Instant Reaction - WWE Raw 10/6
By Benjamin Tucker, PWTorch TV specialist

Overall Score - 4.0

Never before has watching WWE felt like dealing with a bad relationship. WWE isn't as fun as it used to be and every time out with them feels lifeless. They tell you that they care about you, but they're completely resistant to any sort of change you ask of them. But just when you think that you've finally had enough, they do just enough to keep you hanging along. Tonight's example of that was The Rock, who came to save the day on a horrendously tedious episode of Raw. A handful of interesting stories carried the load of a three-hour plus borefest yet again. But, for some reason, against our own logic, we stay true to WWE.

While The Rock's surprise return was without a doubt the most memorable aspect of the show, delivering all of his classic one-liners in fantastic fashion, Dean Ambrose continued to act as Raw's sole knight in shining armor. He is gaining traction with the fans more and more by the week, and his now-weekly gags have managed to be effective despite having the potential to come across as a weak PG knock-off of Stone Cold Steve Austin's glory days. His beef with Cena developed well over the course of the program, but the Ambrose-Cena match set up for Hell in a Cell can only work if Ambrose is victorious. While Cena should want to get back at Seth Rollins, he should also know that smashing someone's head in with a cinder block carries more importance than ruining a person's championship opportunity. Cena winning at Hell in a Cell would make him look like a gigantic jerk, stealing the moment from the man who needs to get at Rollins more than anyone. What happens at the pay-per-view will remain like Evolution until then (i.e. it's a mystery), but the slow build to it has been fine. Outside of the litany of Cena-Orton matches, of course.

Another unsung hero of Monday nights is Damien Sandow, who continues to excel in his "Mizdow" persona. While not playing a major factor in the show, Sandow is showing how much a mid-carder can do in today's WWE if given just a little bit to work with. Hopefully somebody in the upper brass at WWE got the idea. The developing issue between Bo Dallas and Mark Henry was another slight positive on the show. A basic mid-card story used to get over two characters. Simple, eh?

Less successful on the program was... everything else. The largest offender was the "NBC Today" segment. Despite being there to promote breast cancer awareness (and apparently wine), the two women on-screen felt completely out of place on a wrestling broadcast. Making even less of an impact on the broadcast was Roman Reigns, whose big interview ended up being a 30-second mumbled promo about wanting to "kick some ass." Gotta love that character development.

The Tag Team and Intercontinental champions were once again stuck in a throwaway six-man tag (entertaining but meaningless) and the Divas Title storyline continues to baffle with the face A.J. acting like a complete heel by abandoning her partner for no reason. Why is it that Divas can't be portrayed as being sane on WWE TV? The Bella feud, meanwhile, has thankfully regressed into an inoffensive role on the show. If you can't do it right, then don't do it. Of course, the rest of the program was filled with typical filler such as Mini-Gator (a fun joke last week that has quickly lost steam) and questionable booking decisions (whether it's for a storyline or not, having Tyson Kidd lose in his first match back on Raw screams lunacy).

After a solid week in Chicago, WWE was back to giving viewers crap and acting like it's candy. I'm not sure how many other ways I can say it. Raw continues to deliver the exact same shows with the exact same problems again and again. Maybe WWE will change, maybe. But I've already given them too many chances. Perhaps it's time to break up...

Any questions or comments? Message me on Twitter @BTuckertorch!

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