BRM Reviews the 10/31/2016 Raw

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 10/31/2016 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 31st, '16, 23:59

GOLBERG!
AND HEYMAN!

AND BROCK… or not. Darn that lying Paul Heyman!

AND RUSEV!
I never knew it until now but I’ve always wanted to see Goldberg vs. Rusev!
So we got a few seconds of it and it was glorious (Rusev just lost to Roman last night to end that feud so he is expendable tonight). Also, Paul E. ate a spear.


TRICK-OR-STREET FIGHT: Enzo Amore (w/Colin Cassady) vs. Luke Gallows (w/Karl Anderson)- 4.5/10
A random gimmick match that is happening to celebrate a holiday? Did Vince Russo book this? Usually WWE at least does some segment to set this up. Also, I’m quite disappointed that Anderson and Gallows are even at Raw. I figured they would take a personal day so they could make good on their promise and we’d get some tweets from The Club that they went to West Newberry tonight and beat up John Cena.
Enzo and Cass and dressed like Buzz Lightyear and Woody from Toy Story. Grown adults about to engage in a f*cking street fight.
So yeah. Too much comedy. This never should have happened. Hopefully the whole night isn’t like this.

BRIAN KENDRICK PROMO- good

WWE CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Brian Kendrick(c) vs. TJ Perkins- 3/10
Cole says that “Cruiserweights traditionally shake hands before the match-up.” Really? And do they also follow some sort of code of honorable conduct? A “Code of Honor,” if you will.
They went to a quick count-out with the implication that Kendrick did it on purpose. This came right after a nasty landing that had me certain that this was an audible because TJP broke his neck, but he was alright enough to attack Kendrick afterwards. Great facials and body language from Kendrick after the refs pulled Kendrick off of him.

STROWMAN TELLS FOLEY HE WANTS TO BE PART OF TEAM RAW AT SUVIVOR SERIES- he makes some very good points (and also threats). Despite months of killing people, Foley makes Strowman have to earn this spot by winning a battle royale tonight.

FOLEY, OWENS, & JERICHO SEGMENT- bad.
Foley admits that what they did last night wasn’t illegal, but says he still wants to punish them anyway. That seems rather unfair, don’t you think? But alas Mick cannot punish them because he “needs” them to win this Survivor Series Raw vs. Smackdown elimination tag team match that despite having absolutely nothing on the line, everyone seems to be treating as “must-win” for no adequately explored reason.
Foley brings out Roman, who will also be on the team. Snore. Roman was served up some easy one-liners to help get him over. Because that’s what will do it. They set up for a US Title match between Roman and Jericho later tonight.

BATTLE ROYALE TO EARN A SPOT ON TEAM RAW- 5/10
Fine for what it was. It had an exciting finish and an important spot between Sheamus and Cesaro.

EMMALINA STUFF- Oh my G-d just get here already!

NEW DAY PROMO- they’re all dressed up as incarnations of Charles Wright. That was funny.
They’re going to be in the Tag Teams’ Survivor Series match on Team Raw. Xavier says he doesn’t watch Smackdown. Way to bury the product, dumbass. They made fun of some of the Smackdown teams, which marks the first time that anyone on either show has cut a promo on anyone from any other show. They did make sure to put American Alpha over strong. This was a good promo, although I was quite disappointed that Big E. didn’t say “we shall over-Kama” instead of “we shall overcome” (because he was the one dressed like Kama Mustafa).

RICH SWANN, LINCE DORADO, & CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs. TONY NESE, DREW GULAK, & ARIYA DAIVARI- 5.75/10
I see Ariya is dressed up like his older brother for Halloween. Wait. No. That’s just the only gimmick WWE thinks to give to Muslims.
They had a random match. It really feels like whoever is booking this show has no understanding of what made the CWC so great. I can just hear Vince saying, “I put your vanilla and chocolate midgets on TV, Hunter. What else do you want?”

Anyone else hate this “fantasy warfare just got real” tagline they’re using for Brock vs. Goldberg?

CHARLOTTE & BAYLEY SEGMENT- AWESOME
If this is a celebration of Queen Charlotte then why is her chief lackey not here lackeying for her?
Charlotte cut an AWESOME heel promo on absolutely everyone. Then she called out Bayley, who was 100% a good sport about everything, to which Charlotte responded by being, as Bayley put it, “the biggest jerk.” This was all great. They swerved us with the prospect of another Bayley vs. Dana match, but instead Charlotte set up…

BAYLEY vs. NIA JAX- 2/10
(Also, we now know that Nia will be on the Survivor Series team.) Charlotte did commentary for this match, and Dana was indeed standing behind her, ready to perform any lackeying Charlotte might need.
Nia won clean. I actually like the idea of Charlotte kicking Bayley off of the team (and the team losing) and Bayley using that as motivation to prove she can beat Charlotte when their title feud begins.

CESARO & SHEAMUS vs. THE SHINING STARS- 2.75/10

GOLDEN TRUTH IN A HAUNTED HOUSE- dumb and pointless waste of time. But still more entertaining than those Hardys trick-or-treating segments from Impact. I laughed my ass off at Goldust’s “I’m old!” comment.

JERICHO & OWENS BACKSTAGE- good, especially Jericho.

WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Roman Reigns(c) vs. Chris Jericho (w/Kevin Owens)- 7.5/10
Great match until the disappointing DQ finish. It’s a freakin’ main event. Is it really that hard to not do a DQ in the damn main event?
Roma get double-temaed after the match. Rollins shows up, but way too late to save him (which is good because the longer they hold off on these two actually working together the better). Instead Seth took out both heels on his own. I like that we didn’t get a hand shake or anything like that between Seth abd Roman at the end.

A better episode of Raw than usual. But…

As of the end of tonight’s show, we know that the Universal Champion, US Champion, Women’s Champion, and BOTH sets of tag champs won’t be defending their titles at Survivor Series (and the Smackdown Women’s Champion will almost certainly be on SD’s team, unless they want to have Eva Marie wrestling). The main event will be between a part-time and a retired dude coming back for one last match, and most of the card will consist of interpromotional matches in a feud no one cares about and with nothing on the line. I might just skip this show. This isn’t Survivor Series: This is Bragging Rights. Survivor Series is supposed to be a Big Four show. It’s supposed to matter!
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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NWK2000
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/31/2016 Raw

Post by NWK2000 » Nov 1st, '16, 07:11

As of the end of tonight’s show, we know that the Universal Champion, US Champion, Women’s Champion, and BOTH sets of tag champs won’t be defending their titles at Survivor Series (and the Smackdown Women’s Champion will almost certainly be on SD’s team, unless they want to have Eva Marie wrestling). The main event will be between a part-time and a retired dude coming back for one last match, and most of the card will consist of interpromotional matches in a feud no one cares about and with nothing on the line. I might just skip this show. This isn’t Survivor Series: This is Bragging Rights. Survivor Series is supposed to be a Big Four show. It’s supposed to matter!
The more I think about it the more that I like this brand vs brand concept. Leads to some stacked match ups. Survivor Series matches really stop mattering when you put jobbers in them (Eric Escobar was on a Survivor Series team for G-d's sake)
NWK Reviews is closed for business for now.

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cero2k
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/31/2016 Raw

Post by cero2k » Nov 1st, '16, 08:08

this was the RAW that did it for me, I can't stand Foley passionately screaming at people
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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/31/2016 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 1st, '16, 09:49

cero2k wrote:this was the RAW that did it for me, I can't stand Foley passionately screaming at people
He's become TNA Tommy Dreamer: the guy who cries because he loves wrestling so much... and the sad part is that I don't even buy it as anywhere close to authentic. It's not that I don't think Mick doesn't have passion for the business anymore. I just see this Mick Foley trying to get across storylines by crying and I compare him to the Mick Foley who used his outsider voice to advocate pushing Bryan or Ziggler or Ambrose or the women, and this Mick Foley is so melodramatic about everything that he comes across as so clearly playing a character (especially when compared to the snarky but serious Foley we got to see in ROH and TNA). It's just like you know that when she is interacting with a wrestler at some point Steph will get angry and overbearing out of nowhere, you know that Foley will break into tears and start yelling out of nowhere. It's too obnoxious sides to the same coin, in a way. Both are so over-dramatic for the situation that neither can possibly be taken as authentic.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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Big Red Machine
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Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

Re: BRM Reviews the 10/31/2016 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 1st, '16, 10:43

NWK2000 wrote:
As of the end of tonight’s show, we know that the Universal Champion, US Champion, Women’s Champion, and BOTH sets of tag champs won’t be defending their titles at Survivor Series (and the Smackdown Women’s Champion will almost certainly be on SD’s team, unless they want to have Eva Marie wrestling). The main event will be between a part-time and a retired dude coming back for one last match, and most of the card will consist of interpromotional matches in a feud no one cares about and with nothing on the line. I might just skip this show. This isn’t Survivor Series: This is Bragging Rights. Survivor Series is supposed to be a Big Four show. It’s supposed to matter!
The more I think about it the more that I like this brand vs brand concept. Leads to some stacked match ups. Survivor Series matches really stop mattering when you put jobbers in them (Eric Escobar was on a Survivor Series team for G-d's sake)
Totally disagree. I'm not saying the 2006-present "throw a bunch of teams/guys/feuds together" Survivor Series is good, but the presence of undercard guys in the match has never been the problem.
"Stacked cards" are easy to make. But if all I wanted were "stacked cards" I'd just watch PWG, EVOLVE, the New Japan Big Five and the ROH/New Japan shows. But I don't. In fact, of all of those, the one I'm least interested in is PWG, which has arguably the most stacked cards. The one I am second-least interested in is New Japan, which has the second-most stacked cards for it's Big Five. And the reason for that is that neither promotion (especially PWG) does anything to make me care who wins and who loses. If you want to get people interested then you need to give them a reason to care. This "feud" between Raw and Smackdown is non-existent, aside from in the heads of Foley, Bryan, Shane, and Steph. What fan could possibly care? How could you possibly care? The shows are just two sides of the same coin, so there is no battle of philosophy here, and whichever side wins, we are going to be stuck hearing either Cole or JBL constantly plug how their side won, which is annoying not only in the "WWE overdoes everything" sense, but if they keep reminding me that Raw beat Smackdown therefore Raw is better LOL then it will just make me sad because they're telling me that my favorite SD wrestlers (AJ, Kane, Alexa, American Alpha, Nattie, Cena, Swagger) are inferior, and if Smackdown beats Raw and they keep rubbing it in that therefore Smackdown is better, then it will just make me sad because they're telling me that my favorite Raw wrestlers (Owens, Zayn, Cesaro, Rollins, Rusev, Sasha, Charlotte, Sheamus, Gallows, Anderson) are inferior. It's a no-win scenario emotionally.
The way they could get around this would be to put something on the line to make me want to see something, but they haven't done that, either. They just keep having the authority figures tell us that this is important when we have seen no evidence that it is. Even New Day's promo felt like they were just cutting a promo on the Smackdown guys because their bosses told them to, and any desire they have to win is out of personal pride rather than some sort of brand-nationalism or any sort of reward/punishment dynamic that would make them want to win and not lose.

I also disagree with you that this card is stacked. The tag match is going to be a f*cking disaster simply because there are a million people in it, and as we've seen before whenever WWE does this, the eliminations will go WAY too quickly and everyone will wind up getting buried. The women's match will be dragged down by the presence of certain wrestlers who are only in this match because they decided they had to make this 5-on-5 (and because they decided that they had to do this dumb idea in the first place). Specifically, I'm talking about Carmella, and probably Nia and Dana, depending on if they have a good night or not. Naomi and Alexa can certainly hold their own, but I wouldn't expect a real stand-out performance out of either. The others (Nikki included) I have full confidence in, and in case anything goes wrong they've got a veteran like Nattie in there to take charge and... wait. No they don't. Because they decided to keep the best female wrestling in the company out of this match for no good reason. It's not being booked to be good. It's being booked to be a time-killing clusterf*ck, just like the tag match is.
And I don't just mean time on the card. I mean they are trying to kill time in the medium to long term as well. New Day being put in one of these matches means that they won't have to defend the belts again until Roadblock, which is, of course, after they'll break Demolition's record, despite the fact that Cesaro and Sheamus should get a rematch well before that based off of the finish of their HIAC match (and it's not just the 30 Days Rule that means they should get a title shot before that. It's the fact that if Cesaro & Sheamus don't care enough to demand a rematch and Steph & Foley don't think it's important enough to give them a rematch in a diligent manner, then the titles really aren't that important, are they?). The men's match will probably be best of the bunch because they're going to stick all of their top guys in there... but the reason for that simply so that they can wait before starting the build to the next set of programs (and Rollins vs. Owens will keep going for EVEN LONGER). I doubt we'll have any inkling who Roman's next challenger will be until after Survivor Series, which is three more weeks they can add to his title reign, which they'll love because they're on this kick of artificially inflated reigns and numbers (which is why Charlotte always loses the belt on TV but always wins on PPV: so they can keep up with that silly stat about her PPV victories in title matches. It's like how TNA would push EC III or Christian as "undefeated" even after they had lost the world title twice, simply because they hadn't been pinned, not realizing that they have lost so many matches that no one gives a sh*t about it anymore). Same goes for Rhyno and Slater, probably Miz as well, and also Becky assuming that next week's SD is going to be the blow-off fer her feud with Alexa (and if it isn't, that's yet another feud they are going to be able to drag out for an extra month before doing this)

And from the point of view of an smart fan with a particular affinity for booking, I f*cking hate this not just for all of the reasons I laid out above regarding the laziness of the storytelling on every single axis, but because the end result of all of this will not just be matches that no one cares about and the devaluing of titles and PPVs, but also for the certainty that 75% of the roster is going to get pinned in a bunch of matches that are happening for no reason at all.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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