BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 29th, '17, 22:36

MEMORIAL DAY STUFF- fine

MIZ TV WITH SPECIAL GUESTS CESARO & SHEAMUS- Miz talked up his match with Ambrose at the PPV, then brought out Cesaro and Sheamus, so we’re probably getting a six-man tag later tonight. Mouths are run and PPV title matches are plugged until Ambrose shows up and calls the heels “buttheads.” Dean wants to fight. Miz points out that it would be three-on-one so the Hardys come out. Booker declared this to be “a moment,” which I guess is technically true. The heels were quickly run off and we shockingly went to commercial before Kurt Angle came out book a six-man tag.

THE HARDY BOYZ & DEAN AMBROSE vs. SHEAMUS, CESARO & THE MIZ (w/Maryse)- 7.25/10
Yup. Kurt came out and made the match during the break. This was a solid sixteen minutes or so of good tag team wrestling. Dean was the babyface in peril. Eventually Jeff pinned Sheamus, keeping the Hardys undefeated streak alive.

“Sheamus and Cesaro and The Miz: they’ve got a plan guys, and I think that plan is about Sunday night and how they can win.” Thank you for expert analysis, Booker.
Cole accidentally said “WWE fans” instead of WWE Universe, so he’ll probably spend the next commercial break in the Agony Booth.

COLE PLUGS THE PPV WHILE COREY GRAVES CHECKS HIS PHONE- Cole once again explained the stips for the PPV matches in the two feuds we just saw while the whole time Graves was intensely and staring at his phone. Cole pitched it over to him but Corey said “sorry” got up and left. Intrigue. For a nice touch, Cole stumbled a bit into his next plug… which happened to be for Alexa Bliss! presents “Bayley, This Is Your Life.” THIS IS GOING TO BE EPIC.

KURT ANGLE & COREY GRAVES BACKSTAGE- Kurt reads his phone with the same intensity as Gravs before. Graves shows up and Kurt starts to read out loud: “A disgrace and embarrassment to the WWE. Besmirch my status as an Olympic gold medalist,” then turns to Graves and says “what is this? Some kind of joke?” to which Graves solemnly responds “I wish it was.”
Graves says he is on Kurt’s side and thinks Kurt is doing an excellent job as GM and would hate for anything to screw it up. Kurt then asks Graves “how’d you get this?” and Graves just claims that “people tell me things.” He says he just wants to give Kurt a heads up and offers to help Kurt in any way he can. Kurt says that “if this is true, it could ruin me.” So is Steph trying to blackmail Kurt to get her job back or something?

“THE DRIFTER” ELIAS SAMPSON ANNOYS US WITH HIS GUITAR- In case you ever wondered how The Drifter could be any more annoying, the answer is to have WWE Creative write his songs.

“THE DRIFTER” ELIAS SAMPSON vs. ZACK EVANS- squash
Yeah, I did a double-take when I heard that name. If you’re going to do that you might as well go the whole way and announce him as hailing from “Zarkland, Washington.”
“LET’S GO JOBBER!” chants. See. Everyone hates that f*cking Drifter. Even his squash wins are boring.

Graves is back.

SAMOA JOE PROMO- F*CKING AWESOME (and he managed to plug the Finn Balor WWE Network special in a way that made perfect sense!) Joe was then magically interrupted for more of Bray Wyatt’s verbal diarrhea. Come to think of it, that’s quite the perfect metaphor for Bray’s promos because the promos themselves are all sh*t and the words he says are worth just about as much.

FINN BALOR vs. SAMOA JOE vs. BRAY WYATT- 7.75/10
Michael described this as “one of our main events tonight.” Really? Third on the card and you’re going to call it a “main event?” Is the Kiss Demon going do to a run-in? (Finn Balor, Kiss Demon, & The Demon Kane for King of the Trios. Book it, Quack!)
The match was GREAT! The story was your standard three-way where it’s basically guys taking turns having singles segments with each other, but in this case it was Balor who was in the segment 90% of the time so he was worn down and had to fight back against the two bigger men. He eventually hit Bray with the Coup De Grace but Joe stole the pin.
The announcers spent the whole match putting Balor over really hard. That resulted in the following gem from Booker T: “To stop him you’re gonna have to separate him from himself, and I wonder ‘is there actually a place.”
Fifty-Million BRM-Land Fun-Bucks to the first person who can translate this sentence into real English.

SETH ROLLINS PROMO- good

Apparently we’re getting Dar & Fox vs. Sasha Banks & Rich Swann in a Mixed Tag Team match at Extreme Rules. When did Rich Swann get involved with this?

NOAM DAR (w/Alicia Fox) vs. RICH SWANN (w/Sasha Banks)- 3.5/10
This was good for the time it got. Dar worked over Swann’s arm, Swann made his comeback, Fox tried to interfere but Sasha stopped her so Swann could hit his finisher. Swann and Sasha danced after the match and came off looking like the coolest cats in the world. Great stuff.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS THE RETURNING REVIVAL! Dash will be back soon. Charly asks them about Enzo but Dawson said they had nothing to do with it. They showed The Revival in the background of Sasha’s interview. Dawson was excellent here. This whole bit was excellent, and now The Revival have been set up as the prime suspects in the attack on Enzo.

Michael Cole then gave us a recap of the Kendrick vs. Tozawa blow-off from last week’s 205Live… and when we got back from the video package, Big Cass was already standing by the broadcast position and yelling a Graves- without a mic, but loudly enough to be heard- that he had better not have been implying that Cass would have had something to do with the heinous assault on a man he considers a brother. THIS is how you do this sort of thing while making it all feel as organic as possible. Did WWE hire someone new in Creative? Because this have been feeling a lot more organic tonight.
Corey stuttered and stammered in the face of big scary Cass and said that he meant that he knew that Cass would be doing his own investigation that would be very thorough… and Cass stick his hand out for a handshake and Graves tentatively took it, but you could tell by Cass’ face was that what he meant by this handshake was “I’m letting you off this time, but you’d better watch your mouth from now on.”

KALISTO vs. TITUS O’NEIL (w/Apollo Crews)- no rating, good segment.
We got a segment from earlier tonight where Titus told Apollo to watch and learn from what he does tonight. The finish came pretty quickly in. Kalisto tried for a wacky Lucha roll-up but Titus used his strength to block and pinned Kalisto while pulling the tights. Apollo was disapproving of Titus’ pulling the tights but was trying not to be too confrontational about it. Titus kept telling Apollo that that was what was needed to get the job done.

ALEXA BLISS! PRESENTS “BAYLEY, THIS IS YOUR LIFE”- pretty good
Alexa explains that whoever gets the Kendo stick first is allowed to “legally use it to inflict pain on her opponent,” which would mean that if the other woman uses the Kendo stick at all then it’s a DQ. Don’t get me wrong: if you’re going to do a gimmick match like this, that’s the way that makes the most sense. I’m just laying out what she said here so that I can hold them to it on Sunday.

A little over the top but mostly fine, aside from that part where they specifically had her ex-best friend bury Bayley as uncool because Bayley wanted to watch wrestling. They also went back to the “couldn’t stand to be away from her father” joke twice, which is actually kind of pathetic when they only had three points. I did actually laugh at the ex-boyfriend saying he only dated Bayley to get close to the ex-best friend and her saying that she thought he was out of her league and them making out and stuff. This true love would not have been possible without Alexa Bliss! being mean to Bayley. The universe works in funny ways sometimes.
Anyway, Bayley finally shows up without in any way attempting to refute all of these things that were said that made her look completely pathetic. She wants to fight with Alexa but Alexa immediately takes her down. Bayley makes a comeback and starts to knock some of the cutesy kiddie stuff of the table but then she decides to go get the Kendo stick down off the pole in the corner. Alexa cut her off before she could get to it, and then revealed that she had deviously hidden a Kendo stick under the table for just such an occasion and she hit Bayley with it once and Bayley went out to the floor and sold it a lot while Alexa celebrated. This was good, but it didn’t really feel like any sort of escalation because we’ve seen this same ending at least once before. Also, I think that at this point Bayley pretty much HAS to win at the PPV or else she will look completely pathetic.
If I were booking this, instead of going for the Kendo stick I would have had Bayley knock all of the kiddie stuff off of the table and put Alexa through it (I like the symbolism of that). Then Bayley would go up and get the Kendo stick but by the time she got back down Alexa would have escaped into the crowd (maybe you could buy some more time by having Alexa first roll under the ring to hide and recover and once Bayley figures out where she is and comes after her Alexa could poke out the other side and escape through the crowd). This would show that Bayley can “get extreme” as they would say and show us that she is fully capable of winning, so if you don’t want to take the belt off of Alexa yet (and why would you ever?) you can have Alexa beat Bayley without Bayley coming off as completely pathetic and out of her league when things have to go to that next level.

ENZO HAS BEEN LAID OUT FROM BEHIND AGAIN- good
If you’re going to do this I would rather have just kept him out. Cass and Kurt both showed up. Cass is insistent that The Revival did it but Kurt says he saw them leave. Cass points out that they could have just come back in, but Kurt says that he doesn’t want to make any accusations without all of the facts. He tells Cass to go calm down but Cass says that he won’t leave Enzo’s side again.

AUSTIN ARIES & JACK GALLAGHER vs. TJ PERKINS & NEVILLE- 5.5/10
I’m dead sure we saw this same match on Raw recently. Anyway, Aries made Neville tap which is 100% the right finish because, as Cole and Graves explained, it shows us that Aries’ can make Neville tap going into their Submission Match for the title while Neville gets to claim that he was just preserving his body for Sunday’s title match.

ROMAN REIGNS PROMO- GREAT! THIS is the sort of promo Roman should be cutting.

CHARLY CARUSO TRIES TO INTERVIEW NEVILLE- he angrily walks off without saying anything. Cole says that this shows that he has been thrown completely off of his game by this submissions loss to Aries.

GOLDUST VIDEO- The show has been quite good so far this week so I won’t skip this video this week. And it’s a good thing I did because this was actually pretty good.

AND NOW THERE’S AN R-TRUTH VIDEO, TOO- great! This whole thing is very 1996, but it definitely works.

They keep telling me that the main event at Extreme Rules “could change the course of history” but they never tell me why that is different from any other match. I think this might actually be worse than TNA’s “10/10/10: a date that comes once a century” hype phrase for Bound For Glory 2010.

SETH ROLLINS vs. ROMAN REIGNS- 7.75/10
Booker T noted that Roman’s injuries from the Strowman match at the last PPV have finally healed. These guys had a great match, with the story being Roman working over Seth’s midsection.

Holy sh*t what happened between last week and this week? This show ROCKED! They did all of the little things right, there were lots of great matches and promos, every match had the right finish, and absolutely no f*ck finishes! I want THIS Raw every week!
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by XIV » May 30th, '17, 06:30

The Graves/Angle and the Enzo attack stuff has me wanting next week's Raw already. I haven't felt that in years. Already hoping for the next show to figure out these inriguing things!?

What has Graves wind of got that could ruin Kurt?

Who is attacking Enzo? Is it the Revival? Is it Cass? Is it someone else!?

I want answers dammit.

PS. I love the Goldust stuff and I actually hope it goes past the R-Truth feud and this is one good last run for Goldust before his no doubt impending retirement.

It was Raw. The way Graves ran off part way through a segment.

The way Cass appeared at the announce table.

This is great booking from WWE and has definitely created buzz.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by KILLdozer » May 30th, '17, 13:28

I'm thinking it's a great big conspiracy of something coming up with Graves ending up managing Cassidy, possibly being backed by Angle. I'm not sure.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by cero2k » May 30th, '17, 14:18

KILLdozer wrote: May 30th, '17, 13:28 I'm thinking it's a great big conspiracy of something coming up with Graves ending up managing Cassidy, possibly being backed by Angle. I'm not sure.
unfortunately it's just Steph coming back now that the NBA is ending
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by KILLdozer » May 30th, '17, 17:28

cero2k wrote: May 30th, '17, 14:18
KILLdozer wrote: May 30th, '17, 13:28 I'm thinking it's a great big conspiracy of something coming up with Graves ending up managing Cassidy, possibly being backed by Angle. I'm not sure.
unfortunately it's just Steph coming back now that the NBA is ending
Who's to say it couldn't end up being both intertwined? I'd actually love that... Cassidy With Graves and Angle against Stephanie for some kind of power struggle for RAW?
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by KILLdozer » May 30th, '17, 17:30

I mean there's no denying that Cassidy's due for a big shot based upon his size, and I'd say it's pretty certain he's actually the one that dropped Amore. At least the first time, if not definitely connected to both times.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 1st, '17, 22:06

I highly doubt that the two angles are tied together.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by cero2k » Jun 1st, '17, 22:50

i heard a lot of ideas today that Cass could be Steph and Hunter's chosen one now that Owens is in smackdown
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 1st, '17, 23:21

cero2k wrote: Jun 1st, '17, 22:50 i heard a lot of ideas today that Cass could be Steph and Hunter's chosen one now that Owens is in smackdown
Ok but what about Graves and Angle?

I'm going to say they're not coming back, and I've always felt Cassidy is too slim and unmusucular/developed for someone his size though.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 1st, '17, 23:30

I'm just finally watching this, but I think Booker T meant separating the "Sides" of Balor, like man and "Demon King", and he's not sure if there's a "place" where the line between them exists.

That, or he said kill him.

After hearing Bray Wyatt I'm done for now. Sleep coming, that's it. How'd you miss where Cole had to remind us Joe would win if Bray Wyatt tapped or passed out in the clutch?
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 2nd, '17, 08:20

Sorry BRM but Alexa Bliss or not this whole entire angle/,feud sucks. Simply because like everything else that's been done with Bailey on the main roster, it's the wrong idea because everyone just won't quit picking on Bailey and the whole idea is to make her look like the biggest immature fool in the world.

Put her in real wrestling stuff where she can be a real face that the people love.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 2nd, '17, 08:54

KILLdozer wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 08:20 Sorry BRM but Alexa Bliss or not this whole entire angle/,feud sucks. Simply because like everything else that's been done with Bailey on the main roster, it's the wrong idea because everyone just won't quit picking on Bailey and the whole idea is to make her look like the biggest immature fool in the world.

Put her in real wrestling stuff where she can be a real face that the people love.
I'm not disagreeing that Bayley has been mishandled, but I don't think this was so terrible based on the story they were trying to tell. If Bayley once again loses clean at the PPV without some sort of interference then maybe but taking this segment at the place we are at now, I thought the good (Alexa's everything, the bit of brawling, and the way they got over Alexa's deviousness) outweighed the cringe-worthy stuff that they had the guests say. Like I said above, I would have preferred an ending that shows some kind of escalation, but instead they chose to drive him the point by repeating the same finish with the one Kendo stick shot taking Bayley out of commission.


As a side note, the way I see the title going over the next few months is something like this:
- Bayley gets the Kendo Stick and beats the crap out of Alexa but Nia interferes to save the title for Alexa at Extreme Rules. Nia presses Alexa about her promised title shot with Alexa always trying to back out of it. Meanwhile we are also building up Bayley vs. Nia and Bayley vs. Alexa, but instead we got a surprise title change on Raw with Sasha beating Alexa, which sets up the July PPV that shall remain nameless as Sasha vs. Alexa for the title and Bayley vs. Nia with the winner becoming the #1 contender for Summer Slam. Alexa would try to convince Nia to work with her once again but would botched her attempted interference, costing Nia the match. We'd get a backstage segment with Alexa apologizing profusely and trying to get Nia to help her out in the title match with the promise of making sure Nia gets a title shot this time and we're left with the idea that Nia might actually believe her, but when the big moment comes in the title match and Nia shows up she just flips Alexa off and walks out instead of helping her. Sasha would beat Alexa and we'd head into Summer Slam with babyface Nia vs. heel Alexa in what could basically be a short comedic match based on Nia chasing Alexa all over trying to squish her like a bug, while the title match would be built around this idea that Bayley can't do anything for herself (Sasha could even call Bayley's only win on her own- the one at Mania- a fluke). Bayley would point out that she beat Sasha by herself to win the NXT Women's Title- in Brooklyn, no less- so the stage is set for Summer Slam where Bayley would clearly be winning, leading to Sasha starting her heel turn on Bayley vs. winning with her feet on the ropes for extra leverage, leading us into a more heated Sasha vs. Bayley title feud for the fall.

Thoughts?
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by cero2k » Jun 2nd, '17, 09:29

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 08:54

I'm not disagreeing that Bayley has been mishandled, but I don't think this was so terrible based on the story they were trying to tell. If Bayley once again loses clean at the PPV without some sort of interference then maybe but taking this segment at the place we are at now, I thought the good (Alexa's everything, the bit of brawling, and the way they got over Alexa's deviousness) outweighed the cringe-worthy stuff that they had the guests say. Like I said above, I would have preferred an ending that shows some kind of escalation, but instead they chose to drive him the point by repeating the same finish with the one Kendo stick shot taking Bayley out of commission.
as awesome as Alexa is, nothing outweighs a kindergarten storyline about Bayley never kissing a boy,
it's seriously bad. They should have just focused on the 'Bayley can't get extreme' side of the story and that would had been an AWESOME story. I've always hated 'this is your life' segments, they're always so corny and since The Rock, no one has been able to properly react to the people they bring in.




As a side note, the way I see the title going over the next few months is something like this:
- Bayley gets the Kendo Stick and beats the crap out of Alexa but Nia interferes to save the title for Alexa at Extreme Rules. Nia presses Alexa about her promised title shot with Alexa always trying to back out of it. Meanwhile we are also building up Bayley vs. Nia and Bayley vs. Alexa, but instead we got a surprise title change on Raw with Sasha beating Alexa, which sets up the July PPV that shall remain nameless as Sasha vs. Alexa for the title and Bayley vs. Nia with the winner becoming the #1 contender for Summer Slam. Alexa would try to convince Nia to work with her once again but would botched her attempted interference, costing Nia the match. We'd get a backstage segment with Alexa apologizing profusely and trying to get Nia to help her out in the title match with the promise of making sure Nia gets a title shot this time and we're left with the idea that Nia might actually believe her, but when the big moment comes in the title match and Nia shows up she just flips Alexa off and walks out instead of helping her. Sasha would beat Alexa and we'd head into Summer Slam with babyface Nia vs. heel Alexa in what could basically be a short comedic match based on Nia chasing Alexa all over trying to squish her like a bug, while the title match would be built around this idea that Bayley can't do anything for herself (Sasha could even call Bayley's only win on her own- the one at Mania- a fluke). Bayley would point out that she beat Sasha by herself to win the NXT Women's Title- in Brooklyn, no less- so the stage is set for Summer Slam where Bayley would clearly be winning, leading to Sasha starting her heel turn on Bayley vs. winning with her feet on the ropes for extra leverage, leading us into a more heated Sasha vs. Bayley title feud for the fall.

Thoughts?
that's a proper way to follow the story. Nia i think is gonna start making noise after this. HOWEVER, i totally see Bayley winning the title, kissing a boy, and fuck it, this is WWE
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 2nd, '17, 11:21

cero2k wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 09:29
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 08:54

I'm not disagreeing that Bayley has been mishandled, but I don't think this was so terrible based on the story they were trying to tell. If Bayley once again loses clean at the PPV without some sort of interference then maybe but taking this segment at the place we are at now, I thought the good (Alexa's everything, the bit of brawling, and the way they got over Alexa's deviousness) outweighed the cringe-worthy stuff that they had the guests say. Like I said above, I would have preferred an ending that shows some kind of escalation, but instead they chose to drive him the point by repeating the same finish with the one Kendo stick shot taking Bayley out of commission.
as awesome as Alexa is, nothing outweighs a kindergarten storyline about Bayley never kissing a boy,
it's seriously bad. They should have just focused on the 'Bayley can't get extreme' side of the story and that would had been an AWESOME story. I've always hated 'this is your life' segments, they're always so corny and since The Rock, no one has been able to properly react to the people they bring in.

I think people are focusing too much on what seemed to me to be a throwaway line. I thought the focus WAS the whole "Bayley can't get extreme" story. And I definitely agree that Bayley not being there to react to the people brought in to either embarrass, betray, or slander her definitely contributed to killing this segment. As of right now it seems to be kayfabe true that Bayley needed her father to come to school with her in fourth grade. That's f*cking weird.


As a side note, the way I see the title going over the next few months is something like this:
- Bayley gets the Kendo Stick and beats the crap out of Alexa but Nia interferes to save the title for Alexa at Extreme Rules. Nia presses Alexa about her promised title shot with Alexa always trying to back out of it. Meanwhile we are also building up Bayley vs. Nia and Bayley vs. Alexa, but instead we got a surprise title change on Raw with Sasha beating Alexa, which sets up the July PPV that shall remain nameless as Sasha vs. Alexa for the title and Bayley vs. Nia with the winner becoming the #1 contender for Summer Slam. Alexa would try to convince Nia to work with her once again but would botched her attempted interference, costing Nia the match. We'd get a backstage segment with Alexa apologizing profusely and trying to get Nia to help her out in the title match with the promise of making sure Nia gets a title shot this time and we're left with the idea that Nia might actually believe her, but when the big moment comes in the title match and Nia shows up she just flips Alexa off and walks out instead of helping her. Sasha would beat Alexa and we'd head into Summer Slam with babyface Nia vs. heel Alexa in what could basically be a short comedic match based on Nia chasing Alexa all over trying to squish her like a bug, while the title match would be built around this idea that Bayley can't do anything for herself (Sasha could even call Bayley's only win on her own- the one at Mania- a fluke). Bayley would point out that she beat Sasha by herself to win the NXT Women's Title- in Brooklyn, no less- so the stage is set for Summer Slam where Bayley would clearly be winning, leading to Sasha starting her heel turn on Bayley vs. winning with her feet on the ropes for extra leverage, leading us into a more heated Sasha vs. Bayley title feud for the fall.

Thoughts?
that's a proper way to follow the story. Nia i think is gonna start making noise after this. HOWEVER, i totally see Bayley winning the title, kissing a boy, and fuck it, this is WWE
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by cero2k » Jun 2nd, '17, 11:28

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:21
I think people are focusing too much on what seemed to me to be a throwaway line. I thought the focus WAS the whole "Bayley can't get extreme" story. And I definitely agree that Bayley not being there to react to the people brought in to either embarrass, betray, or slander her definitely contributed to killing this segment. As of right now it seems to be kayfabe true that Bayley needed her father to come to school with her in fourth grade. That's f*cking weird.

not to mention that terrible line they made that only losers stay at home to watch RAW and Smackdown.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 2nd, '17, 11:48

cero2k wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:28
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:21
I think people are focusing too much on what seemed to me to be a throwaway line. I thought the focus WAS the whole "Bayley can't get extreme" story. And I definitely agree that Bayley not being there to react to the people brought in to either embarrass, betray, or slander her definitely contributed to killing this segment. As of right now it seems to be kayfabe true that Bayley needed her father to come to school with her in fourth grade. That's f*cking weird.

not to mention that terrible line they made that only losers stay at home to watch RAW and Smackdown.
I think what they're trying to do with both the "never kissed a boy" line and the "wrestling isn't cool" line is to make Bayley feel more directly relatable to your stereotypical high school nerd who would self conscious about such things. The problem is that it not only buries the product but also brings up the negative feelings that people watch wrestling to escape. I was watching a shoot interview where someone (definitely a big indy name who spent a lot of time in IWA-MS, but I don't remember exactly who) was talking about the lines you have to tread carefully on as a heel when insulting fans because you don't know what kind of strong negative emotions you might be bringing up that could make that person just decide to not come back (I believe the example was singling out a fan and calling her fat), and I think that what WWE is aiming for here is in big danger of doing that. Having a seemingly normal person like this Tracy- someone who was perfectly happy to be best friends with a clearly quirky and un-cool kid like Bayley- abandon Bayley because the thing that pushes Bayley over the line into being so uncool she's not worth hanging out with is that she wants to watch wrestling... that's pushing into very dangerous waters for a self-conscious 11-18 year old.
And it's all made worse by the fact that Bayley didn't need this sort of "help" in the first place because people loved her already... until the main roster got their hands on her and look what has happened.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by cero2k » Jun 2nd, '17, 12:19

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:48
I think what they're trying to do with both the "never kissed a boy" line and the "wrestling isn't cool" line is to make Bayley feel more directly relatable to your stereotypical high school nerd who would self conscious about such things. The problem is that it not only buries the product but also brings up the negative feelings that people watch wrestling to escape.
this exactly, when WWE says 'loser for watching RAW with your dad instead of going out", i have to think that tons of kids at that point in their life think, hmm, this is kinda lame, i'll just go outside
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 2nd, '17, 12:23

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:48
cero2k wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:28
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:21
I think people are focusing too much on what seemed to me to be a throwaway line. I thought the focus WAS the whole "Bayley can't get extreme" story. And I definitely agree that Bayley not being there to react to the people brought in to either embarrass, betray, or slander her definitely contributed to killing this segment. As of right now it seems to be kayfabe true that Bayley needed her father to come to school with her in fourth grade. That's f*cking weird.

not to mention that terrible line they made that only losers stay at home to watch RAW and Smackdown.
I think what they're trying to do with both the "never kissed a boy" line and the "wrestling isn't cool" line is to make Bayley feel more directly relatable to your stereotypical high school nerd who would self conscious about such things. The problem is that it not only buries the product but also brings up the negative feelings that people watch wrestling to escape. I was watching a shoot interview where someone (definitely a big indy name who spent a lot of time in IWA-MS, but I don't remember exactly who) was talking about the lines you have to tread carefully on as a heel when insulting fans because you don't know what kind of strong negative emotions you might be bringing up that could make that person just decide to not come back (I believe the example was singling out a fan and calling her fat), and I think that what WWE is aiming for here is in big danger of doing that. Having a seemingly normal person like this Tracy- someone who was perfectly happy to be best friends with a clearly quirky and un-cool kid like Bayley- abandon Bayley because the thing that pushes Bayley over the line into being so uncool she's not worth hanging out with is that she wants to watch wrestling... that's pushing into very dangerous waters for a self-conscious 11-18 year old.
And it's all made worse by the fact that Bayley didn't need this sort of "help" in the first place because people loved her already... until the main roster got their hands on her and look what has happened.

Which just returns to my point of stop bullying Bailey and making her out to be borderline stupid and let her be a normal wrestler. It wasn't good with Charlotte, it was actually worse because people were so legitimately tired of Charlotte, and even with Alexa Bliss doing it it's still no good.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 2nd, '17, 14:05

cero2k wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 12:19
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:48
I think what they're trying to do with both the "never kissed a boy" line and the "wrestling isn't cool" line is to make Bayley feel more directly relatable to your stereotypical high school nerd who would self conscious about such things. The problem is that it not only buries the product but also brings up the negative feelings that people watch wrestling to escape.
this exactly, when WWE says 'loser for watching RAW with your dad instead of going out", i have to think that tons of kids at that point in their life think, hmm, this is kinda lame, i'll just go outside
I'm talking about something more than "yeah, Raw is kind of lame. I'll just go outside." I'm talking about kids deciding to ditch wrestling even though they like it because they're afraid someone will find out that they watch wrestling and will be shunned for it. We all deal with it to an extent in the adult world, but I've got to imagine it's even worse when you're in that very insecure 11-18 age range.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 2nd, '17, 14:06

KILLdozer wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 12:23
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:48
cero2k wrote: Jun 2nd, '17, 11:28

not to mention that terrible line they made that only losers stay at home to watch RAW and Smackdown.
I think what they're trying to do with both the "never kissed a boy" line and the "wrestling isn't cool" line is to make Bayley feel more directly relatable to your stereotypical high school nerd who would self conscious about such things. The problem is that it not only buries the product but also brings up the negative feelings that people watch wrestling to escape. I was watching a shoot interview where someone (definitely a big indy name who spent a lot of time in IWA-MS, but I don't remember exactly who) was talking about the lines you have to tread carefully on as a heel when insulting fans because you don't know what kind of strong negative emotions you might be bringing up that could make that person just decide to not come back (I believe the example was singling out a fan and calling her fat), and I think that what WWE is aiming for here is in big danger of doing that. Having a seemingly normal person like this Tracy- someone who was perfectly happy to be best friends with a clearly quirky and un-cool kid like Bayley- abandon Bayley because the thing that pushes Bayley over the line into being so uncool she's not worth hanging out with is that she wants to watch wrestling... that's pushing into very dangerous waters for a self-conscious 11-18 year old.
And it's all made worse by the fact that Bayley didn't need this sort of "help" in the first place because people loved her already... until the main roster got their hands on her and look what has happened.

Which just returns to my point of stop bullying Bailey and making her out to be borderline stupid and let her be a normal wrestler. It wasn't good with Charlotte, it was actually worse because people were so legitimately tired of Charlotte, and even with Alexa Bliss doing it it's still no good.
It's not the bullying so much as it is her acting like she has the mental age of a child.
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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