BRM Reviews the 1/27/2014 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

Michael Cole opens the show by saying that "unpredictability ruled at the Royal Rumble event." Yes. Unfortunately, the unpredictable part was that Dragon wasn't in the rumble, which made the crowd very angry.

OPENING SEGMENT- Hunter & Steph troll the crowd about Dragon not being in the Royal Rumble. They put over Batista winning, and also the fact that he is Hunter's friend. Steph announces that Orton will defend the belt inside the Elimination Chamber. Then Dragon came out and interrupted them.
He says that he asked to be in the Royal Rumble, but the Authority said no. Steph says they were looking out for Dragon's health. Dragon calls BS, and points out that they have made him wrestle multiple matches on Raw tons of times and they have constantly stuck him in handicap matches... so Hunter simply responds "that's a fair point... which is why we didn't want to do it to you again."
Dragon accuses them of trying to keep him down. Steph says that he is being selfish and that they have to look out for the entire roster. She then asks "do you really think that all of these people only came here to see you?"
This, of course, prompted the entire arena to break out into "YES! YES! YES! YES!"
They did some more stuff like that, and I really have to complement them on how well they did this. They had the whole crowd eating out of the palms of their hands.
Then Hunter sics the Shield on Dragon. Sheamus comes out to help him, but he, too, got beaten down. Then Cena came out, and the three of them together fought the Shield off. One of these guys definitely should have been Punk.

REY MYSTERIO JR. & SIN CARA vs. THE REAL AMERICANS (w/Zeb Coulter)- 5.25/10
Swagger wasn't doing well, so Zeb yelled at him and slapped him\, which made Swagger angry at Zeb and Cesaro had to hold him back. If anyone should turn face out of this gimmick, it has to be Cesaro! Have him have some sort of revelation that Zeb doesn't really like him because he is an immigrant, but he is only using him because of his phenomenal strength. This way, when Cesaro turns babyface, it also turns Zeb into a hypocrite.


R-TRUTH vs. FANDANGO (w/Summer Rae)- 2/10
EMMA SIGHTING!
This match was entirely pointless, and Woods, who was on commentary, came off kind of like a jerk here, celebrating like he had actually done something.

ORTON, BATISTA, & LESNAR SEGMENT- dull.
Orton is unhappy that he has to defend the belt in the Elimination Chamber. Batista comes out and gets almost no reaction.. until he started to talk, at which point the Daniel Bryan chants started. Dave's promo was very wooden. Then Lesnar and Heyman came out and people actually got excited. He wants Brock to either get a title shot tonight or to face Batista tonight... "or else." This whole thing felt very anti-climactic.

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. THE MIZ- 3.75/10
Short. This was billed as a "battle of Cleveland"... and the fans actually started chanting "CLEVELAND SUCKS!" Well... at least their not delusional.


RYBACK & CURTIS AXEL vs. THE USOS- 4.5/10
Good shine for the Usos.

ALBERTO DEL RIO vs. KOFI KINGSTON-6.75/10

WWE TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The New Age Outlaws(c) vs. Cody Rhodes & Goldust- 5/10
Road Dogg was kind of a jerk before the match, so Cody punched him. NAO also complained about having to defend the titles the night after winning them. They did a good job of getting over the fact that the Rhodes brothers were completely out-wrestling the Outlaws. I was disappointed that Goldust accidentally eliminating Cody wasn’t even mentioned once.
Then Brock came out and ruined Cody and Goldust’s chances, causing a DQ (NAO quickly ran away from Brock). Heyman cut a great promo while Brock beat the hell out of NAO with a chair.

THE BELLA TWINS & THE FUNKADACTYLS vs. AKSANA, TAMINA, AJ LEE, & ALICIA FOX- 0.5/10
Will this f*cking feud eve end? Naomi pinned AJ and Cole tried to make it seem like a big deal, but it really isn’t anymore because this is about the eighty-fourth time Naomi has been AJ in a tag match in the past month. She has yet to receive even a single title shot.

JAKE ROBERTS WILL BE INDUCTED INTO WWE THE HALL OF FAME- hooray!
Well deserved.
Cole makes a good segue into talking about the WWE Network to give us a preview of one of the new shows. This one was about the history of Wrestlemania, and the first person they had talk was Hogan. This seemed like a big waste of Hogan’s first “appearance.” I realize that it was old footage, but still… why not keep Hulk’s face off of TV so that when he does come back, the pop is that much bigger?

WINNING TEAM QUALIFIES FOR THE ELIMINATION CHAMBER MATCH: Daniel Bryan, John Cena, & Sheamus vs. The Shield- 7.75/10
I would have given this (at least) an 8 if there was a clean finish, but instead they gave us about the worst finish possible (maybe aside from Cena or Sheamus beating Reigns). Cena has Reigns in the STFU and Reigns just powers out of it (AWESOME spot)… and then the lights gout and Wyatts show up and attack Cena, causing a DQ. Then there was a short brawl in which Dragon, Sheamus, and Cena sent the Wyatts scurrying away.
So what we have here is an awesome match with a bullsh*t finish, resulting in:
1. The babyfaces backing their way into a title shot instead of actually earning it.
2. Interference that ruins an awesome match but doesn’t actually advance the feud in any way.
3. The heels who are going to work with Cena at Wrestlemania looking nowhere near as strong as they need to.
4. The awesome spot Reigns and Cena just did (which puts Reigns over) will be completely forgotten.

Whoever booked this finish should get punched in the face.



STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Lawler- "You would need a calculator to count the amount of times that Brock Lesnar hammered The Big Show with that metal chair."
It couldn't have been more than thirty, and if you need a calculator to help you count that high, well... you probably shouldn't be announcing a wrestling show.
Also, did anyone else notice that he kept saying "metal chair" instead of "steel chair?"

[cero2k]

I was wondering if they were honestly gonna 'accidentally' turn Lesnar face last night, any of those matches would have done so

[Big Red Machine]

I was wondering if they were honestly gonna 'accidentally' turn Lesnar face last night, any of those matches would have done so

He pretty much gets babyface reactions anyway.

[cero2k]

I was wondering if they were honestly gonna 'accidentally' turn Lesnar face last night, any of those matches would have done so

He pretty much gets babyface reactions anyway.

yeah, but last night would have been the full arena chanting 'Let's Go Lesnar' on either of them, it wouldn't been a whole other level

[Big Red Machine]

Credit to Meltzer and Alvarez for this one, but why did Bray screw Cena out of the title at Royal Rumble... and then on Raw help him win a title shot?

[cero2k]

Credit to Meltzer and Alvarez for this one, but why did Bray screw Cena out of the title at Royal Rumble... and then on Raw help him win a title shot?

if something we've learned since the debut, Bray works in mysterious ways

[Bob-O]

I was wondering if they were honestly gonna 'accidentally' turn Lesnar face last night, any of those matches would have done so

He pretty much gets babyface reactions anyway.

I LOVED Heyman doing the "....right here in... CLEVELAND, OHIO..." thing. His expression and tone were PERFECT. I'm ready for a Brock face run. I'm NOT ready for two months of segments like Batista and Orton put on last night. That was an absolute grind until Lesnar showed up.

R-TRUTH vs. FANDANGO (w/Summer Rae)- 2/10
EMMA SIGHTING!
This match was entirely pointless, and Woods, who was on commentary, came off kind of like a jerk here, celebrating like he had actually done something.

I thought Woods was GREAT! Did you have the sound down again? Woods spent the whole time on commentary selling the match, supporting Truth, talking very little about himself - constantly putting the focus back on the match. I didn't think the post match stuff was out of place at all, Woods was just excited his mentor won.

When/if the stuff with Brodus is done, somebody's gonna get stabbed in the back... just not sure which one yet...