi-jacking" phenomenon is infuriating McMahon. He's supposed to be the puppet-master and when he loses that control, even if only for a moment, he likely loses himself in anger.
Anger is paralyzing. It causes loss of control, poor judgement and bad decisions. It truly doesn't lend itself to productivity, and Vince/WWE is suffering from it in a bad way.
Fans are going against everything Vince wants to do right now, and personally, I don't think he knows exactly how to handle it. RAW certainly proved to me that he doesn't. Overreaction, personified.
Daniel Bryan is what fans wanted all along, but Punk's departure is the only reason we're likely going to get it this soon. As a result, that organic and raw (no pun intended) emotion fans have for Bryan will likely begin to fade.
Even worse, once Daniel Bryan is no longer needed to distract live audiences from chanting "CM Punk", things will revert back to normal. And "normal" in Vince's mind doesn't seem to include Bryan on top.
