BRM Reviews the 2/18/2019 Raw (desperate hot-shotting?)

[Big Red Machine]

HUNTER DROPS SOME NEWS ON US- I’m worried
Triple H is in the ring for some “isn’t WrestleMania season so exciting?!” cheerleading. He puts over the big moments from last night’s show, including how Becky Lynch “showed that she won’t let a sixty-day suspension or a knee injury stop her from getting to Charlotte Flair or Ronda Rousey!” He follows this up by saying “corporately I have to say that if she does that again she will be suspended and prosecuted.”
If she does it again? DUDE! This is like the fifth time she’s done it! In fact, you assholes showed me footage of her hopping the guardrail to attack someone THE PREVIOUS NIGHT… and then when she showed up last night and again violated her suspension and headed right towards her two enemies you didn’t send any of your security people to stop her? You should have threatened to prosecute her the FIRST time it happened! You’re lucky Ronda and Charlotte don’t sue your negligent asses. Or if you don’t think they would be willing to do that, let me put it another way: You’re lucky that Becky’s assault didn’t injure Ronda and Charlotte enough to put one or both of them on the shelf for months, completely f*cking up your big WrestleMania main event!

Hunter continued by saying, “but personally, I have to say that was pretty damn cool,” and then he laughed. Yeah, Hunter. Encourage the psychopath, and also let the rest of the roster know that the best way to get praise and approval from management is to viciously assault your coworkers for no reason. I’m sure this won’t cause any problems at all.

Hunter the announced that several wrestlers from NXT will be making their debuts tonight. Tonight? Really? Well if it’s that f*cking easy then why did it take WEEKS for your last crop of call-ups to debut? Hell… Lacey Evans’ call-up was announced TWO MONTHS AGO and the only match she has been in since was the Royal Rumble! You really shouldn’t be calling anyone else up right now, simply because several weeks ago you told us you were “still in the process of deciding” which show to put each act in the last batch of call-ups on, and you still haven’t made a decision about ANY OF THEM! If you are having difficulty baking six cakes at one time then it’s not a good idea to start a seventh!

The person being called up is Ricochet. Michael Cole tells us that he “gained fame during the Halftime Heat match,” because it’s not like NXT TakeOvers don’t sell out main roster-sized buildings every time they hold one. I think Ricochet will do fine on the main roster if they make room for him. He’ll have Hunter’s protection so I’m sure they will, but quite frankly, the main roster doesn’t need any more people right now. As things stand over the past few weeks they often haven’t had room for Rusev, Nakamura, Asuka, Ziggler, Rey, Almas/Vega, Sheamus, and Cesaro, and Alexa’s presence has been greatly reduced (and that’s not even counting cases like Ambrose where you can understand why they might want to reduce his presence, or people like Mickie James, Anderson & Gallows, and SAnitY, who weren’t getting any time before, either, or any of the most recent call-ups, who still haven’t been given any sort of consistent TV time to establish their characters yet).
Oh dear G-d they’re also calling up Aleister Black, Tommaso Ciampa, and Johnny Gargano. I don’t like this one bit. This has me worried for two reasons. I’ll discuss the first now and I’ll get to the second a little later. That first one- and you’re probably thinking this, too- is that my immediate thought upon hearing this announcement was “oh great. Now these nincompoops that book the main roster are going to find a way to f*ck up the best thing NXT had going” (actually, IMO, it’s the best story going on right now anywhere in pro wrestling). And that is just such a damning thought to have. It really, truly is.

While we were shown some highlights of each man, Michael Cole read some blurbs about them. The one about Ciampa was actually really good, but on the whole these blurbs were an excellent example of why you need to introduce characters by showing us the characters being themselves. Lines like (about Aleister Black) “His life story is tattooed across his body, which reflects his dark, brooding nature” sound like Michael Cole pitching a character to us… which inherently makes Aleister Black feel like a character and not a real person.
Right now you might very well be asking, “Well then how else are they supposed to get the audience up to speed on him before his big debut tonight?” One way they could do it is by doing exactly what they had him do in NXT and just be his brooding self and come out, kick a jobber’s head off and then leave without saying a word. But the more important point I want to illustrate is that that question is predicated on the assumption that Aleister Black must debut tonight. But there is no actual reason to make that assumption. There is no reason that Aleister can’t be shown cutting promos from his candlelit sanctum for two weeks before showing up and silently kicking the head off of a jobber.
The reason that WWE is having Aleister and the other three debut tonight- and also the reason they’re even calling them up at all- is the second reason that I don’t like this one bit: They’re hot-shotting. Their big show-long angle with Becky Lynch last week was a major flop in the ratings, so now they’re moving on to one of their standard attention-seeking ploys, which is to call up top names from NXT. And this time they’ve made sure that they are calling up real top names, and by having them wrestle tonight they are making sure that we know that this will not be like the last time they called a bunch of people up from NXT and not a single one of them has been anything other than an afterthought since the very moment their call-ups were announced.
Hot-shotting almost always ends in failure because it misses the point. Almost every time someone hot-shots and the hot-shot does initially succeed in popping the gate/rating/buyrate, the booker sees the initial success and says “hey, look! The problem is solved” rather than doing what you’re supposed to do with a hot-shot, which is to use the time of increased interest it buys you to fix the underlying problems that caused business to go down in the first place so that the people attracted by the hot-shot will see that things are all better now and will be willing to stick around after the hot-shot burns out. And I have absolutely no faith that things will be any different this time because this company has been hemorrhaging viewers for almost a year now (they’re down something like 20% year-over-year), and have still failed to realize the underlying structural issues that are causing their problems. So unless Hunter got full booking power last night, I’m not convinced anything is going to change this time, either. After all… it has only been two months since the last time they promised us that everything was going to be changing and things would get better… and they just kept on doing the same exact sh*t.


Hunter also tells us that we’re about to see Baron Corbin vs. Braun Strowman in a Tables Match. SO WHAT THE F*CK WAS EVEN THE POINT OF DOING LAST NIGHT’S MATCH?! They had a no DQs match at the PPV to set up another no DQs gimmick match the next night, with nothing on the line either time, and no rules in place the second time to stop the heel’s buddies from helping him win just like they did the first time.

TABLES MATCH: Braun Strowman vs. Baron Corbin- 6/10
As the announcers put over Braun being put through tables last night and Renee says “I have to wonder what kind of shape Braun Strowman is in” after getting put through said tables, Braun is walking to the ring and not selling a damn thing. He did finally start selling once the bell rang and Corbin worked over his injured ribs a bit (Graves claimed they were possibly even “fractured” but I’d really hope WWE wouldn’t clear someone with fractured ribs).
In a vacuum I found this to be a rather enjoyable match, but the fact that there was absolutely no explanation for why Lashley and McIntyre didn’t get involved tonight and the fact that the finish they did tonight was the exact same spot they did as the “Braun has the match won now” spot last night before Lashley and McIntyre ran in made this feel like they were saying “we now realize that last night’s finish was a terrible idea, so here is Braun beating Corbin the way he was going to last night and let’s just pretend that the run-in never happened, okay?

Also during this match, I came to the conclusion that we are supposed to believe that Baron Corbin has mind control powers. Renee insisted that it was somehow Corbin’s fault that Braun chose to rip the door off of Vince’s limo and wound up getting fined and losing his title shot over it, and both she and Cole have been insistent that Kurt getting fired as GM was entirely Corbin’s fault and not even mentioning that Steph was the one who ultimately made the decision (which seemed like one she was predisposed to make anyway, given the fact that the two of them bickered every time she was on TV throughout the fourteen months that she had employed him as GM of her show). It seems to me that the only way that Corbin could force these people to do these things is if he had the power to control their minds, so I guess he must.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Paul Heyman comes out while Braun is still making his way up the ramp. Braun starts to choke him for no real reason (so what if Paul told him to “go now?” Is that really a reason for violence against someone with whom you have no real quarrel?). The fans all start chanting “TABLE! TABLE!” because WWE’s insanity demanded that the stage be all gussied up with tables set up in a pattern approved by the official company interior decorator and thus there were tables nearby. But Heyman still had a promo to cut so of course Braun didn’t put him through a table, resulting in Braun getting booed.
And yes, they absolutely should have seen this coming because wrestling fans have become obsessed with chanting for tables in particular over the past five or six years. This was easily avoidable by just waiting until Braun was in the back before having Heyman come out, but they purposely decided not to do that, and all to do a segment that resulted in a babyface getting booed and will almost certainly not lead to anything, meaning there was absolutely nothing gained by doing it. And you wouldn’t even have had to change much in the show, either, because they went to commercial between this and Heyman’s actual promo, so you could have avoided doing this stupid segment by either giving this match an extra minute or giving us a short promo from someone in an important match tonight or to have the announcers actually explain why Ruby Riott is even getting another title shot tonight after getting quickly dispatched in her title match last night rather than explaining to us why she might actually win this time (because Becky the psychopath viciously assaulted Ronda for no reason last night).

Yes, you read that correctly: They are advertising that is Ruby Riott getting yet another shot at Ronda Rousey’s title, even though Ronda squashed her like a bug last night.
Two months ago the McMahons showed up on Raw and told us that things were going to change. Since then, the only real kayfabe change that has been made (other than a bunch of ineffective call-ups and adding tag titles for a division so thin it gets to break all of the rules they established during the draft and get defended on both brands) was that there would be no more automatic champion’s rematches. The automatic rematch never bothered me from a logical standpoint (we want to make sure that the title change wasn’t a fluke and that the new champion is able to consistently best the wrestler/team he/she/they defeated to win the championship), and from a booking standpoint I have found it to be a useful tool to ensure that champions don’t violate the Thirty Days Rule. But if they felt they needed to get rid of it in order to have some sort of tangible change to point to then so be it.
But if you’re going to get rid of the automatic rematch clause, then I don’t think it’s asking too much to expect them to take the time to make sure that the other things they do make sense with this new policy. If a champion doesn’t automatically get a rematch when he/she/they lose a title match cleanly then why the hell should a challenger get one?
And what’s even more frustrating is how f*cking LAZY using Ruby Riott (or, really any member of the Riott Squad) is in this spot. She has something that barely even qualifies as a program- never mind an actual feud- going with Ronda so she gets all the title shots? F*ck that lazy crap! Do you know who should have gotten this title shot? Dana Brooke.
Dana’s last three appearances on Raw have been something of a babyface turn focused around her desire to prove herself. She hasn’t really succeeded, but the desire is there. Two weeks ago she insisted that she was going to go to the McMahons to get a match approved against Nattie, who she has been trying to prove herself to. Said match didn’t happen last week (in fact, the whole story was never mentioned and neither woman appeared on the show) so I think it’s safe to assume that the McMahons did not okay that match. One would think this would only motivate Dana more.
So why not have Ronda do one of those open challenges she loves so much (she can incorporate a promo on Becky into her usual starts off good but get awkward by the end pre-match “this is what it means to be a champion” promo) and have Dana come out and answer it. She can lose to Ronda cleanly and only needs two or three minutes to not look like a total failure (let’s face it… Dana Brooke will always be Dana Brooke; success is not her thing), and you will have given us a match-up we have never seen before as well as advanced Dana’s storyline a bit (maybe this impresses the McMahons enough to grant her that match with Nattie, or impresses Nattie enough that she, too, requests the match from the McMahons and they book it for next week), and you’ve still got the same “will Ronda’s injuries from last night cost her the title tonight?” hook, all while NOT BOOKING A MATCH THAT IS COMPLETELY STUPID!


They’re also advertising Ciampa & Gargano vs. The Revival tonight. So the first time Ciampa and Gargano team up together as a two-man unit after all of this build is not on NXT, but on a random episode of Raw.

PAUL HEYMAN PROMO- snore
He had a video package on Brock that would have been great if I could possibly bring myself to give a sh*t about Brock at this point. He then started to cut a promo saying Seth Rollins had no chance at WrestleMania but was interrupted by Finn Balor. Then we went to a commercial and when we came back Heyman had disappeared. That’s TWICE now that instead of letting a segment end naturally, they have ended it in a way that promises a confrontation but doesn’t really deliver one, all for the sake of letting us know what’s coming up after the commercial break in the hopes that we won’t decide to change the channel. That’s an understandable motivation, but how about instead of doing it in a way that teases a confrontation that doesn’t actually lead to anything, you let the segment finish and just let us know what’s coming up next via on-screen graphic and a plug from the commentators?

IC TITLE SEGMENT- meh
Finn Balor cut a promo in which mention Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, and RIC FLAIR as IC Champions he looked up to, saying “it was a dream of mine to hold this championship” because of guys like that. I’m pretty sure Balor had already been in the business for several years by the time Flair held the IC Title. He said he was very proud of being the IC Champion and seemed like he was in the middle of saying he was going to defend the title every week but was interrupted by Lio Rush.
Lio told him that Lashley deserves to be the IC Champion, not him. This served as a distraction so that Lashley could come out of the crowd and attack Finn from behind. Rush and Lashley have apparently made up since last night, which is probably best for both of them, but at the same time, the number of times WWE has seemed to break people up only to go back on it and put them back together soon afterwards in the past two years (Alexa/Nia, Sasha/Bayley, Ellsworth/Carmella, and I’m certain I’m missing at least one) makes it hard to not just see last night as the first step in a perpetual story of “did they?/didn’t they?” that no one will care about by the time WWE decides to finally make a decision and stick with it.
The heels beat Balor down until Ricochet comes out to make the save. We then went to a commercial, and when we got back we were just about to start…

LIO RUSH & BOBBY LASHLEY vs. FINN BALOR & RICOCHET- 7/10
Cole told us that this match was “made official during the commercial break,” which means that even though Hunter flew Ricochet to Raw and told us that he would be in action tonight, he didn’t actually have a match booked for him. Yes, Hunter could have theoretically had a different match booked and changed the booking on the fly, but if that’s the case then why wasn’t that match advertised when they were advertising matches earlier?
If you try to answer the above question with “well then they’d be advertising a match and not delivering on it,” my response to you is “so make that part of the story.” Do a backstage segment after this match where whoever it was that was advertised to face Ricochet tonight (perhaps someone who feels overlooked like Kalisto, Dolph Ziggler, or Apollo Crews) goes up to Hunter and says “dude… you took away my big featured match tonight. This guy being brought up means there is one less spot for me on the roster, so let me prove that I deserve that spot and not him” and Hunter can say “you’re right. We promised our Superstars™ opportunities and I shouldn’t take this one away from you. You’ll get your chance to prove that you deserve this spot and not Ricochet when you face him on Raw next week.” And just like that, you’ve got a match you’re advertising a week in advance, and with a meaningful storyline going in (especially if someone like Cruise were to get desperate and go heel to beat Ricochet, launching Ricochet into his first main roster feud).
The match itself was exactly what it needed to be, which was a showcase for Ricochet. He and Lio had a great athletic segment early on and got to use his athleticism to get over on Lashley a bit as well. Balor got cut off and was the babyface in peril, allowing Cole to push the “Lashley is furious” narrative (more on that in a moment), then Ricochet got the hot tag and ran wild, getting the pin on Rush while he and Balor combined for a big spot to take Lashley out as well.
Now onto the commentary:
The announcers (but especially Cole), both during this match and during the previous segment, kept telling me how angry Lashley was about losing the IC Title and he is in such a foul mood and so on and so forth. If this is the storyline then it’s a lot more effective to let Lashley cut a promo in which he see him be furious about losing his title and ranting and raving about how it isn’t fair that he lost his title because Lio was pinned and smashing stuff backstage. Show; don’t tell.
Renee’s commentary during this match (and other times throughout the night, but this match was the worst) was constantly entering that Josh Matthews “trying so hard to sound both interested and cool and make the match sound cool that it gets really annoying” zone. Part of it is the curse of being the third person in the booth, but part of it definitely falls on Renee herself for her inflection and word choice and some of the complete unabashed rooting for the babyface that she does. When she said “COME ON! LET’S MAKE IT COUNT, FINN!” and then he got cut off a moment later, I just wanted to laugh at her (and I think it is this unabashed rooting for the babyface that she does that sets her apart from, say, Byron Saxton or Coach in a negative way).

Also on the commentary front, at one point during this match Corey Graves called Ricochet a “beacon of hope,” but I was certain I heard him say “vegan” instead of “beacon.” This got me thinking: I don’t know if there are any other Vegans on the roster, but if there are, WWE should start casually dropping that fact in personality pieces or on commentary during said wrestlers’ matches, just to draw a contrast between tolerant Vegans and the intolerant heel Daniel Bryan.

TRIPLE H, DREW MCINTYRE, & DEAN AMBROSE BACKSTAGE- meh
Drew comes up to Hunter and says he wants a match against Seth Rollins to prove that he belongs in the main event of WrestleMania. Dean Ambrose comes up to Drew and suggests that Drew wrestle him instead. Then he slaps Drew across the face and leaves. Hunter asks Drew if he wants to face Dean instead and Drew says yes.
So… going into tonight’s show, none of the following wrestlers were scheduled for matches: Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Drew McIntyre, new debut Ricochet, Bobby Lashley, Lio Rush, and new IC Champion Finn Balor.

Michael Cole lets us know that “the Luchas” are in action next as we see them coming out to the ring… but first we’re going to cut to a recap of Becky’s suspension and her breaking it TWICE in the past two days, just to make sure we bury Lucha House Party as unimportant so you don’t care about their match. And if you thought Lucha House Party got buried here, we weren’t even informed of who their opponents were when the bell rang, and we only say them from a distance, so until they zoomed in, we had no way of knowing that the next match was…

CURT HAWKINS & ZACK RYDER vs. LUCHA HOUSE PARTY (w/Kalisto)- 2/10
So Lucha House Party does a big angle with The Drifter last week… and this week they’re just wrestling Hawkins & Ryder in a random undercard tag match. I love how Michael Cole always has to remind us that Hawkins & Ryder “were once known as the Major Brothers” without offering any explanation as to why they felt the need to change their names. It’s even more ridiculous because there really isn’t any reason for him to bring this up, because it’s not like they won titles under that gimmick It’s just another gimmick we’re supposed to pretend wasn’t the same person, like Ryback and Skip Sheffield or Victoria being The Godfather’s chief ho or Dolph Ziggler being Nicky of the Spirit Squad. Making this all even more strange, the announcers keep telling us that they won the tag titles as the Major Brothers, but they didn’t. They had been Hawkins & Ryder for MONTHS before winning the tag titles.
Graves was wonderful on commentary during this match, but not for the ideal reasons. My first stupid announcer quote below was only the beginning of him completely destroying Renee for making a series of related ridiculous statements along the lines of the one I recorded, where she came of like a complete and total participation trophy advocate while Graves was pointing out that this is supposed to be a merit-based competitive sport. Then, when Cole had to shoe-horn in his (read as “Vince’s”) favorite kiss of death compliment, that Lucha House Party “love to have fun,” Graves pointed asked Cole “is there anyone who doesn’t love to have fun?” Cole stuttered a bit before saying that he is certain that there must be some people out there who don’t. I was very disappointed in all of them for not coming up with the most obvious answer, which is a certain well-respected pro wrestling trainer from Calgary… Alberta, Canada.
Hawkins & Ryder lost clean in three minutes, but they did the best they could with the time they were given.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS HEAVY MACHINERY- up and down
It has been less than ten minutes since Corey Graves pointed out exactly how stupid the “these guys love to have fun” WWE commentary cliché is, and yet Cole still said it immediately when Heavy Machinery came out (and if this was Vince telling him to say it then Vince is the idiot and not Cole, but either way, there is some very poor decision-making going on here).
They’ve been on the show for months now, but Charly’s question to them is “what can the WWE Universe expect from Heavy Machinery?” This is not a question that should need to be asked this far into their run. Tucker Knight explains that they are “blue collar solid,” which is a phrase you should probably get used to hearing because the fact that it is now on their vests means that we’re probably going to have to hear the commentators repeat it over and over and over again.
After saying this, he says that they “get the job done” and also that they enjoy working out and eating steaks. Otis then leaned in and said their “steaks and weights” catchphrase. The interview continued with Tucker giving an answer like a normal human, then Otis leaning in like a comic relief weirdo and reiterating Tucker’s statement in catchphrase form. Well… at least it’s better than the Hunchback of Notre Dame-style slobber demi-human they had him act like when he was first called up.
Tucker Knight then told us that “we have a pact; I have his back outside the ring, and he has mine inside.” Um… what?! Does that mean that if Tucker Knight gets into a fight backstage Otis won’t help him? And that Tucker won’t make saves in their matches if Otis gets in trouble? Because that’s what it sounds like that means.
That part aside, this promo is what should have been done with these guys WEEK ONE.

LACEY EVANS INTERRUPTS HEAVY MACHINERY’S INTERIVEW- Then things went right back to being weird as Lacey Evans’s music hit and she came out, walked down the ramp, and then walked right back (this interview was happening on the stage instead of a usual interview place like backstage or in the ring, for no adequately explained reason, which should have been a clue that someone was going to interrupt them somehow). She smiled at Heavy Machinery, seemingly approving of them, which does not in any way seem like it was in character for her. She 100% comes off as the type of woman who, as Graves put it, would be offended by the stench that Heavy Machinery surely give off.
Meanwhile, Renee Young is telling us all what a wonderful role model Lacey Evans is, which prompted me to scream “SHE’S A HEEL!” at my TV. Sure, there are some aspects to her character that are praiseworthy, but a lot of that is really just shoot stuff that WWE included in her character’s background to make her less of a one-note cartoon, but even that has failed because when I think of Lacey Evans, the first thing that comes to mind is not her military service or her supportive comments about traditional femininity or her seemingly antithetical fight for “a woman’s right” to do… something or another that they haven’t bothered defining (and none of those things have come up in her limited main roster appearances at all). When I think of the character of Lacey Evans, the first thing that comes to mind is “SHE’S A SNOB!” This is not behavior a babyface announcer should be encouraging people to emulate!
Then Lacey’s music was interrupted by Heavy Machinery’s, and they did a Bushwhacker strut down the ramp and back up. Then they started circling around Lacey while doing it, as she stood there, vaguely approving of this. Then we cut a commercial, as Corey Graves told us “I’m not so sure what we just saw.” That makes two of us, pal. And if the viewer is coming out of your segment not understanding why any of this happened, your segment has failed. If the idea was to set up some sort of alliance between Heavy Machinery and Lacey Evans, there are much more effective ways to do so then whatever the f*ck this was.

Also, didn’t you assholes promise me Revival vs. DIY was “up next?” If you tell me something is “up next,” I should not have to sit through a second commercial break before getting to it!

SOME TAG TEAMS HAVE A HORRIBLY FORCED SEGMENT BACKSTAGE- Ciampa and Gargano are talking to each other about “representing NXT.” Gable Money come over and complain that DIY are getting booked against The Revival and not them, with Roode even saying that when you come up from NXT, you’re supposed to start on the bottom. He’s not wrong in theory, but it’s not like this is a title match or even the main event or anything, so the Can-Am Connection just came off like a bunch of whiners.
Gargano responded that they have been “running the hottest brand- NXT- for over two years. There is no one better. And we are here to TAKE OVER.” I cringed.
Then The Revival emerged from a conveniently-placed doorway and joined in the conversation. Dash Wilder said “well if it isn’t Johnny Wrestling and the so-called ‘best sports entertainer in the world’ Tommaso Ciampa. We had some pretty insane matches back in the day, boys.”
Ciampa interrupted him, saying “we’re not here looking for your respect. We’re here to make an impression at your expense, so good luck, boys,” to which Dawson replied “we’re The Revival. We don’t need luck. We’ll so you boys out there.”
This segment was no good. This was… imagine that Hunter finally got Vince to sit down and watch an episode of NXT and Vince said “okay, Hunter. If the internet people like this so much then I’ll try doing this segment your way… but dammit me and my writers have got to punch up some of that dialogue.” And then Vince gets up and power-walks away while whistling as Hunter says “but Vince…” and then he trails off as he realizes that Vince just isn’t going to get it and hangs his head.

THE REVIVAL vs. TOMMASO CIAMPA & JOHNNY GARGANO- 6.75/10
I wonder what Candice LeRae thinks of her husband teaming up with Tommaso Ciampa once again?

Any chance of success Cole’s attempts to put over the history these four have had was completely killed by the “isn’t this so interesting?” inflection in his voice that cannot help but make things sound forced. Making matters worse is that Cole and Graves pushed the amazing matches two teams have had together so hard (the term “Match of the Year” was used) that even though these guys did a very good job for the time they were given (just 11:25 according to CageMatch.net) that my guess is that this resulted in a bunch of non-NXT viewers sitting at home saying “all this hype for that?” which winds up hurting your ability to bring new fans to NXT because you’ve raised their expectations to the point where it was almost impossible for the wrestlers to meet them. If you’re going to say that these guys have Match of the Year candidates together, you need to give them the 20+ minutes they need to deliver one.
All of that being said, major props are due to these guys for going out there and trying to have the most different match possible while still being an entirely WWE-style match. They went out there and did a bunch of stuff that you just do not see on the main roster (or even really on 205 Live or NXT). Ciampa & Gargano got the win so they have been set up as #1 contenders, but I’m worried that they’ll never be given the necessary time to have the matches they are capable of having.


Another phrase that needs to be expunged from the WWE announcers’ vocabulary is “it’s WrestleMania season!” and doubly so when it’s used as an excuse to justify some action or decision that would otherwise be a little extreme or unconventional, and triply so when it is used to justify something that happens regularly throughout the rest of the year anyway.


There is a fan holding up a “Saints got robbed” sign. Buddy… if you’re that bitter about a referee missing a call causing your favorite team to lose then pro wrestling may not be for you.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS FINN BALOR & RICOCHET- decent
Charly starts by saying “Gentleman, we just saw Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa get a very big win over the Raw Tag Team Champions, but… you know what? Let’s not talk about their accomplishment right now.” Then why did you bring it up, Charly?
Charly asks Balor about his last 24 hours, but he brushes her off and makes her talk to Ricochet instead. He talks about fulfilling his dreams. He rambled, but it was actually pretty decent

KEVIN OWENS SELFIE PROMO- waste of time.
He flat-out admits in the beginning of his promo that “not much has changed” since his last update, which was a mere twenty-four hours ago.

WOMEN’S TAG TITLE SEGMENT- TERRIBLE!
Sasha & Bayley came out and droned on for what felt like several hours, repeating buzzwords and phrases like “dreams” “changing the world,” “making history,” etc. If this was Steph speaking and we were playing the drinking game, we’d all be dead. They also said the word “together” a lot.
Sasha says that they will defend the titles against anyone “past, present, or future.” Who thought it would be a good idea for her to say this? First of all, if the f*cking Jumping Bomb Angels aren’t going to come out, then there really isn’t anyone from the past that I have an interest in seeing. What these belts need is strong challengers built up, not some old “legends” showing up for a one-off that everyone knows they’re not going to win (if Beth Phoenix were willing to come back for a real run I’d be happy to see them face her and Nattie… but then again, if Beth Phoenix were to come back for a real run then she would be the present, not the past). And you’ll defend them against competitors from the “future,” Sasha? Really? Do the New Breed have sisters we were unaware of? Or is Steph about to come out and introduce the new team of Aurora Rose and Murphy Claire McMahon-Helmsley, then we get the old kick to the gut, Pedigree, one-two-three new champions?

Then we got into the crap I knew was coming from the moment these stupid belts were announced. Sasha says that they will defend these belts against anyone from any brand. WHY? Why are they allowed to do this? All of the other belts are brand-specific, whether they have the name in them (like the women’s singles and men’s tag titles on the respective shows) or not (the various men’s singles titles). In fact, so strong is this brand-specificity that it has been shown that the only way you can challenge for the belt on another show is to already have a contract for a title match when you switch shows, via a special deal made by the GMs, or by winning the ultra-special once-a-year opportunity that is the Royal Rumble Even winning Money in the Bank confines you to only challenging for the top title in your singles division on your brand. It has also been shown that if someone from one show loses a title to someone on the other show, the belt actually drags the new champion to the show the belt is attached to (as in the case of Owens vs. Jericho for the US Title).
Sasha and Bayley are on Raw, therefore the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles should be Raw-specific. Yeah, it kind of sucks if you’re a woman on Smackdown that there are no tag titles for you to go for, but Rey Mysterio Jr. and Mustafa Ali are in the same situation right now on SD where they are eligible to challenge for the Cruiserweight Title but can’t because it’s on the other show, and Kalisto and the Singh Brothers have both been in that situation in the past.
But no. It’s apparently different this time. Why?

Well… according to Bayley these titles work differently because “we know, we recognize and we respect how special these titles are not just to us- not just to Sasha Banks and Bayley- but to the ENTIRE Women’s Evolution™.”
What? And the singles titles aren’t? You two are lucky Ronda Rousey doesn’t march out here right now and kick your asses (and that’s not even going near the way that I’m sure the Cruiserweights, male heavyweights, and male tag teams feel about all of their respective divisions’ titles). The real answer is that the women’s division simply isn’t big enough to support these titles and healthy singles divisions at the same time. The teams in the Elimination Chamber from Smackdown didn’t have to beat anyone to qualify for the match because there weren’t even enough teams for everyone to be able to win a qualifier against a different opponent, and to make it work on the Raw side they had to throw a third of the field together randomly (Fox/Cross, and the originally-scheduled Ember/Nattie team) in order to make it work! (Actually, SD had one thrown-together team, too: Carmella & Naomi. But in that case at least there was a third established team available in Naomi & Asuka, and it’s really more of a question of why Asuka has disappeared rather than them not having an available team).
This entire division consists of SEVEN TEAMS (the six in the match, plus Alexa & Mickie). Even if we dip into NXT the total really only goes up to TEN (Sky Pirates, Horsewomen, and the newly-formed duo of Vanessa Bourne & Aliya). That’s not enough to run a healthy division! But they insisted on doing it anyway, creating yet another title to either bog shows down and make them longer or to just not be defended on big shows (like the US, IC, Raw tag, and Universal Titles have all gone undefended most of the past six months of PPVs)… and all so they can insist to anyone who will listen that they are “making history” and “changing the world,” as if them introducing women’s tag titles will somehow lead to women in Saudi Arabia being allowed to travel without a male guardian. It feels like this company has spent so much time focusing on PR efforts to change their perception on Wall Street or in the media world or with activist groups that they’ve completely forgot that their job is, first and foremost, to make their FANS happy, so that we buy tickets and merch and network subscriptions and keep watching them on TV so they can turn good ratings numbers into ad revenue.

Just when I had thought this dreadful segment was about to end, Nia Jax & Tamina came out. Oh come on, Nia! Where were you when we needed you? Interrupting people is your thing to the point where you kept interrupting your own tag team partner during an in-set promo last week, but you had to sit in the back and let these two finish their long-winded sob-fest?
Making this even more frustrating for me, Nia said “no one wants to sit here through this nauseating love-fest you guys have got going on.” WELL THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU INTERRUPT THEM EARLIER?!
Nia Jax was possessed by the spirit of Corey Graves, telling Bayley that Sasha only cares about Sasha and also bringing up the fact that Sasha always loses her titles in her first defense. Tamina then cut a decent little promo and the two heels tried to start a fight but were quickly sent running with their tails between their legs. These titles need STRONG challengers established as quickly as possible. Instead WWE took their strongest challengers and make them look weaker. THIS SUCKED!

DEAN AMBROSE vs. DREW MCINTYRE- 1.25/10
Drew won clean in the best these guys could reasonably do in the ONE MINUTE AND FIFTY-SIX SECONDS they were given. Is this more evidence that they’re intent on burying Dean on his way out? Yes. But I’m willing to give them a pass on this one because if the idea is to give Drew a dominant win over an established star to help his case that he should be added to the main event of WrestleMania, then Dean is the right person to do it with at the moment.

ANOTHER BROCK LESNAR VIDEO PACKAGE- snore

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS SETH ROLLINS- meh
“You can call Paul Heyman a lot of things, but a liar is not one of them.” I’m willing to bet that line popped a bunch of people. Seth proceeded to cut a meh promo about having “accepted his fate.” Then Dean Ambrose showed up for some pointless comedy. F*ck this show.

THE DRIFTER SINGS- He does is usual shtick, then gets interrupted by Aleister Black. They were able to use the camera angle to help it a bit, but I’m betting that this entrance looked pretty lame live, just based on the set-up. Hopefully next week they’ll have it built into the stage like they do on NXT.
Corey Graves did a decent job of explaining Aleister Black, talking about him as someone who has “never quite felt comfortable” around others, and thus likes to do his own thing separate from society. Renee Young responded to this with the following: “Does he carry the underbelly of society?” I’ve put a question mark there for grammatical correctness, but her tone did not sound like she was asking a question at all, and it really seemed like she was just trying to say something that sounded cool rather than having actually listened to what Graves said.
Aleister then cut a promo. I don’t mind him talking already, as not doing so would feel like a step backwards, but WWE should be fairly conservative in terms of when he speaks and how much. His promo sounded like it was written by someone else (using “for” rather than “because” was a bit of a giveaway that this was written by someone trying to make him sound spooky), but it played into Elias’ promo decently well, and his delivery was enough to make it not horrible.
Also, apparently these two are scheduled to have a match right now.

ALEISTER BLACK vs. “THE DRIFTER” ELIAS SAMPSON- 3.75/10
However bad Renee’s commentary was, it didn’t do anywhere near as much damage as Cole telling us all that Aleister Black is “moody.” Yes. He really said this. We also had Corey Graves try to tell us that Aleister is one of the “most dangerous strikers in the world” in the middle of a match in which Black had gotten in almost no offense, and The Drifter was knocking Aleister down with strike after strike, while Aleister’s were not coming close to knocking The Drifter down. Aleister eventually got some strikes off and won with the Black Mass, but he got his butt kicked for WAY too long before the comeback, and it really didn’t help that the most impressive move we saw all match was The Drifter hitting a GIGANTIC leaping knee.

WWE RAW WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Ronda Rousey(c) vs. Ruby Riott (w/the Riott Squad)- 7.25/10
Ronda isn’t selling a damn thing after last night’s beating. Way to kill the angle there, champ.
They told a few little stories here (Ruby working over Ronda’s midsection, Ronda looking for the armbar, the Riott Squad helping Ruby out), all of which combined for a great eleven and a half minutes of wrestling. This is a lot more along the lines of what I would have liked to see at last night’s PPV (you know… a match where Ruby Riott doesn’t look like a complete and total chump). The crowd spent the whole match chanting for Becky and didn’t get her.
The Riott Squad attacked Ronda after the match but she fought them off on her own.


I really didn’t like a lot of different things about this episode of Raw. I’ve already ranted about the NXT call-ups, the logic of Ruby getting another title shot, the announcing, and a bunch of the other segments. But I will admit that if you told me to look through any Raw over the past few months and pick out the one that I thought showed the most glimmers of hope for the future, it’d have to be this one. We’ll have to see how things go, but I’m still not optimistic.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Renee Young insists that because Zack Ryder “shows up day in and day out; this guy’s always ring-ready,” that we must all “respect” Zack Ryder.
I guess you could argue that that is worthy of some respect, but “does the minimum required” is a pretty f*cking low bar to be worthy of praise, Renee.

[cero2k]

they really should have switched the Ronda stuff here and EC, let them have a competitive match on the PPV, and the squash tonight, you can even comment that Ronda 'learns from her battles' and 'is extra pissed tonight', or 'is hurt and can't allow this match to go long'

[Big Red Machine]

they really should have switched the Ronda stuff here and EC, let them have a competitive match on the PPV, and the squash tonight, you can even comment that Ronda 'learns from her battles' and 'is extra pissed tonight', or 'is hurt and can't allow this match to go long'

This would have been much better, but they still need a reason for why Ruby is getting a title shot.

[Big Red Machine]

Stuff I missed:
In part one of Brock's video package, Heyman said that this year's WM is different than all others because "the challenger has no chance," but in the second part he said that Seth's desperation makes him "the most dangerous opponent Brock Lesnar has ever faced." (- From Bryan Alvarez)

Cole told us all bout how Tommaso Ciampa is a diabolical, despicable person... and then, later on in the show, he's wrestling as a total babyface. (-From Wade Keller)

[KILLdozer]

Wtf was that weird funny lookin' Rousey had on lol. Get her proper attire. I've never seen anyone constantly worry about and be concerned with their tights fitting right like she does.

[Serujuunin]

This segment was no good. This was… imagine that Hunter finally got Vince to sit down and watch an episode of NXT and Vince said “okay, Hunter. If the internet people like this so much then I’ll try doing this segment your way… but dammit me and my writers have got to punch up some of that dialogue.” And then Vince gets up and power-walks away while whistling as Hunter says “but Vince…” and then he trails off as he realizes that Vince just isn’t going to get it and hangs his head.

This gave me the most absurd visual in my head, and then it made me really sad.

[KILLdozer]

At this point I'm pretty sure Cole ALWAYS calling suplexes, "oh what a THROW!", has gotta be a long running backstage joke/rib or something of the sort. Decades ago...sure...but now-There's literally NO REASON for him to not call it correctly.

[KILLdozer]

At this point I'm probably gonna echo at least BRM and possibly others....but this Becky Lynch Road to WM-is just ridiculously overbooked at this point. We don't need HHH, We don't need Stephanie...we don't need Vince.

We don't need suspensions. We don't need security taking Becky Lynch away. We don't need injuries.

While some of these ingredients could be neat and all if they cut down and simplified it all...It's just way too much.

To an extent...The chosen corporate heel...the anti-authority, I don't give a fuck, kick your ass, rebel, and the paper champion who's really just a star and not even truly a great wrestler....are all nice callbacks to a WWF far far away...but again...

Just let Becky be Becky. Let Charlotte annoy her. Let Rousey...do whatever she's trying to do. Then just leave it at that.

[Big Red Machine]

At this point I'm pretty sure Cole ALWAYS calling suplexes, "oh what a THROW!", has gotta be a long running backstage joke/rib or something of the sort. Decades ago...sure...but now-There's literally NO REASON for him to not call it correctly.

A lot of other announcers started doing this over the past few years. It's quite obnoxious.

[KILLdozer]

At this point I'm pretty sure Cole ALWAYS calling suplexes, "oh what a THROW!", has gotta be a long running backstage joke/rib or something of the sort. Decades ago...sure...but now-There's literally NO REASON for him to not call it correctly.

A lot of other announcers started doing this over the past few years. It's quite obnoxious.

Well you know, wrestling HAS to be stupid and funny at the same time!

[cero2k]

At this point I'm probably gonna echo at least BRM and possibly others....but this Becky Lynch Road to WM-is just ridiculously overbooked at this point. We don't need HHH, We don't need Stephanie...we don't need Vince.

We don't need suspensions. We don't need security taking Becky Lynch away. We don't need injuries.

While some of these ingredients could be neat and all if they cut down and simplified it all...It's just way too much.

To an extent...The chosen corporate heel...the anti-authority, I don't give a fuck, kick your ass, rebel, and the paper champion who's really just a star and not even truly a great wrestler....are all nice callbacks to a WWF far far away...but again...

Just let Becky be Becky. Let Charlotte annoy her. Let Rousey...do whatever she's trying to do. Then just leave it at that.

the problem is that they're combining all those things, either have her suspended, injured, or feud with the authority and their lackeys.