Dean Ambrose: Step Up
Believe it or not, despite losing the United States Championship at the start of RAW, and taking a beatdown at the ends of Evolution at the end of RAW, Dean Ambrose takes a step UP this week. Two reasons: 1) the US title was a ball and chain that means nothing, and 2) getting beaten up by Evolution is best for business.
The Shield-Evolution drama is one of two things I'm tuning in to see on RAW these days. The other act is Cena-Wyatt. If I could physically break up my $9.99/month and divide it up between the ten guys involved in those two programs, I would. They are selling the WWE product to me right now. There's a few other good acts, but those are the money-makers.
Ambrose takes a step up, because now we don't have to wonder when he'll finally drop the belt. We never have to talk about it again, in fact. We can focus on Ambrose, integral cog in the Shield machine, not Ambrose, guy who's inexplicably held the US title for the last year. This is a good thing.
Bad News Barrett: Step Up
I'm afraid I've got some GOOD news! Bad News Barrett has been on an absolute roll, and I don't just mean in terms of meaningless match statistics. Sure, he's won a bunch of matches and actually managed to capture a title on live PPV. But all that junk is really just gravy. They're the props and gimmicks that make the full package shine just a bit more.
It's Barrett himself who's taken hold of his bootstraps and pulled his career back to relevancy. And you have to give the Brit a standing ovation, because they gave him an AWFUL gimmick – one almost certainly doomed to fail in 95% of the roster's hands – and turned it into gold. That was you have to do. That's what all the greats did at one point or another, and many more tried and failed to do. The later group are the guys we never talk about anymore.
Look at Kane. Look at the Undertaker. STEVE AUSTIN. You think The Ringmaster is a Hall of Famer? Of course not – STONE COLD made wrestling cool. Wade Barrett took that stupid rising podium, that judge's gavel that made ZERO sense, and a gimmick that had no right to get over – now he's the Intercontinental Champion. More important, people like him. People are invested in his success going forward.
Now, what WWE does with that crowd support is a completely different story. The only wrong response is do nothing at all.
