AS you’ve no doubt already read on these pages – SummerSlam was a triumph for the WWE.

From top to bottom it was a show with great wrestling and even better storytelling.

The trouble was, 24 hours later, Raw delivered two hours which came nowhere close to the standard set by the company the night before.

It used to follow that the best Raw shows to watch were those which directly followed a Pay-Per-View event. Coming out of this week’s effort, it is difficult to subscribe to that theory.

It would be unfair to write off the show as a total loss, because it featured some good things.

Chris Jericho opened proceedings with another tremendous piece of mic work to further his feud with Shawn Michaels – easily the best storyline in all of wrestling this year.

Later in the night he wrestled CM Punk in the main event, and while it wasn’t ideal to see the world champion beaten cleanly in a non-title match, at least it was by virtue of losing to Jericho, furthering the fortunes of the man formerly known as Y2J.

Another thing that caught the eye was the atmospheric, creepy promo cut by Kane, turning himself heel and hyping a future programme with Rey Mysterio.

Other than the incidents mentioned above, and a brief segment featuring the consistently brilliant Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix, much of the show was extremely unfulfilling.

As the heart of the discontent was the apparent lack of forward direction.

Probably the most newsworthy incident in the show was the announcement of the world title match for the Unforgiven PPV on September 7.

Mike Adamle appeared on stage to explain the rules of the Championship Scramble, which will feature CM Punk and challengers Kane, JBL, Batista and John Cena.

Essentially, think back to the Open contests that used to occur in the old days of the hardcore title.

In the ‘Scramble’, there will be a 20-minute time limit, and when a pinfall occurs, the winner of the fall becomes champion.

This can happen any amount of times until the time limit expires.

It is a match concept which sounds frankly bizarre.

To be fair, if CM Punk can survive the duration and remain champion then it gives him a timely boost.

SHOWDOWN ... CM Punk confronts JBL

But it still has far too many flaws.

The major criticism one has, frequently, with TNA is that with a capable roster they continue to overbook and waste their main selling point – talented wrestling.

WWE should be above booking silly gimmick matches when they have such a wealth of talent at their disposal.

The likes of Triple H, Edge, Undertaker, Big Show, Jeff Hardy, MVP, CM Punk, Kane, JBL, John Cena, Batista, Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels can all be moulded into a sensible card.

They should not need to resort to a novelty match for what is supposed to be a prestigious world championship with such a storied heritage.

It's almost like we are being shown the most powerful gun in the entire world. But if there is no-one to load the bullets, then what's the point?

Elsewhere on Raw, John Cena was booked to defeat the current tag team champions Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase Jr, rendering the last couple of weeks of action between the trio, along with Batista, completely pointless, and denting the reputation of the entire division.

I can’t have been the only one to think when we heard Stephanie and Shane had an announcement that it was the restart of the “Vince is hurt” angle.

A confusing title match arrangement was such a letdown.

And if anyone takes the credit for it, surely it should be Mike ‘Original’ Adamle, who they are trying to get over in his new GM role.

We have heard so little about Vince and how this angle will be resolved that it’s gone cold now. Does anyone plan ahead in WWE anymore?

I will be absolutely delighted to be proved wrong about much of this. If the championship scramble is a fantastic match then I will happily hold my hands up.

Otherwise at Unforgiven, in my eyes, the WWE will be just that.

For more of his thoughts, you can read Rob McNichol’s Wrestling Blog atrobmcnichol.blogspot.com