BRM Reviews the 4/11/2016 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- WHY THE F*CK IS SHANE STILL IN CHARGE?! Everyone else did see Taker pin him, right? I didn’t just hallucinate that?!
They claim Shane is charge tonight because of “overwhelming social media support.” So… I guess John Cena is turning heel and Roman Reigns is going to drop the title to AJ Styles or Dean Ambrose tonight, right? I mean seriously?! When was the last time they did sh*t because of “overwhelming social media support?” What a bunch of lazy-ass bullsh*t.

Shane announces that we’re getting the Charlotte vs. Nattie title match tonight and also the beginning of a tag team #1 contendership tournament. And holy sh*t they’re giving Sami Zayn a chance to earn his way into the title match because he got screwed out of the match last week. This is almost looking… competent.
Kevin Owens comes out to immediately argue against the idea of Sami Zayn getting a title shot. Shane has the gall to bring up the fact that someone else lost at WrestleMania. Owens wants his rematch for the IC Title, but Shane says Owens has to earn it. I’m calling bullsh*t on that. Zack Ryder just got his rematch on Smackdown and he didn’t have to earn it.
Shane says Owens will have to beat someone to earn his rematch and oh my G-d this can’t possibly be who I think it is. They cannot possibly be bringing Mojo Rawley up to the main roster.
OH THANK G-D IT’S JUST CESARO.
But seriously, Owens not getting his rematch is total bullsh*t. JBL protests that this is unfair. Byron responds by saying “it doesn’t matter. Shane’s the boss tonight. You follow what the boss says.” This, of course, coming from a guy who always complains about the Authority. I hope Shane shows up to tell Byron to go play in traffic.

WINNER GETS AN IC TITLE SHOT: Kevin Owens vs. Cesaro- 7.25/10
They had a pretty great match with Owens working Cesaro’s arm.
They showed us Miz and Maryse watching backstage, which is entirely pointless if the announcers are just going to tell us that Miz is the champion and Maryse helped him win it, so why even do it?

RIC & CHARLOTTE FLAIR BACKSTAGE- why does every heel in this company have to be a whiner?
Dr. Phil showed up. He said that Ric Flair was actually holding Charlotte back by not letting her be herself. And you know what? Dr. Phil is right. I’ve been saying this for months. Dr. Phil was pretty f*cking awesome here.

KEVIN OWENS WHINES TO SHANE AGAIN- Owens says he is going to screw Sami Zayn out of his match tonight so Shane says he is having Owens removed from the building. I assume that Owens will still interfere in the match.

TAG TEAM #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT FIRST-ROUND MATCH: Lucha Dragons vs. Dudleys Boys- 0.25/10
Apparently Kalisto got legit injured early on during a commercial break. The other three did the best they could with it.

To let us know that we shouldn’t take the tournament seriously, they have given it cartoon graphics and are telling us that it is “sponsored by Booty-O’s.” Also the Ascension, Social Outcasts, and Golden Truth were all given spots in the tournament, despite not having won any matches ever. Meanwhile, the League of Nations and Los Matadores are not in the tournament, nor is something that should be an obvious pairing like Dean & Roman or some pair of Wyatts.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine.
Colin & Enzo show up and cut a promo. They were good. So was Bubba.

ROMAN REIGNS PROMO- crowd is about 50/50 on him. He doesn’t get to say much other than his new catchphrase before the League of Nations shows up. Rusev is the f*ckin’ best. Roman says he will fight hem three-on-one. He got saved by the magical appearance of the Wyatt Family.
Oh. And I love how when we went to pitch black Roman and the League of Nations were entangles in a brawl, but when the lights came back on, the three League of Nations guys were standing to one side of the ring in a neat line while Roman was way on the other side of the ring with the Wyatts in front of him. Isn’t it supposed to be pitch black?
So anyway, Roman Reigns and the Wyatt Family teamed up to beat up the League of Nations four-on-three. Shane shows up and books Roman & Bray vs. the League of Nations as the main event. Shouldn’t the big Women’s Title match be the main event instead of a random tag team match? Of course not! LOL! Girls in a main event. That’s ridiculous! This might be a new era of women’s wrestling in the WWE and all, but be reasonable now. They don’t even have penises. How could they POSSIBLY main event a TV show?!

GREETING FROM PUERTO RICO- oh. Well. I guess now we know where the Colons have been all this time: They’re been recording videos for Puerto Rico’s tourism department.

DR. PHIL SEGMENT-…
Or not. Apparently it’s actually time for the…
WWE WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Charlotte(c) (w/Ric Flair) vs. Natalya- 6.75/10
Dr. Phil is out here to watch this match to see if Charlotte takes his advice or not. Seeing as how Ric is out here with her, I’m guessing not.
Nattie sells a neckbreaker like she legit hurt her neck badly. None of the announcers even make mention of this. Not even a “oh boy. It looks like that one got Nattie good” or something like that.
So while this women’s title match is going on, WWE is proud that “Dr. Phil” is trending on Twitter. Yup. Definitely a new era of women’s wrestling.
This was a very good match with a very well executed Dusty Finish. Logic would dictate some sort of rematch in which Ric Flair is barred from ringside, but then again, logic would dictate that Sasha Banks would be in line for a title shot, so I don’t think that’s what they’ll actually do.

BYRON SAXTON INTERVIEWS DR. PHIL- He asked Dr. Phil what he thought of the way Charlotte “won” tonight. I guess Byron wasn’t paying attention. DR. PHIL tells us how “proud” he is of the women’s division for “stepping up,” proving that WWE will not let a single segment go by without doing everything they can to make sure that everyone knows that this is a new era and the women’s division is reaching a new level etc. etc., no matter how ridiculous the source is.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS SAMI ZAYN- Zayn was awesome. Then AJ Styles showed up because WWE doesn’t know how to do a segment like this otherwise. AJ was fine.

TAG TEAM #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT FIRST-ROUND MATCH: The Usos vs. The Social Outcasts (Curtis Axel & Heath Slater) (w/Bo Dallas & Adam Rose)- DUD!
Thankfully the presence of a well-timed commercial break spared us from having to suffer through a promo by Four Dudes with Ineptitude.
I was pretty surprised that Bo Dallas was out here, considering that his grandfather just died. At least WWE didn’t make him wrestle and lose here. So if anyone was wondering is WWE could possibly be meaner to a talent that burying Nattie in her hometown on her birthday, the answer is apparently not.
The match went thusly: The Sadicalz beat up The Usos. Then they had this compulsion to job around the ring, which let the Uso in peril recover enough to immediately roll Slater up for the victory. Everyone gets buried! Hooray for Creative!

HOLY F*CKNUTS IT’S THE BULLET CLUB! They beat up the Usos, but of the Main Event & Superstars Mafia managed to escape this beating.
So Bullet Club jump the guardrail and assault some wrestlers… and no security shows up to arrest these men. Some referees show up and tell them to leave, so they do. Because it’s not like there should be consequences for jumping the guardrail, right?

Chris Masters was in the front row holding up a sign that said “Bring Back Chris Masters.” At least I assume it was Chris Masters, as I can’t think of anyone else who possibly want WWE to bring Chris Masters back.

MARYSE YELLS AT A BACKSTAGE DORK FOR NOT SORTING MIZ’S M&M’S CORRECTLY- fun
I’ve always been a fan of the M&M’s gimmick, but Maryse’s voice did not sound anywhere NEAR as outraged as she should have to make this work.
Then JoJo showed up and Maryse accused her of being a “Miz groupie” who was “stalking” the Miz. This was f*cking GREAT!
Then Cesaro showed up and made a bunch of dumb movie jokes. This would have been a million times better without Cesaro showing up, but as I said above, WWE has no idea how to do a segment like this without the other guy showing up. On the bright side, I learned that the next PPV is Payback. I don’t they had ever mentioned the name of the PPV before.

IF ZAYN WINS, HE GETS ADDED TO THE WWE TITLE MATCH AT PAYBACK: Sami Zayn vs. AJ Styles- 8/10
This was one hell of a match that just build fantastically. The forearm sucks as a finisher, but holy balls those forty seconds right before it were INSANE.

AJ, SAMI, AND SHANE BACKSTAGE- that was a little weird.

CHRIS JERICHO’S HIGHLIGHT REEL- He interviews himself. It was boring. Then Ambrose showed up with a note from Shane McMahon saying he could take over the Highlight Reel and replace it with his own show. Dean was a dick to Jericho, which resulted a short fight in which Dean kicked Jericho’s butt.

GOLDUST, R-TRUTH, & DR. PHIL- Truth and Goldust are still arguing about whether or not they are a team, despite being entered into a tag team tournament together. Even Dr. Phil didn’t want to waste his time with these two.

APOLLO CREWS vs. ADAM ROSE (w/Bo Dallas)- 2.75/10
We were given no explanation for where the rest of the Ministry of Dorkness was.
BARON CORBIN VIDEO PACKAGE- okay.

BRAY WYATT PROMO- decent.

SHEAMUS & ALBERTO DEL RIO (w/Rusev) vs. ROMAN REIGNS & BRAY WYATT- 7.5/10
Of course Rowan and Strowman can’t just be at ringside like normal. They have to use their magic to teleport to ringside to take out Rusev.
The match was pretty great and I thought it escalated very well. Bray pinned Del Rio clean for the win. Roman and Bray had a stare-down after the match.

A decent Raw.

[KILLdozer]

Oh for the love of Pete. I've just begun to read this review and it appears to be a wild ride ahead-time to smoke.

[Big Red Machine]

Oh for the love of Pete. I've just begun to read this review and it appears to be a wild ride ahead-time to smoke.

In the morning?

[Serujuunin]

I vaguely recall the announcers saying something about the other two not being out because they'd already competed. Not that it's a legitimate reason, but hey, there it is.

I actually really liked this RAW. I hope it keeps up

[XIV]

It was a good Raw.
I don't know at this point if Shane is actually behind these matches or whether he's just the face of them. There's been some focus on the right people. The showcase for AJ and Zayn along with Owens and Cesaro were brilliant and it shows what these guys can really do.

I love a tag tournament!

I really want Apollo Crews to turn heel and have the persona to match. His smiling pisses me off.

Roman, Bray and the League was... A good match, but why is Roman in that position? They need to be building AJ and Reigns more. it seems they could have just used Rowan or Stowman in that position just as well (or Strowman and Rowan vs LoN and call it part of the tag tournament).


But all in all it was a good episode of RAW. There was some very good, almost PPV level in ring action in three of those matches, so I was happy with it.

Smackdown looks worth watching as well because the tournament is there too! (I was afraid it would just be a RAW thing...)

[Big Red Machine]

The about the focus on the new guys is... what happens in a few months when Cena, Orton, and Rollins are all back, and the Authority is back on TV? These past two weeks have seen none of those guys, and almost no focus on Kalisto, Ryback, or Dolph. Even Corbin only got a video package this week (and don't get me wrong: that's a good thing to do for him because the promos they write for him are bad and you can only see a heel squash people so many times before it gets boring- especially if he started off with wins against real competition).

Let's be honest here: How long until they break up Cass & Enzo? How long before the Vaudevillans are relegated to Main Event and Superstars? How long do you think it will be before they realize that they already have too many big guys and Roman MUST be the champion forever so either Crews or Corbin gets stalled into oblivion? Or until Vince decides he doesn't like Cesaro's accent anymore? I know this sounds really pessimistic, but it's all happened many many times before.

[XIV]

The about the focus on the new guys is... what happens in a few months when Cena, Orton, and Rollins are all back, and the Authority is back on TV? These past two weeks have seen none of those guys, and almost no focus on Kalisto, Ryback, or Dolph. Even Corbin only got a video package this week (and don't get me wrong: that's a good thing to do for him because the promos they write for him are bad and you can only see a heel squash people so many times before it gets boring- especially if he started off with wins against real competition).

Let's be honest here: How long until they break up Cass & Enzo? How long before the Vaudevillans are relegated to Main Event and Superstars? How long do you think it will be before they realize that they already have too many big guys and Roman MUST be the champion forever so either Crews or Corbin gets stalled into oblivion? Or until Vince decides he doesn't like Cesaro's accent anymore? I know this sounds really pessimistic, but it's all happened many many times before.

You are absolutely right. It feels to me like they're testing a lot of waters with guys right now. Debut after debut, mini push after mini push in the last few weeks.

But how long until Vince has to realise the world of wrestling is changed, the way fans perceive wrestling has changed, a person's look or voice is no longer important to most fans. What fans look for now is a story, not just an angle, but the story of a person. What endears people to AJ, Owens, Zayn, Cesaro, Bryan, Punk and more is the journey these gentlemen have had to reach where they are, real wrestlers who have paid their dues, learned their craft and entertained audiences for years all around the world.

There is massive undertones of this as to why fans resent Reigns pushed down our throats, but love the stories of Ambrose and Rollins.

We all watched Moxley in the indies, we all watched Tyler Black. Both get their heat just right, years of reading crowds and honing crafts.

Roman Reigns got pushed for a look. He never fully honed the craft, read a crowd and reacted accordingly. The fans know this, this gives them an undertone, this makes Reigns look weak in front of more experienced performers, this discredits Reigns.

In a weird way, fans are more appreciative of Wrestlers doing it the hard way, like the old days. Despite the modern age with spoilers and the IWC discussions, fans have regressed to the way of old and that is the future.

Vince must realise this and find a way to use this.

It's probably what's best for business.