Did Raw Suck This Week: The Podcast episode 3

Here it is! This weeks episode of the Podcast! This week we have special guest Clark V. Tatum! Please listen and share!

Did Raw Suck This Week? 2/16/15

Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to another edition of Did Raw Suck This Week? After last weeks good show, I am fully expecting a steaming pile of shit to be dropped on our collective doorsteps tonight. Of course they may be nice and wait until Fast Lane to drop the dook, but I doubt it. So come with me, won't you? Come with me on a journey through the WWE Universe. Will Big Show disintegrate in the ring? Will Dusty Rhodes be wearing Polka Dots? Can we ever forget we all saw Seth Rollins' penis? These questions and more answered in the newest edition of Did Raw Suck!

Welcome to Raw! And We start with John Cena. Fuck it. I quit. Changing the Channel. Now I'm reviewing... Nash Bridges! That's right, Nash fucking Bridges! Deal with it. Just kidding, I'm still watching Raw... but why? Dr. Thuggy McJeanShorts starts out by hyping the crowd a little. Cena would have made an excellent carnival barker in a past life. Cena says he looks around tonight and he is amazed. Amazed that people would pay to come watch this? Me too. He then throws us to a replay of the Cena/Rusev confrontation from last week.

Cena gets serious and says Rusev may have crushed him before, but it won't happen again. He puts his opponent over, but says he's not unstoppable. He promises to beat Rusev this Sunday at Fast Lane. He's even going to tell us how he's going to do it... by taking the fight to him. John, you're a strategic genius! I would have run away and peed myself, but taking the fight to him is far more likely to get you a win. Good thinking.

Cena says he loves it when we boo or cheer. Don't tell them that, they'll just stop making noise altogether. Cena then basically says he always thought he could win his way, and is never turning heel. Ha ha, suck it internet fans... which is basically every fan at this point. Then came Rusev, telling him he's lost a step. Cena says he's bringing the aggression. I hope it's the ruthless kind. He then reminds us that it's for the United States title, which we had all but forgotten. Rusev kindly waits until Cena is done talking before having the director play his music.

Lana accuses Cena of spitting tired rhetoric, and appealing to stupid Americans. The crowd proves her wrong by chanting USA. You totally got her with that one, guys! She says Cena's cup is half full. I didn't think wrestlers wore cups, but given the likely steroid situation, I'd say she's being generous. She says Cena always comes back after a beating, but this time he won't. Apparently Rusev is going to kill him at Fast Lane. Is Cena Apollo Creed in this story? That would be awesome. Rusev promises to destroy Cena, and all he stands for. This is a good back and forth that does a fantastic job of selling the match. Cena then says fuck words, and attacks the mighty Russian. This time Cena gets the upperhand, but it plays out much like their brawl from last week. Cena screams that every man can be beaten as we go to commercial.

Fun opening segment that is a welcome break from the usual long winded Authority based opening. Both men did a good job of selling their match, and it didn't make me feel exhausted before the show really even started. All in all a very good opening segment.

Back from break and we get a replay of the opening segment, in case we forgot what happened during the commercial break. They then cut to Dean Ambrose doing an odd, newscast style segment, telling us that there will be a contract signing for the IC title, whether Barrett likes it or not. Back to the ring and Luke Harper is already inside. Ambrose comes down, and we have ourselves a match within the first 20 minutes. I'm liking this episode of Raw more and more.

The match is a good brawl, with both man getting to look tough, which is different than looking strong, but just as good if not better in the wrestling world. Ambrose is a wrestler who is amazing at getting his character across physically. In the ring he's not just hitting mechanical moves, he's hitting them the way his character would. Luke Harper pulls his weight pretty well too, and they give them a good length of time to have a solid match. It ends when Ambrose hits Dirty Deeds for the clean win.

The announcers tell us that Dusty Rhodes will be coming to Raw to try and help settle things between Goldust and Stardust. Which means they'll settle it, and then next week it will become unsettled through a forgotten rule. (Kids, if you didn't get that joke, ask your parents. They'll tell you that that was fucking hilarious.) They then run down what our night is going to look like before going to commercial.

Commercial note: Cripsy M&M's are back. Maybe there is a God...

Back from break and Triple H is backstage with Kane. Big Show walks into the shot and bickers with The Big Red HR Rep, Triple H tries to break it up, but they just can't stop fighting. I hear old age makes people more cantankerous. Big Show tries to mock Kane by referencing May 19th, but screws up and says May 13th. Get your shit together Big Show. Trips tells them they better do their jobs tonight, or he's gonna go all crackatoa on their asses. (Another joke your parents will love)

We then get a creepy Bray Wyatt promo where he's twirling a nail in his hands. It's not long, but it's awesome Bray Wyatt shit. We get the creepy cut, and then we're backstage with Gold and Stardust. Dusty walks into the shot. Looks like he's been doing his crossfit. He tells Cody he needs to calm his shit, 'cause he's being super weird, and life is all about family daddy-o. Dusty actually does a good job here, showing he hasn't lost the gift of gab. It seems the Dust brothers have made up, but I've been watching wrestling too long to buy it.

Back from break and New Day is coming down to the ring. Smart, put them BEFORE the phoned in black history month segment. Vince is learning. Next come Stardust and Goldust. The match is fast paced, but it doesn't feel like there's much of a story. People are just robotically hitting moves. It ends when there's almost an accidental collision between the Dust brothers, and Kofi uses the distraction to hit the Trouble in Paradise for the win. After the match Cody tries to pick Goldust up, but he can't stand. He finally gets up and the brothers hug, before Cody hits the cross roads on Goldust. Just as I figured, the crowd is not all that interested. If they had done this leading into last year's Wrestlemania, it would have been much bigger.

Cut to backstage where Byron "Token" Saxton is interviewing Roman Reigns. He tries to cut a long form promo here, and it's not for him. The writing team needs to stick to the action movie style one liners. As a talker, Roman Reigns is just bad. He has very little charisma when he has to string real sentences together. Back to the ring, and out comes Daniel Bryan to watch the Roman Reigns/Kane match. He chants Yes with the fans as we fade to commercial.

Back from break and they show us a confrontation between Cody and his father that happened during the commercial break. Since they're showing the whole thing, couldn't they have just done this after the commercial? Anyway, Cody does a good job of being crazy here, and convincing me that Cody Rhodes is really gone, and Stardust is the guy I'm looking at. Back to the ring, and everyone is still chanting Yes, but the crowd has clearly gotten tired. They then show us Bryan accidentally kicking Roman in the face last week. They do a good job of muting the boos when Roman shoves Bryan. They then show the issue between Kane and Big Show from Smackdown. At this rate, the show is going to be half recaps.

The Roman Reigns/Kane match is actually much better than I expected. It's methodical and slow, but it lets them tell a story and not have every second full of action. Daniel Bryan being on commentary even makes THAT halfway good. The match ends when Roman spears Kane on the outside, and climbs into the ring to win by count out. Does WWE even WANT Roman Reigns to be a face? After the match, Daniel stands on the announce table and leads the crowd in a Yes chant. Roman doesn't like it, so Daniel continues the chant while dancing around the ring. How... bad ass?

Back from break, and we get an interview segment with Daniel backstage with Renee Young, and he says that if Roman can't handle the Yes chants, maybe he's not mentally tough enough to be WWE champion. We then get another incredibly short Bray Wyatt promo, and it's awesome. Cut from there to outside the Divas locker room where the Bellas have stolen Paige's ring gear, so she has to run around in a towel for no reason other than to have Paige run around in a towel and get the thirteen year olds all excited. She steals someone from Adam Rose's party bus, presumably to get her clothes, which look more like a fairy costume. This is fucking stupid. Someone needs to tell the writers that the Divas aren't fifteen. It's okay to give them adult dialogue and storylines, I think they can handle it.

Back from break and we have a match between Paige and Summer Rae. Summer is already in the ring, and Paige comes out, but she's wearing a sparkly pink outfit! HAHAHA, isn't that... pointless and juvenile. Also the costume is a skirt, so I can only assume she stole that woman's underwear too. That's very not hygienic Paige. She's taking the supposed embarrassment in stride, so that's sort of a cool face move. The match is better than I expected from Paige, and light years better than I was expecting from Summer. It ends when Summer taps to the PTO. After the match, the Bella mannequins come out and make fun of her as if they were in middle school. Paige counters by saying that she doesn't need an outfit to make her look good. She then promises to win the diva's title back before her music plays.

Back from break, and it's time for Seth Rollins versus Dolph Ziggler. Beforehand we get a speech from Seth. He says honoring the past is a waste of time when the future is standing in front of you. He cuts a really good promo here, which makes me think WWE may just gloss over his recent public issues. He teases cashing in his money in the bank briefcase, and complains that he should be in the main event at Wrestlemania. Seth has grown by leaps and bounds on the mic.

Dolph rudely starts his entrance in the middle of Seth's promo. Kind of sad when Dolph Ziggler doesn't have the manners Rusev does. He comes out with a microphone and takes some digs at Seth, saying maybe he had a bad Valentine's day. Low blow dude, seriously no need for that. They go back and forth a little bit, with Dolph getting to once again show his mic skill. This might be one of the favorite non wrestling segments in recent weeks. Well done by both men.

The match is as good as you would expect, but they take a slower pace with it, which I appreciate from these guys. It would have been easy to have a super fast ROH style match,but they both showed they can slow down and sell and let character shine through. Every indy guy who thinks doing a bunch of flippy shit will get them a job should watch this match over and over. The match ends when Ziggler hits the zig zag, and the New stooges come down to break up the pin. Ryback and Rowan then come down to beat on team authority. Mercury and Noble get Seth to safe ground, while sacrificing themselves to Ryback and Rowan. Looks like they are not stopping the Seth Rollins push just yet. On a side note, Ziggler needs a haircut. He's looking sort of poodley.

Back from break and Triple H is on his way out to the ring. We get a replay of the entire Sting saga, which has been ridiculously boring and melodramatic so far. The crowd chants "We want Sting" and I chant back "No you don't". Triple H says he ain't afraid of no Sting! In fact he laughs at the very idea. He says all Sting is is parlor tricks, and he is 100% right. Well said Triple H. He cuts a decent promo, but is interrupted by Ric Flair, which gets a huge reaction, both with the crowd and in my house.

Ric says he came out because he respects Triple H, and wants to say he loves him. Ric seems like he's not all there anymore... though that could just be him being crazy Ric. He warns Trips not to take Sting lightly, which would have been good advice twenty years ago. Hunter says he knows who Sting is, and he doesn't need a history lesson. They spend some time putting Sting over, before Triple H says he would have run him out of the WWE. Trips says Sting made this personal, and Flair tells him he needs to relax. This is a very good exchange that puts over both Sting and Triple H. That being said, I am still incredibly not excited for this.

Flair Tells Triple H he better not see him sitting on his ass again like last Monday. This pisses off Hunter so much that he shoves the Nature Boy and starts shouting at him that Sting is going to get his ass kicked. Interesting segment that shows Sting getting to Triple H. This is the best segment they've done so far, so kudos. The announcers plug John Cena's appearance on Parks and Recreation, before giving us a recap of his fight with Rusev. I believe they have officially filled their extra hour with recaps now. Can't say I blame them. Writing three hours of wrestling wasn't working.

Back from break and we're getting Darren Young teamed up with a jobber so meaningless they don't even announce his name before the Ascension comes out. Poor Darren Young. The Ascension beat down on them for a while before Titus O'Neill comes out and cleans house with Darren. Have we seen a reunion of the Primetime Players?! God I hope so. I'm not being sarcastic, I like them. Deal with it. Next we get a segment where Miz is colluding with Wade Barrett to do something sinister to Damien Sandow before the commercial.

Back from break and out comes the Miz with Damien Sandow, who he immediately berates and tells to stay in the background. We get a match with Damien Sandow and Wade Barrett. JBL gets a 50 Shades of Grey joke in, because PG, and Miz stops the match right away to demand that Sandow come buff his shoe, giving Barrett the upper hand. The crowd reaction to all of this definitely tells me they should have pulled the trigger on this feud already. It's fading quick. The match ends when Miz distracts Sandow and Barrett hits the bull hammer for the win.

After the match, Dean Ambrose comes down and attacks Barrett. He zip ties his hands around the ring post, and refuses to let him go until he signs the contract for the IC title match. This is genius. Ambrose grabs Barrett's hand and forces it to sign. Barrett yells that that's not legal... and it's not. That won't hold up in court. We get another short, creepy Bray Wyatt Promo. I much prefer these in one bigger chunk, but they're still good this way.

Another break, and out come the Uso's. I was amazed to discover that the WWE still has a tag team championship. Learn something new every day. The next match is a mixed tag match with the Uso #1 and the talented Funkadactyl versus Tyson Kidd, and Natalya. The match is good, but the announcers spend way too much of it talking about their personal lives. I don't care! Talk about the god damn match! Tyson keeps tagging out like a coward, which is great. Both because it develops his douchey character, but it means we get more of Nattie and Naomi, which I could watch all day. It ends in one of those weird roll up exchanges, but Naomi gets a three count on Nattie. The match is good, but I wish it was longer. After the match, Tyson gets on Nattie's case for losing. I love what they are doing with him.

The announcers plug the Network and Fast Lane, before giving us a replay of the ending to the Reigns/Kane match. We get a shot of Daniel Bryan walking down the hallway before Roman Reigns comes down to the ring, just like Bryan did before HIS match. They're doing a good job of building this feud, I just wish they had the balls to turn one of them full heel. I hate face v. face matches.

Back from break, and it's time for Daniel Bryan versus the Big Show. At one point, JBL compares this to Jack and the beanstalk, if the beanstalk fought back, completely ignoring that there was a giant at the top of the beanstalk that Big Show very easily could have been compared to. The match is a good David v. Goliath match, but as I've said before, Big show is hard to watch. He's very slow, and Daniel Bryan basically has to wrestle himself. During the match, Roman Reigns starts signing autographs, which pisses Daniel Bryan off for some reason. He later starts throwing t-shirts to the crowd, none of which makes much sense. The match ends When Roman Reigns runs in and punches Big Show, because he accidentally speared him earlier.

Daniel Bryan gets pissed and hits Roman with a dropkick. Roman Reigns comes back and gives him his receipt, before tossing him to the outside. They glare at each other for a bit before Bryan gets in the ring and they brawl on the mat. They go to the outside where Roman Reigns eventually gets the upper hand. The refs pull them apart, and they cool off. They shake hands, but then attack each other again. They brawl into the crowd, and back to the ring. They do a good job of making it convincingly chaotic. Eventually they get more refs and manage to separate the wrestlers.

So... did it suck? NO! Holy shit! Two good episodes of Raw in a row! It's a Road to Wrestlemania miracle! Seriously though, I have noticed a trend. The more the Authority stays out of things, and lets Seth Rollins be their poster child, the more I enjoy Raw. When there's 20-30 minutes of Stephanie McMahon being unproductive, I start to get pissed off. This show let the new guys shine, took the focus off the Authority, and put it all on the wrestlers. This was mostly a well booked show, minus a few odd hiccups that I can ignore. The wrestling was plentiful and mostly quite good, while the segments ranged from great to watchable.

MVP: Tough one, but I had to go with Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns here. They took their storyline and in the span of two weeks turned it into a face v. face blood feud. The crowd is definitely into it now, as am I.

Worst in show: The writing team's attitude toward the divas. I'm going to rant about this more on the podcast, but I absolutely hate how the writers write for the Divas. It's like they haven't spoken to a female since they were thirteen. It makes me angry, because the current crop of divas has some real potential, and the upcoming class is incredible.

Alright folks, that's all for now. Make sure to catch the Podcast later, and I'm sorry for not starting my review of the Bible when I said I would. I got no time this weekend, but I will be posting the first installment on Wednesday.

Did Raw Suck This Week: The Podcast Episode 2

Here it is ladies and gentlemen, the second episode of Did Raw Suck This Week: The Podcast. Give it a listen when you have twenty minutes, share it with a friend, maybe even leave us a comment letting us know what you think.

Did Raw Suck This Week? 2/9/15

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another edition of Did Raw Suck This Week! As always I am your host, Dale Curtis, and we are well on our way down the rocky, winding road to Wrestlemania. We are two weeks away from Fast Lane and shit's about to get real! Will the WWE audience begrudgingly accept Roman Reigns? Are the fans going to whine every time Daniel Bryan isn't in the main event of Wrestlemania? Do these rhetorical questions have any point other than to transition to the show? Let's find out!

We open with a video package detailing the supposed controversy around the end of the Royal Rumble. It's a little overly dramatic, but still of the awesome quality I expect from the people who work on WWE's videos. Roman Reigns starts us out tonight opining that he won the Royal Rumble, and should be in the main event at Wrestlemania. The crowd is giving him a loud John Cena style mixed response here. Reigns says if he has to prove himself by beating Daniel Bryan, that's fine, because he's still a babyface after all. The promo from him is solid, and is interrupted by Daniel Bryan.

The crowd is definitely not mixed in their reaction to the bearded wonder. They go apeshit, as have arenas all over the country for the last two years of this man's career. I will note here that I hate his furry boots, but I will let it go. Bryan says he's out here to thank Roman for taking out the Big Show last week. He tries hard to get the fans on Roman's side, but it's an ugly undertaking. He then starts talking about their Fast Lane match. Bryan says he knows Reigns is bigger and stronger, but says as far as looks, they're about even, and that gets a legitimate laugh out of me. Roman is a man god. Bryan then says that when it comes to wrestling, there's no way Roman is better than him.

Out next to interrupt is Triple H and the rest of the Authority. What, did you really think we were going to go through a whole opening segment without them? Rube. Stephanie has the mic, because Vince wants me to swallow a bottle of sleeping pills. They ignore what's happening in the ring for a minute to pimp Fast Lane and talk about Sting. Way to keep the flow going guys. This was like someone dropped a steaming turd in the middle of an otherwise good opening segment. Steph eventually works it back around, berating Roman for getting involved in the match last week.

Steph then yells at Bryan for putting Corporate Kane in a casket... in a match WWE booked. Bryan points that out, which makes it much stupider. Of course he references Katie Vick which is fucking brilliant. She says Daniel and Roman are in a tag team match against Kane and the Big Show next!... Yippee?

The match is decent because it gives Kane and Big Show chances to tag out, rest, and stay fresh. They hit some interesting spots and keep the pacing up, unlike a lot of recent matches involving Kane and Big Show. Towards the end it begins to slow down as Kane and Big Show take turns trying to hug Bryan to death. For some reason the match ends on a DQ when Big Show pulls Bryan out of the ring. He's in the match ref, shouldn't that be perfectly legal?... weird. Anyway afterword we get a beat down of Roman, which he escapes with a Superman punch and a series of vicious chair shots. He dumps Show out of the ring only to get hit by Kane. Bryan tries to save him from a chokeslam, but hits Reigns with a nasty kick instead. This is where they decide to have Roman go full heel by shoving Bryan. Not sure if that's what they wanted, but that's what just happened. Triple H ends the segment by saying they'll be teaming up in another match against the whole Authority family in the main event. Decent opening half hour. I'm getting incredibly tired of watching Triple H and Stephannie make things all about them. They weren't all over the opening segment, but at this point just seeing them come out elicits loud groans. They're boring, they're long winded, and the worst part is that Trips and Steph themselves are never going to get their physical comeuppance.

Back from commercial and our next match is Ryback versus Seth Rollins, even though apparently Seth will be in the match later with Bryan and Kane. The match is good, but it mostly looks like Seth wrestling his way around a rock. I would watch that too by the way... probably give it a good review. It ends when Ryback gets the upperhand, and the New Stooges run in to attack. After the match Seth curb stomps Ryback, and stands over him triumphantly.

Commercial note: A WWE/Flintstones cross over? The child in me screams yes, while the adult in me wants to drown him in a bath tub.

After the break we get a vignette for the return of Sheamus. If he comes back as goofy Uncle Sheamus again, I'll be quite upset. To the ring and our next match is Paige versus Brie Bella. I love that we're getting all this wrestling tonight, but maybe we could have a segment instead of this particular match? I don't know, I'm not a booker. Oddly enough they have a really good match that ends when Paige hits the... RamPaige... sigh.We get a shot of Rusev walking down the hall as we cut to commercial.

Back from break and Rusev and Lana are on their way down to the ring to pay tribute to John Cena I guess. The crowd chants USA at them before they've even said anything. Lana says they are proud to face John Cena. She puts over Cena for a while, before saying they're here to recognize his great career. They cut to a video package that starts out looking like a Cena hype video, but quickly cuts to several clips of him being brutalized at different points in his career. Lana says that thirteen years is a long time, and implies that Cena is coming to the end of his career. She says he's vulnerable, just waiting for annihilation. Rusev then grabs the mic and says Cena isn't who he used to be, then proclaims to be a hero. He calls Cena weak, and says at Fast Lane he will break him. This is starting to sound kind of familiar. Are we going to get a montage of Cena running through the snow and dead lifting wooden carts set to some radical 80's synth rock? No? Weak.

Cena comes out to interrupt dressed in his brand new baby blue merchandise. He delivers a promo saying that Lana and Rusev are full of crap. He's been beaten down before, but every time he gets knocked down he gets back up. He says he's going to teach Rusev some respect at Fast Lane. It's a good promo, but nothing earth shattering. Decent sell for their match at the PPV. Rusev feigns anger as the crowd chants USA like a group of brainless automatons. Rusev delivers some more promo he probably shouldn't have, saying he's going to crush Cena. Cena makes a shitty joke about Lana having balls before the two men run at each other and start brawling. Rusve gets the upperhand with an eye poke and slams his face into the big LED screen behind them. Refs eventually come out and shoe Rusev away as we fade to commercial. Decent segment that probably ran a little too long. Good stuff from both sides though.

Did you know WWE has over 5 million Twitter followers? Better question, does anyone care? We get a repaly of the Cena/Rusev confrontation. After that Dolph Ziggler comes out for a match with Bray Wyatt. The match has no reason to happen, but it's fantastic, and gets a huge reaction from the crowd. These two are gold together, and now that Dolph has seemingly learned to slow himself down, he's able to have fantastic methodical matches like this. Bray Wyatt is a genius too. His matches seem to put over the character of each wrestler more than anyone else's recently. I love it. It ends when Bray hits Sister Abigail for the win. After the match Bray rips up a section of the black padding on the floor, but the refs put it right back down and yell at him to leave Dolph alone. He opts to stand over him in a creepy manner as his music plays.

It's time for WWE to honor black history month some more! This week they're highlighting Junkyard Dog. The truly sad thing is they won't be able to find a black main eventer to honor from after the year 2000. Also the whole blackface segment with DX... yeah Vince as long as you think you have a place honoring black history month, I'll rip you apart for it. It reeks of hypocrisy and it makes me sad because the video packages they've put together are really beautiful.

After a commercial, Brock Lesnar walks down to the ring with the jewiest manager ever to grace the squared circle, Paul Heyman! I have to say, Paul heyman might not be the number one manager of all time, but I don't think anyone was ever better at selling their client. Heyman says a little about how people are quick to crucify celebrities. He references Brian Williams for some reason before calling Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan the biggest liars ever. Why are they liars? For saying either of them has a chance against Brock Lesnar. Way to spin it Paul E. Dangerously.  You're awesome.

He says Roman is afraid of Brock, but he shouldn't be ashamed. That's a natural reaction. He marvels at Bryan's ability to lie to himself about having a chance against Brock. Heyman does a great job of putting both Roman and Bryan over, while still being adamant that his client could destroy them both. Brilliant promo work by a true master. I wish there were more managers like him and less like Rosa Mendes.

Back from break and the Dust brothers are already in the ring for their match with New Day, who jive talk and dance around as they walk to the ring. Don't you just love it when WWE honors black history month everyone? At one point during the match Stardust walks away and that distracts Goldust, allowing New Day to get the roll up pin. Not much match to speak of. It was really just set up to tease more tension between Goldust and Stardust, which they're doing really well.

Next we get a replay of Daniel Bryan accidentally kicking Roman Reigns in the face. The announcers argue about whether it was on purpose in the most annoying fashion they can before we cut backstage to Daniel Bryan and Renee Young. Daniel says what happened was an accident. Roman then walks into the shot and basically says everything's fine because they have a common enemy in the Authority. Not sure I believe him. I've seen too much wrestling to think that's true.

Back from break and we get a segment with the Dust brothers yelling at each other. Goldust calls his brother Cody, which causes him to attack, saying that Cody is dead. Holy shit. Did someone tell Cody's family? Cut to the ring where Triple H is in the ring cutting another self aggrandizing promo. He says his life's work was wiped out by Sting at Survivor Series. Seriously? I know this is melodrama, but let's chill. Triple H says Sting stayed away for 14 years because he knew Triple H would kick his ass. That doesn't explain him going to TNA though. He says he demands an answer from Sting, and then shit goes dark. We hear a crow in the background, before getting a creepy video package with all sorts of weird imagery. Back in the ring the lights come on, and a fake looking sting attacks Triple H before the video says he accepts the challenge. Weird segment that didn't need to happen. The fans ate it up though.

We get a replay of the Cena/Rusev fight, and apparently Cena is suffering from a scratched cornea. Worst injury excuse angle ever. Anyway, out come the flying Uso twins, still with no fire dancers. Naomi comes out with them, which is a big plus. Our next match is the Uso's versus Kidd and Cesaro. The match is good, with some good spots and the kind of fast paced action you expect from these tag teams. There's a heavy focus on a bubbling Naomi/Natalya feud, but the match ends up making both of the tag teams involved look really good. The Usos are a wonderful tag team, and if they had more teams of this caliber to work with, the tag team division would be a big ratings draw. The match ends when Cesaro pushes one of the Usos off the top rope and Tyson pins him.

The announcers then tell us that Rikishi will be the next hall of fame inductee, and it is well deserved. Sadly the video package only talks about his days as Rikishi, and doesn't cover any of his other gimmicks. People don't realize that he was a part of WWE forever. As it is I can see people watching this and wondering what the hell this joke is doing going into the HOF. We cut backstage to Miz and Mizdow walking down the hall before we go to commercial.

The announcers talks a bit about the upcoming NXT special show, which is awesome. Our next match is Damien Mizdow versus Sin Cara, who beat the Miz last monday night. Miz treating Sandow like crap is working, and I know because it's actually starting to get a real emotional response from me. Miz sits in a director's chair and holds a microphone during the match, which he uses to stop Damien Mizdow from imitating him. He also demands things like water from him during the match, which is otherwise a fantastic match. Miz has really found himself in this role. I honestly think it's doing better things for Miz than Mizdow. The match ends when Miz distracts Mizdow, and Sin Cara gets the roll up win. Miz berates him after the match.

We cut to the announcers pimping the Network some more, before Bray Wyatt takes over and cuts another creepy promo. I know I haven't been summarizing his stuff well, but how do you summarize a Bray Wyatt promo? It's all over the place, and only his wording makes it make sense. All I can say is he is as good here as he always is. His promos give me chills, and I can see Bray being a huge star for years to come. After the promo we get a shot of Dean Ambrose walking to lead us into a break.

Back from break, and Curtis Axel is in the ring complaining some more about how he never lost the Royal Rumble. He starts screaming Axelmania over and over before Dean Ambrose interrupts him. Looks like we've got another match. Decent back and forth that doesn't get a ton of time, but makes Dean Ambrose look good without dealing a loss to anyone above jobber status. Dean grabs a mic and calls out Wade Barrett, demanding an intercontinental title match, saying he won't stop until he gets it. Barrett appears with his BNZ gimmick to tell the world things aren't looking good for Dean Ambrose, because he's not getting a title match. I love the BNZ set up. The scrolling headlines are hilarious. Ambrose doesn't seem to be a fan though.

After another commercial we get Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns versus team Authority. I'm expecting this to be overbooked and confusing. I'm also expecting them to somehow work in the Triple H/Sting feud one more time. The Authority beats both men down before the match starts, but Daniel Bryan does the Dolph Ziggler and says to start the match when he can barely stand. It's hard to judge a match like this, but everyone involved does their job well. The Authority basically beats the shit out of Daniel Bryan. Reigns tries to save him, but gets a KO punch for his troubles. At one point it looks like they're going to put Bryan through the announce table, but Ryback, Rowan and Ziggler all come rushing down to make the save. The two groups brawl a bit, before Ziggler goes kamikaze and takes out everyone, leaving only the New stooges in the ring with Bryan. He takes turns kicking them retarded, but Reigns surprise tags himself in and hits the spear for the win.

Daniel isn't happy about Roman's actions, and it begins an argument.  Bryan shoves Reigns, Reigns spears Bryan, the crowd boos the shit out of Reigns. Tale as old as time really. We get a shot of Stephanie and Triple H looking really happy about it, before cutting back to the ring to end the show.

So... did it suck? Not this week. In fact, I was more than pleased with this show. For the first time since the Royal Rumble, I feel like WWE is back on a good track. They've got the writers being smart and writing him action movie one liners instead of giving him a script that makes him sound like Samoan John Cena. There was a lot of wrestling and action on this show with almost no bad matches. The segments were mostly entertaining as well. It moved everything toward Wrestlemania, gave us some good tension between Bryan and Reigns, and best of all the Authority was gloriously scarce from this episode. I'm actually having trouble of thinking of complaints. I guess the only one I really have is that they're dragging out the Mizdow/Miz angle way too long. I assume Damien will turn on Miz at Fastlane, but I thought that at the Rumble, so shows how useful my crystal ball is. Otherwise, very few complaints this week.

MVP: This was a hard one, but I have to go with Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns. Their storyline progression was natural, subtle, and simple. It built tension well without being ridiculously overbooked, and helped headline a great show.

Worst in Show: Once again it is the announce team. I didn't talk about it much, but even on a good show like this they're horrible. They weren't as bad this week, but that's like saying that piece of dog shit doesn't smell as bad this week. Vince, I am begging you to fire the announce team. Shit, even a no talent rube like me would be better for your show than the circus you have now.

Thank you for indulging in another week of my ranting. The podcast version of Did Raw Suck should be up soon, and remember that this week I begin my critical review of the Bible. Don't miss it!

Did Raw Suck This Week: The Podcast! Episode 1

 Did Raw Suck This Week: The Podcast: The Link

There it is folks! The first ever episode of Did Raw Suck This Week: The Podcast. Enjoy, and let us know what you think!

Did Raw Suck This Week? 2/2/15

Greetings ladies and gentlemen! Last week God showed us all how much he hated the end of the Royal Rumble by cancelling Raw. He's letting it go this week, but I still don't think he's happy about it. He's been sore at McMahon ever since Vince buried him in their feud. It's a whole thing now. It's probably going to take Triple H to get God to be in the Hall of fame at this point. 

We open with a replay of the Royal Rumble of DOOM that killed the internet, with a voice over of Triple H talking about the supposed controversy around the Rumble. His announcement will shake us to our core I guess. He's assuming we care way more than we do. Opening music, and it looks like we're starting with Triple H and his filthy, New England Patriots loving wife. The roster is gathered backstage to watch, because they're failures who can't grab brass rings, so they're not allowed out front.

They start talking about the Superbowl for some reason, which gets heel heat, but they don't need cheap heat at this point. They're trying to bend it back around to relate to the controversy of the Royal Rumble. Stephanie says that the Patriots are the champions because that's what's best for business. I'm not sure that's how football works Steph. You know not all sports are predetermined, right? They try to get meta and it doesn't work at all. Apparently they've been reading social media, and understand that we're outraged. They then replay the end of the match. I guess Triple H thinks the controversy is the Rock coming out. Trips then spend five minutes putting over a retired wrestler before saying he had no business getting involved. Triple H takes the blame, because he let Sting get away with the same thing. Oh fuck, his announcement is going to be a match with him and Sting, isn't it? I hate life.

Yup. He's calling Sting out at Fast Lane. I wish this wasn't true, but it is. I hate wrestling now. The crowd chants that they want Sting, as if they hadn't seen the last four years of TNA. They pimp the Network here, which is absolutely stupid. It's making it so that advertising the network is a heel move. Only in wrestling can trying to better your business be seen as evil. Trips brings us back to the point, and his wife asks what if the Rock didn't come out. Who cares? Can we stop reliving the Rumble please? It's making me nautious. Stephanie is interrupted by Roman's music, and this crowd doesn't seem to hate him as much as they're supposed to. Stupid marks! We hate Roman now because... because... something about him winning a predetermined match he was told to win. Get with the program!

Roman looks pissed and stands face to face with Triple H. He's mad that Triple H is taking his win away. Him and Trips get in each others faces while Stephanie tries to separate them. It seems here like she's scared for her husband, which is the best thing I've seen her do in years. She goes over the legacy of Roman's family, telling him she understands. She says the family he loves is the reason he doesn't deserve to main event Wrestlemania. We are then treated to Daniel Bryan, which is odd but I'll allow it. Daniel Bryan with his beard and his hair pulled back looks like every stoner high school art teacher ever.

Bryan says the real controversy is Triple H stripping him of the championship, and never giving him a rematch. Bryan officially demands his shot at the title. Triple H tells Daniel Bryan that he had no choice but to strip him of the title. He says Bryan does deserve a rematch, and they would have given it to him, but he was cocky and threw himself into the rumble. Another interruption and this time it's Seth Rollins, who gets some nice heat from the crowd. WWE must have been reading my columns because they cut to commercial to give us a break from this segment, which really could have taken ten minutes.

Commercial note: The Spongebob movie looks like an evil abomination unto God. This is coming from someone who liked Spongebob back in the day, that movie looks like it is going to be atrocious.

 Back from break, and Rollins says this is getting ridiculous. I agree. Why in the hell is this opening segment going over twenty minutes? Seth says Brock would eat Daniel Bryan alive. He then says Roman wouldn't have won the Rumble if not for the Rock, so he doesn't deserve it either. It's clear that Seth is the one who deserves this shot. Seriously, this could have been a ten minute segment. Seth reminds us that he kicked the shit out of Lesnar, and even if this segment is long and dragging, Seth Rollins is awesome.

Triple H cuts in and says he had an another announcement to make. He says tonight Bryan will take on Seth Rollins. The winner faces Roman Reigns for a shot at the title at Wrestlemania. Roman isn't interested at first, but everyone talks needlessly for a little longer. Roman eventually accepts, and it looks like the crowd is at least sort of back on his side. This is definitely a better way to shove Bryan back into the title match than last year's ham handed fiasco. The segment was fifteen minutes too long, and I still don't like that they're giving in, but I'll rant about that later. Big Show comes down to the ring to fight Roman Reigns, and we go to commercial.

The match between Show and Roman is mediocre, but it doesn't last long. It does do a good job of making Reigns look strong though. It ends when Big Show choke slams Roman Reigns for the pin after some interference from Rollins. We get a backstage shot of Trip and Stephanie gloating about how easy the whole thing was. This is stupid as hell. Is the point of Raw now to get Triple H and his husband over? The plan is for Seth to win it all I guess. They plug Triple H's appearance on Stone Cold's podcast before a commercial.

Back from break and Curtis Axel comes out with a mic. He says he was never eliminated from the Rumble, which is true. He says he would have won if not for being sucker punched, which isn't true at all. Axel says he wants justice like he just decided to become Batman. He points at the Wrestlemania sign to zero reaction. Dean Ambrose comes out, and he doesn't look too happy. We don't get any explanation. He just attacks Curtis Axel, which is fine by me. He throws him over the top rope, and says that now he's eliminated. Dean then says he has a demand of his own. He wants and intercontinental title shot. Curtis Axel then attacks him. Dean easily takes the upperhand and hits him with Dirty Deeds before his music plays.

We get a shot of the announcer's table, and Michael Cole tells us about WWE honoring black history month, which is an absolute joke to me. Anyone at all remember Cryme Tyme? Or maybe how we keep advertising an old segment where our top face stable came out in black face? Anyway, I guess for black history month they're honoring Ernie Ladd. What a racial trailblazer you are Vince. Now how about you give a black member of your roster a legitimate push? No? Ok, well I figured I would try.

Back from break and the Ascension are in the ring already, as are their opponents, Gold and Stardust. The match is well paced and fun, but of course JBL spends the match burying the Ascension. At least Booker actually steps in to defend them this time... kind of. The match ends quickly when they hit the Fall of Man. After the match, Stardust berates Goldust for losing, and walks to the back alone.We get a preview of a welcome back for Rowan, Ziggler and Ryback before we cut to another commercial. At this point some of the commercial breaks have been longer than some segments.

Commercial note: The Danny Trejo commercial for Snickers is one of the best things I have seen on TV in forever.

Back from break and Stardust is pacing backstage. Goldust runs up to him and can't get his attention so he calls him Cody. Stardust warns him never to do that again and leaves. Back to ringside, and Dr. John Cena is out to diagnose us all with a serious lack of thuganomics. Cena looks like he has a nasty case of pink eye. Never let the hooker sit on your face John. Never. Cena gets himself a cheap pop before plugging Triple H's Stone Cold podcast appearance. Once he's done with that, he says that he takes offense to Triple H saying John Cena is the past last week on Smackdown. He says Triple H has rebranded NXT and filled it wiht guys who could come up and take Cena's spot. He says Triple H's WWE is a WWE without John Cena... well then I love Triple H.

John says Triple H is afraid to fire him. He also says Triple H doesn't care about us. He then goes over all the obstacles put in his path in the last year, which honestly pales in comparison to the obstacles that are usually thrown in his path in a given year. Cena says he'll never give up because he loves history making moments like when Sting came out two weeks ago. Show us the clip Johnny!

Cena thanks Sting before welcoming Rowan Ryback and Ziggler back to the WWE. They come down to the ring, and Cena says these men are proof he can beat the Authority. He also says at Fast Lane he will prove Rusev can be beat. Stephanie interrupts from the Titantron, and then Ziggler interrupts her. He asks if she ever gets tired of fucking with them and watching them overcome obstacles. Steph says none of them have overcome anything, everyone has fought their battles for them. She says that's going to change when Dolph faces Bray Wyatt tonight. She then gives Rowan a match with Rusev, and Ryback has a match next against Luke Harper.

The Ryback/Harper match isn't as slow or sloppy as you would think. In fact they put together a really solid brawl. They tell a good story and there's some pretty decent drama. I am quite impressed by both men here. It ends when Ryback hits the Shell Shock for the pin.

We come back from break to the flying Uso twins doing their Samoan dance. Seriously WWE, get them some fire dancers or something. When your production values are less than TNA is willing to spend to promote Samoa Joe, you have a problem.

Turns out Uso #1 is facing Cesaro. At least it's not Miz or Mizdow. The match is decent, but I expected more from these two. Maybe it was all the distractions on the outside with Tyson and Nattie as well as Naomi and Uso #2, but the match seems like it's missing something. It's not bad, it's just not as good as I wanted. It ends when Jimmy Uso goes for a splash, but Cesaro jumps up and hits him with a huge European uppercut for the pin. After the match, Tyson takes a cheap shot at Uso #2 and scampers up the ramp with Cesaro and Natalya.

Another shot of the horrible announce table pimping the fact that the WWE network is free in February. That doesn't reek of desperation at all. After another commercial break we see Damien Mizdow at the food table making something for a fussy Miz. One of the stage hands asks for an autograph. The Miz shoes him away, but the fan says he meant from Damien Mizdow. Miz doesn't like this at all. Miz cuts a promo on Mizdow, while Mizdow mimes along, which is a whole new level of meta wrestling comedy. Miz says he gave Mizdow his purpose, and now he's throwing it away. He berates him quite a bit before firing him. He then says he's giving Mizdow a new job, his personal assistant.

We then cut to Cena in the locker room who is quickly joined by Erick Rowan. Rowan says he's always been an outcast and he wants to thank Cena for standing up for him. He says his time away changed him, and thanks Cena again. He says he's going to return the favor by beating the shit out of Rusev for him. We go to ringside and Ziggler is coming down for his match with Bray Wyatt.

We come back an we get a shot of Stone Cold getting prepping for the podcast. Back to the ring and down comes Bray Wyatt. I haven't seen an awesome creepy entrance like his since the Undertaker's. This guy really could be the next Taker. He's so good. Of course Michael Cole can't just shut up and let his entrance speak, he has to talk over the whole damn thing. I would honestly replace the entire announce team with brand new people at this point. If I had to choose three it would be Renee Young, and then I would rehire Josh Matthews and Matt Stryker. Look WWE, I just fixed half your fucking problem!

The match is great. Instead of robotically hitting move after move, they focus a lot more on story and character, which has become a hallmark of Bray Wyatt's matches. With Dolph's selling and Bray's storytelling, I could probably watch these two fight as much as we watched Wyatt and Ambrose. WWE seems to agree with me, and gives them plenty of time. If this isn't two men grabbing the brass ring, I don't know what is. The crowd is loving this match. It ends when Bray Wyatt hits Sister Abigail for the win. Fantastic match that both men should be proud of. I hope Vince is actually paying attention here. This is your future.

Another shot of the announce table, and the throw it to a replay of the opening segment. We then get Stephanie, Triple H and Seth Rollins backstage. They plug Stephanie's workout DVD, before they assure Seth that they know Seth will beat Daniel Bryan tonight. They take a second to bury Randy Orton for no reason, before Seth Rollins says he plans to take this opportunity to prove how ball rockingly awesome he is. Commercial time!

Commercial note: Fuck you Marie Osmond! You don't judge me for being fat! You're a little bit Nutrisystem, I'm a little bit clear out the fucking buffet!

Replay of the Bella Mannequins and Paige being catty bitches last week before Paige got the crap knocked out of her. Back to ringside and the mannequins themselves are at the announce table... yippee. Looks like the match will be Paige versus Alicia Fox. If I didn't have to review this, I would be pretending to use the bathroom right now so I didn't have to sit through this. The commentary here is unbearable. The Bellas are terrible, the announcers are terrible, it's just bad all around. The match isn't much better. I mean, it's better than I expected, but that's a low bar to jump over. It ends mercifully when Paige pins Alicia with a surprise roll up. Alicia attacks her after the match as the Bellas stand there looking not at all wooden or emotionless. They spray paint her stomach before leaving. How... diabolical? The announcers talk about Fast Lane a bit before mentioning the main event and sending us to commercial.

Back from commercial, and we get a segment hyping the Miz's appearance on Sirens. It's cool to get a backstage look, but this is proof Raw shouldn't be three hours long. We don't need filler pieces like this advertising an appearance that we've already seen advertised several times. Back to ringside and out comes the Miz followed by his personal assistant, Damien Mizdow, who still tries to do his stunt double gimmick. this make Miz mad, and he shouts down Mizdow.

Looks like his match will be with Sin Cara. The match is decent, but it's secondary to Mizdow being hilarious trying not to do his stunt double thing. Miz is actually good here yelling at Sandow. Lines like "They are nothing, I am everything" give me hope for his future. Mizdow can't help himself and gets on the apron, distratcing Miz and letting Sin Cara roll him up for the win. Miz yells at Mizdow, but we don't get to see much of it before we cut to a creepy Bray Wyatt promo. He does his thing awesomely for a little bit, but says almost nothing before we go to commercial.

Commercial note: USA is having an NCIS marathon on Wednesday. No. No... fuck you I'm not doing it. Absolutely not. Big old steaming pile of nope and go fuck yourself.

Back from break and Rusev is on his way down to the ring with Lana in tow. Erick Rowan comes down next looking all creepy in his sheep mask. Rusev beats the ever loving crap out of Rowan before the match even starts. In fact, he beats him up so bad that the match never happens. Lana grabs the mic and invites us all to a movie premier. It's not a happy film though. It's really just a clip reel of Rusev killing people. Still better and more accurate than American Sniper. After the movie is done Rusev shouts a bunch of gibberish. The flag is supposed to come down, but it gets caught in the mechanism I guess. If that was planned it was stupid, if it wasn't then Rusev and Lana do a great job covering.

Next we get a shot of Daniel Bryan talking to Roman Reigns backstage. They talk a little back and forth, Daniel Bryan basically letting him know he plans on fighting him at Fast Lane. It's a typical "I'm gonna win. No, I'm gonna win." segment, but both men do a good job.

We go back to ringside where Seth Rollins is on his way down for the main event. After a short commercial break, Daniel Bryan comes down and we get a replay of him locking Kane in a casket to further his career last week. Wrestling is weird when you really look at it. Anyway, the match is great with some interesting spots and a very nice flow. It ends when Reigns comes down and punches Seth, leading to a flying knee from Bryan and the pin. We cut to a shot of Triple H backstage, and he seems nonplussed. He tells Renee Young that he'll talk about it on the podcast.

Michael Cole gets into the ring, congratulates Daniel, and then wisely hands him the microphone. Bryan cuts a promo thanking the fans and promising to beat Roman Reigns and main event Wrestlemania. We fade out with everyone chanting Yes, kind of like we should have at the end of the Royal Rumble.

So... did it suck? Nope, not this week. It looked like it was going that way though. The first hour was a half hour opening segment that should have taken ten minutes, followed by them jamming a bunch of shit in before they got their pacing back. The last two hours were well worth watching. Two truly fantastic TV matches, some well forwarded feuds, and at the end the fans got what they wanted. I do have one complaint, and that's that I don't like that WWE gave in to the fans again. Don't get me wrong, I love that Daniel Bryan is getting what he deserves, but this sets a dangerous precedent for WWE. I wonder how long it will take Vince to realize he just gave the fans complete control of the show, which they will gladly exercise. Other than that it was one hell of a show that got me pumped for Fast Lane.

MVP: This was a tough one. A number of people did amazing jobs this week, but I have to give it to Luke Harper and Ryback. They really stepped up and impressed me this week, delivering a great brawl and showing us that they can have a match without botching half the moves. Maybe it was a fluke, but I expect more out of both of them going forward.

Worst in show: The Bella Mannequins. They were horrible on the announce table, and their post match nonsense just seemed poorly thought out and awfully executed. I really don't get what spray painting Paige with easily washable paint was supposed to do, but I guess it worked for the NWO.

That's it for this week... or is it? I smell an announcement coming! That's right, I have decided that not only will "Did Raw Suck?" be a weekly column, but it will now also be a weekly podcast. Expect that up either later today or very early tomorrow. That's it for now kids. Remember, I am a trained professional. Do not attempt to review Raw on your own without proper training. You could injure yourself or others. See you next time!