The doldrums of Fall

               

I haven't had much to say about WWE for a while, and there's good reason for that.  I'm not bashing it at all; I think they're making the most out of a roster that's decimated by injuries.  No Daniel Bryan, no Roman Reigns, and even no Wade Barrett has made it harder to put things together hese past few months.  And while they made the right call to have Brock Lesnar go over at Summerslam to become the champion, his schedule leaves a whole in a three hour show every week to feature your title holder.  Yes, Paul Heyman coming out to do his thing on Brock's behalf is gold almost every time but without a match to hype it doesn't carry as much weight after a few weeks.  The last month of RAW and Smackdown has been a game of 'how can we rearrange John Cena and Dean Ambrose vs Randy Orton, Seth Rollins, and Kane this time?'  And now we have a big show in two weeks where there will likely be no title match and some mishmash of Cena, Orton, and Kane to go along with the Ambrose-Rollins match in the main event.  And while that match will likely be awesome, it's coming a few months before they wanted to do it because of Reigns' injury.  Ambrose was supposed to out longer due to being put out of action by Rollins and Orton but Reigns getting sidelined forced him to come back earlier.  And once we get through this month, we still have Survivor Series and TLC ahead before they can reset at the Royal Rumble when Bryan and Reigns are slated to return.  This truly is a stretch that makes you wonder if we need all these big shows.  (I wrote about that in a piece for Get on the Ball Sports before Night of Champions.)

The post-Summerslam period is usually a time to tread water until the Rumble in January.  The difference for this year is that everything we're getting now is coming at least a month or two before it would have had the roster been full.  My guess is that Lesnar was going to win the title in August regardless, but the victim wold have been Bryan and not Cena.  Cena would have gotten chances to beat Lesnar in the fall and winter instead of losing the title to Brock and trying to win it back in September.  The Shield breakup definitely got fast tracked due to needing some action near the top to make up for Bryan's absence.  So now we're faced with two months of the company trying to make chicken salad out of chicken you-know-what.  And you can expect two more months of gratuitous company-bashing on the internet, as people take advantage of the current situation to unload every nonspecific gripe they've had about the company in an effort to get clicks.  The decimated roster does not vindicate your 'John Cena shouldn't have gone over at WrestleMania 30' post from April, OK?  The next two months are going to be hanging by a thin thread, by no fault of the company's own.  What they do have going for them is that the in ring product below the main event is as good as it's been.  Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro, the Wyatt Family, the Uso, Gold and Stardust, Miz, Sheamus, etc. can provide plenty of good matches for our entertainment until January.  Let's hope that can hold the fort down for these next two months.