Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: April 20, 2015
With just six days to go until Extreme Rules, WWE has a long way to go to get me interested in the show. It isn’t likely helping that they’re just back from the big European tour and are likely to be jetlagged half to death. The big story is likely to be more build between Rollins and Orton, who are loading up for a pretty lackluster title match. Oh and Kane because of reasons I don’t understand.
Orton opened the show in a cage, promising to hurt Seth this Sunday and take the title. Rollins and the Stooges came out and told him to get this out of his system now because it won’t work on Sunday. This sounds appealing to Randy, who promises RKO’s all night.
I really, really didn’t care for this segment as it’s more of the old standard walking you through everything they’re doing that night instead of doing anything that feels organic or natural. Why do they have to tell us everything they’re going to do instead of SHOWING US everything they want to do? Just have Orton start RKOing everyone backstage and let the fans go “oh that was cool” instead of sitting around waiting for it. Not a fan here but this story isn’t exactly one that inspires intellectual stimulation.
Ambrose and Harper had a quick non-match to set up their street fight on Sunday. These two could have an entertaining brawl if they’re allowed to just go nuts.
The Prime Time Players continued their recent awesome run by scaring the daylights out of Rollins and the Stooges, who are terrified of Orton attacking them. HHH popped up and laughed off their worries, as well as mentioned Kane because that’s the big story around here.
New Day, now fully heel, cheated to earn a title shot on Sunday over the Lucha Dragons via countout. Notice that they didn’t just have the Dragons get pinned here to kill their momentum. Instead, the faces (or faceless ones actually) lose because the heels cheated, keeping them strong and making the heels look like cheaters. That’s common sense booking and hopefully something that we see more often.
Orton came out and RKO’ed Kingston (with a botch as Kofi wasn’t ready to be thrown into the air, which looked really bad. He’s done) and Woods. This would be more of the theme that they made VERY CLEAR earlier in the night in case you were too stupid to figure out that Orton is RKOing everyone he can on a path to Rollins. That’s a bit too complicated for wrestling fans I suppose.
Fandango beat Curtis Axel in the weekly filler.
HHH announced the return of Tough Enough and most people didn’t seem to care. Could it be because outside of John Morrison, the most successful winner had a career highlight of eliminating Undertaker from the Royal Rumble and having the most amazing eyebrows in the history of wrestling?
Anyway the REAL story here was Kane coming out and tried to quit his job as Director of Operations because he’s tired of Rollins disrespecting him. Rollins came out and argued a lot as this story just won’t die already. HHH made them shake hands after Kane said the Rollins was just in the right place at the right time and anyone could have been made champion in his place. They kept arguing after a break and Rollins vs. Ziggler was made for later tonight.
Then the Bellas decided they were good now and Nikki shouted COME ON BRIE about 100 times to show off her new found goodness as Brie lost to Naomi. This would be the polar opposite of the “here’s what we’re going to do” booking as instead of showing you every step, they’re just at the end already without any real reason.
Think about it. The Bellas went from being full on villains to halfway down the spectrum in a week and for what? Mainly because WWE screwed up and turned almost the entire Divas division heel. I know I get on the Bellas quite a bit (which I still say they deserve a huge amount of) but the direction of their characters and sudden drastic changes to their characters have been some of the most jarring and worst ideas I have ever seen in wrestling. That being said, they don’t do themselves any favors with their average at best matches and BRIE MODE/COME ON BRIE!
Randy Orton RKOed Heath Slater into his salad. See, THIS is the kind of surprise moment they should have been going with all night instead of telling us the idea.
Roman Reigns wanted Big Show but got Bo Dallas. Superman Punches, spears and Reigns saying Bo-lieve that abounded in a fun little segment.
Sheamus massacred Zack Ryder until Dolph Ziggler came in for the save. This was fine to get the point across.
Cena issued the open challenge and had a horrible match with Kane to retain the title. Here’s a sign of Cena’s greatness: he has bad matches with Kane and Big Show, but name someone else he doesn’t bring up to a higher level. If there are only two people in his career where it doesn’t work, he’s roughly 100 steps above most other talent. Rusev would attack Cena later in the night to set up the title match Sunday.
Bray Wyatt talked about how his new target can’t lift his way out of this one. That makes me think Ryback, which could be a nice surprise or a disaster, though they’ve been treating Ryback like a monster again, which is certainly a good thing.
Miz beat Mizdow in less than three minutes when Summer Rae turned on Mizdow in one of the most obvious heel turns this side of Big Show turn #1894. So to recap, Mizdow takes forever to turn on Miz, loses the battle royal to Big Show after getting really close, then loses two out of the three matches to Miz. Why do I even bother getting behind someone when their big goal is to build someone up to sacrifice them on the altar of WWE Studios? Miz got an RKO to emphasize that the entire Miz vs. Mizdow story meant nothing.
Ryback mauled Adam Rose and then beat up a hot dog and banana.
Kane and Rollins bickered some more with Rollins offering an apology.
Rollins vs. Ziggler was every Rollins vs. Ziggler match you’ve ever seen. The cage lowered post match so Rollins could hide from Kane. If you don’t know what was waiting for him when he turned around to end the show, you haven’t been paying close enough attention.
Raw really wasn’t very good this week and so much of it revolves around how lame the main stories have been. Kane was the focal point of the show this week with this never ending argument with Rollins, which seems destined to result in Kane screwing Orton over on Sunday and the Authority revealing it was all a huge swerve that we never saw coming. The wrestling was nothing to see this week either and it made for a really weak three hours. Extreme Rules and these rematches need to be gone soon, as does Kane’s never ending main event run. He just isn’t interesting and it’s killing the rest of the card.
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Reviewing the Review: Monday Night Raw – April 13, 2015
Maybe I can start getting these things done before the next show starts. We’re firmly into the Extreme Rules build now, and by firmly into I mean we’re almost to the show. Therefore we need some stipulations for the big matches but we’re taped, meaning it’s not likely to be the most thrilling show. Let’s get to it.
Cena opened things up with the Open Challenge for the US Title and beat Bad News Barrett in a decent enough match. These two have fought so many times over the years that it’s kind of hard to care anymore, but at least the Challenges are doing their job. I’d like to see someone from NXT debut through one and hopefully they continue after Extreme Rules. Speaking of after, Rusev came out and blasted Cena with a chain to set up a Russian Chain match for the PPV. It makes sense given Rusev being involved but these matches have a high rate of suck more often than not.
Paige won a Divas Battle Royal for the #1 contendership to give the fans something to cheer. Naomi then turned heel and beat her down so Paige can go off to make a movie. They REALLY need to stop building people up and then send them away for six weeks to make a movie that 87 people might see. Or maybe they should stop with the bad movies and just do what they did before: pick a movie that is going to be seen and slap their name on it.
On top of that, as I went on about on Smackdown, who does this leave as a face Diva? Emma? Fox is acting like a heel and turns every four days anyway, the Bellas, Cameron and Naomi are confirmed heels and Paige is leaving. Are they really hoping that a returning Layla is going to be a big deal? Natalya is supposed to be a heel but wrestles like a face because her psychology is all messed up, but she’s awesome. Right?
Bray Wyatt has a new target. Yeah whatever. Go win a big match already.
The Lucha Dragons beat up the Ascension because that’s what they do. They did it in NXT and they’re doing it on Raw. I still feel bad for Ascension but they were dead in the water months ago.
Roman Reigns came out and talked about going to Suplex City until Big Show came out to continue THE STUPIDEST FEUD IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Show beat him up on the props but Roman kept getting up. Indeed, it’s for a last man standing match. Of all the things I’d love to grab Vince by the throat for and shout at him about, keeping Big Show in this spot is one of them. How can they possibly think that beating up Big Show over and over and over and over and over and over and I think you get the point by now, is going to help Reigns look like a big deal?
Orton beat Cesaro via DQ to earn the right to pick a stipulation, but then Kane came out to make sure the Tag Team Champions were hurt as much as they could and made Orton vs. both of them. As you would expect, Orton beat both of them in one match because he could. By this point, this show was starting to make my head hurt.
Rollins yelled at Kane and teased getting him fired by the Authority. So yes, the two stories that are being built up are the Divas battle royal from last week and what seems like another Kane face turn. BECAUSE THAT CREATES RATINGS BECAUSE KANE IS BIG! LIKE BIG SHOW!!! Rollins wants Kane to lay down later. One last thing though: Rollins emasculates Kane and it seems like he’s going to rise up because of it. Stephanie emasculates people and they get to stand there and take it.
Dean Ambrose beat Adam Rose to remind us that Dean Ambrose does in fact exist.
Big Show tried to talk Kane out of turning on the Authority. Bryan would do the opposite later, but Bryan brought up the Fingerpoke of Doom because we must make fun of WCW, despite a lot of the fans not even being alive for that moment. But hey, it makes Vince smile at his past accomplishments and that’s what we need to do.
Fandango beat Stardust in a filler match which set up Fandango turning face and dumping Rosa. I highly doubt this is the big career saver he’s needing.
Kane beat up Rollins and the Stooges before laying down for him. For the thousandth time, no one cares about Kane in this role.
Mizdow beat Miz in another short match to set up a big match later on, because that’s how WWE works.
The Prime Time Players kept making fun of other tag teams. I’ve gone into this in depth elsewhere, but this is the best thing that has ever happened to these guys.
Ryback beat Luke Harper in yet another short match because we need time for Kane segments.
Naomi explains that she’s tired of getting passed up for people like AJ. Thankfully it wasn’t another IT’S ALL ABOUT ME character but my goodness this division is dying for faces. It’s interesting that they keep mentioning AJ’s name.
Dolph Ziggler beat Neville in another entertaining match. This is the Mighty Mouse gimmick that everyone who didn’t think the thing through was terrified of.
Rollins and Orton announced that it’s going to be a cage match with the RKO banned. Ok then. Seriously that was my reaction. A brawl ended the show.
This show pretty much just came and went. There’s not much going on at the moment that makes me want to see the next show, but there’s a difference between being horrible and just being dull. They really need to get past the Wrestlemania rematches, but we’re likely getting ready for yet another round of these matches in May. Hopefully that means a strong start to the summer, but this was really nothing worth seeing. Neville is still a high spot though and could mean something big later on. Not much to see this week, except for the dozens and dozens of Kane and Big Show fans out there.
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Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw – April 6, 2015
So yeah this one is kind of late but it’s been a very hectic week and reviewing a show that didn’t do too much for me in the first place wasn’t really high on my priority list. We’re past the Wrestlemania season now and things are about to settle way back down. It’s now the Wrestlemania rematch season though and that can be a rough go. Let’s get to it.
The opening was, of course, the Authority but thankfully without HHH and Stephanie, who are on vacation for the next few weeks. After a few unintentional shots at Kane for not doing much at Wrestlemania, Rollins bragged about how great he was. Well he’s certainly getting into the heel champion schtick already. Orton came out, said his usual stuff, and was put into a triple threat for the #1 contendership against Ryback and Reigns. All three will have singles matches first though.
Before we get to the first match, there’s something that needs to be noted here: Rollins is VERY lucky that the Authority hasn’t been on Raw for the last two weeks (if you count the week after this show). If they’re on the show with him and associated with him, they’re going to dominate whatever scene they’re in because Raw is completely centered around the two of them (and by the two of them I mean Stephanie because we all know this is her company). Let Rollins have some spotlight as the new champion, at least until the bosses get back.
I’ll sum up the three matches here: Orton beat Kane in a short match via DQ, Ryback beat Luke Harper in an even shorter match with only one big move, and Reigns pinned Big Show because what else would he be doing? None of these were anything worth seeing, but they certainly did help fill in time on the show. What else were they going to do? Give the Divas a chance out there?
Neville’s second match on Raw was against Seth Rollins. Of course Rollins won, but I’ve actually seen people saying Neville is being buried. Let me make sure I’ve got this straight: Curtis Axel, Seth Rollins, Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus this Thursday. In his five TV matches on the main roster, the lowest level guy he’s fought is a former Intercontinental and Tag Team Champion. That’s one of the best groups of opponents I’ve ever seen someone start against.
This week’s open challenge for the US Title was answered by Stardust. That’s exactly what this thing should be used for: giving someone like Stardust, who isn’t going anywhere at this point, a good match and something interesting to do for one night. When else is he getting a title shot or a match with Cena? Stardust loses to a guy he’s supposed to lose to, Cena beats a guy he’s supposed to beat and we get a title defense in a good match. Everyone wins, except the fans that don’t get how common sense and logic work.
Naomi pinned Nikki again in a tag match with Paige joining her against the Bellas. This was a horrible match with Naomi botching a ton of stuff and the Bellas proving every criticism of them right: they have no flow in the ring, they have limited charisma, their work is ok at best and there’s nothing interesting to them. But that’s what we’re getting in the Divas division because what else could we ever get?
The Prime Time Players kept making fun of other tag teams. This is more interesting than anything else they’ve ever done so run with that thing.
The New Day doesn’t like the fans booing them because their clapping gives them strength. This was another chance for Big E. to show off his comedic chops as he imitated a young kid. Why they use him like they do when they clearly know about his other talents is beyond me. Then the Lucha Dragons beat them in a short match because New Day sucks.
A bunch of Divas came up to Kane and asked for a #1 contenders battle royal next week. Of all the things they can set up in advance, it’s a DIVAS BATTLE ROYAL???
Sheamus came out and explained that he’s acting this way because he’s tired of the little guys getting pushed. He’d fight anyone his size, and then he beat Mark Henry in about two and a half minutes. Another hometown boy bites the dust.
Bray Wyatt has a new target. Let me know when he actually beats one of these targets.
Miz cheated to beat Mizdow. You can pencil in Mizdow beating Miz with the same move next week.
Orton won the triple threat to go to Extreme Rules in a quick but decent match with the Authority interfering as much as you would expect them to.
This was resetting things for Raw and there wasn’t a lot to see on it. There’s enough good on it to make the show work, but this was about setting up things for later on instead of getting things done tonight. It wasn’t anything to see though and that makes for a dull show instead of a bad one, which often times makes for a worse show. Not much to say here, which you can probably tell.
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Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: March 30, 2015
I really don’t think this show needs an in depth preview. It’s the Raw after Wrestlemania and the expectations are all through the roof for tonight. We’re going to see debuts, big storyline development and fallout from Wrestlemania. This is my favorite show of the year and it has a lot to live up to after last year’s edition. Let’s get to it.
We open with the only real option we had: Lesnar and Heyman, with one wanting blood and the other likely wanting to find catering. They bragged about the big title match last night and how Lesnar did exactly what he said he would but then Seth Rollins had to interfere and steal Brock’s title. Heyman threatened litigation, but Brock would rather have his rematch tonight instead. This brings out Stephanie, who actually sells the arm injury from Rousey last night, and says Rollins is on his way here and will fight when he arrives. This was basically HHH wanting a match with Bryan last year but not as memorable.
Daniel Bryan beat Dolph Ziggler to retain the Intercontinental Title with the running knee in a match the live crowd thought was FAR more entertaining than it really was. Yeah it was entertaining, but they gave the guys a standing ovation near the end. That was way more than they deserved, especially in a match that didn’t last twelve minutes. Post match Barrett came in but Sheamus returned for the save, only to turn heel and lay out Bryan and Barrett.
One of the things discussed most since last week has been Sheamus’ new mohawk haircut and braided beard. I get the idea of wanting to change things up for someone who has become as dull as Sheamus (love the in ring work, bored by the character but I still really like him overall), but dear goodness man. You can’t expect to have anyone hate this guy if they’re too busy laughing at him for his stupid haircut. I can’t imagine that lasts until even Extreme Rules, but it didn’t exactly have the intended effect. At least I hope it didn’t.
The first callup of the night was the Lucha Dragons, who stole the eight man tag also involving the New Day, Cesaro/Kidd and Ascension. Kalisto was all over the place and is definitely being tooled as the new Rey Mysterio. I dig the guy and there’s nothing wrong with having a small guy that flies all over the place and does a bunch of cool flips. Ascension is dead in the water and New Day is getting ready to go for an ill fated swim.
Now we get to the big story of the night as Brock Lesnar came out for his match with Rollins, but Seth said he was too jetlagged to fight. Brock didn’t quite care for that and beat up the Stooges and Cole, the latter of whom had a bad neck (of course he’ll be back on Raw this week because we NEED Michael Cole). He also turned over the announcers’ table, which for some reason wasn’t turned back over all night, even once Byron Saxton and Jerry Lawler came out to replace the announcers.
The big thing here though was Brock screen refreshing a cameraman and being suspended by Stephanie, whose arm is totally fine now because of course it is. This was a way to get Brock off TV for the summer, which is fine, especially considering how big of a face pop he’s going to get when he finally returns. Post break, Stephanie went into full screech mode to say Brock will be her censored, which is EXACTLY what this segment needed: Stephanie looking strong and Brock not being able to retaliate. I was getting scared there for a minute.
Damien Mizdow beat Stardust in a quick match which only existed so Miz could come out and attack Mizdow to continue their feud.
Not Adrian Neville had his big debut and beat Curtis Axel in less than eighty seconds. This was all it needed to be and Neville looks like a great high flier. Put the Adrian back though as just Neville is kind of an odd name.
Now we get to one of my favorite parts of the night: the first weekly John Cena Open Challenge for the US Title. This could open up a lot of doors with Cena possibly putting over one guy after another week after week. Now for those of you who don’t get the meaning of wrestling terms, putting someone over doesn’t mean losing to them. The best example for Cena is Damien Sandow last year. Yeah Sandow lost the match, but he never looked like a bigger deal in his career. Being paired with Cena is like being paired with Undertaker at Wrestlemania: you’re automatically a bigger deal because you get to rub elbows with him.
This week’s challenger was Dean Ambrose, who had a really good match against Cena but came up short, eventually getting caught in the AA. This was one of the longer match of the night and while it took some time to get going, once they hit the third gear with the finishing moves, I was totally into the match and bought the Dirty Deeds as a near finisher for Ambrose. Dean teased a heel turn post match but it didn’t come. I could easily see a rematch and wouldn’t complain about watching it. Good stuff here and I’m really looking forward to seeing who challenges Cena in the future. Some NXT people would be very nice choices.
Rollins bragged, Orton stared, Big Show and Kane continued to exist for reasons I don’t quite get. Well at least not this level. A six man is teased for later with Orton having to get some partners. We knew Reigns, but the question was who else.
AJ/Paige/Naomi beat the Bella Twins/Natalya in a match I already forgot about when I did the Reviewing the Review for Wrestlemania XXXI as I thought AJ’s last match was at the big show. This match is noteworthy for two things: Naomi hitting the Rear View to pin Nikki and a bunch of fans chanting some very derogatory things at the Bellas and Naomi.
Here’s the thing: yeah those chants are unnecessary and insulting, but I wouldn’t worry about them yet. You can’t base anything long term off the post Wrestlemania crowd as they exist to get themselves over. It doesn’t help that the Bellas are treated as nothing but idiotic, money obsessed sex objects on Total Divas. WWE keeps telling us to watch the show and the fans see the Divas presented that way. No they shouldn’t insult the Divas on national TV, but those ideas wouldn’t be in the fans’ heads if we didn’t head the Bellas bragging about it all the time. If this keeps going it’s a problem but I wouldn’t worry at the moment.
Ryback offers to be Orton’s partner, cementing the main event in stone.
Rusev squashed Goldust without Lana. This was just to get him back on track.
In one of the worst choices for a main event they could have picked, Reigns/Orton/Ryback beat Big Show/Kane/Rollins when Reigns speared Kane. Having Reigns out there was fine, but who in the world thought putting Big Show and Kane in front of that crowd was a good idea? I mean……WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? With this crowd and just a year after the Shield turned face to end the show last time, they go with a six man that could have main evented any given Raw or even Smackdown? That’s their big idea?
The show was a step down from last year but that’s really not a fair comparison to make. You can’t have a top level show every single year, especially when there’s no Bryan title celebration to carry the show. Reigns is going to be fine long term but he needs to do something to get back on track. Beating up Kane and Big Show even more isn’t that thing, but it seems like that’s where we’re going for the moment.
I like where things are going at the moment, but they’re running the risk of getting repetitive with the main event matches. Orton vs. Rollins makes sense for Extreme Rules, but I’m really not sure where they can go for Rollins’ next challenger. Reigns is going to be in there soon, but after those two I don’t know where they’re going.
There’s more on here to like than not like, with stuff like Sheamus returning as a heel and Cena’s upcoming open challenges are good things to see. They could build a lot off that and I’d love to see another NXT callup or two. Finally, Lesnar returning to eventually take down the Authority is going to blow the roof off the place. I can’t wait to see where they go to challenge him, but it’s going to be entertaining. Fun show this week but I’m hoping the crash back down to earth isn’t a disaster.
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of 1998 Pay Per View reviews at Amazon for just $3.99 at:
This is a show where most fans just didn’t want to see it. The interest wasn’t there, but it had one good thing going for it: it’s Wrestlemania. No matter what happens on the show, there’s always something worth checking out. A few days before the show, I was talking about the card on the radio and the host said that it was a good card on paper and you would be looking forward to the show if you hadn’t seen the build. That seemed more and more accurate as the show came closer. Let’s get to it.
Before we get to the card, I want to cover some of the scenery. Above all else, that stage was HUGE. It was probably an easy forty yards long, making the wrestlers look tiny by comparison. That helped give the show the huge feel it was hoping for and the whole thing looked great. I know some people have complained about the sunlight but it really didn’t bother me that much. I’ve seen shows outside where it was raining so hard that there were puddles in the ring so some sun isn’t exactly a disaster.
The opening pre-show match was its usual fun, though I liked the elimination style from last year better. Jey Uso not being able to go hurt things a bit but having one less person might have been the best thing that could have happened in this mess. Also, it’s not like he’s some polar opposite from his brother. When I’m reviewing an Uso match I just pick one of their names and alternate whenever they tag. Does it really matter either way?
The match was a huge spotfest as you would expect and eventually lost all semblance of wrestling. Normally that would sound bad but it was exactly what it should have been here. The champs stood out more than anyone else and it’s clear that no one cares about New Day and Los Matadores, but did anyone not know that coming in? The champs retains after Cesaro stole a pin, which was exactly the ending they should have gone with.
The second match was the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and Big Show won. Why you ask? Because apparently he’s never won a battle royal and we’re supposed to ignore World War 3 1996, the one he won on Smackdown in March of last year, the one he and Kofi co-won on Raw in 2011, the ECW vs. WWE Head to Head battle royal in 2006 and a battle royal he won on Nitro because this company doesn’t know how to do research, which could include things like looking online or, I don’t know, ASKING HIM IF HE’S EVER WON A BATTLE ROYAL.
Anyway, this was your old standard formula of having everyone brawl then have some people do a sequence to get eliminated. Mizdow got the big face turn against Miz, only to get thrown out by Big Show with ease. Yeah having Mizdow eliminate Big Show on his own would be a stretch, but having him win by eliminating Miz would have been a huge moment. Naturally we need Big Show to win his fourth battle royal because no one remembers the others. Oh and if you remember the story, he was the last man standing in the 2000 Royal Rumble but wasn’t declared the winner.
Aside from Big Show and Mizdow, the only story was Hideo Itami from NXT. He didn’t do much, but at least he was there and got to have a quick moment. It was probably better to have him in there instead of someone they’re ready to push like Balor. Itami is just a kicking machine at this point but he’s still decent enough for a spot like this. Not a fan of the match if you couldn’t tell by three paragraphs about a battle royal.
Aloe Blacc sang America the Beautiful. Four things: Aloe Blacc sounds like a lotion and is a far cry from Aretha Franklin or Gladys Knight. Also, why is it almost always America the Beautiful and almost never the Star Spangled Banner? Either is fine but I’ve always wondered that. Finally, I’m out of touch with modern music and I don’t seem to be missing anything.
The opening seven man ladder match was pretty much exactly what fans were expecting: a huge mess with almost no story to it and one big spot after another. It wasn’t anything we haven’t seen before and it probably would have been better to have five people instead of seven but for an opening match, this was solid. I would have put this on later and not had it so soon after the other mess of the Tag Team Title match, but there was nothing much to complain about here.
As for the people in the match, they did just about what they were supposed to do. R-Truth and Stardust were just there (though Barrett breaking Stardust’s glittery ladder was hilarious), Ziggler was the one that got close but couldn’t pull it off, Ambrose got put through a ladder for the big spot (which was actually really smart because it wrote him off the show later so he couldn’t stop the big ending), Barrett was fighting everyone, Harper was there for the power and that only leaves one guy.
Having Bryan win a title in the opening match was a good way to get the show off on the right foot. Aside from fighting for his fifth different title in five Wrestlemanias (US Title, World Heavyweight Title, Tag Team Titles, WWE World Heavyweight Title, Intercontinental Title), they had to throw the fans a bone to go from him having one of the coolest moments ever at Wrestlemania to opening the show the next year. Winning the Intercontinental Title is a step down, but at least it’s Bryan getting back into the swing of things. Good stuff here and a solid opener, though it probably could have been trimmed down.
Things slow down a bit with the first singles match of the night as Randy Orton beat Seth Rollins. This was kind of a surprising result for me but it also telegraphed what was going to happen later in the night, ala Edge back in 2006. The RKO at the end with Seth being launched through the air was good, though I’ll still take Evan Bourne’s Shooting Star into an RKO for the best ever. Either way, Orton can nail that thing from almost anywhere and it never stops looking great.
However, this opens up some problems: we’ve seen these guys fight a few times now and we’re supposed to pay to see them fight at Extreme Rules and potentially at a third show in May? The booking may be logical on paper, but I’m not sure it’s going to get people to watch week after week. It was a good match, but I really liked what Wade Keller said about Orton on Austin’s podcast this week: he’s so naturally talented and has been around so long that the expectations on him are very high. When he has a good match, it’s almost considered a disappointment because he can be so naturally good when he’s on his game.
Now we get to the match which is probably going to get the most controversy all night. This is where the great entrances began. First we had Sting coming out to a Japanese drum band, which was cool but kind of bizarre at the same time. I have no idea what kind of connection it’s supposed to be, but I guess WWE just wanted Sting to have his own entrance that was unique for their show. The problem with this was Sting is always a high energy guy and the slow drum stuff didn’t quite fit the top level show in the world.
Then HHH came out with an army of robots, in Terminator gear with Arnold Schwarzenegger himself doing a video introduction. It was at this point that you knew HHH was going to be the big star here and that this was really just a story with Sting involved instead of a story about Sting. The question here was what could Sting do after a few years off and all that time in TNA.
Amazingly enough he looked pretty solid. This was an old school style match with both guys working each other over and HHH working over the back to slow Sting down. This was a very nice change of pace after Orton and Rollins having the fast paced main event style and all the insanity that took place in the first three matches. It’s the style they should have gone with and it worked fine.
Then seven people interfered, completely ignored wrestling history, made old people look old, having Kevin Nash do what I think was the funniest bit of the night, and then ending it with a hammer to the face. In case you didn’t watch the show and are just reading this (for some strange reason), it was the Monday Night Wars all over again with DX running in first (with Sting DIVING OFF THE TOP ONTO ALL THREE OF THEM. Not bad at 56 years old) and then the NWO slowly hobbling in to counter them, all capped off by Shawn superkicking Sting.
Where do I even begin? Aside from the logical Shawn interference, this was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen in years. First and foremost, Sting spent nearly two years fighting the NWO (or at least the Black and White) but now he’s going to fight with them for the Monday Night Wars? A battle where his partners are the biggest WWF guy ever to that point and two guys who were the definition of hired mercenaries in the war and are fighting against one of their best friends? That’s the best they’ve got?
It also caused us to see the New Age Outlaws and X-Pac on the same level as Hall, Nash and Hogan. Under no circumstances at any time in the history of professional wrestling does that hold up. Despite the fact that Billy Gunn is less than five years younger than Sting (no real connection to this, just find it kind of mind blowing), there is no way that these six guys are on the same level, even with Nash going down and holding his quad in a funny bit.
After all the insanity and ignoring continuity for the sake of the Monday Night Wars revival, Sting kicked out of the superkick (and out of the Pedigree earlier) and broke the sledgehammer, only to have the third Stinger Splash collide with the sledgehammer to give HHH the pin.
This is one of those moments where you sit at the screen, shake your head just a bit, then either sigh heavily or break a small appliance while screaming loudly. The fact that they brought Sting in and had him lose in his first match came off as one of the biggest wastes of time I’ve seen in years. It felt like they were closing the door on Sting, which is fine in theory, but they couldn’t close it on a victory? It was such a mess that it wouldn’t have been remotely clean so HHH doesn’t lose face and the fans get to cheer.
Instead, it was one last (and by last I mean not last whatsoever) thumb of the large nose at WCW, which was entirely what this feud was based on, even after Sting said how ridiculous that would be. They even had the factions come out for the match, despite WCW going out of business FOURTEEN YEARS AGO. Is WWE really that insecure about a show on the air less than six years total that they have to dig it up and bury it one more time nearly fifteen years later? Apparently so, because that’s exactly what they did.
Oh but we’re not done. After the match, we got the big respect handshake. As I said in the original review: YOU HIT HIM IN THE FACE WITH A HAMMER AFTER COMING OUT WITH AN ARMY OF ROBOTS! NO HE DOES NOT WANT TO SHAKE YOUR HAND! This was supposed to be HHH saying he respected Sting after the battle. Keep this one in mind because we’ll be coming back to it later.
I know I complained about it a lot, but this was one of the big song and dance numbers that you can only get at Wrestlemania and I had a blast watching it. The run-ins were incredibly fun (illogical but fun) and Sting looked like he did back in the best of his TNA years, which was a pretty good time for him. I was impressed with what he did on a wrestling front and the match was more entertaining than it had any right to be. No it didn’t make sense and was a huge mess, but what else were you going to do with this match, especially with that ending?
Daniel Bryan celebrated with a bunch of former Intercontinental Champions for the Ron Simmons cameo. Jericho would have been a good addition here but what we got was fine.
Then we had a concert as all the NWO and DX guys try to figure out whose walker is whose. I still don’t like these things as they waste so much time to give us songs we’ve heard a million times coming into the show, but hey, at least WWE can say this is an ENTERTAINMENT show instead of silly old wrestling. You know, because a seven minute concert totally changes the opinion of the show right?
The not so serious portion of the show continued with the Divas tag match between AJ Lee/Paige and the Bella Twins in what wound up being AJ’s final match in WWE (for now). This match reenforced my issue with the Bellas all along: they’re just not very good. Yeah they’re watchable in the ring and have gotten WAY better in the last six to eight months, but there’s a very thick line between good and watchable. They’re combining to be the top of the division and that’s just not going to cut it for a long term run at the top. AJ made Nikki tap in a short match after spending a lot of time on the floor.
I tried to like this match and it was better than most Raw matches you would see, but it didn’t work as the big Wrestlemania match for them. The Bellas are good at getting heel heat and playing the stuck up better than you villains, but they simply cannot back it up in the ring. It’s like they’re following a tightly written script for the match and would be lost if anything went against that plan. That’s a sign of a sub-par worker and the Bellas fill that role like Nikki fills out those shorts.
In theory this was to set up AJ vs. Nikki for the title, but why couldn’t that be taking place at Wrestlemania? I complained about this leading up to the show and it still didn’t make sense here. Having this just be a tag match after a couple of title matches were used to set it up was totally backwards thinking and never held up. The wrestling was ok, but the Bellas are just killing this division every day they have the title. It’s like the life is being drained out of the division, much like HHH’s World Title reign in 2003: the matches aren’t bad but you roll your eyes when the title is retained and beg for ANYONE to give you a break.
The Hall of Fame did their thing. This was what it was and I always like seeing them out there and hearing the Fink’s voice. It felt faster this year, but there’s nothing wrong with taking five minutes out of a four hour card to let these people salute the crowd on the grand stage one more time.
Now we get to one of the bigger matches as Rusev defended the US Title against John Cena. In what might have been the entrance of the night, Rusev came out in a tank. I mean a full sized let’s go blow a hole in a building tank with Lana surrounded by Russian soldiers carrying the belt. I know Cena’s entrances are well known at Wrestlemania, but he’s going to have his hands full topping this.
Cena had a big speech with videos from American Presidents and shots of the military as we heard about how great this country is. Then Cena just walked to the ring as usual for a pretty anticlimactic ending. It was cool, but it needed something more than just Cena coming down the long aisle. I mean…..RUSEV WAS IN A TANK! Side note: the next night on Raw and then on Smackdown, the announcers started using The Russian Tank as a nickname for Rusev. I dig it.
The match….not so much. It was still good and an entertaining match with Cena finally breaking the Accolade and pinning Rusev to win the title, but it was just kind of there. I still liked it and Cena brought the goods (including a springboard Stunner, which should be someone’s finisher again minus the springboard) as he always does. This isn’t a loss where Rusev is never going to recover as every monster built up like him has to lose eventually.
It’s good and Rusev has already won his big match over Cena, but the ending hurt things. The story for this match had been built around submissions but Cena just sidestepped Rusev so he could hit Lana and nailed the AA for the pin. I mean….that’s it? It’s a good match and the ending had to be Cena winning (though imagine the promos Rusev could cut if he escaped with the belt), but the ending was a bit flat for me. At least this way they avoid the ultra repetitive YOU TAPPED OUT chants.
Now we get to the long time filler as the show had two matches to fill in about 80 minutes at this point. HHH and Stephanie came out to brag about owning the company, roughly an hour after HHH was all humble and shook Sting’s hand, making that whole thing even more stupid. I’m still kind of annoyed at that six days after the show.
Anyway, they talked about how they own the people and everyone here and you knew this was going to bring out the Rock. He did his long entrance and catchphrases, only to have Stephanie do her usual schtick as she ripped him apart and made him look like any given guy on the roster. She went one step too far though and slapped Rock in the face, so Rock bailed to the floor…..and walked over to Ronda Rousey.
Now THIS was a worthy use of a celebrity as Rousey is one of the biggest stars in sports right now (and ignore the fact that I have a thing for her) and fits this story perfectly. As you would expect, Stephanie ran her mouth and got her arm cranked. By cranked I mean slightly tugged on instead of being put in a full on armbar, but I’m assuming Ronda is only allowed to get so physical outside of UFC. That’s fine. Disappointing, but fine.
My guess is this sets up HHH vs. Rock with the girls as seconds, because even though Stephanie is a great talker, I don’t think anyone is going to buy her lasting more than five seconds against Rousey. Real trained fighters can barely break fifteen seconds against Rousey but we’re supposed to buy Stephanie as having the slightest bit of a chance against her? Because it’s in a wrestling ring? I’m not buying that, and this is assuming Rousey would ever be allowed to work a match in the first place. Rock vs. HHH is an established feud and seeing them go at it one more time would be fun.
It mostly worked, except for one problem: IT TOOK NEARLY HALF AN HOUR. This was one of the longest talking segments I’ve seen in a long time and a lot of it is due to Stephanie and Rock taking forever to get to the point. Now once Ronda was introduced it was fine as everyone was begging for her to, as Rock put it, reach down Stephanie’s throat and play jump rope with her Fallopian tubes”, but sweet goodness they could have cut five to ten minutes of this and done the exact same thing. But then we wouldn’t have been able to hear about Stephanie being Andre’s friend again, because…..why do we need to hear that anyway?
The segment ran long enough that we didn’t have time to recap Bray Wyatt and Undertaker starting small fires to set up their match. The interesting thing here was Bray wrenching his ankle very badly before the show and barely being able to walk. However, he gutted it out and managed to hold up his half of the match. That brought us to the big question: how was Undertaker going to do?
Actually quite well, as it really seems the concussion played a huge role in how bad the match against Lesnar was last year. Undertaker wasn’t at the HBK level, but he was more than fine for a match like this. He’s also grown some hair back to make him look like Biker Taker, which isn’t my favorite look but is miles better than the bald version, which just makes him look old. I don’t really need to see Undertaker again, but it was good to see that he still had something in the tank after last year’s mess.
I have to give a quick bit of praise to Bray’s entrance, which saw a bunch of scarecrows come to life as he walked past them, turning them into his henchmen. It makes no sense but looked awesome, which brings me to something I’ve been meaning to talk about recently. A criticism I’ve been hearing lately is that Bray’s promos don’t make a ton of sense. I want to tilt my head at these people and ask them what is wrong with their heads.
Look at Bray Wyatt. He’s a backwoods cult leader who worships a spirit named Sister Abigail, who told him that he would save the world one day. Why in the name of all that is good and holy would you expect him to give a logical promo? The whole point of the character is that he sounds bizarre and only makes sense to those people crazy enough to follow him.
Undertaker talked about spirits, Ultimate Warrior talked about loading spaceships with rocket fuel and Hulk Hogan talked about dog paddling Donald Trump to safety when an earthquake caused New Jersey to fall into the ocean. Bray Wyatt’s promos are closer to Nick Bockwinkel’s than the work of a lot of people praised for their speaking abilities, but people complain that he doesn’t make sense.
Of course they don’t make sense and he’d be failing if they did. He looks and sounds mysterious and you’re supposed to wonder what he means. It makes just enough sense for you to follow it, but the details aren’t all there and that’s why they work. Yeah he gets repetitive at times, but criticizing him for not making sense is an unfair complaint.
All of that brings us to the big main event, which doesn’t have as much to talk about. It was basically Lesnar vs. Cena all over again with Lesnar destroying the challenger and shrugging off his best shots until he made a mistake and let Reigns stay in it, only to have Rollins cash in Money in the Bank and pin Reigns to win the title.
The match itself was fun, but they were running the risk of making Lesnar repetitive. Don’t get me wrong: it’s still entertaining to see him be all freaky strong (even though he has some thin legs, at least compared to how huge his upper body is), but they can only do this for so long before it loses some of its impact. I liked that they had Reigns making a comeback near the end and you weren’t quite sure if he could pull it off, but if they had him survive and win, I would have been scared to show up at Raw the next night. The booing would have been too much for that hair to handle.
Another point here is the blood, which did a lot of good for the match. It’s something you don’t need to see that often, but it’s good in spots like this one. Quick note here: there’s a video going around that allegedly shows the referee passing the blade to Reigns. That’s actually the referee checking on Reigns, who squeezes his hand to show he’s fine. It’s an old technique and not passing a blade.
Rollins cashing in was a good way to end things, but unfortunately it’s going to lead to some repetitive title matches for the next few months, unless they go with some triple threats. Rollins deserves the title though and that’s the important thing to get done. I certainly like the cash in and it kept them from having to pick from a short list of bad possible endings. It’s a great ending to a great show.
Yes this was a great show and I had an awesome time with the whole thing. I don’t know how well it holds up over time with the lack of a bad build and low expectations in the future, but as it stood it was an outstanding show without a really bad match on the card. There are some issues (Sting losing, time getting crunched because of the talking segment going long) but overall, this blew away my expectations and I had a lot of fun watching it. How long has it been since we had two great Wrestlemanias in a row? Seven years or so? However long it’s been, the answer is too long so it was great seeing another classic.
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Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: March 16, 2015
With two weeks to go before Wrestlemania, normally the idea would be to cram as much of a build as you can into the final weeks, but by this point it’s just too late for me. There hasn’t been enough good stuff to set up this coming Wrestlemania to make me really care about it. However, the last two shows before the biggest night of the year are always worth checking out so maybe these could be good. Let’s get to it.
The Authority was in the ring to open the show and Rollins yelled at them all for allowing his beatdown last week. Rollins accepted Orton’s challenge for Wrestlemania but they had to fight tonight first. Good grief just let them have a street fight or whatever and get on with it. Oh wait we can’t do that because EXTREME RULES is right after Wrestlemania. There are a lot of problems with Wrestlemania this year but this one might be the worst for the entire show. I mean……just dang man.
Between the botched return of Orton and wasting our time with the infiltration because where else was that story possibly going? That’s why I didn’t like it. There was ZERO need for it other than to add in needless “drama” before wasting Orton’s big beating of Rollins which could have been saved for Wrestlemania. Oh and Stephanie getting to yell at Orton and everyone else because she’s Stephanie and therefore above everyone else. I need to get off this before I go on about it for two hours.
Nikki beat AJ with the Rack Attack in one of the longest Divas matches I’ve seen in a long time. It’s just setting up the tag match and trying to make Nikki look better, but the commentary still makes my head hurt in that Vickie Guerrero way instead of the “dang she’s a good villain” way.
Kane and Big Show teased tension with Rollins and I’m sure this is completely legit and not part of a not so hidden plan.
Ryback beat Miz. AGAIN. I have no desire to see these guys in the ring ever again. Miz beat Mizdow up post match. Our hero of course.
The contract signing for Rusev vs. Cena was about Rusev insulting America and Cena talking about how serious this match was. Oh and of course there was a horrible Russian lawyer, who JBL was told to bury on commentary and make the whole thing a comedy bit after Cena talked about how important this whole thing was, because the people who run this show have the attention span of drunken gnats. Rip on his for the rest of the show or whatever if you REALLY have to, but let the serious stuff be serious.
Cesaro and Kidd beat the New Day and Los Matadores came out for a brawl. Not really the best but it’s just for the preshow match.
Rollins threw the Stooges out for the night.
Brock had a sitdown interview to show that he’s far clearer on his character than Reigns. Lesnar is here to destroy people and dominate while Reigns is here for his family because he can do it. Whatever that’s supposed to mean/or for whatever reason I’m supposed to care about him.
Big Show beat up Rowan. Again. Just put the Family back together again if this is the best you can do with someone who looks that freaky.
Larry Zbyszko is going into the Hall of Fame. Not the worst idea, but who is supposed to be the second big name behind Savage? Arnold? That’s the best they’ve got?
A bunch of midcarders had an unofficial mini battle royal with Mark Henry standing tall. Not that it matters as Sheamus is probably winning the thing but this was short and acceptable.
Heyman and Reigns had the same exchange they’ve had like five times now. Again, Lesnar and Reigns not being together in this build since the snowed in Raw is KILLING this story as Heyman is just out of ways to say “Lesnar is going to beat you up.”
The Intercontinental Title match people minus R-Truth had a long six man tag with the bad guys losing. Not much to see here but it was fine. Barrett wound up getting his belt back.
You might be noticing a pattern emerging here but Bray Wyatt said the exact same thing, though this time he was nice enough to mention Abigail for the first time in like, ever.
No match between Rollins and Orton (I would say duh but given this company lately….) because it was a SWERVE. Sting came out for an admittedly awesome save, but I need to hear Sting talk for a change. And not some voiceover that longtime fans ignored to say “that’s not Sting’s voice.”
That last issue highlights the biggest problem this show has: people not showing up/not talking. Lesnar has only had a hand full of promos, Sting has had a voice distorted speech and Undertaker lit a chair on fire. HHH, Heyman and Wyatt can all talk, but they can only repeat themselves so many times before there’s nothing left to say, and we reached that point around Fast Lane.
As for the show…..it exists. There’s nothing interesting on most of the last shows before Wrestlemania and they’re a great way to tell how well the build has gone. By this point you’re either dying for Sunday to get here or indifferent to the show. Unfortunately I’m the latter, but it’s gotten better in recent weeks. The build here is terrible though and there isn’t much they can do at this point to save it.
Since next week is Wrestlemania, I probably won’t be doing one of these for the next show. I mean…..is ANYONE going to care about a detailed recap of the last Raw before Wrestlemania?
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Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: February 23, 2015
We’re past Fast Lane now and the only thing left between here and Wrestlemania is time. Well that and five Raws and Smackdowns of course. The main story tonight is the start of the hard build between Lesnar and Reigns as well as filling in the rest of the card for the biggest show of the year. Let’s get to it.
To begin with, let’s get through the big story of the week which didn’t air on Raw: Brock Lesnar not appearing. Allegedly this was over some undisclosed contract issue, which seems to be very convenient given that he was seen at UFC 184 over the weekend. I’m not saying it’s an angle, but there’s enough there that it seems like it’s a possibility. Either way, Lesnar will be in the main event at Wrestlemania and I’d be absolutely shocked if anything else happened. At the end of the day, Brock will be there for the right price because unlike CM Punk, he isn’t completely delusional.
Orton opened the show and said this wouldn’t be a twenty minute speech. He wants Rollins but got the full Authority instead, and OF COURSE we had to listen to Stephanie say every corporate name she could fit into a single speech. That might be the most annoying thing she does. Everything has to be proper titles and it comes off like the least natural way of speaking I’ve seen in years. There’s going to be a business conference later in the night to get to the point of this. I’m as riveted as you are. Not by the dumb story, but by Stephanie. I mean, don’t you just freeze in place when she speaks?
Dolph Ziggler pinned Bad News Barrett. I’ve ranted enough about how annoying it is when the Intercontinental Champion loses, but at least this seems to be setting up a big match at Wrestlemania…..where the perennial loser will win and all is supposed to be forgotten right?
The business conference was more of STEPHANIE POWER as she got Orton to agree to team with Rollins tonight. As I said back on Monday, this felt like just a way of killing time until we get to the obvious ending. That kind of storytelling rarely works, especially with so little time before Wrestlemania.
The Prime Time Players beat the Ascension because…..well why not just bail out of the Ascension story before it has the chance to go anywhere? Now, can someone please tell me what that story was supposed to be, because the legends thing stopped weeks ago.
Now we get to the big segment of the night: Daniel Bryan endorsing Roman Reigns and then Paul Heyman coming out to say the exact same thing he’s been saying for weeks: Reigns is awesome, but not awesome enough. This segment was well done, well spoken and had a very clear goal. However, it completely failed at its intended goal: making me care about Roman Reigns.
They’re following a script now and the idea makes sense, but Reigns is just not someone the fans can relate to. Look back at the Bryan story. It’s such a basic concept with the volume turned way up: Bryan is the every man who has been held down by the machine but will not stop fighting until he overcomes the odds and achieves his glory. What is Reigns’ story? Come see Superman fight Doomsday? That’s only a story when Superman loses, and I don’t picture Roman Reigns losing at Wrestlemania.
Someone tell me why I should care about Roman Reigns. Yeah he had a really cool run as part of the Shield, but Rollins has grown by leaps and bounds since then and Ambrose has had his moments. Reigns is basically the same guy he was a year ago at this time but without his partners around him. The more I think about it, the more I see him as Diesel in 1994: big, strong, not that interesting because there’s little to him other than power and high impact offense. That’s not enough to carry him against Lesnar and I don’t see this experiment working longer than a few months.
Kidd and Cesaro beat the Usos in their rematch. This was about what you would expect and thankfully they didn’t just switch the titles right back. The Usos can do something else besides get the belts back (I’m not sure what exactly) and just let Kidd and Cesaro show off for the next four months or so. The Usos were good long term placeholders, but I’ve seen enough of them with the belts in the last year.
Mizdow has gotten a commercial shoot by being the stunt double. This would be the 318th issue to start the eventual face turn.
Bray Wyatt says his usual insane stuff about Undertaker. At least he has a target now.
Jack Swagger beat Stardust with the Patriot Lock after a distraction from Goldust. I don’t like Wrestlemania rematches and we seem to be getting more than one this year.
Cena and Rusev argued over political ideologies, monetary policy and whether or not Cena gave up in the Accolade. Or Acolyte, whichever Cena is calling it this time. It’s worked for 40 years and it works now.
Rollins and Orton didn’t have much to say.
Cool video on Sting to catch younger fans up.
The Bellas vs. Paige/Emma lasted 30 seconds. They seem to be setting up Bellas vs. Paige/AJ in a dream tag match. That would likely be Kevin Dunn’s dream with the Bellas going over.
The Bushwhackers are going into the Hall of Fame. Luke licked my face when I was three so I can’t complain too much.
Ryback beat Curtis Axel in 44 seconds. That Axelmania and the Royal Rumble clock are the most entertaining things Axel has ever done.
The final match was your standard main event tag with Reigns and Bryan beating Orton and Rollins with the running knee ending Seth. Orton bailed after Rollins tagged himself in but didn’t RKO Rollins for some reason. That reason would be ALL HAIL STEPHANIE of course, because Heaven forbid he offend her.
Overall, this show proved one thing: the road to this year’s Wrestlemania is lacking. The stories are being told well enough, but they’re just not very good stories. Reigns isn’t an interesting hero, Orton vs. Rollins needs to just get set up already, the Intercontinental Champion is the biggest loser this side of Barry Horowitz and there are at least two upcoming rematches if not more. That doesn’t scream biggest show of the year to me. It screams “oh dang we blew our ideas last year and we’ve got nothing left for this time.” That’s not good in any way, shape or form.
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So with this show, we had a meaningless show with a main event that no one wanted to see and a bunch of matches in the midcard that are there to set up future rematches, and it’s all free on the WWE Network, making it harder for me to complain about it? What a confusing show I’ve wondered into. Let’s get to it.
The pre-show segment was an interview instead of a match, because somehow the roster is thin enough that they have to have a talking segment on the pay per view and no match to warm the crowd up. Heyman was a bit weak as he said whoever wins between Bryan and Reigns will be the ultimate loser, but he got the point across well enough. The entertaining part though was Mizdow standing up to Miz for a few seconds when Miz told him to face the corner. This is a slow burn, but it would have been a lot better if they had just let Mizdow win a few more matches before the showdown. This was storyline development and that’s fine.
On a side note, why do we need a car themed show? We’ve already had Over the Limit which went nowhere. What is this obsession with cars? Did Thruman Sparky Plugg start a cult to get revenge for being named Thurman?
The Authority beat Ziggler/Ryback/Rowan with Big Show knocking Ziggler out cold to give Kane the pin. This booking has gone beyond the idea of coincidence and has reached the point of WHAT ARE THEY THINKING. Rollins isn’t even involved in the pin and you have to give the loss to Ziggler instead of the already destroyed Rowan? I get the idea that guys like Ziggler are so over that they stay hot despite these losses, but there comes a point where he stops being over and starts being a loser.
On top of that, we still have Kane and Big Show being treated like the second coming of the Mega Powers where no one can ever make them look bad whatsoever, but in this case we’ve seen the match for fifteen years and I still haven’t seen them entertain me. There’s a place for those two on the roster but it’s putting people over in the midcard, not hogging near main event spots and even winning matches there.
You build up monsters to have someone beat them. That’s exactly what happened, but then the monsters just stick around instead of going away for awhile. For some reason, these things just keep happening over and over and it stopped being interesting twelve years ago. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but somehow it’s reality.
That being said, at least the match was entertaining enough. It makes sense for them to have this match down as they’ve done variations of it on Raw and Smackdown for months now, because THIS STORY WILL NOT END. I know I’ve harped on this for months, but my goodness it’s been going on for months on end now with no ending in sight. Stop tormenting the guys for their Survivor Series actions and move on to ANYTHING else.
Orton ran out post match and cleaned house. It’s about time, especially considering he was crazed enough to stand in the back for fifteen minutes before attacking his hated enemy.
Goldust and Dusty Rhodes had a great exchange with Goldust saying he had to beat Stardust so badly that it brought him back to reality as Cody. Dusty didn’t want it to be that bad but Goldust said there was no other way. As usual, the old guys can talk better than almost anyone today.
However, the match was a pretty bad opposite. The idea was neither guy wanted to do this, but that doesn’t make sense. Goldust may not want to do this but he said he had to, and Stardust has shown no issue with attacking his brother over the last few weeks. It made the whole match feel way off and didn’t accomplish anything they were shooting for. Either have them fight or don’t set up the story so they should be fighting. Goldust won with a crucifix on what looked to be a botched finish. Stardust attacked his brother in the back after the match and blamed Dusty for their issues.
We got a package on Jon Stewart vs. Seth Rollins. See, THIS is a good celebrity appearance. It’s so annoying seeing C and D list celebrities shoved into the shows to try and make WWE look important. That idea stops working when you have to remind us who the celebrity is and why they’re famous. Stewart is one of the top stars in TV today and has a huge following. It makes for some interesting TV, but the timing isn’t great as Wrestlemania is coming up soon. That being said, you can’t really wait when something like this happens, even though WWE likes to drag their feet for months at a time.
Cesaro and Tyson Kidd won the Tag Team Titles from the Usos in a good match that we’ve seen far too many times before. I’m happy with the results though as the Usos can win the belts back whenever and don’t need to change anything about their act. Kidd and Cesaro have worked hard over the last year and more than deserve some recognition.
HHH called out Sting and gave one heck of a promo, walking around Sting and talking about how this is about WCW vs. WWE. I get the idea behind it, but HHH saying he was one of the main reasons WWE won the Monday Night Wars is pretty laughable. That being said, there’s a much bigger issue for WWE here. What are they supposed to do at Wrestlemania? I can’t imagine the WCW guy winning the match, but how in the world do you bring in Sting and have him lose? Doesn’t that defeat the entire point of having him show up? However, the ball bat vs. the sledgehammer was perfect and got a big smile from me.
Paige lost to Nikki Bella in the Divas Title match. This was about what I expected with Nikki grabbing the trunks to retain the title. I know the big idea right now is GIVE DIVAS A CHANCE, but they had five and a half minutes here and I really don’t want to give them much more of a chance after this. The Bellas just aren’t that good in the ring but they’re the focus of the division because of Total Divas. Granted the lack of any interesting story here didn’t help them and Paige having as good of a chance as a snowman on Miami Beach made it even worse.
Bad News Barrett retained the Intercontinental Title via DQ when Ambrose stomped him a lot. The champ spent the entire match trying to run away, which felt WAY out of character for him. Granted it’s also out of character for him to win a match but that’s another story. This really didn’t help either guy as Dean blows what should be another layup and Barrett gets to look like a lame coward all over again. But hey, maybe they can have a rematch and make both guys look awful one more time, just on a bigger stage.
Bray Wyatt came out to Undertaker’s entrance, popped out of a coffin, and challenged Undertaker like everyone knew he would. They had to do this at some point and if they can kill off more time on a bad PPV, so be it.
Cena and Rusev had the match everyone thought they would have with Lana offering a distraction so Rusev could kick Cena low and make him pass out in the Accolade. If there’s one thing Cena can do well (and there are a lot more than that), it’s have the heavyweight slugfest. They did a good job of not having Cena hit the AA until the end, which made the impact a lot stronger. That and we didn’t have to see Rusev kick out of it three or four times as is the custom for Cena matches. Again this was to set up a rematch and there’s nothing wrong with that for the most part. If nothing else, it means looking at Lana some more.
Roman Reigns pinned Daniel Bryan clean in the main event with a spear. This was the match that they needed to have as Reigns goes over the only other person people wanted to see face Lesnar clean, basically giving him the big endorsement. Yeah people wanted to see Bryan, but Reigns hanging in there for nearly twenty minutes, kicking out of the running knee and getting the pin helped him quite a bit. It made him look like a warrior instead of someone being handed the spot and that’s exactly what he needed. At the end of the day, fans will always respond to good wrestling and that’s exactly what they got here.
Unfortunately, the last two matches being good to very good didn’t validate this show’s existence. No matter what they threw out there, this show didn’t need to happen. They would have been better off just setting up a nine week Wrestlemania build and doing these matches along the way to California. It’s a good enough show to pass, but there’s no need for it to be taking place and that outweighs whatever good wrestling they had on the show.
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Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: February 16, 2015
Will not be posted. I started writing it up and it became clear that there wasn’t much else to talk about with the show. Last week’s episode pretty much speaks for itself as it’s clear there’s no need for Fast Lane to exist. I’ll spare you guys from three pages of “remember this? Well it did in fact happen and it does in fact mean very little.”
Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: February 9, 2015
We have a new direction for Fast Lane now as for some reason there was a controversy regarding the Rock, which comes off more like “we’re scared because the smarkiest city in the world didn’t like what we were doing so here’s Fast Lane to give Bryan a shot.” Other than that there isn’t a ton of stuff to talk about because Fast Lane doesn’t need to exist. Let’s get to it.
We opened with the required Reigns/Bryan chat which didn’t get us anywhere, so the Authority came out and made Reigns/Bryan vs. Big Show/Kane. The monsters wound up getting disqualified in a match longer than it needed to be which should have ended with Kane tapping out but that would be a waste of his incredible heat so they kept the giants looking strong instead. Bryan and Reigns had issues post match so HHH made a rematch with Rollins/Noble/Mercury being added to the giants’ team.
Somehow, this whole thing took about half an hour and it showed the one major problem with the main event scene at the moment: IT’S REALLY BORING. We’re seeing these giant fight Bryan and Reigns in every possible combination and there’s no reason to see them fight all over again. Bryan vs. Reigns is being shoehorned in when Bryan was eliminated from the Rumble 100% clean.
They screwed up at the Rumble by having Bryan dumped out so early and now their solution doesn’t add up either. The match should be good, but that’s getting into TNA logic: if we have a good ending, the journey there doesn’t matter. At this point, they’re not just getting the fans to calm down but rather getting the fans to stop caring about anyone. Yeah they pop for Bryan, but this story is killing the momentum they had going. It got even worse on Smackdown when Big Show knocked out Kane, likely setting up a feud between the two. Because they’re big and old you see.
Ryback beat Rollins via DQ when the Stooges interfered. Somehow, this was STILL Survivor Series fallout because that’s still a thing.
Sheamus is coming back. A lot of people seem to be complaining about that, but imagine him in Kane’s current role. Does that make things sound a bit easier to sit through?
Paige beat Brie Bella because WWE still thinks the Bellas are interesting. That’s their major flaw: their characters are so basic as the stuck up heels that they can’t carry the division on their own. It also doesn’t help that we’re watching Sasha Banks, Charlotte and Bayley having great matches in addition to having just as defined, if not more defined, characters down in NXT.
One of the big segments of the show was Lana and Rusev mocking Cena for being old and past his prime. There’s a story to be told about Cena needing to face the impending end of his career, but calling someone that can throw both Stooges on his shoulders at the same time and go toe to toe with Brock Lesnar over the hill is a huge stretch, especially when they still look like Cena. Just do the Hogan vs. Nikita Koloff formula (it would be an insult to Rusev to compare him to Nikolai Volkoff) and let the fans chant USA for the whole feud. As usual, why mess with something that’s almost guaranteed to work?
Bray Wyatt beat Dolph Ziggler in a loss probably designed to make Ziggler eventually snap and turn heel. In theory the idea is that he’s worked so hard and isn’t getting anywhere because of it, which of course causes another problem: all the momentum he got from the Survivor Series win and subsequent success are thrown away for ANOTHER losing streak angle. We get at least three or four of these a year and they almost always lead to a turn. There a dozen other ways to turn someone heel, but for some reason this is the company’s favorite.
On the other hand you have Bray, who is clearly being set up for a Wrestlemania showdown with Undertaker, assuming he’s capable of going of course. My guess would be Wyatt wins, because there is zero reason for Undertaker to win. What is Cole going to say? “THAT’S THE START OF A NEW STREAK!”?
Wyatt being the bigger freak and overwhelming Undertaker because he’s lost his identity and can’t keep up with the younger generation, ultimately leading to his retirement, is an interesting story that would give Wyatt a huge rub, but unfortunately I think we’re heading for an Undertaker win to make us feel better about last year’s loss because WWE is afraid of hurting our feelings in exchange for thinking for the future.
Heyman and Lesnar came out to cut a basic promo on how neither Reigns nor Bryan has any chance to win the title at Wrestlemania and is just fighting for second place. There was absolutely no reason for Lesnar to be out there for this segment and it was a total waste of an appearance. I like seeing the title out there for a change, but Brock didn’t need to be there for this one.
Goldust and Stardust did their usual schtick and the New Day got a pin. Get to the feud already.
Reigns and Bryan had a cliched backstage bit where they said they’ll work together and then fight at Fast Lane. This is a very by the numbers feud and that’s not helping things.
HHH said he wanted to confront Sting at Fast Lane. The lights flickered, a fake Sting popped up in the ring, and the words I ACCEPT showed up on screen. Somehow this took nearly five minutes.
Then we got to the stupid moment of the show, as the Usos lost to Kidd and Cesaro. Not only is this stupid because it’s the exact same idea we see far too often, but it was also preceded by Cole saying he had heard a rumor that a win over the Usos could give Cesaro and Kidd a future title shot. This is the team that I believe has won two matches leading up to this past Monday, and now they’re the #1 contenders? Off a rumor? This was your standard overbooked and overthought WWE mess that only they care about and no one really benefits from.
Rikishi is going to the Hall of Fame. For some reason people are complaining about this, despite him being a pretty successful midcard guy who was WAY over in 2000 with Too Cool. I have no problems with his induction.
Sin Cara beat Damien Mizdow, because WWE doesn’t understand that the right move is to have Mizdow keep one upping Miz until he beats him in the showdown. Instead it’s turned into a battle of who sucks less, making everyone look weaker than they should.
Bray Wyatt did his usual cryptic promo, which is about the Undertaker.
Dean Ambrose squashed Curtis Axel but was told he gets no Intercontinental Title shot. This was fine, but hearing Axel being called a third generation sports entertainer made me cringe. Does WWE really believe that anyone outside the company boundaries calls it sports entertainment? A little over a year ago in NXT, Bo Dallas was trying to sound stupid and said he had been sports entertaining around the world. Is that what we’re supposed to call it? A sports entertainment contest instead of a match? That’s what we’re going with? Again, stop overthinking things.
The main event saw Reigns and Bryan get beaten up until Ryback, Ziggler and Rowan interfered and took out Big Show, Kane and Rollins, allowing Reigns to spear Mercury for the win. Just like in Miz/Mizdow, why are we having the guys we’re supposed to cheer for look helpless and leave us with two guys who look lame to cheer for? Oh that would be because we have to keep Big Show and Kane looking strong for reasons.
That idea of “for reasons” is something that needs to be addressed. Look at what’s going on in WWE right now. Why did the Authority make Reigns and Bryan vs. five guys? I know they’re heels, but what is the motivation for going after Reigns and Bryan? There’s a history with Bryan so that checks out, but they don’t have a clear reason to feud with Reigns. If it’s still over Reigns as part of the Shield then fine, but TELL US THAT.
At the moment it’s coming off as people doing things because, in the words of Mark Henry, that’s what they do. The opening tag was clearly just made because it’s what they wanted to do that night and they didn’t feel the need to have a logical reason to do so. The same was true of the main event. There’s no storyline reason for these matches to be happening and there doesn’t seem to be anything for the Authority to gain from it, so why do they keep doing it?
The stories are going in circles and there doesn’t seem to be an end game other than “title match at Wrestlemania”, after which I would assume it’s more of the same: winner vs. Authority’s monster of the month. It’s like they don’t know where they want to go with things and just expect Wrestlemania to bail them out. I hate to say this but TNA is currently far more logical and well written than this mess. Yeah the stories can still be messy and unnecessary at times, but there’s a clear path there for them and they know how to get to their goal. I’m not convinced WWE has a goal at this point.
Oh and Reigns speared Bryan after the match and got booed. Nothing wrong with that, but they’re running the risk of making Lesnar a huge face at Wrestlemania and they better have something ready to combat that or it’s the ending of Wrestlemania X7 in reverse. That’s not how you want the next face of WWE (again because reasons instead of common sense) coming off on his big stage.
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