What was the WWE doing? They were pretty blatant. They wanted that segment to happen during halftime of the NFL game that night. That is when they would face the least competition during the game. That is why they stalled a little bit longer than Cena had said in his promo. Indeed, during halftime of the game, that is when the segment happened. On the final Raw before Night of Champions, your main-event segment is between Rusev and Mark Henry, a non-title feud, while the feud for the WWE Championship is placed below that for the sake of saving it from NFL competition.
What do I think about this? I find it stupid. It was cowardly. This feud between John Cena and Brock Lesnar is the best feud you have going. That is to say, it is supposed to be the best feud you have going. You have your centerpiece and an A+ part-timer that has been having a monster year going at it. If there is any feud they should have faith in drawing for them, it should be this one. And what do they do? They protect it. They don't send it out there at the time it would make sense to send it out there. They don't put their best foot forward.
Don't get me wrong, the segment probably would still have gotten destroyed. Ratings were very bad for Raw. No hour's average saw over 4 million viewers. The second hour did see the highest of the three hours. Huge drop in the 3rd hour. If the WWE did put Cena/Lesnar in the end of the show, at a time when the football game that night was getting good, what would ratings have looked like? Can never know for sure, but the act of not putting it there just shows a lack of confidence. If they can't have that kind of confidence in this feud featuring those guys, I don't feel confident in the WWE to make good decisions right now. You have probably already seen enough to draw that conclusion a long time ago. Football season just started. This was the second week. As the season goes on, games will count a lot more and teams with a larger fanbase will be going at it. The WWE can definitely be in for worse than they got this week. And they didn't even handle that show in a confident manner. How much worse could it get?
Onto the actual preview for the match. Two things to talk about. One is obviously who wins and whether that's the end of the feud. First, let me talk about the story of the match. You saw an obvious story at Summerslam. The dominance of Brock Lesnar and Cena taking the beating of his life. Some people say that the WWE must tell that same story again or it ruins Lesnar. Some people just want to see that again because they want to see Cena get destroyed. I don't think they can tell that same story again. I don't think they will tell that same story again. They have already sold that Cena is more focused now. He fought back against Lesnar on Raw and got the better of him before being separated. This will be more competitive than the match at Summerslam. You can picture Cena coming very close to getting it done, then Brock pulling it out in the end. If they had ran this story in a manner in which Cena was really crazy about proving he could do to Lesnar what Lesnar did to him, I could picture Cena getting disqualified for going too far in his match. Let him refuse to stop beating down Lesnar or snap and use a weapon. I think you can sell that without turning him heel. Of course, they have not developed the story in that direction and the direction they have developed it might make it look like Cena is turning heel just because he uses a weapon. Not the likely story here. How about Cena beats down Lesnar so much, Lesnar walks away from the match and gets counted out? Cena finds a way to get his arm raised, but Lesnar is still WWE Champion. Again, I don't feel they have developed this match with that kind of story. I would only expect a more competitive match.
Who wins? I would say Lesnar, but the WWE has developed this feud in a way where it seems more about Cena than Lesnar. Will he overcome? And there is still the whole issue of Lesnar being a part-timer. Will the WWE think that they need a full-time WWE Champion to draw for them? I still think Lesnar will retain. He should. There are still a few fresh challengers for him. He can feud against both heels and faces. But will the feud continue between Cena and Lesnar? Why should it? Hell in a Cell is coming up. What better way to end a heated feud than inside that structure? Both guys have been in Hell in a Cell matches. It could be good. But there is no need to drag this feud on. Let a fresh challenger step up.
Let me bring up my current favorite concept, the wildcat centerpiece. Before Lesnar even won the title, I imagined him winning it and getting a good run at the top, even if he wouldn't be there every week. Depush Cena. Let the hype of the unstoppable Brock Lesnar settle in on the main event. It hasn't really worked out like I had hoped. Lesnar would have been a wildcat centerpiece, even though I did not have that term in mind back then. His character has so much hype and dominance around it, I think he could bring a fresh change if pushed right. How can you push a guy that's not there every week? Remember when The Undertaker got injured a few years ago and they still ran a storyline about Kane taking him out? That was an interesting way to do things. How about those times Cena was out with an injury and they still developed title feuds for him? They did that just last year when Alberto Del Rio was World Champion. If they could make Cena look so important when he is not there, they could do that with Lesnar. I don't think they are doing a good job of that. Cena could be feuding with Seth Rollins, or some other heel The Authority puts against him, while Lesnar and his challenger get the main spotlight. Can anyone conquer The Beast? And if you hype Lesnar right and develop feuds right, that might increase his potential to draw when he does show up. When he's not there, you are creating fresh hype around something other than Cena's stale character. This is how you combat Monday Night Football with a confident strategy.
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