The Russ Says...

One of the helpful things about being able to watch Raw on Hulu Plus now is that instead of sitting through a 3-hour show, I only have to watch 90 minutes of it. On their YouTube channel, you can even get that down to between 35 and 40 minutes (although they usually cut most of the promos out).

Heading in to Hell in a Cell this Sunday, there is absolutely nothing about this card that I feel is must see. I nearly cared about CM Punk vs. Ryback, but they've already spoiled the finish by booking The Rock at Royal Rumble. They certainly wouldn't have Ryback carry the title for 3 months, and they are making such a big deal about Punk's win streak that they should let it build more before Rock takes the title.

The TRS Report is delayed... if you want some preview thoughts, follow me on Twitter @The_Russ_Says.

Otherwise, here's a funny video for you to watch instead:

Hopefully I will have time soon to start pulling together all the wrestling stuff I have spread all over the internet into one place... either here or my old domain. I might even have some time to start doing some publicity and networking too.

Then again, WWE '13 comes out next week, so I'll probably be busy after that.

Sad news about Mike Graham came out last week... some reports say he committed suicide, but others say that the cause of death has not been released. I never saw any of his work in his dad's Florida Championship Wrestling territory, but I enjoyed watching him in recent years on WWE's roundtable series on WWE Classics and on some of the legends DVDs, particularly the World Class and AWA documentaries.

I am still a week behind on WWE viewing, but I do know that WWE has painted themselves into a corner by having Ryback challenge CM Punk at Hell in a Cell. As always, we should reserve judgment until we see how the match goes, but you can't have Punk put over Ryback at this point in either guy's run, you can't have Ryback job to Punk because it will kill his gimmick, and you can't really have a screwjob finish because the only other guy to give the rub to would be John Cena, and he's on the shelf at the moment.

Maybe this is a point where you slide Randy Orton over from the World Championship picture and start booking a high-profile match for Survivor Series with Punk, but not knowing his 12 Rounds schedule, it's hard to tell if that is feasible. It will probably be Cena vs. Punk next month (again) and building to a rematch of Cena vs. Rock (again) at the Royal Rumble. Some say that Punk will hold the title until then, and that there has been storyline foreshadowing to make that case, but Vince McMahon seems to be more unsettled these days about sticking to any kind of plan. I'm sure at some point, something else will stick to the wall, and he will deviate from the plan.

Speaking of Survivor Series, I plan on getting tickets to my first WWE show in about 10 years and my first PPV show in about 15 years. Should be fun... and speaking of (again), it seems that WWE has taken a page from the Hollywood playbook. Sequelmania is running wild at the box office, brother! Nothing wrong with high-profile big-money rematches, but you get more longevity out of them by spacing them more than a year apart and more time to build the payday.

See you tomorrow after Raw.

I am still recovering from vacation, so I haven't caught up on the news yet about CM Punk punching out a fan when somebody else hit him instead... not sure what provoked it, but this is a great half hour with the CM Punk we all know and love.

Most of the people in this panel get it that Punk is a character and a pretty cool guy in real life. If it wasn't for vacation, I might have tried to make the road trip to Columbus to see this for myself.

People gripe about referees getting involved in storylines, but let's face it... they sometimes get called out in real life as well. NFL referee Ed Hochuli became famous for blowing a call a few years ago. NBA referee Joey Crawford became famous for gambling on games that he officiated. Shannon Eastin and Violet Palmer became famous for being the first female officials at the top of their respective sports, football and basketball. MLB umpire Jim Joyce became famous for blowing a call a couple of years ago that spoiled a perfect game.

So, yes... I think it's okay to call out referee Chad Patten by name, because it happens in pro sports. In this situation, they did it to reinforce the fact that he made a good call (even though it was bad booking), but really, yeah... in general, referees shouldn't get involved in storylines beyond this. We don't need to revisit Dangerous Danny Davis. I don't think that was what they were trying for in the main event, but once is okay when not over used - two nights in a row is dumb and lazy scripting.

The jobber battle royal on YouTube to determine who would face U.S. Champion Antonio Cesaro is one of the main problems with WWE today. Let me put it another way: I didn't buy WWE '12 last year, but I did rent it, and when I saw that over half the roster was jobbers, I said forget it. If you still have a copy of WWE No Mercy, you didn't really get to the jobbers on that game until about four or five screens in. Keep in mind, most of the stars in that game were created on 2 hours of TV per week, compared to the 6 to 7 hours they have today plus social media time. The champion and the title are both devalued because of the weak contenders they have for it.

As I predicted the other day, the tag title switch to Kane & Daniel Bryan was pretty obvious once they were put in the main event. Vince loves to book these tag champs with issues, and while they will probably be transitional champions, it still makes no sense to kill the Prime Time Players' momentum after they continued to be pushed after the Brian Jossie firing. Triple H is supposedly refocusing on the tag division, but this doesn't really look like it.