By Jon Cudo, PWTorch specialist

TRUE - NXT SEASON ONE WAS A HUGE SUCCESS

It often takes a while to see if a concept truly fails or succeeds (except for The Kiss Demon and Brawl for All), but time has told us that Season 1 NXT was a huge success. This week on Raw, Season 1 winner Wade Barrett was featured in a long segment successfully carrying his end of a solid angle with R-Truth. David Otunga showed a successful re-casting as a locker room laywer and was serviceable in a main-event six-man tag. World Hvt. champion Daniel Bryan, as the anchor of the Smackdown Brand, is involved in a feud with Big Show and was also in the main event tag match.

Darren Young, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel, and Skip Sheffield are all still under contract with WWE. Only Michael Tarver is no longer with WWE. When seven of eight developmental talents are still on the main roster after being elevated from a Rookie camp TV show, you are doing a lot right.

In addition to the recent elevation and bright futures of the Barrett and Bryan, this group was used as a successful and fresh stable for months on WWE TV in 2011. Their run looks even more impressive considering WWE drew consistent TV ratings for their feud with John Cena compared to today's slacking ratings.

I think the consensus has been that it was a good group, but we are starting to see just how good that infusion of talent was. The NXT show also helped boost The Miz into WWE's upper echelon with his interplay with Bryan and Michael Cole.

WWE has not found the formula or talent to duplicate the success of Season 1, but seeing the harvest of talent from that initial show this week on Rawo was a reminder that spending time on these secondary shows can build a strong foundation for the very near future.

ALSO TRUE: Zack Ryder and Eve together on TV made me double-check the color on my TV.

FALSE - JACK SWAGGER WAS DAMAGED ON RAW

It was surprising to me to hear negative comments about Jack Swagger's night on Raw. Some thought Swagger was sacrificed to John Cena and made to look expendable and weak after Cena’s beat down. I believe Swagger was elevated more on Monday than he has been in six months. He recently had been on a losing streak and playing second fiddle to Dolph Ziggler.

The case can be made that he won a belt over an opponent who wasn’t cleared to wrestle, then was simply disposed of quickly by Cena. That case is true. However, the benefits of carefully constructed evening for Swagger far exceeded the costs.

Heels are supposed to win by nefarious means, so Swagger getting an edge on Ryder due to an injury is fine. It also fit snugly into a larger character-building storyline arc. Kane was reinforced as a killer heel who hurt Ryder so bad that he wasn’t medically cleared to wrestle. John Laurinaitis was shown to be a boob for not reading the doctor’s note and for allowing Ryder in a match. Cena and Eve were both given reasons to react to the Ryder news, and even Laurinaitis was able to add an edge to his character by lashing out at Eve when she spoke out.

So, yes, Ryder was injured and Swagger beat a wounded champ, but that story helped four other characters and tied them all together in a way that sharpened their traits and forwarded the storyline.

Also, Swagger was very crisp and impressive as he strategically attacked Ryder. It showed Swagger to be crafty and smart in the ring with a bit of an assassin's edge in how he dominated Ryder. He walked out of the match wearing the U.S. Title.

Then, he was brutally beat down by John Cena. You can argue that being on the business end of a one-sided beat down is damaging, but this was at the hands of Super Cena, who has been positioned as the number one guy in the company for over six years. Everyone is under him on the totem pole. This was also his second match of the night. Swagger was beat down, not to punish him or show him up, rather to illuminate a critical part of the storyline between the two top stars (Cena and The Rock) at the biggest pay-per-view of 2012.

So, he won a championship after surgically taking out a popular babyface champ. Following that, he was a major part of one of the top storylines of the year, and beaten down by the number one star in the company. For a guy who had been losing for months, this wasn’t a bad night at the office...it was one of his best in the last six months.

ALSO FALSE: I know who Perez Hilton is.
ALSO FALSE: Photoshop jokes work.

TBD: TAG TEAMS CAN FLOURISH

I thought the news of Evan Bourne being suspended was discouraging since the weekend title change created hope that the Tag Titles were back on the writing radar. The Raw segment built around Epico & Primo's Tag Title defense was well done on a few levels and left me thinking the WWE was back on track with a tag division that showed some hope late in 2011.

The footage from the house show with the title change was a great start. Sending the message that anything can happen at a house show is a huge positive. Trying to explaining why titles are never won or lost when a match isn’t on TV is impossible. Short of making house show matches non-title, WWE simply can’t run a scroll of the countless house show touring stops without having fans wonder if nothing ever happens at those venues. So, I liked WWE utilizing this footage in the story.

Epico and Primo are not an established tag team, but they do tag team maneuvers. This makes the entire concept of two guys working together to accomplish what they can’t do alone work. Adding Rosa Mendes also helps add some spice to a duo that may be lacking star power or curb appeal. Monday night’s show helped put the team in a good light - it's now a group finally putting it all together - and they found success by joining together, which is what tag team wrestling is built on.

Before Bourne's suspension situation was explained, I thought this could be a fresh twist on a tag team chase. Now, it looks like the new team of Epico and Primo may have been given a manager and a push just to hold the belts until WWE summons a desire to build another tag team to chase them. Whether WWE can ever really get behind the tag division remains To Be Determined.

***

Jon Cudo is the newest PWTorch Specialist, presenting the "True-False-TBD" format. Jon has worked in the sports entertainment industry for over 20 years, including major league sports teams and Nike. He has been a life-long pro wrestling fan and has attended WWE, WCW, and ROH events in person, including backstage access at multiple events. He grew up in Minnesota and now lives in Cleveland. He runs his own business, www.GameOps.com, a web site designed to connect sports teams and event producers with ideas and tools that will enhance the entertainment value for fans attending their events.

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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