Biggest pop I’ve heard in WWE in months.
OPENING SEGMENT- good… but also not so good.
JBL name-drops Toots Mondt. Taker cut a promo vowing that this Mania would not be his last, saying that Shane would rest in peace, but also saying that he might wind up beating Vince up, too. He said it much better than I have it here.
Then Shane came out and cut a promo. Taker got annoyed because Shane was talking about his (meaning Taker’s) legacy. Shane got into the ring with Taker and said that Taker’s legacy died with The Streak. Taker said Shane was Vince’s bitch. Shane jumped Taker and they brawled. It resulted in Shane hitting Taker with a diving elbow drop through the announcers’ table. Cole’s “no, Shane! Don’t do it! Get down from there!” Gave me flashbacks to Jeff Hardy and Jim Ross. After Shane had celebrated but before he had made it up the ramp, Taker sat up, then stood up and gave Shane the throat-slash gesture.
This segment was pretty much a microcosm of this entire angle: Everything sounded really cool and looked really cool, but you can’t escape the feeling that underneath that, nothing really makes too much sense.
JERICHO INTERVIEW FROM THE PRE-SHOW- this was used to set up the match with Ryder, but more importantly, Jericho cut a great promo in which he said he would rather not wrestle at WrestleMania and sit in the crowd surrounded by the idiotic fans than give AJ Styles a chance to shine at WrestleMania, so Jericho won’t be accepting AJ’s challenge. This is the sort of thing you should be doing on Smackdown, not the f*cking pre-show!
Why does the Raw pre-show even exist? Is there anyone who actually watches it?
ZACK RYDER vs. CHRIS JERICHO- 2.25/10
Well… clearly AJ Styles doesn’t watch the pre-show because he apparently only now found out that Jericho is not accepting his challenge. He says that he isn’t leaving ringside until he gets his match. AJ chants “Y-2-Jackass” which distracts Jericho, allowing Ryder to roll him up. Jericho then immediately lays Ryder out with a Codebreaker. Jericho goes nuts and apparently this one pointless loss has made him change his mind about giving AJ the match. At least Jericho’s promo was good.
BECKY LYNCH vs. CHARLOTTE (w/Ric Flair)- 5.5/10
Sasha Banks is at ringside, but not on commentary because the table is broken. Becky loses to Charlotte pretty much cleanly just six days before WrestleMania. Why was this match even booked? It’s the WrestleMania go-home show! Just let them cut promos.
RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS VINCE MCMAHON- he cut an okay promo. Then Shane showed up and he, too, cut an okay promo.
SOCIAL OUTCASTS PROMO- I ignored it.
KANE & BIG SHOW vs. SOCIAL OUTCASTS (w/some other Social Outcasts)- no rating, dull segment.
Kane dominated, then the Social Outcasts ran in for the DQ. Then a bunch of other undercard guys ran out to the ring to all have a brawl with everyone because… um… because apparently we NEED to have a schmoz to build up this completely meaningless battle royale. The Legion of Doomed all fed Kane and Big Show for chokeslams. Kane and Big Show appeared to be working together even though Kane jumped Big Show last week. There was no explanation for why this was.
HUNTER PROMO- he talks about how Roman was good enough to be WWE Champion… and everyone boos. Then he tries to be mean and say that Roman was only good enough to be champion for five minutes and fifteen champions… and everyone cheers. Yeah… this isn’t going to go the way WWE wants- and we all could have them that a year ago. No one cared about Hunter’s promo. Then Steph cut a promo burying every other match on the card as not being as important as Hunter’s match.
Then Roman Reigns came out, heavily booed. They had a short brawl. The people booed when Roman was winning and cheered when Hunter was winning. As Roman stood in the ring alone at the end, he received even more boos and loud chants of “ROMAN SUCKS!” I don’t think this will be quite at the level of the 2014 or 2015 Royal Rumbles because I don’t think the anger is there, but this will certainly be quite the epic rejection of WWE’s plans on Sunday. It should be entertaining to watch.
NEW DAY PROMO- no one cared. There was actually one joke that Kofi told that Xavier was the only person who laughed at.
ALBERTO DEL RIO (w/the League of Nations) vs. KOFI KINGSTON (w/the New Day)- 5.75/10
Short match. Kofi wins with a roll-up because why would you want any heat going into WrestleMania?
WHAT THE F*CK?! Is that COACH?! He shows up to announce that SportsCenter will be coming to WrestleMania. Does anyone really care?
THE WARRIOR AWARD GOES TO… JOAN LUNDEN- What department of WWE does she work in, you ask? Why none, of course. Joan Lunden is a longtime TV host and correspondent who is a survivor of breast cancer and has no connection to WWE other than the fact that she is an ambassador for Susan J. Komen.
Yeah. They did it again.We all saw this sort of thing coming, so I had prepared the following (and by “prepared” I mean “found and copied from Wikipedia’s article on the WWE Hall of Fame):
So… yeah. They’re full of sh*t. I’ve never been a fan of the Warrior, but the way they are twisting what is essentially the last wish of a dead man into their own PR bullsh*t at the expense of the many deserving individuals in company that we haven’t even heard of (which was Warrior’s whole point) is just completely disgusting. I know that it’s WWE and I shouldn’t expect any better- and I don’t- but that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t infuriate me.The award was created following The Ultimate Warrior's death. During his April 2014 Hall of Fame speech shortly before his death, he proposed that there be a special category called the "Jimmy Miranda Award" for WWE's behind-the-scenes employees.[141][142][143][144] Miranda, who died in 2002, was part of the WWE merchandise department for more than 20 years.[145] Former WWE ring announcer Justin Roberts expressed disappointment at how WWE used portions of Warrior's Hall of Fame speech to promote the award, but left out Warrior's intentions of honoring WWE's off-screen employees. WWE responded, "It is offensive to suggest that WWE and its executives had anything but altruistic intentions in honoring Connor and his legacy with The Warrior Award," adding that "moving forward the award will be given annually to acknowledge other unsung heroes among WWE's employees and fans.
RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS ROMAN REIGNS- Bubba Ray Dudley saves us from having to hear Roman cut a promo. He lures Roman into a trap so that Devon can come up behind him and of course I’m kidding. Devon just randomly walks up to stand beside Bubba, like Bubba went over to go confront Roman and Devon was supposed to be with him but Devon stopped off to get a drink from the water fountain along the way and thus he was a little late.
Roman starts to beat up the Dudleys on his own. Oh. There’s the trap. Hunter attacks from behind. They beat Roman down a bit and then throw him into a wall once. Hunter says Roman will never get the title, then slams his face into it (*and the crowd goes wild*). This was not a go-home angle by any stretch of the imagination. This was like a first or second week of the feud angle.
KALISTO vs. KONNOR (w/Viktor)- 0.5/10
So if Viktor is out here with Konnor, then why isn’t Sin Cara out here with Kalisto?
The point of this match was to show Kalisto beating a big guy and they did that fine. The problem is that the match only went about three minutes.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Viktor tries to attack Kalisto but Kalisto takes him out. Then Ryback comes out to have the obligatory stare-down.
PAUL HEYMAN (& BROCK LESNAR) PROMO- F*CKING AWESOME!
THEN DEAN AMBROSE SHOWS UP… WITH A BIG RED WAGON- stupid.
Ambrose painting his logo on the wagon was dumb. I thought the wagon was going to be full of weapons like Raven’s shopping cart, but no. Instead, Dean pulled it to ringside and started grabbing a bunch of weapons from under the ring, including a baseball bat. Why is there a baseball bat under the ring? And why is there a barbed-wire-covered baseball bat under the ring? Or a CHAINSAW?! Did Dean plant this stuff here? If so, WHY?!
Then Dean just walked off. This was f*cking dumb.
PAIGE (w/Natalaya, Brie Bella, & Alicia Fox) vs. EMMA (w/Tamina, Naomi, Summer Rae, & Lana)- 0.5/10
Just when I didn’t think there was any way WWE could possibly make this pointless waste of time of a feud any more obnoxious, they have decided that the babyface team will be Team Total Divas. The other team is “Team B.A.D. and Blonde.” Since when is Emma back on the main roster?
They note that the two teams are uneven. I swear to G-d if the last member of Team Total Divas is Rosa Mendes I’m going to throw something.
We had a schmoz on the outside which allowed Lana to kick Paige, allowing Emma to pin her. Then there was more of a schmoz so that the final member of Team Total Divas could be revealed. It was Eva Marie. I threw something anyway. She was booed heavily.
There was a moment when the babyfaces seemed to be almost closing in on Eva and Nattie was coming up behind her looking unhappy and I had a sliver of hope that his whole thing was some sort of elaborate trap for Eva and we were about to see history’s most brutal Horsemen beatdown, but alas…
So the babyfaces are pissed at Eva for some inexplicable reason even though she showed up specifically to save them. If WWE thinks that Eva is going to get a babyface response, they are even more out of touch with the fanbase (and reality) than I thought.
GOLDUST & R-TRUTH BACKSTAGE- Irritating.
Apparently something happened with them in the earlier schmoz. I totally missed it and so did the announcers. They drive home the “it’s every man for himself in a battle royale” thing that we all already know.
SNOOP DOG IS GOING INTO THE WWE HALL OF FAME- well… I guess this means Sasha is winning.
KEVIN OWENS, STARDUST, & THE MIZ vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER, SIN CARA, & SAMI ZAYN- 7.25/10
The fans were into it in the beginning, but kind of gave up. They chanted for “JBL!” and “CM PUNK!” Then Sami Zayn tagged back in and they started caring again. Now Stardust and Dolph are brawling while the fans are chanting for “RVD!”
Now they’re chanting for New Day… much louder than they were when New Day was actually out here. Now there are some “Ole!” chants for Sami. Eventually Miz and Stardust walked out on Owens and Zayn pinned him with a Helluva Kick.
Oh great. We’re going to get more Hunter and Steph after the commercial. I am seriously considering just shutting this show off right now.
ROMAN & HUNTER BRAWL… AGAIN- a bunch of other heels show up to beat up Roman, too. Oh, look, it’s finally the Usos. Now there are a bunch of other babyfaces, too, because I guess we haven’t seen enough schmozes tonight. Where were all of these babyfaces every other time Roman was getting beaten up?
Just end already. PLEASE!
An extremely boring Raw and a terrible go-home show. It did nothing to make me want to see WrestleMania actually made me want to see certain matches less than I did before. If the crowd’s reaction here was any indication, Sunday will be… interesting.
