BRM Reviews the 1/18/2016 Raw (very bad)

[Big Red Machine]

This week’s Raw comes to us from Columbus, OH, home of Alexa Bliss! Will Alexa show up? BRM sure hopes so!

OPENING SEGMENT- Roman Reigns out in the opening segment… again. This time it’s different, though, because he’s actually doing something exciting: calling out Brock!
Jericho came out instead and they talked. Then the League of Nations came out and oh my G-d they look like f*cking goofballs coming out to that music and standing there in a line trying to look all muscly. They’re like a parody of pro wrestling done by someone who is enough of a fan to not make it outrageously insulting, but still clearly a parody.
HAHAHAHAHAH! I just realized that Jericho is holding a MizTV microphone!
The heels all got to talk. Sheamus (like Roman and Jericho) wasn’t very interesting. Del Rio was great. Then Rusev got to talk and he was SOOOO fantastically Rusev. He started off by shouting in Bulgarian, then calmed down a bit and switched back to English. He claimed that “in Bulgaria, every day is a rumble” and explained what he meant by this, giving examples such as claiming that in order to attend school, he had to throw other children off of the bus. Rusev is SOOO awesome. Jericho tried to dis him by saying he didn’t understand anything Rusev said, and Rusev immediately responded “you’re not very smart. That’s why.” An early candidate for Promo of the Year.

Jericho decides to join forces with Roman, bringing up the fact that Roman won his Rumble by last eliminating Rusev… and all I could think was “and Sheamus won his Rumble by last eliminating you, you idiot!” Then Jericho made a penis size joke, and Roman laughed because Roman is a teenager. Roman decides he wants to fight Rusev right now. Jericho asks the fans if they want to see it, and when they say yes, Jericho says “okay… let’s have the match!” Then he declares himself to be the special guest referee... and everyone just goes with it. Since when does Jericho have booking power?
I’d like you all to think back to last July, to that horrible, horrible moment when the Divas Revolution began. Does anyone remember what the kayfabe impetus was for Steph’s one night only babyface turn? It was the fact that Nikki Bella had claimed that she and her sister were in charge of the women’s division. This obviously metaphorical assertion caused Steph to flip a sh*t, turn babyface, and completely restructure the division just to prove that the Authority were really the ones in charge (and this isn’t me reading into Steph’s motives. She said on air that she was angry about what Nikki had said, so they were going to make some changes). Well here is Chris Jericho- a noted enemy of both Stephanie and Hunter- and who is now being all buddy-buddy with the McMahon Family’s current Public Enemy #1, Roman Reigns- and Jericho is coming out here and actually booking matches, usurping the very authority that gives The Authority its name… and Steph (or Vince) is nowhere to be found.
So now we’ve got a match that shouldn’t be happening from a kayfabe point of view, and out of universe it makes no sense to have a Special Guest Referee who will probably be biased towards the babyface. This is going to be one of those weeks, isn’t it? I think we might have peaked once Rusev said the word “bus.”

SINGLES MATCH WITH CHRIS JERICHO AS SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Roman Reigns vs. Rusev (w/the League of Nations)- 5.75/10
Jericho’s counting looked lame. It wasn’t too fast or two slow or anything... it just looked clunky and not fluid like a normal referee would.
Wade and Del Rio distract Jericho so that Sheamus can attack Roman. Jericho figures out what happened after the fact and ejects Sheamus from ringside. This infuriates Barrett, who then gets ejected from ringside himself. The same thing then happened to Del Rio, except that Jericho mocked him first, making him look like a total punk. So basically, the only thing that Jericho did a regular referee wouldn’t have done was bury the heels. Good choice booking this pointless gimmick match there, WWE!
Oh. And while all of this was happening, both Rusev and Roman were down selling the whole time, and despite the fact that Roman had been attacked most recently (by being violently run into the barricade by Sheamus, it is Roman who has the advantage when they got up, quickly hitting a Superman Punch and then a spear on Rusev for the pin. This was long and boring, and quite frankly felt like a waste of Rusev’s talents.
Oh. And apparently Roman Reign has now been added to the Highlight Reel with Brock and Heyman because I guess they felt the segment would be too good if we only had Heyman and Jericho talking.

JERICHO & STEPH BACKSTAGE- GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Well… we have our first metaphorical (and almost literal) clump of hair ripped out of BRM’s head in frustration for 2016.
Steph comes up to Jericho (who is being all smarmy about how this Raw is supposedly off to a great start because of him) and she very sternly tells him that he didn’t have the authority to book that match that just happened. Well if he didn’t have the authority to book the match, THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SOMETHING AT ANY POINT DURING THE FOURTEEN MINUTES DURING WHICH THE MATCH WAS GOING ON?!
It got worse.
Steph then said that it wasn’t cool how Jericho “made changes to an advertised promotion like the Highlight Reel,” and that doing such was not best for business. Right. Because WWE has NEVER changed matches in the middle of the show before (you know… when they actually do remember to book anything in advance. We are forty minutes into tonight’s show, and I know of ZERO match that will take place tonight).
Steph is unhappy because Jericho adding another guest to the Highlight Reel means that she needs to renegotiate things with Heyman and will need to pay Brock even more money. So do they go through this every single time they change something on the show, or is it just different with Brock because… um… because his lawyer is an on-screen character, I guess?
And now she’s putting Jericho’s idea over. What the f*ck?! And now she’s threatening him. Again… what the f*ck?!

BRIE BELLA (w/Alicia Fox) vs. NATALYA (w/Paige)- DUD!
So Nattie comes out and the first thing we here is Byron Saxton saying “she’s back!” which is the sort of thing that would mean something if anything had ever been made of her absence, but it hasn’t so this feels no different then all of those times that someone a like Jack Swagger or Mark Henry or the Colons or Summer Rae just completely disappears from TV for weeks at a time with no explanation (exactly like is currently happening to Darren Young, for example).
Nattie and Paige are friends now with no explanation. I’m almost certain they were feuding the last time Nattie was on TV. Every single woman out there right now is a former champion, but of course all anyone can talk about is Total Divas. I get that you want to promote your stupid reality show, but can we please maybe try to promote the wrestling, too?
Cole mentioned that Nattie had had an “odd” 2015. What was so odd about it? That she had to tend to her injured husband and that she also hurt her ankle. This was the first time we have been told on WWE TV that “Tyson Kidd suffered a very severe neck injury.” Why were we finally informed about this now? Because, as Michael Cole nonchalantly continued, “that’s covered on this season of Total Divas.”
Yup. Tyson Kidd ALMOST F*CKING DIES in a WWE ring… and it’s not important enough to mention unless they can use it to plug their f*cking reality show!
The match went about a minute because this is the Era of the Female Athlete (except when it’s time to promote Total Divas because we’ve got to have our priorities straight). The big spot saw Brie kicking Nattie right in the collarbone multiple times I was extremely disappointed that the match ended soon after when Nattie ducked the last kicked, rolled Brie up and quickly locked in the Sharpshooter because I really wanted to see Nattie give Brie a receipt.

THE WYATT FAMILY (w/Braun Strowman) vs. THE DUDLEY BOYS & RYBACK- 4.25/10
WHY THE F*CK IS THIS FEUD STILL HAPPENING?!
The Wyatts still have to do their screen effect even when they’re just entering normally instead of using their magic, and even when their entrance is completely expected because we were just told that this would be happening right before the commercial break.
And can we please get rid of the z in “Boyz” now because it’s 2016 and not 2000 and that’s not cool anymore?
Bubba put Harper through a table to win their Tables Match on Smackdown, so Harper gets to pin Bubba tonight because both guys need to win… which means that in the long term, no one wins! HOORAY FOR CREATIVE!

The next thing we got after that match was a graphic hyping up the Highlight but there were audio problems so there was no sound, and when the sound finally came back on, Michael Cole “will the apocalypse be here this Sunday?” I did not know that was something I was supposed to be worried about right now.

HEATH SLATER PROMO- he claimed that “Social Outcasts” would be trending worldwide tonight. To anyone who was actually going to Tweet that, I implore, for the good of these four men’s careers and for their mental health: please stop. You are all enablers.
So WWE apparently went through the effort to make a Social Outcasts t-shirt, which I imagine might actually turn out to be a big hit in the Dallas, Slater, Axel, and Rose households. These f*ckers will probably be giving out the millions of unsold t-shirts as presents for all occasions for years to come!
For some inexplicable reason, the rest of Los Shat-adores got to speak as well. Rose said… something. I honestly couldn’t understand him. Axel buried him for this. Then he reminded everyone that he wasn’t eliminated from the 2015 Royal Rumble because that joke totally didn’t stop being funny by the end of January 2015, so of course WWE is still telling it here in the middle of January 2016.
Bo was about to speak, but we were saved from this by Slater snatching the mic from him and saying that he was about to “eliminate” the Big Show. Big Show showed us how much a professional he is by managing to not burst out laughing.

BIG SHOW vs. HEATH SLATER (w/the Social Outcasts)- DUD!
JBL brought up the fact that Big Show won the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royale at WrestleMania last year… which is probably the first time that this fact has been mentioned since April, which shows you just how important this accomplishment must be.
This was a completely pointless squash. After the match, the other members of Meh-volution tried to attack the Big Show, but he took each member of the Loser-os del Mal out one by one.

STEPH ATTENDS A MEETING OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS (sans Rusev)- Steph showed up to give them a pep talk and subtly encourage them to go beat Jericho up. There was no explanation for why Rusev wasn’t here.

Oh my G-d the show isn’t even half over?! :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :(( :((

VINCE & STEPH DETERMINE WHO WILL BE #1 FOR THE ROYAL RUMBLE- but of course, first they have to talk about who might win the Rumble and what it takes to win, etc. etc. Now they’re talking up how Vince once won the Rumble, because that’s something we want to remind fans of. What’s next? Is entrant #1 going to be Katie Vick?
Of course, #1 was Roman Reigns and of course it was rigged and Vince was pretty great here with his assuring us that this was absolutely 100% on the up and up, except… that they did the same thing over again. I think this would have been a lot better if they had just straight out had the McMahons admit that every single ball in there said “Roman Reigns” and Roman is going to have to enter at #1 because they’re the McMahons and they can do that because they own the WWE.

BECKY LYNCH vs. TAMINA (w/Naomi)- 3/10, but a cool finish.
Ric and Charlotte Flair were at ringside but thankfully not on commentary. Team B.A.D. has new music instead of just using Naomi’s or Sasha’s.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Becky cuts a promo demanding an answer about a title match at the Rumble. Surprisingly Charlotte, a heel, does not give in to Becky’s reasoning that she should totally give her a title because the fans want it. Becky then cut a promo on Ric turning his “wheelin’ dealin’ kiss-stealin’” rhyming catchphrase into an insult which started off lame, but I popped huge when she got to “scenery-chewin’.” Becky then managed to simultaneously goad BOTH Flair’s in different ways with the same comment, which I thought was totally awesome. So we’ll have a title match at the Royal Rumble.
While I did really like what they did here, if it was me, I think I would have had Charlotte pay Becky back by jumping her during her entrance and beat the sh*t out of her to the point where they have to send security out to stop her and send medical personnel to treat Becky, and as Becky is being helped to the back, have Charlotte say that Becky have a title match at the Rumble if she wants it… assuming she can actually make it to the Rumble. Then, after the commercial, you have Becky cut a big babyface promo from the trainer’s room saying that nothing Charlotte can do will stop her from making it to the Rumble (and you can also have Charlotte attack Becky on Smackdown to injure her even more before the PPV).

Advertised for Smackdown is a MizTV with Ambrose & Owens, and Roman Reigns vs. the entire League of Nations in a handicap match. Yeah… I think I’ll be skipping this one.

DEAN AMBROSE & KALISTO vs. SHEAMUS & ALBERTO DEL RIO (w/Wade Barrett)- 6.5/10
Holy crap it’s something actually worth watching on this show!
Kevin Owens is on commentary. Rusev is once again missing with no explanation. Maybe Roman’s spear caught him in a bad spot and he’s been puking his guts out or perhaps sitting on the toilet leaking blood from his digestive system all night.
If you don’t think big guy vs. little guy inherently works, I was going absolutely nuts for Kalisto’s comeback on Sheamus.

NEW DAY ARE HAVING A FUNERAL FOR XAVIER’S TROMBONE- surprisingly not bad. And even more surprisingly, it only went two minutes. Still… I thought it was a waste of time. We didn’t even get any puns during Big E.’s eulogy! LAME!


Crap. Here is my most-dreaded Royal Rumble “by the numbers package.”
It actually started off pretty well (although buttering me up by having the very second fact be that Kane holds the record for most eliminations all-time). Then they got to the part where they said “we’ve never seen anything like this” referring to the WWE Title being on the line in the Royal Rumble at which point I, in a house full of people, was compelled to angrily shout “EXCEPT FOR 1992!” at the top of my lungs. Yes, I know there is a technical difference between someone defending the title and the vacant title being in the line, but for all practical purposes, there isn’t. It’s thirty guys in a Royal Rumble and the winner walks out as the world champion. And even if you want to say that there is a difference because the title is not vacant, you can’t defend the very next line, which was that “suddenly the numbers mean more than ever before” because in either the case of this year or 1992, the prize on the line is the same so the numbers should mean exactly the same as they did in that match. No less, and certainly no more.
This also really just hammered home the idea that this year’s Rumble is all about Roman, which means he is either winning, or he is lasting until the final two and getting screwed, which will really take the excitement out of the Rumble. If WWE REALLY wanted to shock us, they’d screw Roman right in the beginning and then we will have one hell of an exciting Rumble.

JEY USO (w/Jimmy Uso) vs. BIG E. (w/Xavier Woods)- 6/10
The announcers had this whole nice story about how when Jey Uso was injured and rehabbing, every day his brother would send him a picture of the tag titles and say “THIS is what you’re fighting to come back for!” and this is the sort of thing that would have been really cool to have the Usos talk about in a promo before the big tag team title match they had at the PPV last month.
The match was fine, but the babyface challenger getting pinned on his way to the title match is not good. I would have much rather them claimed that New Day refused to wrestle tonight because they were in mourning for the trombone and have them do their thing in that promo while giving the Usos a win over Los Matadores and Tons of F*cked.

MARK HENRY, R-TRUTH, TITUS O’NEIL & NEVILLE BACKSTAGE- today, when Americans gather to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, WWE shows the world how much respect they have for Dr. King by using the most famous line of his most famous speech as comedy fodder on their wrestling show.
Side note: now that I really think about it, Dr. King’s “I have a dream” has got to be up there among the five most famous quotes spoken by any American (not including song lyrics) in the 20th Century. The only things I can think of that are up there with it are Roosevelt’s “day that will live in infamy,” Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” and maybe Kennedy and Reagan’s big speeches in Berlin.

R-TRUTH, MARK HENRY, TITUS O’NEIL, & NEVILLE vs. TYLER BREEZE & THE COSMIC WASTELAND- 4/10
“Tyler Breeze & the Cosmic Wasteland” would be an awesome name for a band!
If you want to know how little Vince thinks of Tyler Breeze, Tyler was the one who took the pin on a team consisting of himself, Stardust, and the Ascension.
Can we please go a week without someone telling us that “Neville is so fun to watch!”? Of course we can’t. Because that would indicate that WWE realizes how poorly their branding and catchphrases are received by their audience and how much they fail to get the wrestlers over.

CHRIS JERICHO’S HIGHLIGHT REEL WITH SPECIAL GUESTS BROCK LESNAR, PAUL HEYMAN, & ROMAN REIGNS- bad.
Jericho wasted time setting sh*t up, so I popped when Heyman came out and interrupted him. This was really boring for a long time with Heyman and Jericho talking at each other. Yes, really. A promo segment between Paul Heyman and Chris Jericho was boring.
Then Brock Lesnar came out. Then Roman Reigns came out before Brock had even made it to the ring. Roman immediately speared Brock and started to beat him up, which I was totally fine with because it didn’t feel like Super(Ro)man so much as it felt like what it should have felt like (and exactly what Michael Cole told us it was): Roman getting revenge on Brock for last week.
Then the League of Nation came out (again without Rusev, so I guess Bulgaria has withdrawn from the alliance and joined NATO instead) and beat Roman up. Brock then decided to fight the League because… well… he’s Brock, and they were there. Brock beat them up, but then got speared by Roman again.
Then the Wyatts magicked themselves to ringside because using your feet to move is for people whose gimmicks don’t suck balls. Roman landed big punches on Rowan and Strowman, but then got beaten up single-handedly by Harper and given a Sister Abigail by Wyatt.
Then Brock got up and the Wyatts all beat him up, too.

An absolutely terrible show from WWE. Creative really phoned it in tonight, and it showed. It really felt like this show was being booked live on the fly. They had an idea for an opening segment and for a main event segment but had no idea what to do in between, so as soon they thought of a match they would tell us it was “up next” and then, after a commercial, we’d get that match and then be told about the next match was “up next” until they hit the main event.

This has got to be the worst Raw of 2016 so far, and they couldn't even give me any Alexa Bliss! to make up for it. They had really better step it up for the Road to WrestleMania.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. JBL claimed that “in his debut Royal Rumble, Rusev eliminated half a dozen people,” which is a statement that would be true if WWE hadn’t completely pointlessly brought him up in the 2014 Rumble for no other purpose to than make it that much less exciting when they brought him up to the main roster for real a few months later.

2. JBL asked “how are you going to get the giant over the top rope?” like no one has ever eliminated a large dude from a battle royale before.

[XIV]

The matches were in a terrible order. You basically had the 8-man tag with The Ascension as Steph's "planned" main event.

Owens was great in commentary telling Byron Saxton to just shut up constantly and consistently absolutely burying him as the terrible announcer we all know he is.

I love Charlotte. That's all for that part.

I loved the RAW finish though, because Reigns and Lesnar were eventually destroyed and it did make the Wyatt Family look strong heading into the Rumble (until one of them goes through a table on Smackdown courtesy of the Dudleys.

Michael Cole didn't raise his game again which meant he went back to the robotic WWE network plugging bore he was a few weeks ago.

The show was flat and just didn't have that high point which made me think "I want to see the rumble so bad" because it still left me thinking that it will be Roman, Lesnar or Triple H to win the title at the Rumble.

[cero2k]

this could have been one of your longest reviews of RAW if not the longest.

I'm already dreading Lesnar vs Wyatt at WM

[Big Red Machine]

this could have been one of your longest reviews of RAW if not the longest.

I'm sure it's up there. Maybe the one where Sheamus stole Del Rio's car is longer.