BRM Reviews the 12/10/2018 Raw

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 12/10/2018 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Dec 11th, '18, 16:12

OPENING SEGMENT- very bad
They’ve got the ringside area all gussied up with tables, ladders, and chairs… just in case the fact that they are going to be constantly name-dropping Sunday’s PPV somehow isn’t enough for someone. Seth Rollins comes out and says that “theme” for both tonight and the PPV will be “burn it down.” Care to explain that there is some sort of deeper meaning behind that, Seth, or are you just planning to one-up Dean’s angle with the vest by setting the whole building on fire?
Seth then calls out Baron Corbin for a “little dose of reality.” Corbin comes out and tells Seth that they should have this conversation “in private.” Dude… the official Raw preview said that Seth was going to be talking about this stuff, so you clearly knew about this in advance. If you didn’t want to have this conversation in public then why did you let Seth come out here?
Seth claims to have been so wrapped up in his feud with Ambrose that he hasn’t realized that Raw under Corbin’s reign has “sucked.” Um… Seth? You do realize that Corbin has been abusing his power as Raw GM since before Dean turned on you, right? Also, I’m calling bullsh*t on you here, Seth. Just a few weeks ago you were able to come out to the ring and make a very non-Ambrose-involving open challenge for your title. That show wasn’t enough for you to realize that Corbin was abusing his power?
Seth tells Corbin, “that you’ve been doing as general manager elect is not okay. It is not right. It is wrong.” Why is Seth talking to Corbin like he’s a small child and a Seth thinks that a firm talking-to will be enough to get him to change his behavior?
Seth then started to yell at Corbin not for abusing his power, but for not utilizing his talent correctly, and specifically name-dropping The Revival and burying the “Lucha House Rules” bullsh*t. Now he’s burying Corbin for the pee segments. What did Corbin have to do with those? Did he get carried away and start accidentally cutting a promo on Vince instead?
Seth is the one penciled in for the Mania match with Brock, so he starts cutting the same “Brock isn’t here because he doesn’t like or respect pro wrestling and only cares about himself” promo that we’ve heard both Roman Reigns and Kurt Angle cut all year. I don’t care anymore. Let Brock keep that stupid belt and just make another one! That’s what you did when the WWE World Heavyweight Champion got drafted to Smackdown and no one even raised an eyebrow at it, so why don’t you just do that now when you have a Universal Champion who got drafted to UFC/a duck blind in southern Saskatchewan?
Seth now adds a new statistic that you can be sure we’ll be hearing all the time from now on: Brock Lesnar has not wrestled a match on Raw since 2002. While this is probably true, the fact remains that in kayfabe, there is no real (lacking a better term) “moral” difference between wrestling on Raw, Smackdown, 205 Live, a PPV, or a house show. What matter is the last time Brock appeared to wrestle before the WWE Universe, which was… fifteen days ago at Survivor Series. In fact, that’s a Raw-branded PPV, so it’s basically the same thing as appearing on Raw.
But even if I wasn’t sick and tired of this, Seth’s statement would still be problematic. Why? Because while it is true, it isn’t fair. If you wanted to say that “Brock Lesnar hasn’t cared about WWE or the WWE Universe since he got booed out of Madison Square Garden at WrestleMania XX and walked out of this company” that would be one thing, but dating this back to 2002 is ridiculous because while Brock never wrestled on Raw from September 2002 to March 2004, he did spend that period of time wrestling every week on Smackdown. The only reason he wasn’t wrestling on Raw was because the rules of the Brand Extension meant that he wasn’t allowed to. It’s the equivalent of accusing Seth of not caring about Smackdown because he hasn’t wrestled on SD in “over two years.” It’s because of the brand split! Statements like Seth’s are actually counterproductive to what WWE is trying to accomplish here, because those of us who either lived through the history first-hand or have read about it in one of WWE’s publications or watched it on one of the many DVDs they put out or in the archives of their Network (which, we assume, is what they want fans to do, yes?) understand that this statement- while technically true- is manipulative, and thus it makes WWE’s whole narrative harder to accept, and consequently our disbelief harder to suspend.
Seth goes into the declining TV ratings and supposed declining “talent support” and “morale” (which we’ve seen no kayfabe evidence of). Basically, this was Seth Rollins cutting a worked shoot promo on Vince McMahon to Baron Corbin’s face. In doing so, while Seth did touch on many of the things fans have been complaining about, he pretty much ignored all of the issues it would make the most kayfabe sense for him to talk about. There were no comments about Corbin’s little clique of heels ganging up on Braun or The Drifter or Balor, no comments about screwing Roode & Gable with handicap matches, no comments about putting Alexa Bliss! in control of the women’s division knowing full well that Alexa would mess with the babyfaces for no reason other than to be a jerk. Nothing like that at all.
Corbin tells Seth that he doesn’t care what Seth or anyone else thinks because he’s in charge, and if Seth thinks things are bad now they’re going to get a lot worse. He vows to put Seth through hell, so Seth says “why wait” and challenges Corbin to wrestle him tonight. Corbin turns him down because of his important match coming up at TLC against Strowman where he will win by forfeit and become the permanent GM.
Seth challenges Corbin to have a TLC Match against him tonight instead, trapping Corbin with Corbin’s clearly insincere statement that he was disappointed to beat Braun by forfeit because he has “always wanted to have a TLC Match.” Corbin goes on a big rant about how he would destroy Seth, but still turns Seth down. WHY? He thinks he’s going to win by forfeit at the PPV so that doesn’t matter, and he’s got a million allies while Seth has… Finn Balor? And MAYBE Dolph Ziggler? (I think The Drifter is supposed to be kayfabe injured) So why not do it?
Corbin still says no, so Seth- who had earlier derided the juvenile urination joke segments- proceeded to interrupt Corbin every time Corbin tried to speak by saying “coward!” very quickly, like a f*cking third grader. Oh my G-d now he’s actually poking Corbin in the chest repeatedly. This guy is supposed to be a babyface? If Corbin had punched Seth in the face right then and there, I would have popped huge. These past fifteen seconds have pretty much destroyed any desire I had to see any more of Seth Rollins tonight. Seth’s juvenile antics got Corbin to give in and booked them in a TLC Match tonight, but Corbin decides to punish Seth by putting Seth’s IC Title on the line, mercifully ending a very bad segment. The only solace I can take in this is the fact that they’re pushing the Strowman vs. Corbin match so hard as going to be a Corbin forfeit victory means that Braun is going to show up and win, ending the Baron Corbin show once and for all.

? INTERVIEWS SETH ROLLINS- Was this Dasha Fuentes or a new interviewer? Anyway, Seth’s promo was not very good. Any time you talk completely out of the blue about how “if I want to be a leader to all of the guys and girls in the locker room,” you come off as arrogant. My gut response when Seth said that was “oh yeah? Who died and made you ‘locker room leader?’” All of this “stepping up” that Seth was talking about? Finn Balor did all of that last week and never once did he say “Hey everyone! Look at what a great leader I’m being!”

HANDICAP MATCH FOR THE WWE RAW TAG TEAM TITLES: The Authors of Pain(c) & Drake Maverick vs. Bobby Roode & Chad Gable- 2.25/10
The heels beat the babyfaces up, then made the mistake of cockily tagging in their diminutive manager to get the pin, whereupon said manager was himself rolled up and pinned. We have new tag team champions, and they are babyfaces who were made to look completely unworthy in the way they won the titles. Hooray for WWE!

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS BOBBY ROODE & CHAD GABLE- A good promo that would have been a lot better if they hadn’t won the titles in such a bullsh*t way.

NATALYA PROMO- good delivery, bad content
She starts to cut this promo accusing Ruby Riott of having no respect for anything or anyone, and of trying to “destroy [her] father’s legacy.” She says that Ruby claims that Nattie only got into WWE because of her last name, but Nattie insists that isn’t true. She says she has had to overcome a lot of things to get to WWE.” And the first- and only- thing she lists… is the Montreal Screwjob. She goes on about how she is “proud of my family, and proud to be a Hart.”
At the end she finally got around to saying that she was going to dedicate Sunday’s Tables Match against Ruby to her father, Jim Neidhart, but everything else Nattie said wasn’t about The Anvil; it was about Uncle Bret. Nattie is trying to tell me that it’s Ruby Riott who wants to destroy her father’s legacy, but the real guilty party is the company themselves- and, in kayfabe through her promos, Nattie herself. Because all Nattie ever talks about is Uncle Bret. The Sharpshooter is her primary finisher, not the discus clothesline. The fact of the matter is that in WWE, Nattie’s last name isn’t “Neidhart,” it’s “Neidhart.”
And who the hell let Nattie go out there and cut a promo in which she insists that she didn’t get her job just by because of her family’s legacy, and then cut a promo in which all she talks about are her ex-wrestler uncle and her ex-wrestler father. Where is the “from the day I turned eighteen I worked my ass off for over six-and-a-half years to get a WWE contract, and did so at a time when 90% of people- both inside and outside the business- didn’t care about women’s wrestling as anymore more than a peepshow!” (yes, I know Nattie had her first match at age twenty, but we can pretend she was training for two years)? She’s like Chavo was during his TNA run. Everyone says “you only got a job because of your last name” and Nattie can’t give an answer that doesn’t include the words “my uncle, Bret Hart.”

NATTIE & THE RIOTT SQUAD SEGMENT- better
Nattie kept talking, so Ruby Riott came out. They were carrying a table covered with a sheet. Ruby cut a promo burying Nattie for crying all the time, and called Nattie a disgrace to her family. She uncovered the table to reveal that someone had painted a big picture of Jim Neidhart on it, and vowed to put Nattie through that table at TLC. Ruby’s promo was pretty good, and I like the symbolism of “destroying” Jim by slamming Nattie through him.

DOLPH ZIGGLER SELFIE PROMO- fine
He makes clear that he’s not a babyface yet but saying that he didn’t want Balor’s help last week and that he’s “not a good guy,” but he also told us that he’s “not a bad guy,” either. He faces Drew McIntyre next.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS DREW MCINTYRE- An AWESOME promo by Drew, taking his loss last week like a f*cking adult, accepting defeat but using that to motivate him. How the hell could they possibly think Rollins is a better choice to face Brock at Mania than Drew?

DREW MCINTYRE vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER- 5.75/10
This started off looking like it was going to be really great, but ended pretty abruptly. Drew got his win back, then attacked Dolph after the match, giving him a Claymore Kick into the LED board on the side of the ring. Now that I think about it, that LED board serves ZERO purpose that the regular ring skirt wouldn’t, and all it does it make the environment more dangerous for the wrestlers, so why is it there?
Cole and Renee are outraged by all of this and claim it’s somehow Corbin’s fault that Drew did this heinous thing to Dolph because he and Drew are friends. Meanwhile, I’m thinking “where was Seth Rollins?” (Balor is apparently injured form an attack by Drew last week). If Seth wants to be a leader so badly and to stand up to Corbin then shouldn’t he have come out here to save Dolph?

BAYLEY (w/Sasha Banks) vs. ALICIA FOX (w/Jinder Mahal & the Singh Brothers)- 0.5/10
You know… just going by what they put on Raw, I’m pretty sure this entire “Mixed-Match Challenge” is just Alicia Fox & Jinder Mahal vs. Bayley & Interchangeable Male Partner every week.
The whole point of this match was for the Singh Brothers to interfere, thus giving Bayley’s new partner Apollo Crews an excuse to run out and get involved. Poor Sunil Singh first had to take a back body drop on the floor from Crews, then got up and got kneed right in the head by Sasha Banks’ Meteora off the apron.
Crews’ is Bayley’s new partner because Balor is kayfabe injured. If Strowman is kayfabe injured and will thus have to forfeit his match at TLC, then shouldn’t Balor just have to forfeit his Mixed-Match challenge match tomorrow? If Corbin and Alexa are out to screw the babyfaces then why are they allowing Bayley to have a replacement partner?

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS DEAN AMBROSE- meh
Dean cut a decent promo at first, insisting that he didn’t care what Roman Reigns thought of any of this, then Charly insisted on showing him a video package of the whole feud for him to comment on, but after the video package played Dean just ignored her and walked away.

So Becky, Charlotte, and Asuka, with no real grudge, are having a TLC Match, but the Rollins vs. Ambrose “HOW DARE HE TURN ON SETH THE DAY ROMAN HAD TO LEAVE BECAUSE OF CANCER!” feud doesn’t get any sort of gimmick at all?

THE DRIFTER SINGS- meh
Heel Drifter used to bury the city Raw was in. Babyface Drifter’s gimmick is apparently to bury some other city. I hope he gets the crap booed out of him the next time he goes to LA, having called the people of that city “trash” here tonight. The Drifter sang a song- like, a REAL song- but interrupted it to say he thought Lashley sucked.

“THE DRIFTER” ELIAS SAMPON vs. LIO RUSH (w/Bobby Lashley)- 2/10
The match was actually pretty good for the short time it was going. Heath Slater was the referee for this match. He didn’t call for DQ when Lashley ran into the ring and started hitting The Drifter. I guess Corbin must have screwed up and given him one of those New Japan rulebooks instead of a WWE one. Renee said that this (not calling for the bell, I mean; not the rulebook thing) was because Slater was afraid of angering Corbin. When has that ever stopped any of the other referees from calling for a DQ? Lashley hit The Drifter with his own guitar, and Lio Rush covered him for the win.
Renee and Cole were predictably up in arms about all of this. Renee insisted that this was just another example of Corbin’s leadership making it “impossible for Superstars to succeed.” If this has been the case for this long then doesn’t this just make Steph look stupid for letting it go on?
Cole reiterated to us that Heath Slater had to do this because he wouldn’t be able to feed his family if he got fired. First of all, as I stated above, none of the other referees seem to have this problem. Secondly, they’re making such a huge deal about Slater needing to keep his job, but there isn’t one person shedding any tears for Rhyno, who actually did get fired last week. Also, if Corbin fires Slater, why can’t he just got to Smackdown? That’s what happened when Owens and Zayn got fired from Smackdown earlier this year.

HEATH SLATER & BARON CORBIN BACKSTAGE- Corbin rubs in that Slater ended Rhyno’s career. Heath wants to quit right now, but Corbin says he can’t do that because he has to referee another match tonight. How does that stop him from quitting right now if he wants to?

NIA JAX PROMO- Nia cut a really GREAT heel promo to build up her match with Ronda at TLC. This has to be the single best thing Nia has done in her entire professional wrestling career (aside from her problem with tenses. Ronda is not a champion in UFC or Strikeforce. She was one.)
Ronda came out to fight but the heels bailed. Ember Moon came out to back Ronda up when the heels moved in on her again and Cole told us Ember had a match against Tamina scheduled for next. What happened to that segment they had advertised with Alexa asking Ronda and Nia questions from the WWE Universe? And if they weren’t ever intending on doing that segment, then why the hell would they advertise it when they’ve done the same thing THE PAST TWO WEEKS with Alexa, Bayley, and Sasha?

TAMINA (w/Nia Jax) vs. EMBER MOON (w/Ronda Rousey)- 3.5/10
Ember won, Ronda got to pull Nia off the apron and toss her over the barricade.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS BARON CORBIN- Good heel stuff from Corbin. Charly mentions that there are “rumors” that Braun will show up on Sunday, but Corbin dismisses them. Good. That means there is less than a week until this Baron Corbin nightmare ends.

Lashley vs. Elias is now not a normal Ladder Match but a Ladder Match where you climb the ladder to pull down a weapon (in this case a guitar) that you can use. Why waste time trying to get a guitar when you can just hit the other guy with the ladder. Or anything else you bring with you, for that matter, because it’s no DQs (and I assume ends by pinfall).

TLC MATCH FOR THE WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE: Seth Rollins(c) vs. Baron Corbin- 7.75/10
Heath Slater was the referee assigned to this match as well. He would eventually push the ladder over while Rollins was climbing, but Rollins still managed to win. The match was pretty great, but nothing too special. Dean Ambrose came out onto the ramp to have a stare-down with Seth, who was perched on top of the ladder.


I can’t call this a good episode of Raw, but it was mercifully easy to sit through once you get past that first forty-five minutes or so.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
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cero2k
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Re: BRM Reviews the 12/10/2018 Raw

Post by cero2k » Dec 11th, '18, 18:15

Meltzer opened today's WOR saying something like, if you don't want to hear bad things about RAW, skip this (WOR) show
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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 12/10/2018 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Dec 11th, '18, 18:36

The Heath Slater as referee in the main event seemed weird, and should have obviously been a sign that something would happen....because...why else would you really even need to make such a big deal out of having a referee in the first place for such a match?

There's no rules. The guy who takes the belt wins. "Protocol", or not...you wouldn't even really need an official for that match.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 12/10/2018 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Dec 11th, '18, 18:38

KILLdozer wrote: Dec 11th, '18, 18:36 The Heath Slater as referee in the main event seemed weird, and should have obviously been a sign that something would happen....because...why else would you really even need to make such a big deal out of having a referee in the first place for such a match?

There's no rules. The guy who takes the belt wins. "Protocol", or not...you wouldn't even really need an official for that match.
And why didn't all of his buddies just run in? Where were Drew and Lashley and Rush?
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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Re: BRM Reviews the 12/10/2018 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Dec 11th, '18, 20:17

They didn't do that segment with the big talking because Ronda Rousey said she didn't want to and wasn't going to lol. Sure, because saying you don't want to do what the management says is all it takes. She said some stupid ridiculous goofball shit about "hittin' poses".

Awh. I don't even wanna repeat it actually.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 12/10/2018 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Dec 14th, '18, 16:42

Just in. Vince McMahon will be there Monday. I imagine firing Corbin will be one of the reasons.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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