Read on for my thoughts on last night's Raw.
Starting the show with New Day instead of The Authority, Reigns, or Sheamus is a good step in the right direction. I think Reigns and Sheamus need to be important characters and all, given their feud for the WWE Title, but it's good to shake things up with other acts getting spotlight.
Fun opening segment so far. New Day is pretty much always enjoyable.
Putting New Day with Sheamus is interesting. It could backfire if they're not careful.
Good stuff with Sheamus and New Day sticking it to Reigns. I can get behind this.
Sheamus' celebration was pretty fun overall. I KIND OF wish that one comment was leading to Sheamus vs. Austin, but Stone Cold's remaining retired.
Reigns mad.
The Usos, Reigns, and Ambrose vs. Sheamus/New Day could be a pretty good main event.
I'm not crazy about that stipulation match being made. If I was HHH or Stephanie, I'd threaten to charge Reigns with stealing property or tell him he won't get the title match at TLC if he doesn't give up the title. Save Reigns vs. Sheamus for the PPV.
- Breeze vs. Ziggler:
Ziggler's wrestling skills are impressive.
Breeze definitely reminds me of a younger Ziggler. It's uncanny.
This is going pretty well so far. Breeze can mostly hold his own on the main roster.
This is impressive chain wrestling!
Good match on the whole. In some ways it was too early to beat Breeze clean again, but maybe the followup will be important.
Very uneventful return for Lana. She should have been a surprise on MizTV.
So, is Lana still heel? That's kind of underwhelming. Rusev's promo was funny, though.
They could have done more with Lana feuding with Rusev...
Ryback's kind of boring and generic as a character, but I guess that's kind of his appeal. He's just a big dude with muscles.
- Rusev vs. Ryback:
That was kind of a waste overall. Rusev used to be unstoppable!!
Interesting tease with Ambrose backstage. I hope they don't do something ridiculous like Ambrose getting Sheamus DQ'd so they both keep their title matches. I think that would turn fans off.
Intense stuff from the Dudleys. I'm glad they got their butts kicked so this feud means something.
I missed D-Von's commandments.
OH SHIT E-C-DUB E-C-DUB E-C-DUB.
I wonder what kind of hardcore match they can do at TLC. Extreme Rules where things end when someone goes through a table? That would let them use kendo sticks and the like.
- Dudleys/Dreamer vs. Harper/Strowman/Rowan:
Should they have saved this for TLC?
Giving away some action to set up a bigger match is good.
Dreamer's about to be sacrificed.
Nice tables segment overall.
I love Zeb Colter. So much.
I'm glad Goldust is back contributing. He still has gas in the tank. Before the injury, he was doing some of the best work of his career from a wrestling standpoint.
- Goldust vs. Del Rio:
Good match for what it was. I think these two could tear it up if they were given the time to do so.
Dude, Del Rio could destroy Swagger. Zeb should have been the one telling Del Rio to back down and wait for another day. Instead, ADR looks kind of cowardly.
Charlotte vs. Becky is a little out of nowhere, but I'm sure it will be a good match.
Flair's going to be woooing until he's 80, I think.
- Dragons vs. Usos:
Pretty impressive athleticism here, although they need to be careful to make sure the match means something. Those tag titles should really be worth fighting for.
The ending was somewhat obvious to those who have watched wrestling for a while, but it was still clever from New Day. If there was a face authority figure to force them to wrestle both teams in a triple threat (I miss Teddy Long), that would be what to do here. Otunga would be a good choice to do that, but I think they might want to keep him in a smaller role in case they're not planning on renewing his contract.
Decent backstage segment with Stephanie, although I'd think the heel would side with New Day after they buddied up with Sheamus earlier.
- Sasha vs. Brie:
Good match so far. It's good to see Sasha's personality on display.
Chaos at ringside. Good.
Quite the solid match! I definitely think Sasha's right where she needs to be. She'd be my pick to be the next Divas' Champion. Just not quite yet.
- Roman vs. Sheamus:
Smart for Sheamus to pretty much run the clock down with rest holds and keeping Reigns outside the ring. He doesn't even need to win this match. He just needs to survive.
I kind of like there being a heel faction for Reigns to have to fight against, although I think I would have preferred the (also cliche) ending of Ambrose and the Usos getting Sheamus inadvertently DQ'd.
I don't dislike the League of Nations. The name is kind of goofy, but I'm fine with there being a heel faction. They could add the Canadian IC Champion, too, although that could be one person too many and Owens doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd be in factions.
Decent post-match overall.
- Charlotte vs. Becky:
Good match so far. These two can clearly wrestle in a technical sense.
Charlotte is really impressive.
So, I like Becky, but I think she should have spent more time in NXT. I understand they wanted her to fill a slot so to speak, but she's still got some improving to do.
I'm not a fan of Charlotte doing the Dirtiest Player shtick. She's good enough to not need to copy her dad's gimmick.
Decent post-match. Why in the world are they making Charlotte heelish?
They could add Owens to League of Nations in the main event. We'll see.
Changing Charlotte's character right after getting her sympathy with the crazy Paige angle is really foolish.
Not that great of a segment by Rose. Either bring back the creepy Bunny or totally go back to the drawing board.
The Stardust/Titus stuff is silly, but that's pretty much the point. I think they could recreate the fun of Bookdust if they wanted with those two.
I have no idea where Titus learned to bark like that, but it's pretty over.
Are they really adding New Day to League of Nations? It's already jumped the shark. Just have them affiliated.
- Reigns/Ambrose/Usos vs. League of Nations:
Hilarious for the Usos and Reigns to do New Day's kicks.
Enjoyable match so far, even with 11 participants.
Pretty fun match. I hope Jimmy's not actually hurt.
The New Day rhythm could be the most over thing of 2015. Is it the new "Yes" or "What?"
Ambrose vs. Sheamus could be a good program to do.
Good match as a whole. I'm glad the faces didn't beat the odds.
Nice post-match to get heat on the new super-faction. I wonder how long it will last.
You should find this interesting. Some good points here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wrestlezone.com/news/648019-forbes-on-why-roman-reigns-will-not-work-as-the-face-of-wwe-spud-challenges-kurt-angle-cm-punk-on-its-vs-its-video
This is one of the better opinion pieces I've seen. It could be because Forbes is a more prestigious site than the various wrestling opinion sites because they have broader credibility. The author also writes well and uses statistics to support his argument without being emotional ("Reigns sucks. Vince is an idiot." kind of stuff). That, fairly or not, makes me take his opinion better than someone on a wrestling blog.
ReplyDeleteI do have a few qualms with it, though:
- Raw's ratings being down is a more complicated issue than fans not being into Reigns vs. Sheamus. I think a lot of it is tied into how much wrestling is available now. When fans can watch literally thousands of hours of wrestling on the Network and it's more accessible to watch other promotions than WWE than the days when people were trading bootleg tapes, it's going to be a really uphill battle to keep viewers every week. And fans are going to video games and other forms of entertainment.
- Ratings don't "prove" anything. They can support a theory, but theories by nature are unprovable. It'd be better if they had access to quarter-hour ratings to see if fans are changing the channel when Reigns is on the show and that kind of thing. "Prove" is a very strong word, especially when they're not really doing any kind of experiment on the matter.
- Absolutely Reigns should be working against people more talented than he is given his relative inexperience. That's how he'll get better.
- Ideally, Reigns won't be calling the shots much. He should be working with more experienced performers to guide him along. That's true for pretty much anyone without much experience on the main roster in WWE.
- A lot of top names are predictable and rely on big moves. I think that's true for a lot of media: Michael Bay movies rely on predictable stories with big explosions, but they make a LOT of money. Using those signature moves provokes a response in the crowd, which is his job. Rock had big moves he used in that manner. So did Hogan. Etc.
- Reigns definitely needs work on his promos. I won't argue there.
- Wrestlers need catchphrases. Roman Empire is kind of forced, though.
- I do think the main issue is Reigns being pushed so hard at the expense of others. They did put him back down the card for a while, but it's obvious he's someone they want to make their next "guy."
- I'm glad he provided some of why WWE wants him in the top role. They definitely want someone to be a mainstream star more than just someone who appeals to wrestling fans. There's the old saying that Vince doesn't want to be in the wrestling business, but the sports entertainment business. He wants to be seen like someone at Disney, not the old carny wrestling promoter doing that "fake crap."