BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 28th, '17, 01:13

OPENING SEGMENT- bad.
All of this talk of the Intercontinental Title being the “the title that has eluded” Roman has now taken another step into the ridiculous end of the pool as Booker pointed out that this made Roman a “Grand Slam Champion” which Cole then defined as someone who has won “every title available in WWE,” which is not only something that Roman has not done (including the top title on this very show, never mind the WWE Smackdown Tag Team Titles), but also makes no sense as qualifications for someone called a “Grand Slam” champion because the term “grand slam” is inextricably linked with the number four, and “every; no matter how many of them there happen to be,” is not “four.”
On a related note, I really dislike the idea inherent in Cole’s statement here. While I am not someone who will insist on only using the term “Grand Slam Champion” to refer to someone winning the original four belts it encompassed, (the European Title is gone and isn’t coming back. If they wanted to bring it back, they would have used it instead of creating a new “UK Title”), I am someone who likes keeping track of statistics, and as such, I would do want a real definition of what a “Grand Slam Champion” is because once you have defined something as being a special accomplishment, you can use that accomplishment in your storylines (maybe, one world title, one tag title, and the US and IC titles). But what WWE (I’m assuming Cole was told to say exactly what he said) has done here is take a concept and completely redefine it on a whim just to suit their needs at this exact moment in time, and that is a terrible approach to storytelling because it prevents fans from getting invested in your concepts. If WWE can mess around with the definition of whatever accolade they want in order to suit their purposes at that specific moment in time then those accolades are, to use an appropriate term, meaningless.
And perhaps the most frustrating part about this whole thing is that this change was completely needless because what we’re trying to get over here is that Roman Reigns won the WWE Intercontinental Title, which is (according to their bullsh*t storyline, anyway) the only championship in WWE which has eluded him. There was absolutely no need to take this last part and redefine the “grand slam” to fit with what Roman has done because the only reason to throw this “grand slam” concept in here is to make it sound even fancier. And the only reason you would need to graft something onto an accomplishment to make it sound fancier is if you think the accomplishment itself won’t actually generate much excitement. Now let’s all take a step back and realize that the concept that WWE thinks won’t generate much excitement on its own is winning the Intercontinental Title! Winning a title should never need a “yeah, and also…” to make it feel important, so what does it say about the state of WWE’s booking that they think such a thing is necessary? And even worse, what does it say about them that they’re not going to do anything to correct that because we all know they won’t take the belt off of Roman cleanly, either, so whatever they do with Roman to build the belt up won’t really be transferred over, and the belt will further be buried by Roman not really going after it when once he loses it because he’ll be focused on the Universal Title instead.
They showed us a black and white picture of Roman with the IC Title from last week that they claimed was “the most liked photo of all time on WWE’s Instagram account,” which I guess means that Vince has finally learned how to make sock-puppets.
Anyway, Roman came out to cut a promo. He got about 65-35 reaction in favor of the negative.
Roman counted off the wonderful things that happened for him last week. The first thing he listed was that “The Shield reunited,” which, even if we use a very, very kind definition and say that “reuniting” constitutes wrestling together in a match rather than just being together as a unit in talking segments, is still not true because they faced off against Miz, Sheamus, & Cesaro two weeks ago in a match that even if I didn’t have a freakishly good memory, I would still remember because WWE spent the whole show pushing it as “the reunion of The Shield!”
He also includes in this The Shield’s win at Survivor Series as well as his IC Title win, so apparently when Roman said “last week” he didn’t mean “the past seven days” or “the period from the most recent Saturday back through the Sunday preceding it” as most people would, but rather he means “the eight day period from Monday two weeks ago through Monday last week.” Either Roman is an idiot who does not understand a unit of time that most people don’t graduate from Kindergarten without understanding, or Vince and pals just think they can redefine any term they want and people will just accept it. Also, with the heavy focus WWE has put on such things over the past month you’d think that part of Roman’s “week” of highlights would have included helping lead Raw’s invasion of Smackdown which I assume we were all supposed to be so excited about and so proud of and was supposed to be such a big deal, but Roman didn’t mention it.
The fans chanted “YOU DESERVE IT!” at Roman Reigns- the company golden boy who has been handed everything so far, including THREE world title reigns, in a career that hasn’t even spanned eight years yet- winning a midcard title so unimportant that it has been defended just once on the past four PPVs. I am hereby calling for volunteers to run local chapters of some sort of international “chanting club” in every major or even mid-sized North American city so that these idiots who just like making noise with their mouths can have somewhere to go that doesn’t interfere with actual wrestling fans.
Roman bragged about not just his title win, but about something that happened after last week’s show went off the air. We were then shown footage of said something, which appeared to be The Miz finishing a promo, after which The Shield came about and put him through the announcers’ table seemingly for no reason. What a bunch of assholes!
Roman says The Miz will be out for “a long time,” which I’m sure will totally coincidentally turn out to be exactly as long as is needed for Miz to film his parts in the new Marine movie. Don’t get me wrong: I like them doing an injury any to cover for someone leaving rather than them just disappearing for a while with no explanation, but we see guys get put through the announcers’ table on at least a monthly basis and they’re always back next week. Hopefully they’ll use this as the start of trying to make that bump mean something again.
Roman says that he’s a fighting champion so anyone who wants a title shot just needs to ask him. Bo & Axel came out, which reminded me that Axel took The Shield’s triple powerbomb while in a freakin’ neck brace and didn’t miss any TV time, which makes Miz look even weaker. They’re upset that The Shield took out Miz. Fine. You’d think this would be a perfect way to have Bo demand a title shot against Roman to avenge The Miz and Roman would squash him and that would be it for this segment, having gotten the necessary info (Miz is injured, Roman is a fighting champ) out there, demonstrated that Roman will be a fighting champ, booking a logical follow-up match to last week’s events, and giving top babyface Roman a strong victory… but that’s how someone who thinks logically would book this segment, not how WWE Creative would.
Instead the Miz-less Miz-tourage brought out their friend (apparently) “The Drifter” Elias Sampson who is apparently interested in getting a title shot against Roman in addition to his already scheduled concert. Yes. Kurt and Steph have already booked The Drifter in a concert tonight but have yet to book him in a wrestling match. They do know that this is a wrestling show, right?
Anyway, Roman accepts the challenge (although Cole stresses that General Manager Kurt Angle needs to make it official). Then Roman threatens to break The Drifter’s neck. That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?

CESARO vs. SETH ROLLINS- no rating- TV problems (but from what I saw it was at least a 7.25/10)
We were assured that this match would be one-on-one because Cesaro’s partner Sheamus is taking his annual sabbatical back to Ireland and Rollins’ partner Ambrose is on his honeymoon.”
1. By definition, annually is too frequent for something to be a “sabbatical.”
2. If this is an annual thing for Sheamus, why has it never been mentioned before (like last year)?
3. Dean is going on his honeymoon. Anyone who watches Total Divas or reads the internet or even takes a guess based on kayfabe facts will automatically assume that the lucky lady is Renee Young. Which, of course, it is. Which means that Renee won’t be here tonight, either. But how much do you want to bet that despite acknowledging that Dean is on his honeymoon and everyone knowing that Renee is his wife, WWE will not only never acknowledge that Dean is married to Renee on the air, but that Renee’s absence tonight won’t even be acknowledged?

Booker and Graves are arguing over whether or not a Rollins victory over Cesaro here, combined with Ambrose’s victory over Sheamus last week, would be enough to earn Rollins & Ambrose a tag title shot. Booker, being an idiot, is arguing that it wouldn’t, but what I want to know is why this argument is happening at all? They still haven’t gotten their contractually-obligated rematch, so they shouldn’t need to do anything to earn a title shot.
Someone in my house decided that this would be a good time to start playing around with fuses in the fusebox so I cut right from the spot after the poke in the eye and small package to Rollins cutting a promo, having apparently won. He cut a promo in which he said that Roman winning the IC Title has “inspired” him and Dean to invoke their rematch clause, because everything must stem from Roman. They’re doing that next week.

NON-KALISTO CRUISERWEIGHT BABYFACES & KURT ANGLE BACKSTAGE- terrible
Kurt had to ask what the “Zo Train” was, showing that he not only doesn’t watch 205 Live, but that he doesn’t even watch the Cruiserweight segments on his own show. What a complete and total burial of the entire division! And all because someone thought it would be funny for Kurt Angle to say the line “what’s a Zo Train.” Glad to see we’ve got our priorities straight.
Kurt says that “with everything going on with Triple H and Stephanie, I may have let the Cruiserweight Division run a little bit out of control.” Oh come on! Has anyone noticed any sort of difference in the way the Cruiserweights were booked on Raw since this Raw vs. SD crap started? Hell no!
Kurt’s solution is to book a short tournament consisting of one Fatal Four-Way match this week and another one next week, with the winners facing off in a #1 contendership match the week after that. Sure, that decides who Enzo’s next challenger will be, but in no way does that address the problem Kurt was asked to address, which was interference by the Zo Train.

SAMOA JOE vs. TITUS O’NEILL (w/Apollo Crews)- 3.75/10
Joe won with relative ease. Crews tried to fight Joe after the match but Joe beat him up. This feud is going around in circles.

SASHA BANKS, MICKIE JAMES, & BAYLEY vs. MANDY ROSE, SONYA DEVILLE, & PAIGE- no rating, fine segment.
Alexa Bliss! was on commentary so that we could get her perspective on last week’s shocking events wherein the Paige of the Fall jumped the guardrail and laid waste to the top stars of the division. The announcers recap the assaults last week by the British Im-Paige-ion. Sasha made her entrance, but neither Mickie nor Bayley came out when their music was played. The New Page Outlaws came out and it was revealed that the missing babyfaces had been jumped by the Acolyte Protection Paigency.
Paige then cut a promo explaining her actions, and she said just about the most frustrating thing possible, which is that she started the Divas/Women’s Revolution. She didn’t use those exact words (though she did say that she was “the matriarch of the WWE Evolution,” so get ready to hear that phrase over and over and over again), but that was the general gist of it. The Powers of Paige moved towards the ring to surround Sasha, which allowed Alexa to run to the back like the chickensh*t heel she is. Paige told us that the name of her group is “The Absolution,” but I like my names better, so you’re going to be getting names like “The Jumping Bomb Paiges” or the foreseeable future.
They let Mandy talk and Sonya. They put over Paige. She and Sonya are apparently with Paige because they recognize her contributions to women’s wrestling/the Divas/Women’s R/Evolution whatever but the other women don’t recognize Paige’s contributions… which seems like the exact same explanation they had for why Mickie James joined up to be Alexa Bliss!’s lackey back in January. It’s nice to see “Creative” living up to their name. Neither Mandy nor Sonya were bad, which surprised me.
Paige demanded that Sasha “pledge her allegiance” to them. Sasha attacked Paige instead and got beaten up three-on-one by the Impact Paiges. If not for the whole “Divas Revolution” part of the explanation, I would have thought this was pretty great. Can we please just have women’s wrestling instead of making WWE’s branding catchphrase the center of the story?

And speaking of things I don’t want to see or hear about, it’s time for a…

BRAY WAYTT PROMO- horrible, as usual.
Apparently we’re all already dead because we like Thanksgiving or something like that.

MATT HARDY vs. BRAY WYATT- 4.75/10
Apparently Matt Hardy is having a very bad few months and him starting a brawl with Elias last week was that frustration boiling over. I’m happy to see a storyline where the results of a large number of losses and disappointments are actually having an effect on a wrestler, but if they wanted last week’s brawl to be seen as some sort of turning point they really should have made that more clear by having Matt’s actions not seem so routine. It probably would have been better to have him be irritable and start a fight in catering or something, and to do so against a guy who he hasn’t interacted with recently as opposed to a guy he just had a match against.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Matt started doing the DELETE! signal in the corner while Cole wondered if we were watching the beginning of him having a breakdown, so I guess it’s coming.

KURT ANGLE & JASON JORDAN BACKSTAGE- Braun apparently hasn’t been seen or heard from since last week. Jason Jordan wants to silence his doubters by taking on Kane, so Kurt Angle books it. This would have been fine if their acting was better.

FATAL FOUR-WAY MATCH: Tozawa vs. Rich Swann vs. Noam Dar vs. Ariyah Daivari- 6.75/10
We were shown Enzo watching on a monitor backstage. The wrestlers were given the time to have a very good match and they delivered. Swann won, which increases the chances of a heel winning next week, which should be Gulak.

ELIAS & THE MIZ-TOURAGE SING- terrible.
After seven minutes of nothing happening, some fans-not all, just some- finally started to chant “WE WANT ROMAN!” (the remainder responded by chanting “ROMAN SUCKS!”) Vince… is it really worth it to you to grind your show to a halt for seven minutes just to try to force people to respond to Roman the way you want?

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: Roman Reigns(c) vs. “The Drifter” Elias Sampson (w/the Miz-tourage)- 6/10
After Roman came out we got the introductions, then went to a commercial. By the time we came back and the bell rung, it had been close to TWENTY MINUTES since something had happened on this show. They had a fine match that felt different from your average Roman Reigns match, but it was pretty disappointing as far as title matches go.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Joe jumps Roman. This was a well-done angle.

DANA BROOKE vs. ASUKA- no rating, fine segment.
They’re doing the exact same thing they did last week except this time they had Dana actually use specifics so it felt concrete rather than nebulous. In other words they did last week’s angle right. Unfortunately, in this case, that required the match to go about six seconds, so the announcers couldn’t focus on the story for any length of time. I’m pretty sure I saw a Ronda Rousey fight that they copied almost 100% here (though, to be fair, that 100% is really just one spot).

ABSOLUTION CONFRONT ASUKA- then they back off.
It would have been better not to do this. I don’t think anyone actually believes that Asuka will join the Paige-erous Alliance, so it’s false drama.

JASON JORDAN PROMO- dull
He started off by saying “There has been a lot of speculation on social media,” and I almost tuned out right there. He swears he is back to 100% this week and wasn’t faking an injury to chicken out of a match against Braun last week.

JASON JORDAN vs. KANE- DUD!
Jordan lost by count-out rather quickly. He tried to fight on but got easily dispatched and hurt his knee again. Kane beat Jordan up and worked over his knee until Finn Balor showed up and… just stood on the stage and did his full f*cking entrance, presumably while Kane was just beating the sh*t out of Jason Jordan.

KANE vs. FINN BALOR- DUD!
Kane gets himself intentionally DQed and beats Balor up with a chair. Kane went to Pillmanzier Balor’s neck but Braun came out to make the save, just like everyone knew he would. All this did was make Finn look like a random undercard geek. I’d even argue that just cutting Finn out of the show and having Braun save Jason Jordan from the Pillmanizer would have been better not just because it would save Finn from being buried but because it would be more artistic, showing Braun having the respect for Jordan’s fearlessness like he talked about having last week.

BRAUN STROWMAN BEATS UP KANE- he no-sells a chairshot, then beats Kane up with weapons before doing the same “chair to the throat” thing to Kane that Kane did to him last week, but Braun up the ante by doing it twice.

This was a dreadfully boring and rather bad episode of Raw, and I’m a little worried that we’re going to be getting this sort of thing for the entirety of the Rumble build. Braun vs. Kane in particular feels like it is going around in an interminable circle of boredom.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by KILLdozer » Nov 28th, '17, 11:14

He literally mentioned Renee right after he said Ambrose was on honeymoon in connecting fashion lol.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by KILLdozer » Nov 28th, '17, 11:30

How the hell though is the explanation for following Paige, "everyone else forgot but we didn't.", When these two little Mother fuckers weren't even anywhere close to the WWE at all at the time?
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 28th, '17, 11:37

KILLdozer wrote: Nov 28th, '17, 11:14 He literally mentioned Renee right after he said Ambrose was on honeymoon in connecting fashion lol.
Rollins? That must have been when my TV cut out.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 28th, '17, 11:39

KILLdozer wrote: Nov 28th, '17, 11:30 How the hell though is the explanation for following Paige, "everyone else forgot but we didn't.", When these two little Mother fuckers weren't even anywhere close to the WWE at all at the time?
1. They were on Tough Enough
2. Even if they weren't, they had TV sets, didn't they? Alexa Bliss! was barely out of high school when Mickie James left WWE but that didn't stop Alexa from remembering Mickie's contributions.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by KILLdozer » Nov 28th, '17, 12:01

Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 28th, '17, 11:39
KILLdozer wrote: Nov 28th, '17, 11:30 How the hell though is the explanation for following Paige, "everyone else forgot but we didn't.", When these two little Mother fuckers weren't even anywhere close to the WWE at all at the time?
1. They were on Tough Enough
2. Even if they weren't, they had TV sets, didn't they? Alexa Bliss! was barely out of high school when Mickie James left WWE but that didn't stop Alexa from remembering Mickie's contributions.

None of that really counts or matters for much when you're attempting to frame it in the whole "women of WWE aspect' they were going for. Bosses, Empress, Four Horsewomen, ...women that weren't even wrestling then... it's just not the same lol.

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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by cero2k » Nov 28th, '17, 12:53

KILLdozer wrote: Nov 28th, '17, 12:01

Who cares about tough enough?
i would naturally on agree on this since TE is crap and no one has made it big since Miz and Morrison, but Paige WAS the judge during the Mandy season, so there may as well be something there, but I don't know since I didn't care to watch that show
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by KILLdozer » Nov 28th, '17, 15:42

It just feels like a big disconnect. They weren't actively wrestling anywhere at all at the time of this "Paige this and Paige that", "Paige before Sasha, before Alexa, Bailey, and Asuka etc etc etc" crap was actually happening so I guess, what claim can THEY offer about wrestling at the time since they didn't even exist as wrestlers at the said time?

I just feel almost like I exposed a lazy loop/plot hole that would have been easily explained away by a more in depth promo.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by cero2k » Nov 28th, '17, 16:34

KILLdozer wrote: Nov 28th, '17, 15:42 It just feels like a big disconnect. They weren't actively wrestling anywhere at all at the time of this "Paige this and Paige that", "Paige before Sasha, before Alexa, Bailey, and Asuka etc etc etc" crap was actually happening so I guess, what claim can THEY offer about wrestling at the time since they didn't even exist as wrestlers at the said time?

I just feel almost like I exposed a lazy loop/plot hole that would have been easily explained away by a more in depth promo.
they could argue that Paige was the inspiration for them to laze up the boots and wanted to help her get the recognition blah blah blah. If you ask me, that would had been a perfect spot for Emma since it was her and Paige that started it all. And still they argue they had nothing for her.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/27/2017 Raw (SNORE!)

Post by KILLdozer » Nov 28th, '17, 16:46

cero2k wrote: Nov 28th, '17, 16:34
KILLdozer wrote: Nov 28th, '17, 15:42 It just feels like a big disconnect. They weren't actively wrestling anywhere at all at the time of this "Paige this and Paige that", "Paige before Sasha, before Alexa, Bailey, and Asuka etc etc etc" crap was actually happening so I guess, what claim can THEY offer about wrestling at the time since they didn't even exist as wrestlers at the said time?

I just feel almost like I exposed a lazy loop/plot hole that would have been easily explained away by a more in depth promo.
they could argue that Paige was the inspiration for them to laze up the boots and wanted to help her get the recognition blah blah blah. If you ask me, that would had been a perfect spot for Emma since it was her and Paige that started it all. And still they argue they had nothing for her.
Exactly, they just needed to do a "heel protege/alliance" type of promo and it would have been fine. They didn't really think Emma was very good, from what I can tell.
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