{"id":43581,"date":"2017-06-13T12:11:14","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T17:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=43581"},"modified":"2017-06-13T12:11:14","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T17:11:14","slug":"rising-star-fading-star-samoa-joe-corey-graves-naomi-anderson-gallows-bayley-seth-rollins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/06\/13\/rising-star-fading-star-samoa-joe-corey-graves-naomi-anderson-gallows-bayley-seth-rollins\/","title":{"rendered":"RISING STAR &#038; FADING STAR: Samoa Joe, Corey Graves, Naomi, Anderson &#038; Gallows, Bayley, Seth Rollins"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-3005040497\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><h3>RISING STAR OF OF THE WEEK: Samoa Joe<\/h3>\n<p>See? Now this is how things are supposed to work around here: Joe gets Rising Star of Extreme Rules last week and now he casually chokes his way to the front of the line again on Raw. Wow, what a segment. So different from the sterility of your normal, heavily scripted &#8220;everybody waits their turn to talk&#8221; segments. You have Joe making demands (and acting) like he&#8217;s on the same level as Lesnar, then you have the Beast&#8217;s advocate respectfully enter the ring and praise Joe only to get blacked out off mic for his efforts. So much attention to detail, it&#8217;s moments like these that help build to a headliner that Joe vs. Lesnar should, could and (probably) will be.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HONORABLE MENTIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Corey Graves:<\/strong> Graves has already established himself as a refreshing voice to the much maligned trio of Raw&#8217;s way-beyond-sell-date commentary team, but this whole text messaging angl gives an additional layer of intrigue to his character. Is he a facilitator to these attacks on Enzo &amp; Cass? A channel of goodwill? Just someone people like to tell things to? What&#8217;s definite is his ability to pull any angle in this tangled web of Raw mystery off.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bayley:<\/strong> A little tongue in cheek with this one. At this point, the more Bayley doesn&#8217;t appear on television, the more she doesn&#8217;t use social media, and the more Cole, Booker &amp; Graves talk up her impromptu disappearance from Raw, the better it for her long-term shelf life. What level of the shelf that she&#8217;ll be able to be placed on at this point remains to be seen, but certainly a necessary move if they have any hopes in her rehabilitation. A real (real) small step in the right direction with plenty more to go.<\/p>\n<h3>FADING STAR OF WEEK: Anderson &amp; Gallows<\/h3>\n<p>While Finn and A.J. have found top of the card billing after their respective NJPW exits, their Bullet Club compatriots haven&#8217;t had as generous of a path. Vince&#8221;s carelessness and inconsistency when it comes to booking tag teams out-muscles any type of charisma that a duo can bring to the wrestling product, and if you&#8217;ve seen Southpaw Regional Wrestling, Anderson &amp; Gallows absolutely have charisma. It&#8217;s unfortunate that we see them job out in two minutes to Enzo &amp; Show. Tex Fergusson &amp; Chad 2 Badd deserve a little more love than that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>DISHONORABLE MENTIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Naomi:\u00a0<\/strong>Besides Becky Lynch, who was the babyface here? Lana returns to an expected positive reaction, only for her heat to be squelched by tossing a temper tantrum mere minutes later at the seemingly forced barbs by Naomi, who was channeling the likability of JBL in that opening segment. Say what you will, but she was a straight-up bully. Even with Charlotte on the roster, this division needs to be resuscitated and having these women act Kardashian catty is not the way to do it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Seth Rollins:<\/strong> Sure, Seth closes out Raw in the ring with Joe, but are we really excited for a feud with Bray Wyatt? Based on crowd reactions it seems Seth is finding some footing as a face, but to cultivate that, he needs to be in a hot feud. Bray Wyatt talking in circles that never add up to anything is not the way to do that. Him being framed as friends with a likable babyface could be his best course of action, but besides Finn (and maybe Dean) that&#8217;s hard to come by.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-4137003955\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK&#8217;S COLUMN:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/06\/05\/rising-star-fading-star-samoa-joe-bayley-hardy-boyz-cesaro-sheamus-dean-ambrose-austin-aries\/\">RISING STAR &amp; FADING STAR: Samoa Joe, Bayley, Hardy Boyz, Cesaro &amp; Sheamus, Dean Ambrose, Austin Aries<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-800216167\"><div id=\"pwtor-1846740663\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>RISING STAR OF OF THE WEEK: Samoa Joe See? Now this is how things are supposed to work around here: Joe gets Rising Star of Extreme Rules last week and now he casually chokes his <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/06\/13\/rising-star-fading-star-samoa-joe-corey-graves-naomi-anderson-gallows-bayley-seth-rollins\/\" title=\"RISING STAR &#038; FADING STAR: Samoa Joe, Corey Graves, Naomi, Anderson &#038; Gallows, Bayley, Seth Rollins\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,52,4309,27],"tags":[127,662,309,2405,321,125,84],"class_list":["post-43581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlightarticles","category-opnionandanalysis","category-rising-star-fading-star","category-specialists","tag-bayley","tag-corey-graves","tag-karl-anderson","tag-luke-gallows","tag-naomi","tag-samoa-joe","tag-seth-rollins"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/JoeSamoaWK_3x2_600.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43582,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43581\/revisions\/43582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}