BRM Reviews the 3/20/2017 Raw (very bad)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- terrible.
Wait… Foley is still employed? So did no one get fired last week, after all of that build-up?
Ah. Okay. Good. He’s reading a prepared statement and resigning. HOORAY! One annoying authority figure down, one to go!
Mick deviates from the script prepared for him by the McMahons, so they cut his mic off. At least this was done in an intelligent fashion.
Steph comes out to yell at Foley (while his mic was cut off, which was a great touch). She’s dressed in a manner much more reminiscent of early 2000’s Steph rather than modern businesswoman Steph. She fires Mick. Like I said before: HOORAY! Now if only we could find a way to get rid of Steph this show would become watchable again.
Here comes Sami Zayn out to yell at Steph for being mean and evil. The fans care so much about the firing of the legendary Mick Foley and young underdog babyface Sami Zayn risking his career to yell at evil tyrant Stephanie that they are chanting “CM PUNK!”
Sami claims Foley showed “class and integrity” as a general manager. Integrity maybe, but class? I guess I must have missed it while I was rolling my eyes at his constant crying, bumbling incompetence, and allowing Steph and Strowman to walk all over him.
Steph buries Sami. They’ve booked themselves into such a corner that the only way this could possibly end in a way that makes Sami look good is if he says “f*ck off, b*tch. I quit. See you on Smackdown.” Instead we have Samoa Joe come out and Steph “punishes” Sami Zayn, a professional wrestler, by booking him in a professional wrestling match against another professional wrestler. Good job, Steph. You sure showed him!
This segment sucked. It was a continuation of the same Steph/Foley-centric bullsh*t that has been dragging this show down since September.

SAMOA JOE vs. SAMI ZAYN- 6.5/10
Joe hasn’t even been on the main roster for two months and I already feel like I’ve seen this match a zillion times.
In the middle of the match, right after Sami got a nearfall on a diving crossbody, they cut to two kids in the crowd, who could not have looked more bored… and I almost can’t blame the kids. The match was objectively good in terms of quality, but at the same time I’ve seen it a million times already so I know at this point that it won’t mean anything, so it’s really hard for me to care.

MICK FOLEY & SAMI ZAYN BACKSTAGE- GO AWAY, FOLEY!
This was supposed to be a big moment with Sami telling Foley “we need you to stand up for us” and Foley saying “you need to stand up for yourself” or something like that… except that Sami just did that in the earlier segment!

FOLEY, SHEAMUS, & CEASRO BACKSTAGE- GO AWAY MICK!
Oh great. Now there’s a bunch of other random babyfaces, ending in Bayley, who shares a big hug with Mick while I shout for Mick to get away from that poor girl because he’s already corrupted her morals.
Hunter tells Foley to “have a nice day” and I popped because I just want Mick Foley to GO AWAY.

SETH’S DOCTOR UPDATES US ON HIS CONDITION- he won’t be cleared for WrestleMania.

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. DANA BROOKE- 2/10
Huge pop for Charlotte. They had a very short match (barely three and a half minutes) which Charlotte won clean, totally spaying the newly-babyface Dana Brooke. Yeah. Doing that turn out of nowhere was totally worthy it. The crowd was chanting something that I couldn’t understand, but I’ll give you two to one odds that it wasn’t in any way related to the match.

STEPH & BAYLEY BACKSTAGE- horrible.
Steph tries to mock Bayley by asking her “what’s the matter? Do you need a hug?” I was extremely disappointed that Bayley responded by saying “Steph, I don’t want a hug from you.” I would have been so awesome to have Bayley give Steph a big hug and have Steph be utterly furious about it.
Bayley continued by telling Steph “Growing up I always admired you so much. I thought you were such a strong woman.” Yeah… I’m calling bullsh*t on ANY little girls out there having admired freakin’ STEPH at what was the time when Trish and Lita were at the top of their games as babyfaces, but no, we’ve got to make sure everyone knows that Steph is a strong, independent woman and a role model to all women everywhere. This was a like a real-life version of the following excellent piece of worked from BotchedSpot:
http://botchedspot.com/blog/comic/tune- ... -nxt-kids/

We then continued with the following:
“But ever since Mick brought me to the WWE seven months ago, right here in Brooklyn, New York, I have seen you do nothing but use your powers to hurt other people.”
Okay… Steph hasn’t been a babyface since SummerSlam 2013. The 2013 part of that should make clear that has been a hell of a lot longer than the seven months that Bayley described. In that time we’ve seen her do mean, hurtful, spiteful, evil things to, among others: Daniel Bryan, Brie Bella, John Cena, Big Show, Roman Reigns, Vickie Guerrero, Dolph Ziggler, the entire Rhodes Family, Erick Rowan, and probably some others I’m forgetting, too. Was Bayley, who we have established is a total WWE superfan, not watching the product while she was in NXT?
Steph takes revenge on Bayley by telling her she will “have to earn it every single night” to be champion. This would come off as a lot meaner if they hadn’t completely f*cked up this whole Charlotte-Bayley-Sasha thing. Steph claims that Nia beating up Bayley but being an idiot and getting DQed has earned her “a place in the conversation” about the Women’s Title picture. So Nia spends months going undefeated and crushing everyone in her path and was never allowed to be anywhere close to the title picture, but now that she lost by DQ for being an idiot she has earned some consideration? Really? I get that Steph is being a heel and it’s not supposed to be fair. What I’m saying is that the fact that Nia has never merited any conversation before makes the company look silly.
Because Nia has earned her place in the conversation, Steph is booking a rematch of last week’s stip, where if Nia beats Bayley, she gets added to the Women’s Title match at WrestleMania, because, yeah, sure, let’s just cram them all in there like they’re doing on Smackdown. You know… because the point of having two brands was totally to have them both doing the exact same thing.
To make matters worse, Steph makes this match a No DQs match, because apparently she is an idiot and doesn’t realize that both Bayley’s friend Sasha Banks as well as Charlotte have incentive to interfere and make sure Nia loses, and that letting Bayley use weapons against the bigger, stronger, woman will only increase Bayley’s chances of winning. And, of course, if Bayley wins tonight it won’t matter anyway because Steph will probably just come up with some excuse to book this same match again next week, so why should I care about the match?
The booking of the Women’s Title over the past month has been terrible, but the insertion of… no. “Insertion” is nowhere near a strong enough word. The VIOLATION of this storyline with Stephanie McMahon has been as painful to watch as that word should make it sound. Just like she does with the men, Steph has to come out and assert her dominance over absolutely everyone, making the babyfaces look like crap, and then getting the point across that she is in charge by occasionally yelling the heels down and making babyface decisions just to show that she’s in charge. In fact… it’s actually worse than with the men, because at least they don’t force the men to put over Stephanie for being so strong and empowered and independent (here working for her daddy’s company), but because Stephanie must be shown to be a role model to all women everywhere, we now have to have the women spouting platitudes about Stephanie’s inspiring greatness as well. One of the MANY things that makes Smackdown better than Raw is that on Smackdown they know how to book a show where the authority figures aren’t the center of attention. If Raw could do that, it would be a MUCH more tolerable show.

CHRIS JERICHO “REVEALS THE REAL KEVIN OWENS”- bad
This started off with Jericho showing the picture of sixteen-year-old Kevin Owens wearing a Jericho shirt, doing Jericho’s pose (though it looked more like Raven’s to me because his head was down) and making fun of him for… what, exactly? For being a fan of Chris Jericho?
And then he buries him for asking Jericho, a veteran wrestler, for advice after having been signed by WWE? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Hell, there is an interview out there with Lance Storm putting over a bunch of ROH wrestlers (and Gabe as a booker, too) for asking Lance for feedback on anything he could possibly give them feedback on (including, by the way, Owens). And that whole tirade about him being “in his parents’ basement” was idiotic. Very few sixteen-year-olds live on their own. Jericho came off like the biggest asshole in the world here, which hurt the latter part of his promo (and the humorous tone this set for that part of the promo didn’t help, either).
This ended with Jericho being about to put Owens on the list. My interest in this feud is completely dead. Before Jericho could write Owens’ name down on a piece of paper, Samoa Joe came out (with no music) to distract Jericho so that Owens could attack him from behind and beat him up. Owens beat Jericho up… and I was happy because Jericho was being a huge douchebag here. Then Owens ripped up the list (and ate some of it and spat it back out at Jericho).

TJ PERKINS vs. BRIAN KENDRICK- 2/10
They did what they could with the time they had, which was less than ninety seconds. Remember how they justified Raw getting the Cruiserweights as being because Raw had more time to fill? You’d think that with all of that time they could give them something more than a minute and a half.

KENDRICK PROMO- Tozawa isn’t here tonight because he couldn’t get into the US because Kendrick stole his passport. Okay… so what did this accomplish, exactly? Oh no. Tozawa is missing a week of TV. Good job there, Kendrick. You sure showed him.

ROMAN REIGNS PROMO- good.


STEPH, SHEAMUS, & CESARO BACKSTAGE- I hate this show.
Steph decides to punish them for liking Foley by making them earn their spot in the tag title match all over again by having to beat Gallows, Anderson, Enzo, & Cass in handicap match tonight. So rather than let these guys cut promos talking about how much they want to win the tag titles or booking some sort of angle to get some heat on Gallows & Anderson going into this match (you know, something that would actually make fans give a sh*t about this tag title match), we’ve instead decided that we need to have a handicap match with a completely predictable screwy finish (oh, and we’re making Enzo & Cass play the role of the de facto heels in their home market). And why? Because the focus of the show has to be on Steph and Foley (that’s where all the heat from this goes, isn’t it? This won’t end with Gallows & Anderson cheating to keep Cesarmus out of the title match so they won’t get any heat out of it. The only heat to be had is for Steph, who gets to wield her power over the babyfaces with no repercussions anywhere in sight because there is no babyface set up to oppose her).


Before the Nia vs. Bayley match started, Michael Cole told us the following:
“In thirteen nights at WrestleMania, Bayley is going to defend her Raw Women’s Championship in a *Triple Threat* match. Bayley will defend against Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania, and what’s interesting about this is that the champion does not have to be involved in the decision to lose the title because the first woman to gain a pinfall or a submission will become the Raw Women’s Champion.”
No, Michael! What’s interesting about this match isn’t that the champion can lose the belt without losing the fall. What’s interesting about it is that THESE THREE TOP ATHELETES ARE FIGHTING FOR THE TOP PRIZE IN WOMEN’S WRESTLING ON THE RAW BRAND AT THE BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR!

I know I touched on this in my review two weeks ago, but that had more to do with my dislike of hearing the same repetitive hype phrases in the same exact verbiage over and over and over and over again. Having gotten that grievance out of the way freed my mind up a bit to not just tune this phrase out, and what bothered me this time is a much deeper problem, which is that this shows a major issue with WWE’s philosophy.
Compare how Cole has hyped this match up to my (rather visceral) response on what the hype should be about (i.e. what the focus is on). Cole is hyping up how a nuance of the rules could maybe result in one specific wrestler being sad because she lost her title without being pinned/submitted. But take a moment to ask yourself: do you really care that much when someone loses a multi-person match without being the one to take the fall? I know it bugs Lance Storm when a champion loses the belt without being the one to take the fall, and I’m not trying to negate the importance of who gets pinned; the fact that one of these women will lose this match without getting pinned or being made to submit is excellent ground on which to build to a singles match between that woman and the winner. But does it really matter who that woman is?
Once the match starts, they’re all basically equal, right? There is no concept of a “champions advantage” (save for the odd possibility of the champion keeping the belt due to some sort of odd double-pinfall type of scenario). Is it any more tragic for Bayley to lose the title without being pinned or made to submit if Sasha pins Charlotte than it would be for Sasha to lose her chance to become the champion because Bayley pinned another challenger? Of course not. Either way someone is losing a title match even though she herself wasn’t beaten, and she would have an excellent case that she should be right at front of the line to be the next challenger for the title… so why does WWE constantly push their Triple Threat (and more) matches by fixate on this mostly irrelevant detail?
The sad answer is that I don’t think WWE (or, now that I think about, mostly just Raw) has the faith in their talent* to be compelling enough to get fans invested in them as characters and thus care about the simple fact of whether they win or lose a match- whether they accomplish a goal or fail. That’s why Bayley’s title win had to be tainted with interference intended to build to this three (or more)-way match and why Sasha and Charlotte’s feud had be about “women making history” rather than two women who hate each other fighting over a championship. It’s why New Day had to spend months and months and months cheating in order to conquer Demolition’s record rather than letting them have real feuds and taking the belts off of them when the time was right, and why Bray Wyatt has to do spooky magic and say spooky things instead of having a personality that is in any way compelling. It’s why we have gimmick PPV and pointless ladder matches at WrestleMania. And it’s why, come WrestleMania season, WWE relies so much on older talent who have proven to be able to do this rather than giving the young generation the chance to prove that they can, too.

*with a few exceptions: namely Cena and maybe Miz and AJ)


NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH IN WHICH IF NIA JAX WINS, SHE GETS ADDED TO THE WWE WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH AT WRESTLEMANIA XXXIII: Nia Jax vs. Bayley- 5.5/10
JoJo forgot to announce the all-important “if Nia wins she gets added to the title match” stip.
The match was pretty good for the time it got, but the fans decided early on that they wanted Asuka instead, fully knowing that they wouldn’t get her, but they decided to piss on the match anyway, even chanting for “CM Punk!” by the end.

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH VIDEO FOR MAE YOUNG- fine

MICHAEL COLE’S SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH TRIPLE H- great stuff by Hunter.
The “CM Punk!” chants from the end of the previous match continue. The end result of is will be Hunter offering Rollins a contract next week for an unsanctioned match at WrestleMania so that Rollins can’t sue WWE for any injuries caused to him.



HANDICAP MATCH IN WHICH IF SHEAMUS & CESARO LOSE, THEY LOSE THEIR TITLE SHOT AT WRESTLEMANIA: Cesaro & Sheamus vs. Colin Cassady, Enzo Amore, Luke Gallows, & Karl Anderson- DUD!
Big Cass- yes, really. Just Cass- cut a good promo before the match.
Gallows & Anderson attacked Enzo & Cass before the match because they’re idiots. Enzo & Cass then attack Gallows while he is on the apron. Then Anderson got pinned after just one move. Then Enzo & Cass attacked Gallows & Anderson- two already-downed men- after the match for no reason.


NEW DAY PLUG WRESTLEMANIA- this was much less unbearable than usual.

AUSTIN ARIES vs. TONY NESE- 5.25/10
After the match Neville came out and he and Aries cut promos on each other. It was fine.

EMMA IS TOTALLY COMING SOON, WE SWEAR- yeah, right. I’m not falling for this one again.

BRAUN STROWMAN PROMO- awesome.

ROMAN REIGNS vs. BRAUN STROWMAN- 5.75/10
They had a match that was going along swimmingly until Taker showed up (simultaneously magicking away the referee so we couldn’t even get a call for a DQ when Taker chokeslammed Strowman… because that would, of course, require Roman to be the loser). Roman took advantage of Taker being distracted by having just dealt with Braun to hit him with a spear. Roman walked away. Taker sat up. This a pointless f*ck finish in a main event. This feud is exactly where it was before the night started.

A very bad episode of Raw.

[KILLdozer]

As I said in last week's review topic-at this point I'm just awaiting another big, grand Authority v the wrestlers ten person mixed tag match . Lol come on WWE. It's like they don't care we've already seen this exact same angle less than three years ago.

[cero2k]

As I said in last week's review topic-at this point I'm just awaiting another big, grand Authority v the wrestlers ten person mixed tag match . Lol come on WWE. It's like they don't care we've already seen this exact same angle less than 20years ago.

let me fix that for you

[KILLdozer]

I didn't see the Emma thing on Hulu, though I must say...No one cared enough to interfere in the no dq match to stop Nia Jax, (oh, so dangerous, makes the odds tougher to win,) from winning?

Of course not. Now that interference is legal, it doesn't actually happen.

I told you about these clichés they're always saying the exact same way about SD and Carmella's attacks last week. I was right-"making a statement"

Lol they're so predictable it's hilarious.

[KILLdozer]

As I said in last week's review topic-at this point I'm just awaiting another big, grand Authority v the wrestlers ten person mixed tag match . Lol come on WWE. It's like they don't care we've already seen this exact same angle less than 20years ago.

let me fix that for you

What you did there... I actually don't see it...

[cero2k]

As I said in last week's review topic-at this point I'm just awaiting another big, grand Authority v the wrestlers ten person mixed tag match . Lol come on WWE. It's like they don't care we've already seen this exact same angle less than 20years ago.

let me fix that for you

What you did there... I actually don't see it...

that big 20 in your post. the authority vs wrestlers story has definitely been going on for more than the last 3 yrs, it's really the only story that WWE knows

[Big Red Machine]

I told you about these clichés they're always saying the exact same way about SD and Carmella's attacks last week. I was right-"making a statement"

Yeah, but that's just a thing people say when they don't have anything to say other than "she jumped her from behind." This is them focusing on completely the wrong thing. This isn't a cliche. It's going in a totally wrong direction.

[WrestlingJoker]

BRM, why do you hate Foley so much?

[Big Red Machine]

BRM, why do you hate Foley so much?

I don't hate Mick personally so much as I hate what he has become and how he has been used on this show.

1. Most of the time when Mick talks on Raw (whether it's his own decision on the delivery or not), comes off to me as completely overemotional. He's always either crying or yelling (or both) or clearly on the verge of doing at least one of those things (his involvement in Charlotte vs. Sasha, Zayn vs. Strowman, and the backstage segment after the Sheamus vs. Cesaro PPV match are the best examples of what I mean here). He comes across like a total buffoon. I know that this is very similar to how he has always cut promos, but now the subject of the emotion is someone other than himself or his immediately family or best friends or whatever- often people we have never seen him have any sort of relationship with before- so it comes off as complete and total overacting, and gets tiresome and annoying extremely quickly.

2. Again, this isn't his fault, but he has been booked completely terribly. He comes up with contrived solutions which will often ignore common sense, and often his attempts to make things better are things that will so obviously have the opposite of his intended result that he looks like a total idiot (the Owens vs. Roman booking is the best example of this, but I can point to others as well).
He also winds up in the crappy WWE authority figure role where he basically ignores the babyfaces' wrongdoing and only punishes the heels, which makes me want to side with the heels because they're getting screwed. The New Day title reign is a chief example of this, although the whole debacle that the women's division has become has quickly developed into a similar situation.

3. When he tries to correct things, he often doesn't follow his own precedent (and common sense) for no discernible reason other than that the plot demands it, which is in an excuse that should be avoided using unless 100% necessary because the more you ask people to suspend their disbelief, the more likely it is that they won't be able to keep holding it up there and it will all come crashing down. An example of this would be that Roman gets screwed out of a title match by Jericho at Roadblock so he is given a rematch at Royal Rumble... but then when he gets screwed out of the title match at the Rumble by Strowman, he doesn't get a rematch? This is an even bigger issue for me because, as the babyface authority figure, I believe that Mick is supposed to be the enforcer of fairness. He's the guy who is supposed to be doing whatever he can to set things right and ensure that all issues are eventually settled cleanly in the middle of the ring. On Raw, Mick doesn't do that.

4. Like Steph, there is WAY too much focus on Mick, to the point where it feels like storylines are being written around him rather than around the wrestlers. While that is fine on occasion, the way WWE does it inevitably winds up burying the wrestlers (Sami Zayn in the Strowman feud) or the titles or whatever other important things there are supposed to be in favor of a storyline between Foley and Steph that will never have a satisfying payoff because unless we're going to have Steph and Foley pick wrestlers (or a teams) to battle for control of Raw and have Steph lose (which they won't do), there isn't anything Mick can do to Steph because of WWE's rules about man-on-woman violence and the general way that they almost always book Steph to never look weak... and, because of the way they have set things up, they don't really even have a reasonable way of getting to that point right now because Mick Foley has absolutely zero leverage of any kind over Steph (and Hunter and Vince).
WWE's desire to write angles around authority figures (not just Foley, but Steph as well) also often results in glaring inconsistencies due to the poor nature of WWE's writing (why is Foley concerned that Braun will hurt Sami Zayn but not concerned that Braun will hurt the many jobbers- who are all smaller than Sami and have no track record of success) that he booked Braun against on a weekly basis? Again; I realize that 99% (or more) of this is not Mick's fault, but it does mean that his presence on the roster feels responsible for the terrible storylines and segments we get that are based around him because if he wasn't on the roster, Creative wouldn't feel compelled to write them. Therefore, Mick being gone makes me happy because it will mean that we won't be getting these bad segments and storylines and promos anymore.

[KILLdozer]

I'm just so tired of the same over the top forced Stephanie act myself.

[WrestlingJoker]

BRM, why do you hate Foley so much?

I don't hate Mick personally so much as I hate what he has become and how he has been used on this show.

1. Most of the time when Mick talks on Raw (whether it's his own decision on the delivery or not), comes off to me as completely overemotional. He's always either crying or yelling (or both) or clearly on the verge of doing at least one of those things (his involvement in Charlotte vs. Sasha, Zayn vs. Strowman, and the backstage segment after the Sheamus vs. Cesaro PPV match are the best examples of what I mean here). He comes across like a total buffoon. I know that this is very similar to how he has always cut promos, but now the subject of the emotion is someone other than himself or his immediately family or best friends or whatever- often people we have never seen him have any sort of relationship with before- so it comes off as complete and total overacting, and gets tiresome and annoying extremely quickly.

2. Again, this isn't his fault, but he has been booked completely terribly. He comes up with contrived solutions which will often ignore common sense, and often his attempts to make things better are things that will so obviously have the opposite of his intended result that he looks like a total idiot (the Owens vs. Roman booking is the best example of this, but I can point to others as well).
He also winds up in the crappy WWE authority figure role where he basically ignores the babyfaces' wrongdoing and only punishes the heels, which makes me want to side with the heels because they're getting screwed. The New Day title reign is a chief example of this, although the whole debacle that the women's division has become has quickly developed into a similar situation.

3. When he tries to correct things, he often doesn't follow his own precedent (and common sense) for no discernible reason other than that the plot demands it, which is in an excuse that should be avoided using unless 100% necessary because the more you ask people to suspend their disbelief, the more likely it is that they won't be able to keep holding it up there and it will all come crashing down. An example of this would be that Roman gets screwed out of a title match by Jericho at Roadblock so he is given a rematch at Royal Rumble... but then when he gets screwed out of the title match at the Rumble by Strowman, he doesn't get a rematch? This is an even bigger issue for me because, as the babyface authority figure, I believe that Mick is supposed to be the enforcer of fairness. He's the guy who is supposed to be doing whatever he can to set things right and ensure that all issues are eventually settled cleanly in the middle of the ring. On Raw, Mick doesn't do that.

4. Like Steph, there is WAY too much focus on Mick, to the point where it feels like storylines are being written around him rather than around the wrestlers. While that is fine on occasion, the way WWE does it inevitably winds up burying the wrestlers (Sami Zayn in the Strowman feud) or the titles or whatever other important things there are supposed to be in favor of a storyline between Foley and Steph that will never have a satisfying payoff because unless we're going to have Steph and Foley pick wrestlers (or a teams) to battle for control of Raw and have Steph lose (which they won't do), there isn't anything Mick can do to Steph because of WWE's rules about man-on-woman violence and the general way that they almost always book Steph to never look weak... and, because of the way they have set things up, they don't really even have a reasonable way of getting to that point right now because Mick Foley has absolutely zero leverage of any kind over Steph (and Hunter and Vince).
WWE's desire to write angles around authority figures (not just Foley, but Steph as well) also often results in glaring inconsistencies due to the poor nature of WWE's writing (why is Foley concerned that Braun will hurt Sami Zayn but not concerned that Braun will hurt the many jobbers- who are all smaller than Sami and have no track record of success) that he booked Braun against on a weekly basis? Again; I realize that 99% (or more) of this is not Mick's fault, but it does mean that his presence on the roster feels responsible for the terrible storylines and segments we get that are based around him because if he wasn't on the roster, Creative wouldn't feel compelled to write them. Therefore, Mick being gone makes me happy because it will mean that we won't be getting these bad segments and storylines and promos anymore.

Eh. I suppose those are pretty fair points. To be fair, I didn't really care much for him as GM (also I hate the short hair look he sports now, lol).