Hi Dave,

This was a really good show that justified its B-show status still in that the booking hinted toward Summerslam without any clear blowoffs.  The wrestling speaks for itself, so my thoughts on the general direction will be shared. 

1.)  Ziggler winning the Money in the Bank match is a great thing.  The match rates approximately as ****1/4.  Ziggler is an extraordinary talent who I would rank as a much more superior bump-taker than Curt Hennig was in his prime but as two notches below Hennig when on the offensive, i.e. Hennig could work a rough-and-tumble main event match whereas Ziggler should broaden his horizons a bit to make himself look even more threatening.  That notwithstanding, he is in the WWE's elite of workers and should stay there.  My concern rests in the WWE's complete lacking of division of labor for midcarders.  Should some midcard act be casted as a comedy worker, a rising star, a JTTS, a tough guy?  Many make the mistake in thinking comedy workers have no place on the card, and that is incorrect not just from today's standpoint but professional wrestling historically.  But it is a serious mistake to book an act as a rising star, a comedy working, and as a JTTS all in the same year?  They did that with Ziggler.  Will that cause Ziggler to not be seen as a main event act?--probably not since the cream of the crop tend to rise in the wrestling business.  But will he be seen as a star?--probably not.  Marks have long memories, and the company's lack of direction and care for the win/loss of the midcarders is very low investment.  But praise should be given to Michael Cole (or whoever is feeding him those lines) on making the title seem relevant by stating how long one has held it.  This was a great match, but I can remember not even a few weeks ago when Sheamus pinned Ziggler in under five minutes.  Precedence should be key in wrestling booking.

2.)  Sheamus over Del Rio in a strong ***1/2 match.  I like Sheamus a lot.  Unfortunately, I don't speak with enough wrestling fans to know the perception of Sheamus, but I feel like he is an overexposed act.  He is an act who has tremendous PPV presence but comes across as a one-dimensional bore who can beat up people on TV.  When I get the time, I would like to see his quarter hour breakdown.  But the fighting champion gimmick suits Sheamus well.

3.)  The booking of the tag match was schizophrenic.  So Epico and Primo win, but O'Neal and Young's mouthpiece, Abraham Washington, still proclaims the team to be number one contenders.  But that is hard to execute when (i) the WWE has long made the tag team division irrelevant, and (ii) the WWE has long arbitrarily constructed number one contenders seemingly out of thin air.  So by (i) and (ii), basing heel heat off of that - the apparent injustice of it all - is hard to pull when there is no sense of importance to the tag team.  But the general direction of giving a tag team some gimmick that is somewhat caricatured and much more dimensoinal than either the stereotypical tag teams or just makeshift teams is a good direction.  *3/4

4.)  Punk and Bryan have had an excellent series, and AJ's presence only expanded the rivalry.  Unfortunately, awesome workrate is not a sufficient condition to draw in casual viewers.  Her role has drawn in more viewers and thereby making Punk and Bryan seem like bigger stars.  What a match between the two.  Both walked away from the match stronger than ever.  And AJ's presence did not diminish the match, which I feared she would (either with fast counts or what have you).  Her officiating was an aside that gave the match more dimension without detracting from yet another super worked match.  ****

5.)  Ryback over Hawkins and Reks.  I hate how the smarks try to draw an analogue to Goldberg.  Though Ryback is similar to Goldberg, he is also much more athletic, can work better, has a better moveset, shows some degree of vulnerability, and has a commanding presence that is sorely lacking with the WWE's current roster.  I really hope Ryback gets over and either (i) feuds with Brock Lesnar or (ii) turns heel at some point and feuds with John Cena, with Ryback going over only if there exist enough credible faces to take on him.  This was a good match for what it was worth.  **

6.)  Cena going over is the right move, though given how watered down Punk's character has been in the past year, I feel like there will be a lot of lost information emotionally such that it will be difficult to generate heat between Punk and Cena for their Summerslam match.  But again, WWE's schizophrenia causes this because suddenly wins and losses matter (like with last year's MITB, or Washington's attempt at getting heat, or Cole commenting on Punk's lengthy title reign), but their booking of Raw and Smackdown overall show that wins and losses mean nothing (see Ziggler, who is suddenly a borderline main event act despite having been booked as a JTTS for much of the year).  So this match that could otherwise do good business might be hard to draw heat.  We'll see.  Usually, the WWE pulls it off, but even if the WWE pulls it off, their past opportunity costs diminishes the optimization of drawing serious money.  For the match itself, ***1/2.

Nell Santucci