The Phantom Rant: Creative Issues With WWE

Greetings conversationalists all across the world wide web, it is I the one and only “Phantom Lord” Joseph Davis and this is The Phantom Rant. As always I am coming to you from The Big Apple that is New York City and all that snow we got is finally melted and gone. So I’m happy about that. What I am not happy about is how Smackdown ended the other night. QB1 Cody Rhodes has the WWE Championship back and I ask why? Is Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton that much more of a box office match than Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton?

We know that right now tickets for Wrestlemania are not selling like they should for a two night event. Then again how could they sell with the prices they are charging for tickets. The big money match with CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns is set. I would assume that’s the main event for night two simply because it’s the bigger match. The WWE Championship match was always going to be the lesser of the two. So I guess they had to load up the first night of the show with Cody vs. Orton. I just didn’t like how the match between Cody and Drew went.

For starters, what was up with Lil’ Nat’ch Charles Robinson during the match? At one point Cody has Drew in the figure four and Drew reaches the ropes…but Robinson doesn’t call for a break. Did I miss an announcement that this match was no disqualifications? Later Drew puts Cody through a Slim Jim table (still can’t believe they sponsor the tables). I thought for sure there would be a Dusty finish when Drew shoved Lil’ Nat’ch into the way of Cody. Second referee comes out and counts the win only for the original referee to overrule him and say Drew was disqualified. Cody gets the win…but doesn’t get the gold. It’s a time tested finish that’s been done more time then I can count.

We didn’t get that. What we got was Drew taking out the second referee only for Robinson to gather himself long enough to count the three and presto changeo Cody Rhodes is WWE Champion…again. It’s stuff like this that puzzles me about WWE Creative. Things honestly used to be simpler and more concise when Vince was in charge and Pat Patterson was the only guy bouncing ideas off him. Now there’s God knows how many people in the writers room. Before anyone says it in the comments or else where…I don’t want to see Vince McMahon back. I was just saying things were simpler back then.

There was an interesting article on the main page of NoDQ the other day about how the WWE is “listening” to online criticism. I got a good laugh from that notion. The WWE has never and I mean ever cared about what those of us in the IWC have to say. If they did the last twenty five years of the company would not have ever happened.

Compared to Vince McMahon as head booker/producer of the WWE, Triple H’s run as executive producer has been night and day. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been problems along the way. This thing with Cody having to be on top is an example of where the WWE doesn’t understand us on the internet and how we really feel. I have no problem with Cody being in the main event. My problem is just because he’s in the main event doesn’t mean he has to win it all the time.

I’ve said this more than once. The Chase is better than The Catch. It’s not just a great Motorhead song. Cody was better at the chase for the championship. It’s funny, for a company that is supposed to be so enamored with Cody’s dad…The American Dream Dusty Rhodes, they sure do the opposite of what he would do. Yes, Dusty was the top good guy and he was always chasing Ric Flair for the World Championship. But of the few times when Dusty would catch Flair and win the title, it would either be reversed quickly or he would only hold the title for a short time.

There was no reason for Cody to win the WWE Championship on Smackdown other than they have no idea what they are doing rolling into Wrestlemania. All they know is CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns is the top match. Everything else under that they really don’t care about. Sure we’re getting Liv Morgan vs. Stephanie Vaquer and Jade Cargil vs. Rhea Ripley. But aside from the four matches announced that is pretty much it. I read somewhere that they want a total of like fourteen matches for the show. Oh yeah there is Brock Lesnar with an open challenge. But that’s only like that because they don’t know what to do with Brock either.

People seem to think that we’re getting Brock Lesnar vs. Oba Femi at Wrestlemania. I don’t think they’re doing that. I just can’t see Brock getting squashed by Oba Femi at Wrestlemania. Brock is probably in the last year of his career and logical thinking says he’ll retire at Summerslam since it’s in his hometown of Minneapolis. That’s when we’ll get Gunther vs. Brock one would hope. That match writes itself…but they have to get there first. That’s the problem with WWE Creative in a nutshell. They have all these potential good matches. Just no way of getting there.

Now take what just happened on RAW last night. They had a women’s gauntlet match for a shot at the Women’s Intercontinental champion AJ Lee. Was this match for Wrestlemania? No it’s for next week. I don’t understand why we even had this match. Odds are Becky interferes next week in the match and it’s Becky vs. AJ Lee once again at Wrestlemania. Sucks for Bayley because she deserves a match at Wrestlemania. I’d much rather see AJ Lee vs. Bayley at Wrestlemania than AJ Lee vs. Becky again.

No offense to Becky, but her whole act bores me as much as QB1 Cody bores me. She needs some time off tv to recharge and come back fresh. At least there’s one thing going right and it’s the build for CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns. I enjoyed Punk’s promo that turned into a promo with him and The Uso’s. The Uso’s are so much better when they are being serious. Jey was all YOU BETTER APPOLOGIZE for what Punk said about Roman’s dad last week. Oh he apologized all right. Apologized for Roman and all he does in making the Uso’s look like a couple of young boys for him.

So I’m very interested in where this is all going with Punk and Roman when he shows up. I hope for the WWE’s sake on Smackdown they pull out something huge to make people care about Cody vs. Orton. Wrestling wise it should be a fine match. But who knows if they can pull it off storyline wise.

Well I guess that’s it for this week. As always you can leave some feedback down below, on twitter or email me at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com