Stiva

If they can mix in Heyman's guys with Bryan vs. The Authority, I am on board for the next 6 months of WWE like you would not believe.

I had no idea they had the capacity to bring about this much excitement to their product anymore. Yeah, there's been bits and pieces throughout the years but this has had new guys getting positioned prominently, angles and workers people care about, debuts on the horizon with the potential to heat up the midcard nicely and great matches on every show. Main Event is now getting awesome main events (HA!) to bring in Network subs. It's not perfect, it never is but it's hitting all the right notes for me.

If only Hero wasn't gone. I'd actually love to see Sheamus as Cesaro's next program after this mini-Swagger feud plays out.

I would be so down for Dangerous Alliance 2014 going after Bryan. Can someone get on the phone to Chris Hero?

CESARO AND HEYMAN!

Yikes, that was a real awkward little match with the minimum amount of thought put into how it actually came about. Great crowd to debut Paige but that's a big disconnect between her on NXT and what we saw there.

AJ co-opting all Punk's little vocal stylings is a neat touch.

I hope Warrior had one more massive rail of coke before this promo for old time's sake.

Man, I did not expect RVD to get that kind of reaction at this point, even in front of this crowd.

Bo Dallas. With a great inspirational video too. "Don't say 'Impossible' Say 'I'm Possible!'"

Between that night in Chicago, leaking fake spoilers and making Brock break the streak to get incredible heel heat, they really have got the working of the smarkier fans down perfectly. And now, Heyman is cutting the promo that is needed for this crowd. Such a great segment so far.

Great show, guys. Whoever it was (sorry, not familiar with voices yet!) that compared Taker's loss to Owen Hart dying got a legit huge laugh out of me. Agreed with just about everything that was said, especially the love for Stephanie's rad outfit.

So, Jarrett has made his announcement.

I'd have to revisit it in the future and divorce any emotion from it but it was certainly the most surprising one. The way he worked in it was really refreshing, you can tell the dude was relishing a long match with Bryan. Did everyone else's stomach drop when Lesnar pinned Taker? I'm a grown man, that shouldn't be my reaction to wrestling!

You got to give mad props to HHH tonight and I'm not a guy that likes him. Great work in the opener, great stuff in the main. Almost every single one of his annoying tendencies have been curbed in the past month and the ones that haven't, have been used to get more heat.

This really felt like the first Mania in a while where major shit went down. Taker's streak is done and so is he (from the look of things), they finally christened Daniel Bryan as THE guy and Cesaro had his moment in the spotlight. Kane and The NAO were swiftly dispatched and things feel so different now. It's certainly not perfect but the future is bright.

On the plus side, Batista's heel outfits really do get better every week. On the negative side, this kind of microphone segments are now totally insufferable.

Man, now we've got Hunter working shit through with this video package.

I think Raw ends with Bryan looking strong to make people think he's gonna lose. Guy standing tall at Raw before PPV loses at the event and all that. They're doing everything possible to make people think they're not going to give him the belt.

I would love them to work a different match to everything since 09 but I think they're going to have Lesnar reverse the Hell's Gate, Taker is gonna kick out of a couple of F5s and it's all going to be very similar to the other Taker Mania matches. I'm more interested in how they're going to work the triple threat since the crowd is going to be ripe for working.

That entire segment was some kind of horrid deleted scene from the Guest Host Raws

Blackman's Bounties is proof positive that professional wrestling is the most beautiful art form there is. What a great wrestling world we live in.

The subtext is definitely there but Loss' point that it isn't explicitly explained is a salient one. Wyatt's promos are great fun to listen to but they haven't had a mission statement since they debuted. They took Kane out who eventually joined the Authority and Bryan has entered himself into the main event of Mania. If you take the Wyatts on those grounds, they've kinda failed since everyone they've attacked has improved on their position pre-Wyatts. The feud with Cena is interesting to me as its someone attacking Cena's status as de facto WWE hero but aside from Bray's initial promo a couple of weeks ago, he's got himself muddled in riddles. The rhetoric about taking apart the people's hero is a perfectly fine wrestling angle so I don't know why he feels he has to add things on top of it. Basically, you can read into the angle all you want but the majority of people won't. I think the subtext you're describing is great but it needs to be explained in a promo on Raw to really sink in. It sounds like I'm belittling wrestling fans all over the globe but you have to be transparent sometimes.

I feel the same way about Wyatt. His promos are tremendously fun to listen to but when you actually pick them apart, they're all over the place. It would be just fine if he talked about tearing the fan's heroes down and Cena is the symbol of everything he wants to destroy. He keeps on piling empty riddles on top of riddles and it's losing its luster somewhat.

Yeah, this absolutely has to be part of the endgame here. Steph is getting so much heat on herself that she needs to get SOME comeuppance and you can't really have Bryan kick her in the face. At least, I hope not.