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Well Over the Limit has been and gone and now we are left with the aftermath, and the landscape of the WWE is…almost completely the same. Seriously it wasn’t exactly a shockingly bad PPV, but it was in no way ground breaking or controversial in any way either. It does seem like the WWE are playing it safe and with PPV buy rates in the state that they are it’s hard to see why as they are clearly doing something wrong as a company. Still the business keeps trundling along, failing or not, and the heels will keep on moving up and down the chart, whether they win their matches, or continue to get buried like a hell of a lot of heels are at the moment, damned kids! Anyway let’s get on with the report…

Weekly Top Ten:

1st Place: The Miz (10/10)

Well the awesome one is back on top, despite not winning the title back, saying ‘I Quit’ and getting beaten up to hell on Raw by his former protégé. Still all that pales in comparison to the all mighty beat down he put on Cena at Over the Limit. Sure it was really weak how after about two actual seconds of offence Cena was able to make the Miz say ’I Quit’, but what do you expect, facing Super Cena in his speciality match, frankly it could have gone a hell of a lot worse for the Chick Magnet.

2nd Place: R-Truth (9/10)

The next on the list is the ever-lovin’ R-Truth, who has gone a little ascetic in his entrance as of late. Getting a win over Mysterio on a PPV is a big deal, that and the fact that Truth is being given loads of airtime to spout his gibberish means that he accumulates heel points in huge quantities every time he appears. Despite being on the losing end of a tag match main event on Raw it seems like Truth will finally be feuding for the title sooner rather than later, although that might spoil his character a little bit.

3rd Place: Alex Riley (8/10)

How quickly the crowd can turn in the WWE, arguably we can now call Riley a face, and he probably will be on Smackdown, but I’m still going to hold him accountable for his actions against Cena at Over the Limit, and therefore he gets awarded third place for beating on the kiddies hero. Slamming, shouting, bashing and wielding tricky cell phones well all part of Riley’s arsenal and they all but worked. Funnily enough though that was all forgotten the second he started laying into the Miz on Raw, imagine if the WWE had done the same for Swagger!

4th Place: C.M. Punk (7/10)

Two tag losses this week can’t keep the Straight Edge Saviour down as he finds himself in fourth place on the chart. This is mainly due to the great segment he had at Over the Limit and the heel work he did in the ring on Raw. You have to think that Punk wanted to be at his best in front of Hart, especially considering Hart’s recent comment on Punk’s utilisation. I’m still not sure what to make of Hart’s actions on Raw considering these comments, but something tells me that a student of the game like Punk would have considered it an honour to be locked in the Sharpshooter by the Hitman himself. Another point would be about Punk not winning the tag titles despite Nexus’ win on Raw, this was clearly because his contract is nearly up and as of yet he hasn’t confirmed if he will be staying on. So it seems to me like this was a way of enticing Punk to stay without putting the company in the position to change the titles so quickly. Although if Punk leaves you have to believe that the Nexus would be gone an instant after, so maybe the titles will be dropped from Nexus after all.

5th Place: Tyson Kidd (6/10)

The strange haired Canadian comes up by leaps and bounds by getting two victories this week on NXT and Superstars. Despite these being the minor leagues, a win is a win, and two wins is just…more. Perhaps things are looking up for Kidd, sure he was abandoned by Hayes, but that looks to have been just an excuse to give Estrada a vehicle to return without wrestling necessarily, and Tyson might be able to benefit from this.

6th Place: Brie Bella (5/10)

The Divas champ pulls a fast one at Over the Limit and is able to retain her title against a game Kelly Kelly. Seems like more was supposed to happen, but what with Kharma being pregnant it’s likely that they just wanted to avoid adding more fuel to the hype before taking her out. I’m guessing they hash together a quick program of Bella vs. Bella for the title at some point soon, unless they are just going to get Brie to drop her title pointlessly to another diva in an arbitrary way before the same thing happens again.

7th Place: Alberto Del Rio (4/10)

The man of destiny had little to do this week as he didn’t compete on either Raw or at Over the Limit, still he got enough airtime to get onto the chart. Alberto might be working a program with Kane soon, I’m still not sure if the Big Show has been taken out or if he will be back, either way I give thanks to the Excellence of Execution for the part he played in relieving the two giants of burying of their burden of a rematch for the tag team titles.

8th Place: Michael McGillicutty (3/10)

Speaking of the tag team titles, here come the new champs. Sure they won in a throwaway way, in a throwaway match, and sure they’ll probably only be transitional champions, but still McGillicutty is now a champion in the WWE, something a lot of wrestlers never get to say. I bet he’s happy with it at least.

9th Place: David Otunga (2/10)

Otunga gets the other half of the tag team titles, despite doing very little to get them. I’m still not sure what Otunga can do in the ring, but here’s hoping that he develops some talent to go along with his push through nepotism.

10th Place: Sheamus (1/10)

In a major twist the Celtic Warrior has become the number one contender for Randy Orton’s title, although only until next week’s Smackdown. I am shocked by the WWE’s unpredictability in their willingness to do boring and unoriginal things. Still while I was let down at Over the Limit I still have a tiny amount of faith that the whole thing is building up to something greater…I hope.

2011-2012 Season Top Ten: Overall Top Ten:

1st Place: The Miz (56/80) – 1st Place: The Miz (600/1080)

2nd Place: R-Truth (51/80) – 2nd Place: C.M. Punk (595/1080)

3rd Place: Michael Cole (43/80) – 3rd Place: Chris Jericho (564/1080)

4th Place: Alberto Del Rio (40/80) – 4th Place: Jack Swagger (338/1080)

5th Place: Cody Rhodes (37/80) – 5th Place: Dolph Ziggler (290/1080)

6th Place: Jack Swagger (30/80) – 6th Place: Cody Rhodes (275/1080)

7th Place: Wade Barrett (18/80) – 7th Place: Sheamus (261/1080)

8th Place: Ted DiBiase (17/80) – 8th Place: Randy Orton (224/1080)

9th Place: C.M. Punk (17/80) – 9th Place: Alberto Del Rio (235/1080)

10th Place: Sheamus (16/80) – 10th Place: Wade Barrett (221/1080)

Weekly Filler:

The Face-Off: Lawler vs. Cole

Well this is an obvious one, I’ve complained about this rivalry and so have many others, especially in terms of the pay off and lack of consequences for it. So instead of focusing on these dire aspects I’m going to get a bee in my bonnet about something else; the match was booked higher than a freaking World Title match! That to me is a slap in the face to the champion (who perhaps deserves it), the challenger, and to the prestigious title in general. It really does confirm that the titles in the WWE mean nothing right now, and that match quality doesn’t seem to matter much either. To be fair matches for the World Title have been all screwed up in the booking for months now, being put at the start of cards and so on. I don’t know what they are trying to say in the WWE, why not just have one champion again if you are so down on the World title, the whole thing is just a mystery to me.

Face the Facts: Eric Young Winning the Television Title

Yes it was predictable and yes that title has had more name changes than Diddy Dirty Daddy but still the set up and pay off worked to perfection and Eric Young deserves to be champion due to his great storytelling ability. He’s like a much more likeable and capable Santino. When Eric Young is serious I can believe him as Impact World Champion, when he is playing his comical roles then the TV title is good enough. Although I’d love to see if Impact Wrestling has the guts to make it’s champion a face who succeeds though crafty stupidity and dumb luck, that would be an interesting scenario, I wonder how the crowd would receive a champion like that, what do you think?

On the Rise: Santino vs. Zack Ryder

This week it’s all joke superstars that get the praise, this was a great meeting of the minds though as Ryder and Santino attempted to outdo each other in gimmicky pandering, while actually putting on a half decent match, at least if it had been on Raw that is. I still find it strange that you find the best wrestling on Superstars, then Smackdown, then the top show Raw. It all seems a little backwards to me since we all came to watch wrestling, but what do I know, I’m just a critic.

Flat-Footed: Riley’s Push and Swagger’s Missed Opportunity

Right well we’ve all acknowledged how the WWE completely screwed Jack Swagger over in his recent involvement with Cole and his idiotic feud with Jerry Lawler. He spent all his time putting Cole over while his own momentum dwindled event further and now he is back to being an all-but jobber. What makes it worse though is that the WWE seemed to have taken the obvious move of having the backup turn against the whining heel and applied it to Alex Riley, as if rubbing our faces in Swagger’s missed opportunity. Sure Riley is a good talent and deserves a push, but surely Swagger deserves one more considering he’s been a heel since his debut and is running out of fresh opponents to face at this point. Also as much of a rub as Riley got form turning on the Miz, you have to believe that Swagger would have gotten a much bigger reaction for destroying Cole and could now be a main event face player. I guess there’s just not enough room on the Raw roster for any major faces besides Cena and Mysterio.

Well that’s it for this week, despite the WWE letting me down and remaining predictable and safe, it was still a good PPV with some decent matches. I still can’t believe that both Cole and King are announcing on Raw, we don’t event get them on separate shows, the whole thing is just crazy, why promote your worst announcers when they are past it and don’t take the job seriously. Cole and Lawler have become parodies of themselves and need to be put out to pasture, how else are the newbies supposed to shine? Maybe the WWE will start taking risks again one day, until then this is James Wright signing off.

Source: wrestlingtruth.com