Hot off the heels of an exciting filler pay per view that didn’t mean a lot, welcome to Did Raw Suck This Week! Who’s the intercontinental champion? Who’s the US champion? Who’s the WWE champ? Brock Lesnar is still the WWE champion, idiot! He wasn’t even at the ppv last night! Keep up!
Once again I am lucky enough to tune in five minutes early, so you’re getting my running thoughts during the last five minutes of NCIS.
Dude in a turtleneck’s interrogating a douchey teenager. He’s about to kill the kid for being a bully! I’m all for it but god damn turtle neck guy, tone it down. Oh man! Looks like the douchey bully is gonna talk. Maybe he doesn’t die today. Now we’ve got the old guy from last time driving around with a chick who looks like she would make an amazing dominatrix and a dude who looks like he could be her client. Now there’s a dude on the roof wearing a ski mask. Oh snap they got him! Hope they shoot him in the throat this week. This dude doesn’t look like he could commit a crime if his life depended on it. Old dude’s roughing him up pretty good. These two are talking way too fast for this to not sound scripted. I thought reviewing Raw every week would drive me insane, this show might do it first. The guy rationalizing his crimes. Classic crappy detective show. Now we got the weird goth chick from last week. Why do none of these assholes dress like they have a fucking job? We end the show with the old guy hunting down some pedophiles professor X style. Nice.
And we start Raw with Chris Jericho! He’s come back to save us! Just kidding. He’s here to make a quick buck while he has a break on his big rock and roll tour. The crowd goes apeshit for him, but that’s because he’s the last real star they’ve seen in months. He comes out dressed like David Bowie if David Bowie’s only source of income was gift cards from Ragstock. They remind us about Fandango’s shit talking last week during the Slammy’s and we cut back to the ring. Jericho starts with a couple cheap pops, because it’s easier than connecting with people, and starts hyping up the show. Apparently he’s going to make it all about us. That’s a bad idea Chris. We’re boring as shit. That’s why we’re sitting here watching you. He thanks us for voting in the totally not rigged Slammy poll, and starts throwing insults at Fandango. This is a million times funnier than when the Rock does it. Jericho even gives us a few bars of Bohemian Rhapsody. During this segment, my mother was apparently watching Raw and texted me informing me Chris Jericho shouldn’t sing. Didn’t have the heart to tell her that he’s supposed to be a rock star, but to be fair, Mick Jagger he ain’t. Anyway, he demands that Fandango come out and return the Slammy.
Paul Heyman comes out instead, and I have never been happier with a WWE bait and switch in my life. He confesses to being a Jericho-holic and proclaims that Raw is Jericho. Of course in true Paul Heyman fashion he begins complaining that he should have been made the GM. He then insists that Jericho shouldn’t have won most extreme moment considering Paul Heyman ran ECW. This causes the crowd to chant for a company that’s been dead for thirteen years. Heyman is fantastic here promoting himself and going back and forth with Jericho. They’re both clearly enjoying themselves in this segment. Jericho claims that Paul still owes him 200 dollars. The crowd didn’t seem to get it, but that went over huge in my house.
Heyman starts talking about how Seth Rollins failed to bring down John Cena and surprise surprise, this summons the Money in the Bank demon himself. Rollins comes out and gets in Heyman’s face, and with two heels going at it the crowd seems to be confused as to how they should react. Rollins claims he had the match won, and blames everybody under the sun for his losses including Sting (Not sure how listening to the Police made him lose a match) and Roman Reigns. It’s a good piece of mic work, and it seems to me Rollins is improving on the stick every time I see him. He finishes up by calling John Cena a coward and challenging him to a match. This brings out Super Pope Christ, and Dr. Cena does not seem happy.
Cena cuts a serious promo here, but all he is doing is belittling Seth Rollins. I’ve never been a fan of those promos. You almost lost to him Cena. If you call him a little boy, that means you almost lost to a little boy. Johnny Thuganomics then tells us what it means to be a man. He reminds us that he’s facing Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble, and the crowd gives no shits. Cena says he wants a rematch with Seth, but Jericho needs to ok it. Chris happily obliges in the cheesiest way possible, but then announces that the match will be in a steel cage. Rollins protests and starts trash talking Jericho, saying Chris couldn’t even beat Paul Heyman at this point. Jericho insists that he could TOTALLY beat Paul Heyman… and it looks like we’re gonna get Jericho v. Heyman. Oh happy day.
The segment itself was very good. I enjoyed most of the mic work and it did a good job of setting up a final match between Rollins and Cena that nobody asked for. We watched Cena kick his ass in what was basically a handicap match last night, do we really need to see him win again? Anyway, I would say this is probably the most entertaining opening segment in recent memory.
Back from commercial and we find out we get to vote on what sort of match Jericho and Heyman will have. The choices are No Holds Barred, Extreme Rules, and Street Fight… Now unless you are a toddler you’re probably thinking to yourself “Those are all the same match.” And you’re right. My only conclusion… WWE is now being run by toddlers. Seriously, why bother with the voting bullshit here? Just have Jericho make it a street fight. Could have been handled in five seconds in the opening segment. Now we’re going to spend the night being hounded to download the app and vote. Wow… that got ranty quick. Back to the show!
We get our first match of the evening which is Erick Rowan and Dolph Ziggler versus Big Show and Luke Harper. Ziggler is his usual awesome self, still selling the injuries from the night before, something everyone has forgotten to do for the last six months. Thanks for actually doing your job Dolph. Big Show beats the shit out of him for it though. Not worth it. Anyway we go to commercial, and this is a point I wanted to discuss. At this point we just got back from commercial five minutes ago, and now we’re going to another one in the middle of a match. It makes the show seem disjointed, and it definitely sends the message that the wrestling part isn’t important.
Back from break and Ziggler is still taking a beating. With Harper and Big Show on the other end, the match moves slowly, but unlike last night the slow pacing helps create drama in the match. Big Show wins with a KO punch on Rowan after Ziggler tackles Harper over the announce desk.
We get an announcement that we’ll be getting the Highlight Reel tonight, with special guest Rusev. That should be a fun segment that totally doesn’t offend anyone. We get a confrontation between Jericho and Fandango backstage. It’s short, but Fandango still tries to make it suck as much as possible. Luckily Jericho is there to save it and walk off screen like a boss.
Did you know that over 15 million jackass lemmings like you and me downloaded the WWE App?! Now you fucking do! Don’t you ever forget it! We get a recap of Wyatt/Ambrose from last night, and the stupid stupid stupid ending that I ranted about plenty in my random thoughts column.
We get an interview with A New Day. Are they going to do something other than clap? Actually they do a decent job in this segment. Even when Kofi goes into a weird beat poem, at least that’s something new for his fucking character. They all sort of have a stereotypical fun black guy way of speaking, but they’re all different and they make it interesting. This was the development I was looking for… sort of. We need a lot more of it before this tag team makes people actually give a damn.
Another commercial and we get the Bella mannequins against Alicia Fox and the future ex-Mrs. Dale Curtis. The match is short but tolerable. Natalya wins with the Sharpshooter on Brie. Tyson Kidd is checking on Nikki when Natalya goes to celebrate and fuck… we’re going to have to sit through this storyline, aren’t we? If I wanted this I would watch a shitty Hugh Grant movie. Wrestling is not the place for romantic comedies.
We come back from commercial and we see the Highlight Reel set. Jericho announces Rusev and Lana who come down waving the flag Americans don’t recognize. Lana grabs the mic and starts by calling Jericho’s humor juvenile. How dare she! Jericho proves her wrong by unleashing some… incredibly juvenile humor. He implies that Rusev and Lana have a thing going before trying to see how many Russian sounding euphemisms he can think of for penis. I have to be honest here, Jericho isn’t very funny in this segment, and Lana just comes off as annoying. That is, until Rusev threatens to crush Jericho like the fucking bad ass barbarian he is. Chris responds by bringing out the Ryback, who is over like big tits… God knows why. They talk some silent trash back and forth before Rusev climbs out of the ring and holds up his US title. See, they didn’t have to have a big brawl or cut any promos, and now they have an interesting set up to a match that admittedly, few will be excited about.
We get a vignette for the Ascension. I love this tag team, but talking is definitely not their thing, and the new ring gear/facepaint just makes them look like Demolition 2.0. Vignettes like this are not how you debut this tea,. Anyway, out comes A New Day smiling, dancing, and clapping like Vince seems to think all happy black people do. They will be facing Goldust and Stardust, the latter of which looking like he just came to the arena from his Insane Clown Posse audition. Stardust gets some time to be weird in a corner of the screen before the match starts.
Kofi is on commentary for this one, and it’s not painful like some wrestlers, but we fail to learn anything new. All he tells us is that they’re all about having fun… and Big E sweats a lot. They manage to have a good match with a minimal amount of action in the first half. That’s something you don’t see very often anymore. In the second half there was more action, but the focus was still on selling the story and the characters in the match, which has Goldust’s fingerprints all over it. In that way it is more entertaining than a lot of matches with four faceless luchadors throwing themselves around and having it mean nothing. It also takes less of a toll on the performer’s bodies, which I am all for. New Day wins with the Midnight Hour, which is a really cool finisher. I enjoyed this match a lot. They did a great job of doing more with less and keeping the crowd interested. The tag team roster should watch this one back a couple times this week.
We get an interview with Miz and Damien Mizdow. Miz cuts a halfway decent promo on Uso #1 that Damien Mizdow turns into an awesome promo with his spectacular miming abilities. After that we get a shot of Adam Rose and his party train backstage. He announces that they’re going to have a huge party after Raw, but the mood goes sour when no longer corporate Kane shows up and admits to being a lemon. He then says next will be a match between himself and Adam Rose. Not sure how Kane just booked a match, but apparently we’re going by 1999 WCW rules tonight.
Back from commercial, and Adam Rose comes down to the ring with his entourage. I still love this gimmick. I know it’s stupid, and I thought it would get old, but I love every second of it being on screen. The Big Ginger Machine comes down the ramp next, and this is a short pointless match. Kane’s about to chokeslam Adam Rose when the bunny interferes. He just chokeslams both of them and wins. I don’t know what they’re doing with Kane, and I don’t think they do either.
We get a recap of the opening segment, in case three hours of wrestling just happens to be too much for you and you don’t tune in until an hour in like most sane people. We get a reminder to “vote” on the stipulation for the Jericho/Heyman match, and another commercial.
Commercial note: Wow, Stephanie McMahon is actually trying to sell workout DVDs. I was hoping with all my heart and soul that that was a joke.
Back from break and WWE is nice enough to warn me that Kane versus Erick Rowan will be happening at Main Event, so I don’t make the mistake of watching it. Good looking out WWE. Jericho then struts down to the ring for his match with an unathletic old manager. Way to be a star Chris. Heyman comes down with a mic in hand, and cuts a great promo as the cowardly manager. He throws every line in the book at Jericho to get his sympathy. He even tries to repay the 200 dollars he owes him… in check form. The audience doesn’t seem to get it but again, big pop in my house.
Jericho tells him to go fuck his checkbook, let’s see what match the audience voted for. They picked a street fight… as if it matters. Heyman begs some more and does an awesome job of it, before turning a 180 and bringing out Brock Lesnar, who comes down without the WWE title. I don’t like this move. The first time we’ve seen the champion in months, he should have the belt over his shoulder, but I digress. Brock squashes the ever loving shit out of Chris Jericho, and the crowd actually starts chanting for Cena.
We get 300 replays of the squash, and the announce team does a shitty job of talking over each one. We go back to the ring where Rosa is… I can’t even call it dancing. She’s just gyrating awkwardly. Fandango comes down and they proceed to gyrate as his music plays. We get a commercial and when we come back, Fandango tries to talk. Mercifully, Roman Reigns’ music cuts him off. Reigns walks down the stairs by the audience, which is incredibly unprofessional. At this point in his career you would think he would learn to be behind the stage when it’s time for his cue.
Reigns spears Fandango so hard it sends him back to NXT, and then flashes those gorgeous eyes at the camera. Before he can say a word Big Show’s music hits. I guess this is going to be Reigns’ first feud back from injury… yippee. Show rushes the ring, but gets superman punched. He stumbles but doesn’t go down. He walks to the back while Reigns taunts to the crowd. He shouldn’t be taunting. His superman punch couldn’t even knock Big Show down. By all rights Reigns should be shitting his pants right now.
Another commercial, and Miz walks to the ring with Mizdow in tow. They do their dueling boo/cheer thing with the audience a little bit before the Uso’ music plays. They all jaw back and forth a bit before Miz and Uso #1 get set in the ring. The beginning of the match has Miz giving Jimmy Uso the run around, getting the crowd going before they even touch. This is a really good match that Mizdow steals with his miming once again. Kind of a shame such a good match was overshadowed, but I’m ok with whatever gets Damien Mizdow over. Uso #1 wins with a big splash.
Miz confronts Uso #1’s girlfriend backstage, but tells her the he is still going to help her with her music career, even though her husband beat the crap out of him. He’s even going to have her as a guest on MizTV tomorrow on Super Smackdown live. How kind of him. Weird segment in a storyline that the crowd is wholeheartedly rejecting, with the exception of Damien Sandow being around.
Next we get a Seth Rollins interview, and he does a good job of feigning being indignant about the fact that he has to wrestle in a cage tonight. He calls WWE a mad house and pimps for the Authortiy to return again. Another solid promo by Rollins. It almost makes me think about taking back the mean things I’ve said about his promo work in the past… almost.
Another commercial and it’s time for the cage match! Rollins comes down first followed by the New Stooges. Cena comes out next and he is totally hyped up. Steal Mojo Rawley’s gimmick much? Both men try escaping from the cage right away, which I like. Of course later in the match when Rollins has Cena down, he doesn’t try to escape, so take it for what you will. While both men are down, Brock Lesnar comes out. This time he has the title. He breaks into the cage and starts hitting Cena with german suplexes like it’s the only thing that’s ever going to get him laid. Once he’s done with that he hits the F-5 and looks like he’s going to go after Rollins next. Instead, Rollins shakes hands with Heyman, and they leave him to continue the match. He mocks Cena a bit before hitting the curb stomp and slowly walking out the door. The New Stooges put Rollins on their shoulders as we fade out.
So… did it suck? Nope. This was actually a really well paced show based around a couple of feuds rather than trying to shove everyone’s stuff in. Granted they have some leeway with that given that there will only be a few one on one matches at the Royal Rumble PPV. There was a good amount of action, and having Lesnar and Jericho there made it seem like a much bigger show than in week’s past.
MVP of the night: Ziggler. He killed it in the opening match, and if WWE doesn’t do something big with him soon they’re blind.
Worst part of the night: Listening to Kofi talk about Big E sweating. I very much did not need that.
That wraps it up for another edition of Did Raw Suck This Week. I will be posting another article later this week. It will be a review of Nick Offerman’s comedy special “American Ham” so keep an eye out for that. As always read and share and if you agree, disagree, just want to say hi, make sure to leave a comment.
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