BRM Reviews the 1/28/2013 Raw
Posted: Jan 30th, '13, 14:09
OPENING SEGMENT- Punk was good. I thought Heyman was employed by Punk, not by WWE, so I’m not sure that Vince can do to him.
JBL IS COMMENTATING ON RAW! YAY!
SINGLES MATCH WITH THE MIZ AS SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Randy Orton vs. Antonio Cesaro- 6.5/10
I thought this was done a hell of a lot better than this sort of thing usually is. Miz and Cesaro’s anger felt like it came up entirely naturally, and he didn’t actually attack Cesaro, which I liked because it felt like attacking him would have been a bit of an overreaction for this situation. Miz still gets to be snarky babyface and screws Cesaro without actually breaking the rules.
AFTERMATH- whoops. Guess I spoke too soon.
MAKE ME LAUGH CONTEST- it’s not that this wasn’t done well… it’s just that watching this made me so damn angry that Royal Rumble was booked the way it was. Ryback could have been building up to a WWE Title match with CM Punk at Wrestlemania… but instead he destroys and announcer and part of an extremely promising young tag team for no reason at all. I really didn’t like both Ryback attacking Striker and Young abandoning his partner. Both feel out of character.
WADE BARRETT vs. BO DALLAS-no rating, good segment
Really? A legit pin? I would have thought they would have given him a flash pin victory over Barrett first.
CODY RHODES vs. JOHN CENA- 2/10
Cody lost WAY too fast. This really pissed me off. Did we really need to destroy Cody before having Cena cut his promo?
JOHN CENA PROMO- AWESOME (although it felt a bit awkward to have him talk about Punk getting a rematch when, although it is a foregone conclusion, it hasn’t been announced yet). Yeah, we all knew who Cena would challenge so him drawing it out was a bit annoying, but that sort of thing inevitably happens once you know that wrestling is scripted
THE SHIELD ATTACK AND BEAT UP CENA, SHEAMUS, & RYBACK- good
DANCE-OFF: Tensai vs. Brodus Clay (w/the Funkadactyls)- just fifteen seconds for a dance-off? That doesn’t seem like enough time to be able to show your dancing ability. Unless you’re me, but that’s because I can’t dance. Second of all, Tensai got WAY more than fifteen seconds. Third of all, why do the dumb lingerie thing when you could have had Tensai come out dressed in his old “Hip-Hop Hippo” gear?
BODYSLAM CHALLENGE: The Big Show vs. Alberto Del Rio (w/Ricardo Rodriguez)- PERFECT SEGMENT!
THIS is how you should use these goofy non-wrestling gimmick competitions! Show comes out and just lays Del Rio out with a WMD, then duct-tapes Del Rio to the ropes and beats Ricardo up in front of him. GREAT stuff.
LUMBJILL LAS VEGAS SHOWGIRLS MATCH: Kaitlyn vs. Tamina Snuka-DUD!
It’s pretty clear that this was done just for the point of having a giant catfight, which is okay at best… and that is when it is done WELL. The execution here wasn’t even on the same continent as “done well.”
CM PUNK & THE ROCK SEGMENT- good
TABLES MATCH: Damien Sandow vs. Sheamus- 6/10
COMMERCIAL FOR THE INTERCONTINENTAL CUP- boy, that sounds cool! I sure hope it doesn’t just get cancelled for no reason or something.
KAREOKE SEGMENT- DUD!
JERICHO & ZIGGLER (& FRIENDS) SEGMENT-
TEAM HELL NO vs. CHRIS JERICHO & DOLPH ZIGGLER (w/AJ Lee & Big E. Langston)- no rating. Decent segment.
I’m not fond of Jericho going right back to where he left off last summer by outsmarting Ziggler at every turn, but the Team Hell No stuff was good. This is the sort of thing arguing that they should have been doing the whole time, instead of that dumb random backstage crap.
TRISH STRATUS WILL BE INDUCTED INTO THE HALL OF FAME- speaking as someone who probably got his first boner as a result of seeing Trish Stratus- this is well deserved. Trish’s rise from pure T & A to the most decorated and one of the best in-ring female performers in the Raw Era of WWE history is a shining example that hard work and dedication can, indeed, pay off.
CLOSING SEGMENT- I really don’t like this, as paying people off to help him defend his title and bribing a referee really doesn’t feel like something that CM Punk would do. I think it would have been better to have Heyman be paying them off without Punk’s knowledge. Then you can do Rock vs. Punk as babyface vs. babyface, do Shield vs. Punk, have Punk & Ryback team up to take on Shield and then eventually do Punk vs. Ryback as babyface vs babyface and give Ryback his win.
Brock attacking Vince seems to finalize the Brock vs. Triple H rematch at Mania.
Overall, not a particularly good episode of Raw, but it certainly had some bright points. I generally hate the “Raw Roulette” episodes because of the propensity for both pointless gimmick matches and stupid random competitions instead of matches, but I have resigned myself to the fact that it won’t go away. Accepting that, one of my big complaints has involved the execution of the concept, specifically as pertains to things like matches where one of the wrestlers get to choose his/her opponent because it is kayfabe unfair to those who don’t get a chance to spin the wheel (because they will never get the chance to choose their opponent), the fact that things like special guest referees are often just assigned by the GM. This year they had a “superstar wheel” in addition to the usual gimmick match wheel, and I thought that this was a tremendous idea! If randomness is going to be your gimmick, why not embrace it? This also solves the above kayfabe problems as every superstar has an equal and random chance of being chose to spin the wheel, and we have an impartial way to assign guest refs. The problem is that they didn’t use it for this purpose (or at least they didn’t show it).
JBL IS COMMENTATING ON RAW! YAY!
SINGLES MATCH WITH THE MIZ AS SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Randy Orton vs. Antonio Cesaro- 6.5/10
I thought this was done a hell of a lot better than this sort of thing usually is. Miz and Cesaro’s anger felt like it came up entirely naturally, and he didn’t actually attack Cesaro, which I liked because it felt like attacking him would have been a bit of an overreaction for this situation. Miz still gets to be snarky babyface and screws Cesaro without actually breaking the rules.
AFTERMATH- whoops. Guess I spoke too soon.
MAKE ME LAUGH CONTEST- it’s not that this wasn’t done well… it’s just that watching this made me so damn angry that Royal Rumble was booked the way it was. Ryback could have been building up to a WWE Title match with CM Punk at Wrestlemania… but instead he destroys and announcer and part of an extremely promising young tag team for no reason at all. I really didn’t like both Ryback attacking Striker and Young abandoning his partner. Both feel out of character.
WADE BARRETT vs. BO DALLAS-no rating, good segment
Really? A legit pin? I would have thought they would have given him a flash pin victory over Barrett first.
CODY RHODES vs. JOHN CENA- 2/10
Cody lost WAY too fast. This really pissed me off. Did we really need to destroy Cody before having Cena cut his promo?
JOHN CENA PROMO- AWESOME (although it felt a bit awkward to have him talk about Punk getting a rematch when, although it is a foregone conclusion, it hasn’t been announced yet). Yeah, we all knew who Cena would challenge so him drawing it out was a bit annoying, but that sort of thing inevitably happens once you know that wrestling is scripted
THE SHIELD ATTACK AND BEAT UP CENA, SHEAMUS, & RYBACK- good
DANCE-OFF: Tensai vs. Brodus Clay (w/the Funkadactyls)- just fifteen seconds for a dance-off? That doesn’t seem like enough time to be able to show your dancing ability. Unless you’re me, but that’s because I can’t dance. Second of all, Tensai got WAY more than fifteen seconds. Third of all, why do the dumb lingerie thing when you could have had Tensai come out dressed in his old “Hip-Hop Hippo” gear?
BODYSLAM CHALLENGE: The Big Show vs. Alberto Del Rio (w/Ricardo Rodriguez)- PERFECT SEGMENT!
THIS is how you should use these goofy non-wrestling gimmick competitions! Show comes out and just lays Del Rio out with a WMD, then duct-tapes Del Rio to the ropes and beats Ricardo up in front of him. GREAT stuff.
LUMBJILL LAS VEGAS SHOWGIRLS MATCH: Kaitlyn vs. Tamina Snuka-DUD!
It’s pretty clear that this was done just for the point of having a giant catfight, which is okay at best… and that is when it is done WELL. The execution here wasn’t even on the same continent as “done well.”
CM PUNK & THE ROCK SEGMENT- good
TABLES MATCH: Damien Sandow vs. Sheamus- 6/10
COMMERCIAL FOR THE INTERCONTINENTAL CUP- boy, that sounds cool! I sure hope it doesn’t just get cancelled for no reason or something.
KAREOKE SEGMENT- DUD!
JERICHO & ZIGGLER (& FRIENDS) SEGMENT-
TEAM HELL NO vs. CHRIS JERICHO & DOLPH ZIGGLER (w/AJ Lee & Big E. Langston)- no rating. Decent segment.
I’m not fond of Jericho going right back to where he left off last summer by outsmarting Ziggler at every turn, but the Team Hell No stuff was good. This is the sort of thing arguing that they should have been doing the whole time, instead of that dumb random backstage crap.
TRISH STRATUS WILL BE INDUCTED INTO THE HALL OF FAME- speaking as someone who probably got his first boner as a result of seeing Trish Stratus- this is well deserved. Trish’s rise from pure T & A to the most decorated and one of the best in-ring female performers in the Raw Era of WWE history is a shining example that hard work and dedication can, indeed, pay off.
CLOSING SEGMENT- I really don’t like this, as paying people off to help him defend his title and bribing a referee really doesn’t feel like something that CM Punk would do. I think it would have been better to have Heyman be paying them off without Punk’s knowledge. Then you can do Rock vs. Punk as babyface vs. babyface, do Shield vs. Punk, have Punk & Ryback team up to take on Shield and then eventually do Punk vs. Ryback as babyface vs babyface and give Ryback his win.
Brock attacking Vince seems to finalize the Brock vs. Triple H rematch at Mania.
Overall, not a particularly good episode of Raw, but it certainly had some bright points. I generally hate the “Raw Roulette” episodes because of the propensity for both pointless gimmick matches and stupid random competitions instead of matches, but I have resigned myself to the fact that it won’t go away. Accepting that, one of my big complaints has involved the execution of the concept, specifically as pertains to things like matches where one of the wrestlers get to choose his/her opponent because it is kayfabe unfair to those who don’t get a chance to spin the wheel (because they will never get the chance to choose their opponent), the fact that things like special guest referees are often just assigned by the GM. This year they had a “superstar wheel” in addition to the usual gimmick match wheel, and I thought that this was a tremendous idea! If randomness is going to be your gimmick, why not embrace it? This also solves the above kayfabe problems as every superstar has an equal and random chance of being chose to spin the wheel, and we have an impartial way to assign guest refs. The problem is that they didn’t use it for this purpose (or at least they didn’t show it).