The week after Wrestlemania featured the expected returns and debuts. Smackdown got an NXT debut. That would be Shinsuke Nakamura. How did he debut?
He danced.
And that's it. I know it is part of his gimmick, but this was a really poor debut. Nakamura fans will disagree, but that's because they love the guy. Just to make it clear, I know he had a dark match that night, but why should the TV audience care about that? From the standpoint of the viewers, what are they really supposed to make of this guy? Is he a Japanese Brodus Clay?
What could the WWE have done? Hit the ground running. Don't just have him dance. Do a better job planting the seeds for his first feud. Have him knock around Miz. Or have him tease attacking Miz, have Miz run away like a coward, and then let Nakamura go back to his dancing.
I do not think this is a sign the WWE is out to screw Nakamura. But good starts can lay the foundation for what will come more easily. Then again, Samoa Joe debuted in a big way a few months ago. I would say he has just been coasting since then. You can blame that on Seth Rollins getting injured, but the WWE has had plenty of time since then to do something proper with Samoa Joe. I do not think that will happen to Nakamura anytime soon. With the way he debuted, he can only go on to better things from here.
Onto The Undertaker. Why have I not made a bigger deal of his loss to Roman Reigns and his supposed retirement? Because I do not feel that is the end of it. Not only did the WWE do a poor job of building this up to be a retirement feud prior to Wrestlemania, but the night after didn't suggest any finality to Undertaker's career. Michael Cole left it open-ended as to whether Undertaker had retired.
People are talking about Taker leaving his gear in the ring after his loss. I remember watching Lockdown back in 2011. Kurt Angle lost to Jeff Jarrett. After the loss, Angle took off his boots. TNA tried to sell it as a possible retirement. Kurt Angle obviously did not retire from wrestling back then. He didn't even retire from TNA back then. TNA has done this kind of thing a lot. A lot of retirements or people being forced to leave the company, only for them to come back. I have seen a lot of videos on Youtube over the years of people thanking Velvet Sky after it looked like she was done with the company. She always seems to come back. Point is, nothing is final yet when it comes to The Undertaker.
If that was his final match, however, it was a terrible match. There were some terrible botches that just make you want his career to not end like that. That is another reason I think he will have another match. Of course, you can't just keep extending his career until he gets the perfect match. He's old. His body can't take too much anymore. He might just have one more good match next year left in him. I think it would be easy to build to that from here.
If the WWE never really intended for his career to end there, what is the point of teasing that it just might be over like this? To try to draw. They did the same kind of thing last year when they made it seem Taker would never wrestle at Wrestlemania again if he lost to Shane McMahon, and some people read that as Taker would be forced to retire. Of course, Taker won. And Shane still got to run Raw for a while. Wins and losses don't matter.
How did the publicity stunt do? The Raw after Wrestlemania this year, featuring the fallout of The Undertaker's possible retirement, Brock Lesnar getting the title back, all the debuts and returns, and whatever else, only averaged 3.8 million viewers, down from last year's 4.1 million and the previous year's 5.4 million. Considering everything they did, that is pretty pathetic.
People want to blame college basketball finals. Okay, but the WWE didn't exactly do nothing on Raw this week. What is the point of treating Brock Lesnar like you do if giving him the title will not draw when he shows up? But sticking with The Undertaker, this is a legend that has been around for decades. He was there during the hot Attitude Era. Why wouldn't fans tune in to see if this was really the end of his career? Maybe the WWE wouldn't have gotten over 5 million live viewers, but they should have gotten over 4 million with everything going on. It looks like 2017 will indeed be a year they fail to reach that benchmark.
Part of the reason they failed to do better is obviously the poor way they sold this feud between Roman Reigns and The Undertaker. It was rushed. It seemed pretty lame. They were fighting over whose yard it is? It just didn't feel epic. But part of the blame might just be the WWE crying wolf too many times and in too many ways over the years. Everyone remembers Mark Henry's fake retirement segment. That was great. But might it have hurt the value of other retirements and retirement angles to come? With just The Undertaker, the WWE have gotten fans to believe it was over or could be over multiple times over the years. They thought it was over when he lost to Brock Lesnar. They thought it could have been over last year. As far as last year goes, I pointed out how the WWE showed that wins and losses don't matter by having Shane still run Raw after losing to Taker. How can some viewers take the outcome to things seriously when you make these kind of decisions too much?
It just goes to show that everyone is underachieving in this era. If the possible retirement of The Undertaker can't draw a huge ratings boost, what can? Obviously, this is not a criticism on The Undertaker. This is all the WWE's fault for not handling things better. I still do not believe this is the last people have seen of The Undertaker on Raw, and I'm not just talking about coming back after being inducted into the Hall of Fame. He will show up again, whether to start his final feud or just make it official that his career will now rest in peace.
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