BRM Reviews the 10/29/2012 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- decent. Not defending the belt at Survivor Series should ensure that Punk holds it for over a year.

RYBACK vs. JTG- So Ryback should have won the WWE Title last night… but tonight they put him in a match against a jobber?

RYBACK PROMO- the food references were a bit over the top. When I see a guy standing up and saying “when I feast again, it will be on…” it makes me think of a vampire.

WADE BARRETT vs. RANDY ORTON- 6/10
Good match, but why the hell did Randy need to win here? No one will ever make it to that next level if they don’t beat someone like Orton, and Wade Barrett is good in the ring and is one of the best talkers in the company. He should be getting a push, not losing cleanly to Orton.

AJ & VICKIE BACKSTAGE- AJ says “I did not have an affair with John Cena!” THEN WHY DID YOU RESIGN?!

TEAM HELL NO vs. THE PRIME TIME PLAYERS- same standard match Kane and Dragon have been having for a few weeks now.

VICKIE & CENA SEGMENT- Oh dear Lord, they ARE trying to do something like the AJ (Styles)-Dixie angle! Complete with moronic evidence that requires a ridiculous jump to reach the desired conclusion! They’re in an elevator together! They must be boning! (All though, to be fair to WWE, at least they are doing it in a semi-intelligent manner with one of the accused parties immediately coming out and refuting the evidence, rather than waiting six weeks while allowing the entire world, their families included, to believe that they are having an affair).
Anyway, I really disliked this segment. Cena does not need to be yelling at Vickie for calling AJ ugly and running down a list of her virtues in the ring.


KOFI KINGSTON vs. ANTONIO CESARO- no rating. Good segment.

Wait… the teams for Survivor Series are going to be unveiled tonight? OH COME ON! No one has even made this match official yet!

AJ & VICKIE BACKSTAGE AGAIN- well… AJ has her job back.

3 MAN BAND PROMO-okay... Drew and Jinder was actually very good here, but it is still not the time of angle want to see them in!

CO-BRO vs. JINDER MAHAL & HEATH SLATER (w/Drew McIntyre)- 4/10
Not a bad match, but the Overdrive is such a lame finisher.

BETH PHOENIX vs. AJ LEE- no rating. It’s not that this segment was poorly executed, because they got the idea over well (AJ and Beth told the story perfectly)… I just think that it was poorly conceived, for a few reasons. First of all, I’m not a fan of AJ getting her ass kicked like this. Beth is leaving the company. AJ is staying and is now involved in a major storyline. There is no reason for Beth to dominate the entire match. Why not let AJ look strong?

Secondly, I don’t like Vickie coming out on top at the end of the segment. Vickie has already won a whole bunch. She got AJ kicked out of her job and she is now running the show. She now has AJ in her employ and is embarrassing her by making these allegations about her and Cena. She is already making AJ’s life hell. Why not show AJ fighting back a bit. Having AJ end the segment on top makes the angle feel more like “Vickie makes AJ’s like hell, but AJ is determined to deal with it because she wants to be a WWE Diva so much,” as opposed to the feeling that I got at the end of this show, which was “Vickie makes AJ’s life hell for the sake of antagonizing Cena.”


SHEAMUS & BIG SHOW SEGMENT- Shemaus was okay, but Show was F*CKING GREAT! I also thought it looked ridiculous that Show didn’t struggle at all to try to get out of White Noise.

VICKIE/CENA/AJ/BETH BACKSTAGE YET AGAIN- This is at least the fifth segment on this show devoted to this angle. That is WAY too much. As for the segment itself… I like Beth getting fired, as it builds in a program for Beth whenever she decides to return, but I didn’t like the way it was handled. This is Beth Phoenix. At least my interpretation of Beth’s character is that after being treated the way Vickie just treated her, Beth would probably get angry and try to punch Vickie or something, rather than just stand there like some generic diva.

REY MYSTERIO & SIN CARA vs. TEAM RHODES SCHOLARS- 6.25/10
Good match, and the right team went over.

MICK FOLEY & PAUL HEYMAN BACKSTAGE- okay

JUSTIN GABRIEL vs. ALBERTO DEL RIO (w/Ricardo Rodriguez)- 4.5/10
They are letting Justin get some more offense in judging matches, and it is making him look much better.

THE TEAMS ARE ANNOUNCED- Once Punk’s team came out, you knew exactly who Foley’s team would be. I HATE the way WWE has recently done this. It just makes these matches feel like a contrived way to pointlessly continue a bunch of singles feuds. Whatever happened to the days of actually investing time into these matches and having people go find teammates and having people team for reasons more complex than “I’m a heel and so are you?” After this, we're going to get two and a half weeks of random match-up between parts of these two teams that will make us sick of it by the time the actual PPV rolls around.

-CHEAP PLUG: (If you, too, are tired of this, check out my BRM Books Raw 1,000 and Beyond thread in the Wrestling Fantasy section).

Overall, not a good episode of Raw.

[cero2k]

RYBACK vs. JTG- So Ryback should have won the WWE Title last night… but tonight they put him in a match against a jobber?

I thought something similar, it was like a random match out of nowhere, they should have had some guy come and brag about anything and just have Ryback destroy him.

WADE BARRETT vs. RANDY ORTON- 6/10
Good match, but why the hell did Randy need to win here? No one will ever make it to that next level if they don’t beat someone like Orton, and Wade Barrett is good in the ring and is one of the best talkers in the company. He should be getting a push, not losing cleanly to Orton.

Hasn't Wade won one or two matches against Orton already on Smackdown?

AJ & VICKIE BACKSTAGE- AJ says “I did not have an affair with John Cena!” THEN WHY DID YOU RESIGN?!

she was technically forced to resign by the board, politics can do that to you. And like i mentioned some weeks ago, there's still the chance that there's worse dirty laundry in this story

[Big Red Machine]

WADE BARRETT vs. RANDY ORTON- 6/10
Good match, but why the hell did Randy need to win here? No one will ever make it to that next level if they don’t beat someone like Orton, and Wade Barrett is good in the ring and is one of the best talkers in the company. He should be getting a push, not losing cleanly to Orton.

Hasn't Wade won one or two matches against Orton already on Smackdown?

Haven't been watching SD, but they said that he beat Orton last week, but because of interference by Del Rio.

AJ & VICKIE BACKSTAGE- AJ says “I did not have an affair with John Cena!” THEN WHY DID YOU RESIGN?!

she was technically forced to resign by the board, politics can do that to you. And like i mentioned some weeks ago, there's still the chance that there's worse dirty laundry in this story

I'm fully certain that there is dirty laundry. Vickie is making sh*t up, just like with the AJ-Dixie angle... but because the heel is just making sh*t up the babyface shouldn't resign. She should refute the charges (like Cena did).

[Serujuunin]

AJ & VICKIE BACKSTAGE- AJ says “I did not have an affair with John Cena!” THEN WHY DID YOU RESIGN?!

she was technically forced to resign by the board, politics can do that to you. And like i mentioned some weeks ago, there's still the chance that there's worse dirty laundry in this story

I'm fully certain that there is dirty laundry. Vickie is making sh*t up, just like with the AJ-Dixie angle... but because the heel is just making sh*t up the babyface shouldn't resign. She should refute the charges (like Cena did).[/quote]
I think the deciding factor for AJ's resignation is that she was already on probation. Even if she fought the charges, the board could and probably would have used that on top of all the poor management decisions she made during her administration as grounds to fire her, and she would rather leave on "her terms" (even though they weren't REALLY her terms...) Or the board could have just told her to resign rather than firing her outright (I'm not really sure on why they would insist on this, but I'm not on the board of directors). HOWEVER, if AJ resigning as GM means I get to see her wrestle, I'm okay with it.

[cero2k]

THE TEAMS ARE ANNOUNCED- Once Punk’s team came out, you knew exactly who Foley’s team would be. I HATE the way WWE has recently done this. It just makes these matches feel like a contrived way to pointlessly continue a bunch of singles feuds. Whatever happened to the days of actually investing time into these matches and having people go find teammates and having people team for reasons more complex than “I’m a heel and so are you?” After this, we're going to get two and a half weeks of random match-up between parts of these two teams that will make us sick of it by the time the actual PPV rolls around.

you know, thinking about this one.

they only have 3 RAWs to build Survivor Series, particularly this feud that doesn't cross to Smackdown. They already had to use a week to introduce them and they have two left to build strengths and stuff, it's understandable that they hasted the reveal. IMO it made perfect sense for the teams to be built so quickly, Foley and Heyman don't have much to do during the show, they had a lot of free time to round up some guys, but a few skits with them talking to people would have been great.

I agree that this match is a bunch of feuds all put in the same box, thus making the reveal quite bad. I would have had Heyman present Team Punk the same way they did, the have Foley come out and Team Punk start beating him up, then just have the natural feuds come out to help and right there have Foley ask if they wanted to join him for the match.

[KILLdozer]

AJ & VICKIE BACKSTAGE- AJ says “I did not have an affair with John Cena!” THEN WHY DID YOU RESIGN?!

she was technically forced to resign by the board, politics can do that to you. And like i mentioned some weeks ago, there's still the chance that there's worse dirty laundry in this story

I'm fully certain that there is dirty laundry. Vickie is making sh*t up, just like with the AJ-Dixie angle... but because the heel is just making sh*t up the babyface shouldn't resign. She should refute the charges (like Cena did).

I think the deciding factor for AJ's resignation is that she was already on probation. Even if she fought the charges, the board could and probably would have used that on top of all the poor management decisions she made during her administration as grounds to fire her, and she would rather leave on "her terms" (even though they weren't REALLY her terms...) Or the board could have just told her to resign rather than firing her outright (I'm not really sure on why they would insist on this, but I'm not on the board of directors). HOWEVER, if AJ resigning as GM means I get to see her wrestle, I'm okay with it. [/quote]

No,no,no.Probation or not if they are just allegations and there was no proof at the time,and if she would have defended herself against them,As BRM is saying she said have in the first place(Holy shit me and that dude just fully agreed again...)there should be no grounds for termination,probation or not.

[Big Red Machine]

THE TEAMS ARE ANNOUNCED- Once Punk’s team came out, you knew exactly who Foley’s team would be. I HATE the way WWE has recently done this. It just makes these matches feel like a contrived way to pointlessly continue a bunch of singles feuds. Whatever happened to the days of actually investing time into these matches and having people go find teammates and having people team for reasons more complex than “I’m a heel and so are you?” After this, we're going to get two and a half weeks of random match-up between parts of these two teams that will make us sick of it by the time the actual PPV rolls around.

you know, thinking about this one.

they only have 3 RAWs to build Survivor Series, particularly this feud that doesn't cross to Smackdown. They already had to use a week to introduce them and they have two left to build strengths and stuff, it's understandable that they hasted the reveal. IMO it made perfect sense for the teams to be built so quickly, Foley and Heyman don't have much to do during the show, they had a lot of free time to round up some guys, but a few skits with them talking to people would have been great.

I agree that this match is a bunch of feuds all put in the same box, thus making the reveal quite bad. I would have had Heyman present Team Punk the same way they did, the have Foley come out and Team Punk start beating him up, then just have the natural feuds come out to help and right there have Foley ask if they wanted to join him for the match.

Every feud crosses over onto Smackdown because the matches do. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense that the teams came together so quickly. I'm saying I think it was a waste of storytelling potential and that it would make everything feel more fresh for the PPV. As for three weeks not being enough time to introduce them, I say BS. It is more than enough time to do it.

[cero2k]

Every feud crosses over onto Smackdown because the matches do. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense that the teams came together so quickly. I'm saying I think it was a waste of storytelling potential and that it would make everything feel more fresh for the PPV. As for three weeks not being enough time to introduce them, I say BS. It is more than enough time to do it.

Punk/Heyman and Ryback/Foley doesn't, and that's the only one that really matters here. and if you only have 3 weeks, you don't wanna use all of them to be introducing team members.

[Big Red Machine]

Every feud crosses over onto Smackdown because the matches do. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense that the teams came together so quickly. I'm saying I think it was a waste of storytelling potential and that it would make everything feel more fresh for the PPV. As for three weeks not being enough time to introduce them, I say BS. It is more than enough time to do it.

Punk/Heyman and Ryback/Foley doesn't, and that's the only one that really matters here. and if you only have 3 weeks, you don't wanna use all of them to be introducing team members.

Sure you do. Stay tuned to my fasntasy booking threead and I'll prove it.

Also, if you use them to introduce new team members, it means that people have to tune in to every show to see who will be chosen.