BRM Reviews the 11/30/2015 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- We’re getting a celebration for Sheamus, but instead of just giving letting Sheamus come out here and celebrate, we first have to waste five minutes on the New Day being boring before they bring Sheamus out.
Sheamus is acting like a complete and total goof instead of the ass-kicker that he should be. Half of his lines could have been directly lifted from any Seth Rollins promo over the past seven months. Nothing will change in this company. Ever. Sheamus references the “Austin 3:16” promo and JBL declares it to be “a new era” except that it’s so clearly not because it feels like every single Raw before Sheamus won the title.
Roman showed up and gave Sheamus a Superman punch which appears to have knocked him out. Roman then stole the title belt.

ROMAN REIGNS, THE AUTHORITY, & ROMAN’S FRIENDS- Roman celebrates this act of theft with Dean and the Usos. Hunter & Steph demand that he returned the stolen property. Roman does so, but not before engaging in douchy antics first. We are told that our main event will be Sheamus defending the title against Roman in a match with a five minute time limit.

DOLP ZIGGLER vs. TYLER BREEZE (w/Summer Rae)- 5.5/10
This feud has been going on for over a month and has literally gone nowhere.
Michael Cole described Summer Rae as Breeze’s “love interest,” which is such a mechanical term that it totally takes me out of the story.
They wrestled for a bit and traded reversals until Dolph won with a superkick because G-d forbid we should even give Tyler Breeze and chance to get over.

MIZ TV WITH SPECIAL GUESTS RUSEV & LANA- Fine until Ryback showed up.
So the explanation for Rusev and Lana getting back together is Delirious’ favorite angle: “when I was in the hospital, Person X was the only one who came to visit me.” I’m almost certain that this doesn’t mesh with the kayfabe timeline of events.
Lana publicly declares that she never had sex with Dolph, and Rusev declares that he didn’t bang Summer Rae, either. If Vince Russo were booking this, both women would be showing signs of pregnancy soon, and the big swerve would be that both babies were fathered by a third party who has had nothing to do with anything so far.
Rusev and Lana were entertaining enough that this was fine. Lana and Rusev shared a passionate kiss until Ryback interrupted them and called this “garbage.” Yes… our babyface declared true love to be “garbage.”

RYBACK vs. RUSEV (w/Summer Rae)- no rating. Okay segment.
What the f*ck? Ryback just did a MISSILE DROPKICK!
Lana took a bump and Rusev went to check on her, thus getting counted out. This seems like it was intended to turn Rusev and Lana babyface, but if that as the plan, then why did they have him join the Authority last week?

HUNTER & DEAN BACKSTAGE- Hunter says that if Roman doesn’t beat Sheamus in under 5:15 in the main event, both Roman and Dean will lose their title shots. I’m calling it now that they outsmart Hunter by having Dean “attack” Roman for a DQ.

DUDLEY BOYS PROMO- good.
They have tables covered in sheets. I assume they are stealing the angle Bubba did in TNA last summer where he had tables with the names of everyone in MVP and Dixie’s stables. Yup. And they even found an oversized table for Strowman. How cute.
Despite my dislike of the fact that they are rehashing an angle we saw only a year ago, the Dudleys’ delivery was good enough to make this enjoyable.
Then Bray Wyatt came out and he had to say a few sentences before doing his magic and taking over the TV and making the lights go out before turning everything back on to reveal Harper, Rowan, and Strowman standing on the ramp. OH MY F*CKING G-D! JUST WALK DOWN TO THE RING LIKE NORMAL F*CKING PEOPLE! It’s easier on your camera and effects crew, doesn’t hurt the gimmick in any way (as if the gimmick wasn’t already dead), and it would make the show a million times less hokey.
It turns out the Dudleys brought Tommy Dreamer as backup. He actually looks like a badass again, as opposed to TNA Tommy Dreamer who couldn’t make through a promo without crying.

TOMMY DREAMER & THE DUDLEY BOYS vs. THE WYATT FAMILY (w/Bray Wyatt)- DUD!
They went to a double DQ when the ref lost control of the match. The Wyatts beats the Dudleys and Dreamer down a bit after the match, but Bubba managed to push Bray off the apron and through a table. It’s too early in this feud for any of the Wyatts to be taking a table bump, especially Bray.

GOLDUST vs. ALBERTO DEL RIO (w/Zeb Coulter)- 3/10
Of all of the weeks to have multiple important things happen on Smackdown, they chose the one Thursday a year when the fewest people are watching.
The match was short, but good for the time it got. After the match, Del Rio put Goldust in the cross armbreaker. Swagger came out to make the save, but Del Rio ran away.

BECKY WANTS A MATCH WITH CHARLOTTE- Charlotte is skeptical. Becky tells her not to let Paige’s betrayal get into her head. Up until this point this segment had been very good. Then Charlotte asked if Ric could be at ringside and Becky launched into completely phony dialogue. Then Rick JUST HAPPENED to show up and there was wooing.

THE LUCHA DRAGONS vs. THE USOS- 0.5/10
New Day are on commentary. First they were as annoying as hell on commentary. Then they caused a double DQ, just like we all knew they would the moment we saw them out here. Then Xavier cut a promo which implied that this was a #1 contendership match. Was that ever announced?

STEPH BACKSTAGE WITH THE TAG TEAMS- tells the Lucha Dragons they can have a tag title shot at TLC. She says that the Usos can, too… if Roman wins the main event in less than 5:15. So basically this was the exact same thing as Dean’s segment with Hunter earlier.

BRIE BELLA (w/ Alicia Fox) vs. SASHA BANKS (w/Naomi & Tamina)- 3.25/10
Team B.A.D. got to do an in-set promo that was extremely annoying. The fans have been chanting “WE WANT SASHA!” for months now… so of course WWE books the Bellas to be the babyfaces here.
The match went almost five minutes. JBL went on some dumb tangent about a parking attendant.

5:15 SECOND TIME LIMIT MATCH FOR THE WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE IN WHICH IF ROMAN LOSES, HE AND HIS PALS LOSE THEIR TITLE SHOTS: Sheamus(c) vs. Roman Reigns- 4/10
If they were really smart, they’d be pushing it as “Roman 5:15” to more thoroughly mock Roman.
I thought they told their story very well, but the intentional DQ finish by the heels was stupid. It would have made a lot more sense to have Roman win by count-out.

SHEAMUS PROMO- his heel group consisting of himself, Barrett, Del Rio, and Rusev. They’re called the League of Nations, meaning that WWE must be tapping my computer because they keep stealing my fantasy booking ideas.
Roman’s pals then came out and this could be a pretty awesome eight-man tag if they give it time. Come to think of it, I’d also like to see Roman & Pals vs. Sheamus & the New Day. There you go, WWE. Main events for this week and next week. You’re welcome.

BECKY LYNCH vs. CHARLOTTE (w/Ric Flair)- no rating. Bad segment.
Paige is on commentary because the so-called “creative” team isn’t very creative at all. They also had to show us Team B.A.D. watching on a monitor backstage even though they haven’t been involved in a feud with any of these women in at least two months.
They have an okay match and… WHAT THE F*CK?! THEY JUST TURNED CHARLOTTE HEEL! After months of building her up to be the conquering babyface hero, they turn her heel?

CHARLOTTE & BECKY BACKSTAGE- Charlotte is a heel. This sucked.

PAIGE STIRS THE POT- ah. So the real point of this whole thing was to sew some dissension between Becky and Charlotte. This is a bad way of doing it because it makes Charlotte into a huge asshole. Here’s how I would have done it:
I would have Paige attack Ric Flair during the match, taking his knee out from behind. This would distract Charlotte. Meanwhile, Becky would be unsure if she should take advantage of this distraction or not. I’d have Becky go in like she is going for a schoolgirl, but then stop and instead join Charlotte in telling Paige off. Paige would walk off, laughing, and the match would continue to a clean finish with Charlotte going over.
Next week, I’d have Paige come out and show the footage of Becky almost deciding to take advantage of Charlotte being distracted by concern for a her father’s wellbeing to win a wrestling match and use THAT to drive a wedge between the two friends, proving to Charlotte that, as Paige has been claiming, friendship is a lie, while also constantly reminding Becky that she could have beaten Charlotte and earned that Divas Title match that she so desperately wants, but she let her friendship with Charlotte get in the way.

ADAM ROSE ON “THE ROSEBUSH”- I assume “the Rosebush” is what Adam Rose calls his pubes, and this segment was so bad that I’m not certain that I wouldn’t have preferred it if they had just aired pictures of Adam Rose’s pubes instead of it.

STARDUST & TITUS O’NEIL ENGAGE IN STUPIDITY ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT ONE SHOULD ENJOY CHRISTMAS- Terrible.
Aside from the standard Stardust bullsh*t, Titus, the one who is pro-Christmas spirit, attempted to force the Christmas spirit onto Stardust via physical violence.

HANDICAP MATCH: Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, & The Usos vs. The League of Nations & The New Day- 7.25/10
Rather than do a handicap match it would have made a lot more sense to just have The New Day interfere and cause one of the Usos to get pinned. Dean was the wrong guy to pin here. He has been protected a lot less than the Usos have (because the Usos have been off TV).
The heels beat Dean and Roman down after the match. The ending to this show with an army of heels standing tall, definitely had something promising to it, but overall, this was another boring and poorly-booked Raw.

[NWK2000]

I agree with everything here, except the Paige/Becky stuff. I didn't get the vibe that she was turning, I got the vibe that she was just doing anything to retain her title, and Paige is using this to break up Team CB. Clearly Paige being like, "That sucks doesn't it?" implies that Becky will turn on Paige, unless they do in fact Russo swerve us, and Charlotte and Paige turn on Becky, at which point I will publicly admit you called it.

[Big Red Machine]

I agree with everything here, except the Paige/Becky stuff. I didn't get the vibe that she was turning, I got the vibe that she was just doing anything to retain her title, and Paige is using this to break up Team CB. Clearly Paige being like, "That sucks doesn't it?" implies that Becky will turn on Paige, unless they do in fact Russo swerve us, and Charlotte and Paige turn on Becky, at which point I will publicly admit you called it.

The problem is that they were very clear that this was a non-title match, and that Charlotte's plan was clearly a premeditated tactic requiring the collaboration of her well-known dirty cheater of a father. I'm not saying that Charlotte will turn heel in the future. I'm arguing that, by her actions here, she DID turn heel.