Triple H and Stephanie contemplate their next move. Photo/WWE
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e’re a week removed from the end of Survivor Series, from the supposed “end” of The Authority and back under the jurisdiction of the Anonymous Raw GM. My mind is still boggled as to how this is a better option for the future as opposed to Triple H and Co., and how such an amazing and pivotal angle and stable could be ended before Wrestlemania.
Yes, I was Team Authority. While others may have grown weary of their antics, I love how they gave us not one but two of the most compelling storylines played out in the past year and a half: The Daniel Bryan Saga and The Golden Boy vs The Lunatic Fringe.
DBry was already over, to be sure, but that angle wouldn’t have had packed nearly the punch it did if it were just a run of the mill stable behind it or even just one lone figurehead. He needed to play the quintessential underdog, and no one makes an underdog look better than tyrannical authority figures. Note that this is pluralized, not singular.
Also, had The Authority not weaseled Seth Rollins away from The Shield, we wouldn’t be seeing the rise of Dean Ambrose, and what a tremendous ride his climb to the top has been. Likewise, we’d see the potential of Seth Rollins be wasting away in the midcard, when clearly both are being groomed for main event status and have already passed the first test.
Triple H and Stephanie McMahon represented everything we hate socially in life. They’re that manager at work who seemingly has it out for you and makes your job worse. They’re the popular clique in school who made life hell for all the outcasts. They’re the neighborhood bullies that made you afraid to leave your backyard. Everyone needs an outlet for their frustrations and they provided us that outlet. Rarely can someone get the amount of heat that Stephanie can just by her name being mentioned by someone else! They are the perfect foil for the company, not just in terms of a corrupt figurehead, but as the duo poised to take over and manipulate the company they’re inheriting to their liking.
We need that machine to rebel against. A laptop going off with annoying Macbook alerts every five seconds and Michael Cole droning on about its messages simply will not do.
Bringing in Sting to help sell the end of Survivor Series was awesome. I marked out so hard when he appeared; it was my childhood dream come true. However, I can’t help but feel that he was brought in to justify ending a crucial angle on what technically was a throwaway PPV, and I say throwaway because it was free. Had they played out the ending of The Authority any other way – especially the way we all anticipated, Randy Orton returning to screw them over – it wouldn’t have had nearly as much punch. It still would have been amazing, but it would have lacked that special something. While everyone would have been happy because they didn’t have to pay for it, the end would not have justified the means, at least from a creative and investment standpoint. Storylines like these you end at Wrestlemania. You make people pay to watch that final nail being hammered in the coffin.
Now, we’re left to question: where does Sting fit in, exactly? When will they bring him back? Is it going to be like Brock, with the sporadic appearances, or like Undertaker, and we’ll only see him once or twice leading up to Wrestlemania? Perhaps he’ll be like Jericho and work a set amount of months with Wrestlemania being the big hurrah.
But the biggest question of all, where does WWE plan to go now that they’ve ended what was a driving force behind most of the top angles? Daniel Bryan hopefully was a one-off. Yes, I was happy to see him on my screen again. But he’s better when he’s in the ring and wrestling as opposed to on the mic. He’s not been cleared yet, and while that was a great way to keep him in everyone’s minds, the booking seemed rushed and a little lackluster.
Obviously, the Anonymous Raw GM is not going to continue forever. Yes, we all know it was revealed that Hornswaggle was the one behind the shenanigans, so we know that now it’s someone new. Using an old hat angle that was never really over in the first place is a poor way to re-establish The Authority’s power. They are cunning, manipulative. They need to play whomever they put in charge like a puppet to regain that power they once had and to come back better than ever…and by better I mean worse, more corrupt, the epitome of corporate evil, figures that can make the big wigs on Wall Street shudder.
At this point, I have no clue as to how they’ll pull that off. Obviously, Creative has something up their sleeve. My only hope is that they start to enact it soon, before they ruin everything they’ve been working towards.
