By Nicholas Jason Lopez

“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on recent television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.

(Aired 6/22/15)

Putting The Band Back Together 

– The first segment with Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman started with a classic Heyman promo that took advantage of the big pop they both came out with. They refreshed everyone with what happened in the post-WrestleMania Raw and closed up the logic gap of The Authority bringing Lesnar back by forcing him to publicly apologize. Lesnar always has an aura of mystique around him – even him hesitating to shake hands with the announcers created drama and tension. How he “made up” with Michael Cole was funny. This ended up with Heyman “rallying the troops home” by saying what everyone wanted to hear.

– The Dean Ambrose-Kane match was more of the same as we’ve seen before. Weird for the broadcast team to bring up Ambrose’s sit-in protest last week since he didn’t actually get what he wanted: Seth Rollins to come out for a fight. The match lasted a bit too long, but Rollins coming out getting involved made sense and also put over speculation of trying to get Kane back on his good side, which apparently was the theme of the night.

– The Rollins/Kane backstage segment furthered on those tensions and how Rollins was trying to convince Kane to come back to his side and Kane threw it in his face. Tough biscuits.

– Don’t tell us they gave The Prime Time Players the tag titles because of Titus O’Neil getting that father award. That in of itself is all well and good, but don’t shake things up in the tag division because of that. The PTP-Ascension match was to be treated as an enhancement of sorts. Ascension worked in a few spots, but this all mostly one-sided. Good to also see The New Day watching intently backstage. Broadcast team needs to stop insinuating that PTP is only out to have fun. Also too quick a transition to Sheamus’ entrance too since it made it look as if he were out to interrupt PTP.

– The Sheamus-Reigns match was lengthy while it lasted with both men looking powerful, that was until Bray Wyatt broke through with a Tea Party on the TitanTron with an unheard guest, which prompted Reigns to run away. Once he was backstage, the shot panned out to show an empty chair. Stupid. He should’ve stood longer in the ring.

– The segment with Reigns finding the tea party shrine as Wyatt sang the little teapot song was stuff of WrestleCrap material, but at least it ended quickly. The announcers talked so much of how Reigns spoke of the importance of his family before WrestleMania. Think we need another one of those promos here.

– The Rollins-J & J Security backstage segment saw Rollins try to convince them to come back and it fell on deaf ears, though Rollins made some valid points. JBL: “Would you stop? He’s trying to put his family back together!” Funny. Again – theme of the night.

– The Neville-Kofi Kingston match saw another continuation of this apparent Neville-New Day feud, which is confusing considering Neville is a singles competitor. At the least, Woods and Big E were hilarious outside. Is the plan to team Neville up with someone, maybe Cesaro? Them teaming together has potential. This was the exact same thing we saw on Smackdown once PTP came out. The finish came after New Day was ejected, causing Kingston to get distracted and defeated by the Red Arrow. Nothing says “We’re ready for our tag title rematch” like getting beat by a singles guy consistently. New Day should be gaining more momentum, not be completely absent of it.

– The King Barrett-Zack Ryder match preceded an R-Truth boxed promo that put over his crazy “King” behavior that just makes us want to shake our heads. Barrett becomes more irrelevant by the week. Truth, not even in the match, had more focus on this segment. It was to the point where this was either an upset win for Ryder or a squash, which ended up the latter. Yup, it takes beating Ryder to make Barrett look good. Sad, right?

– Is there anything NXT Champion Kevin Owens and United States Champion John Cena can’t do together? Another solid exchange between the two, which set both sides of the feud in perspective over the topic of language. No physicality yet, which has been interesting, but it’s easily the best feud going right now. A third match, you say? Take us there already.

– The Rollins-Triple H/Stephanie McMahon backstage segment helped set up the last segment pretty well as Triple H talked about the potential of Rollins being a “smart man” and what a smart man had to do to stop drama and get back to business. Good stuff.

– Alicia Fox should be repackaged as “Foxy Bella,” since she is all Team Bella now. Awkward choice to have a heel vs heel tag team for the Divas with Tamina/Naomi against the Bellas. Except it seemed like the Bellas were trying to rally the crowd up. Aren’t they heels? Sigh. This is why these stories are so irrelevant. No damn consistency. The Bellas went over once Naomi’s tactics backfired. What did this prove exactly?

– The Ryback-Mark Henry match had Big Show out on commentary talking up hype for the triple threat Battleground match for the IC Title also featuring The Miz. Ryback wins with a splash from the top rope? Really? That’s supposed to be his new finisher against the big guys? The man lifted up Show a few weeks back for a ShellShocked. Ryback’s backstage promo had a background of family emotion and was actually pretty good. Show looked okay when he confronted Ryback but that was undone when the Champion left him lying in a heap backstage.

– The Dolph Ziggler-Adam Rose match had started with an odd Rose promo that abandoned his past persona with an emphasized accent that made him sound like a besmirched French waiter. At least he got new tights too. Oh, you want to know what we thought of the match? As if Rose really stood a chance here. The Ziggler/Lana duo was mainly emphasized here. Rusev intensely watched backstage again and actually threw his crutches wildly and broke the hanging WWE sign. He found his way to a new blonde bombshell though in Summer Rae. Well, something like that.

– The J & J Security/Kane/Trips/Steph backstage segment saw Steph try to remind everyone of what they’ve done for Seth. The screen went green briefly and Steph asked everyone to hear Seth out. Last solid lead-in to what closed the show.

– The final segment was a solid ending to the show since it re-established Kane and J & J Security’s allegiance to Rollins once again by defending him against Lesnar and more importantly, it showed that Lesnar is vulnerable and can be taken down by the power in numbers. We’re fully expecting Lesnar to annihilate Rollins at Battleground and get his title back again, so they need to do whatever possible to give Rollins as much momentum from here on out. Good start.

Quick Results

– Kane def. Dean Ambrose via pinfall

– The Prime Time Players def. The Ascension via pinfall

– Sheamus def. Roman reigns via apparent countout

– Neville def. Kofi Kingston (w/Big E, Xavier Woods) via pinfall

– King Barrett def. Zack Ryder via pinfall

– The Bella Twins (w/Alicia Fox) def. Naomi/Tamina via pinfall

– Ryback def. Mark Henry via pinfall

– Dolph Ziggler (w/Lana) def. Adam Rose (w/Rosa Mendes) via pinfall