BRM Reviews (most of) the 3/7/2016 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- great
Big pop for Shane to open the show. He cuts a great promo. Then Taker’s dong is heard, but it’s just Vince trolling us. The crowd responds by trolling him with CM Punk chants… and Vince taunts them for stopping, and they didn’t start up again. I guess Vince won that one.
Vince claims he “found” a photograph of his and a young Shane in his desk, and I figured it was like a regular 4x6 picture… but no, apparently Vince’s desk drawers are big enough to lose a large, framed picture. Vince stomps on the picture, which got great heat. Then he talks about how Shane’s sons will have to watch him get stretchered out at Mania and Vince will be there to comfort them and tell them that he will be their father figure instead. This was all pretty good stuff.
Then Vince sends security to remove Shane from the building. Shane says he’ll go on his own, but warns them not to touch him. Vince orders them to get Shane out, so they try and Shane gets to hit a bunch of really bad-looking punches and knees for a big pop. I was disappointed that he didn’t do the Shane Shuffle.

Don’t we have a tag title match tonight with AJ STYLES AND CHRIS JERICHO teaming up to challenge for the belts? Shouldn’t that have been plugged at the top of the show? Or at the very least right now?

KEVIN OWENS vs. NEVILLE- 6.75/10
Cole and Saxton talk about “what a great rivalry this has been over the past few years between Kevin Owens and Neville.” Have they even ever had a PPV match? I think they wrestled a grand total of ONCE in NXT. Oh. And they also apparently had some matches in December after Owens showed up when Neville won his Slammy. Thank you, Byron, for reminding me about this rivalry that was apparently so great that I completely forgot that it happened less than three months later.
Even worse, this conversation came moments after Cole said that a victory over Owens tonight “may” put Neville in line for a shot at Owens’ title. I just do not understand why WWE announcers feel the need to exaggerate certain things to the point of utterly destroying their credibility, while other things will be completely undersold to the point of damaging their credibility. It’s like they are purposely trying to suck.
Anyway, they had a great match which Owens won clean with a roll-up. Byron claimed this was a “cheap” win. Neville is complaining that Owens supposedly had the tights, but they weren’t facing the hard-cam so we’ll never know.

POST-MATCH SEMGNET- AWESOME!
Owens jumps Neville from behind and beats him up and is about to powerbomb him into the ring apron when SAZMI ZAYN MAKES THE SAVE to a huge pop! Now this guy, who has had a grand total of TWO matches on Raw, one of which went less than five minutes and the other one was a loss ten months ago and hasn’t been mentioned since is getting superstar pop for this brawl with Kevin Owens. Sami gets the best of Owens with a little help from Neville, which should give Owens a bit of an excuse leading into their title match (maybe Owens will take Neville out on Smackdown and say that now that Sami is alone, he doesn’t stand a chance against him.

THE ROCK CUTS A PROMO FROM HIS PHONE- apparently this somehow announced that WRESTLEMANIA WILL BE FREE for new Network subscribers. That seems like a f*cking stupid idea, especially with it being so early in the month, it should be easy for people to cancel before the next month starts.
Also, as someone who has been paying for the WWE Network since week two, I’m a little pissed off that they are giving away the biggest draw they have FOR FREE. Seriously! If someone isn’t enough of a fan that they are willing to pay $9.99 for WRESTLE-F*CKING-MANIA, then what makes you think they are going to stick around for the lesser PPVs?

STEPH & ZIGGLER SEGMENT- F*CKING ATROCIOUS!
Zack Ryder appears and is summarily dismissed as unimportant once someone who actually matters (Steph) shows up to talk to Dolph. This was done presumably just troll the hardcore fans.
Steph is here to thank Dolph for taking down some tweet that he posted earlier today that was disparaging to the Authority, so I guess Dolph’s new storyline is that he is now in fear of the Authority’s power and doesn’t want to get on their bad side?
Wait… no… now he is being purposely abrasive to Steph by bringing up the fact that he stripped the Authority that very same power a year and a half ago at Survivor Series. Then Steph points out to him that despite that having happened, we are still in the same place now that we were before that. Because it’s always a good idea to remind your audience that you don’t stick to your stipulations about the Authority losing power right before your big WrestleMania match where is Shane wins, the Authority will lose their power.
Then Dumbf*ck Dolph actually said “history tends to repeat itself, like with your brother Shane, the Authority will be out of power.” Well, if “history tends to repeat itself” like you claim, then THEY’LL GET THE POWER BACK WITH TWO MONTHS, WON’T THEY, YOU F*CKING IDIOT! Dolph added “this time, for good,” which, of course, would defy his original statement for thinking that they will lose power in the first place.
Then Steph said to Dolph “but, you know, you’ve got me thinking about Survivor Series now, Dolph, and since you like bringing up history, how about you compete tonight in a tag team elimination match against three member of the League of Nations?” which prompted me to scream “how about you DO YOUR F*CKING JOB and actually book the show BEFORE IT STARTS?!”
(And speaking of booking all of the matches before the show starts, we have still not had a single mention of the tag title match).
Dolph agrees to this match. Then Steph reveals that it will be a handicap match. Dolph puts on a brave face, but if Dolph is so brave, why did he take that tweet down?
Every single part of this segment was sh*t! What was the point of talking about this disparaging tweet if it wasn’t going to matter to the storyline (you could have just had Steph get angry because she walks by while Ziggler is telling Ryder how awesome it will be when Shane takes control of Raw away from the Authority), and even worse, if Dolph is going to get in trouble with Steph anyway, why have him look like a little wimp by deleting his anti-authority tweet?
Secondly, why the hell would you bring up the fact that you actually did this same stipulation once before and then went back on it within a matter of weeks?! That’s about the dumbest f*cking thing you can do! The only possible reason to do this would be in the context of explaining to us that this time will be different and there will be absolutely no loopholes, but that’s not what happened here.
Third, the inherent logical fallacy in Dolph’s dialogue made him seem like an idiot, which is the opposite of what you want from your babyface.
Fourth, the whole point of this segment was to set up the old “the Authority punishes someone they don’t like by putting them in a handicap match” which they have 100% done to death. At least make it a little bit different and stick Ryder in there, too. In fact, if they had just had Steph walk in while Ryder was complementing Dolph on his anti-Authority tweet, then you could have had Steph say “We ordered you to take that down!” and Dolph could look like a rebel and say “hell no! It’s the truth!” and then have Ryder pop in and say “I can’t wait until Shane kicks you guys out!” then you could have had Steph get angry like a real person (and we all like to see people we dislike get unhappy) instead of this bullsh*t calm/smug they like to have her do that always comes off as so scripted and phony, and she could book the two of them in a handicap match together to that Ryder can take the fall an Dolph can get beat up for his cause and still come out of it looking like a rebellious babyface (maybe he even wins due to interference by Ambrose and/or Reigns?)

On a whole different axis, this was disappointing because passionate babyface “I HATE the Authority!” rebel has gone absolutely nowhere over the past three years. He had what JBL called a “career-making performance” and kicked the Authority out of power and STILL didn’t go anywhere. It would make perfect sense (and be a much needed change of character) for Dolph to get sick of going nowhere in his career and decide to give in and kowtow to the Authority in exchange for opportunities and career advancement and interference to help him in his matches. It’d get great heat because no one likes a weasel and that’s exactly what Dolph would be.


COMMERCIAL FOR THIS WEEK’S TOTAL DIVAS- Nikki is worried that Brie has bought a motor scooter. She thinks Dragon should be worried about Brie. Dragon says that he always worries about Brie when she is on the road so why should getting a motor scooter make it any different, and Brie notes that it’s not like she is trying to do anything with any added risk like doing wheelies. This was all horribly stupid crap, but I am SOOOO glad I didn’t fast forward through it because if I hadn’t, I would have missed out on the following exchange.
Dragon: I don’t like how you’re trying to tell us how to live.
Nikki: I’ve been trying to tell you guys how to live for a long time.
Dragon: Right? And we don’t listen, which is why we’re so happy.

That right there was Daniel Bryan defeating Nikki Bella in an Inferno Match because she got BURNED!

BRIE BELLA vs. SUMMER RAE- 0.25/10
They were having a fine little match until Lana showed up to distract Brie so that Summer could pin Brie with a REALLY ugly… O’Connor roll? I think that’s what she was trying to do, anyway.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Lana got into the ring, kicked Brie in the gut and laid her out with the X-Factor, one of the three official finishers for women in mainstream wrestling (Jillian Hall, Ivory, both Bellas, Torrie Wilson, Tessmacher, Jazz, Dawn Marie, and Shelly Martinez, plus Velvet Sky who uses a very simple variant). And it only occurred to me right now as I saw Lana do it that the reason they give a lot of these women this move (especially at the beginning of their careers) is because it’s REALLY F*CKING HARD TO SCREW UP (not to mention hurt someone with). For some reason, Lana is dressed like she was when she was dating Ziggler instead of in her usual suit for managing Rusev.

DEAN AMBROSE & TRIPLE H SEGMENT- great!
Huge pop for Ambrose, as you would expect. He comes out and cuts a good promo. Then Hunter comes out and cuts a promo on Ambrose while doing a great job of weaving Roman in at the same time. Then things got heated and it got even better. This results in Dean being booked to face Bray Wyatt later.

Hey look! It’s a graphic for that Dean Ambrose vs. League of Nations handicap elimination match. Still not even a mention of AJ & Jericho challenging the New Day for the tag titles, though.

ELIMINATION HANDICAP MATCH: Dolph Ziggler vs. The League of Nations (Wade Barrett, Sheamus, & Rusev)- 4/10
No Del Rio tonight. The only reason we were given for this was an off-hand comment by JBL that “Shemaus gave him the night off” as if Sheamus controls Del Rio’s bookings.
I just did not give a sh*t about this match. Of course Barrett had to get pinned clean because G-d forbid that someone (especially a glorified micarder) actually just gets beaten up three-on-one.

SHANE O’ MAC VIDEO PACKAGE- AWESOME!
I didn’t realize Shane could do a Shooting Star Press. Now I REALLY want to go re-watch that Shane McMahon vs. Kurt Angle match from King of the Ring 2001.

BECKY & SASHA BICKER- Okay. They both want the title. We get it! You don’t have to have them bicker every single f*cking time they appear on TV!
Also, why the f*ck are they facing Naomi and Tamina YET AGAIN?! Weren’t Paige and Nattie a tag team the last time we saw them? That match would be a million times better. But even more to the point… why are they even teaming at all anymore? Shouldn’t they both be collecting some singles wins to pick up momentum on the road to WrestleMania (especially seeing as how neither one of them actually WON a match to get this title shot)?

NAOMI & TAMINA vs. BECKY LYNCH & SASHA BANKS- 3/10
And just to really show that nothing new will be happening in this division on the road to WrestleMania, we have Charlotte and Ric Flair sitting at ringside to watch Becky and Sasha’s match YET AGAIN!
Well… that certainly went less than five minutes. Long live the Divas Revolution!
Sasha makes Naomi tap, then gets jumped by Charlotte. Becky tries to make the save like a good babyface, but she gets laid out, too.

R-TRUTH & GOLDUST THING- dumb (the phrase “my butt would explode” was uttered), but at least it feels like the story is moving along. Also, I enjoyed Mark Henry’s victorious chuckle at being the one who wound up with the pizza in the end. There are few things in this world better than getting free pizza.

We finally get our first mention of the tag title match, OVER HALF WAY INTO THE SHOW… and they are mentioning it because the match is next. This weekend’s episode of ROH had more hype for a completely cold match between Christopher Daniels and Dalton Castle in their one hour show than WWE did in 50% more time for a MATCH FEATURING AJ STYLES & CHRIS JERICHO CHALLENGING FOR THE TAG TEAM TITLES!

NEW DAY PROMO- funny, but in a goofball way, which is not what your world tag team champions should be doing. Fortunately, I don’t think that will be an issue for New Day that much longer.

WWE TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The New Day(c) (w/Xavier Woods) vs. AJ Styles & Chris Jericho- 7.75/10
HUGE pops for both AJ and Jericho.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen New Day hit their finisher that I don’t even remember what it’s called. “Midnight… something,” I think. The match was pretty awesome, but I was completely shocked that New Day won (Big E. pinned Jericho, for those wondering).

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Jericho turned on AJ after the match, but they made AJ look strong it taking THREE Codebreakers to put him down. That part was really, good. Then Jericho took the “Y2AJ” shirt he had worn down to the ring and shoved it down AJ’s throat. Jericho got MASSIVE boos for this. Really great segment, but I still think that if were are doing AJ vs. Jericho at Mania, it would have been better for Jericho to have never beaten AJ going in.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS CHRIS JERICHO- At almost two hours and twenty minutes into the show, Renee Young makes her first appearance. Jericho was awesome here.

KALISTO vs. TYLER BREEZE- 4.25/10
The match was short, but very good for the time it got. Byron Saxton claimed that Kalisto “calls his style ‘Dynamic Velocity.’” I REALLY hope that isn’t true.

JOJO INTEVIEWS KALISTO- one of these days, I’m sure they’ll let Kalisto cut a promo without mentioning Rey and Eddie, but that can only happen when all of us viewers at home finally come to understand that he is a Hispanic man who is proud of his heritage, both as a Latino and as a Luchador. You know… in case we all couldn’t figure it out by his accent and the fact that he wears a Lucha Libre match and gets the fans to chant “LUCHA!” Other than that, this was an awesome promo. Also, Sin Cara showed up, with no explanation for why he wasn’t at ringside. I’ll pretend he was in the bathroom.
Then Ryback showed up and tried REALLY hard to show Marvel how easy it would be for them to sponsor WWE… or at the very least cross-promo so WWE can get a Neville vs. Stardust comic book (which I assume would have dialogue similar to that which we saw in the “Wrestlicious Heroines” panels on Wrestlicious.
Then Ryback put Kalisto over on the mic while trying to convince him to both give him a shot at the US Title and also stop teaming with Sin Cara.

MINISTRY OF DORKNESS PROMO- I would rather listen to an hour of Dana Brooke and Bill Alfonso talking about filing tax returns than listen to these four speak for another moment… and I swear to G-d that I am not making this up: at this point, my TV stopped working.

It’s been a good Raw so far, with some very short but extremely frustrating bits. Let me know if Ambrose vs. Wyatt turns out to be any good.

[XIV]

SHANE O’ MAC VIDEO PACKAGE- AWESOME!
I didn’t realize Shane could do a Shooting Star Press. Now I REALLY want to go re-watch that Shane McMahon vs. Kurt Angle match from King of the Ring 2001.

It’s been a good Raw so far, with some very short but extremely frustrating bits. Let me know if Ambrose vs. Wyatt turns out to be any good.

I've said it a hundred times before, and you probably already knew this BUT Shane vs Kurt at King of the Ring 2001 is still in my top 5 matches of all time. It's a WWE match I consider 5 stars.

And Dean vs Bray was alright. The Wyatts turned up after a blackout to destroy Ambrose and then Triple H came out. Wyatt stroked his belt and walked off before Triple H ate a Dirty Deeds.

It did its job. Triple H has upper hand one week, Dean then gets the upper hand just before Roadblock to give you that hope he'll win. (Which he won't).