Crowd was pretty mixed tonight, not a lot of strong reaction for anyone except Daniel Bryan. Oddly the best pops in most of the matches went to someone who isn't even on the active roster atm, CM Punk. Either they didn't get the memo or they're hoping he'll make a surprise return.
The 'dance-off' was laughable, as expected. Emma is cute but I hope she can wrestle better than she can dance.
I missed seeing Cody's top-of-the-cage moonsault because I was flipping back and forth, fortunately they replayed it like 5 times. Overall the match was kinda dull and really showed why the Old Age Outlaws are pretty well washed up, even if it is nicely nostalgic to dust off the old catch phrases. The announcers tried to claim that Billy Gunn hasn't aged at all, making me wonder if they need their eyesight checked. Or perhaps they were looking at pictures of Dolph Ziggler, who really does look like Gunn 20 years ago.
So tell me ... is Christian really dying? Or is he just retiring after his 'One More Match'? Sad if he really is dying, especially since he's almost guaranteed not to win at EC.
Excellent match between Orton and Bryan, as expected. Bryan was a buzzsaw of rage the first part of the match, destroying Orton's leg before selling a shoulder injury of his own. Was glad to see that he not only easily dispatched the interference by Korporate Kane, but pinned Orton clean. Not for the title, of course, but glad to see him finally go over on the champ. Since the announcers were playing up the fact that Orton has never won a Chamber match it made me wonder if he's going to lose the majority, if not all, of the one-on-one preview matches for the Chamber, to really sell the 'champ in peril' story.
What do you guys think the odds are that Bryan wins the Chamber match, and goes on to headline Wrestlemania as the champ? It's seeming like Batista was promised a title win, so we'd get at most a month of Bryan as champ before Batista derailed it. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing those two swap the belts back and forth for a few months, to finally get away from the 'let's screw Bryan out of the title yet again' stories.
I rarely get to watch a full Raw (why do they put Archer on during Raw? And no, I don't have a DVR) so I too missed the Moonsault. I am sure I'll find it online later.
Shamus getting his shoulder worked over? Daniel Bryan getting HIS shoulder worked over? Orton getting his leg worked over? Did WWE Creative discover ring psychology?
I enjoyed that they gave Bryan the win, although it seem like this is going the "Randy Orton loses to everybody but beats them when the title's on the line"
Emma is cute. Cute doesn't cut it in WWE. She better slut it up or she'll be future endeavored.
Sort of an odd show. Not sure the purpose of Miz popping in for 20 seconds of talk time.
Is Titus for real?
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This was indisputably the best RAW featuring a shoutout to a (former, for employment reasons?) poster on this board.
Crowd was into chanting CM Punk and then getting tired and not doing much. It was not a great night.
I don't quite understand why you give Daniel Bryan that win and yet have the show end with Kane's music and lights. Forget how Kane is supposed to not be able to touch wrestlers anymore (because they sure did), why focus on the guy who has nothing to do right now? Orton RKO-ing Bryan would've annoyed everyone but at least built to a match. Bryan's in the cage, he's not facing Kane (unless they're taking him out of the cage, which would lead to another revolt.) The only thing I've gotten out of this Corporate Kane storyline is that nothing important is going on with Kane.
I don't know what I'm meant to be thinking about anyone. At times they seemed to paint Orton as a subtle face getting mistreated by the Authority ala Bryan and Punk, and other times tried to set up the Authority as possibly turning face - even though they were belittling Bryan seven days ago. I also don't understand what the difference is between being champion and being the Face of WWE; wasn't the whole idea of the unification match that the title match winner was the face (and that's also why Bryan couldn't be allowed to win?) Things are really not holding together and it's not just because a guy decided to go leave for more jujitsu practice.
Originally posted by Blind_GuardianThe 'dance-off' was laughable, as expected. Emma is cute but I hope she can wrestle better than she can dance.
I haven't watched an episode of the new NXT but I can fake it pretty well - the idea for Emma there has been she's kind of a goofball who thinks she's awesome but they slowly let you realize she was a goofball. They definitely did not have her do a dance contest in her first week and yell about how crazy and wacky and whatever else she was.
It came off very "Dancin' Homer" comes to Capital City, but I'm not totally convinced it was Emma (her or her character)'s fault. It's as if the writers only had access to a two line character sketch and not months of NXT episodes. Xavier Woods is the same way. Maybe Rusov will go better, but it's going to be weird when they start encouraging their fans to pay to see a show WWE's not really watching.
I heard Ryder was on RAW tonight. I know he lost, but how was he presented - Total jobber, or guy with potential to return to the midcard? I wonder when his contract is up.
Originally posted by DionysusI heard Ryder was on RAW tonight. I know he lost, but how was he presented - Total jobber, or guy with potential to return to the midcard? I wonder when his contract is up.
Looked like a jobber to me. No entrance. Jobbed to Titus O'Neil while The Miz came and cried about how a loser like Titus is on TV and not him.
Originally posted by DionysusI heard Ryder was on RAW tonight. I know he lost, but how was he presented - Total jobber, or guy with potential to return to the midcard? I wonder when his contract is up.
Definitely jobber city. But, y'know what? Zack Ryder is a really good jobber. I don't particularly like him or see why people rally to his cause, but he made Titus look as good as he's ever looked tonight. He sells well, the crowd and kids like him, and he stays over as a babyface despite constantly losing. That's a perfect jobber. Why give up a really good living to bust your butt in the indies? 'cause you don't "win" enough? How many guys has that actually worked for?
Or maybe I just like him best when he's being slapped around.
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I felt bad for poor Emma. I have a feeling that is an emotion I will have a lot since the WWE doesn't really get cute and quirky.
If I'm doing a moonsault off the top if the cage, which I'm not, I don't want the person who I'm landing on/ spotting me to be Road Dogg.
I have come to terms that my favorite Batista moment is always going to be him sitting in the center of the ring cutting a promo about how he is quitting.
I liked the Prime Time Players.
Did they finally break the personality out of Ryder?
Originally posted by BigDaddyLocoIf I'm doing a moonsault off the top if the cage, which I'm not, I don't want the person who I'm landing on/ spotting me to be Road Dogg.
I don't know - Cody didn't even look behind him when he went for it, so he must have had total faith in Road Dogg to be in position. The cage match as a whole was all right - the Rhodes were definitely carrying the Outlaws, but the whole thing was pretty watchable. I still don't understand why it's them and not the Usos or somebody else on the active roster, since the Outlaws haven't actually done anything to further an angle, but hey, that's probably the least mystifying booking decision going on right now sadly enough. The main event was spectacular, easily the best match I've seen between Orton and Bryan. Great psychology, of a sort rarely seen in a WWE ring anymore. Bryan's been in dire need of a big win, and even with the pointless post-match shenanigans, this definitely fit the bill.
Was Cena on this show or did I miss it? I also don't understand why the Old Age Outlaws are getting these wins especially somewhat cleans over the best face team the WWE has had in years. When HHH and Steph said Orton comes out each week and bitches, you know who can stop that nonsense? The bookers. I get the feeling this is how its going to be til Elimination Chamber where Orton loses to the guys he is facing then wins at the Chamber. Breaking up all these tag teams makes no sense. Minus Bryan winning the show was either full of repeat performances or tag team tension.
The Wee Baby Sheamus.Twitter: @realjoecarfley its a bit more toned down there. A bit.
The Lawler/Barrett...thing was maybe one of the worst segments in Raw history. Barrett tried, but Lawler's retort was historically awful (and seemingly from nowhere, unless we were supposed to infer that heart attack victim Lawler took special offense to Barrett's "you all have horrible eating habits!" material?), taken to the next level by Cole and JBL selling it like Lawler just delievered the single greatest putdown in the history of conversation. Unless they're going to literally kill off Bad News Barrett and the angle is that Lawler is the prime suspect after threatening him, that was truly awful.
Let's jump ahead to Kane for a second. Cubs nailed pretty much everything wrong with the ending, and the real takeaway seems to be that, indeed, all of the "Wait, was Kane secretly helping Bryan all along?!" speculation was for nothing, and the real answer was that, no, they have no plan whatsoever for any of this and the fact that the angle seemed to briefly make sense was a compelte accident they were too incompetent to take advantage of if they even noticed it. That, or several teams of writers who are forbidden to ever talk to each other are writing the Kane and Bryan angles, and so we get things where Kane's mask is shown in a glass case for two weeks, then never seen again, and Kane is or is not allowed to attack wrestlers at random.
Basically, and I think I said this before, Barrett and Kane are occupying the exact same space. I have little doubt that Corporate Kane was intended to be the spot for Bad News Barrett, but for reasons we will never know, they took Barrett out, put Kane in (removing him from the Wyatt angle and forcing Bryan into that spot), realized they had nothing for Barrett to do now and decided to do nothing with either character. This is, once again, why I wish wrestling had seasons and head writers who could do episode-by-episode "well, here's what went wrong" breakdowns after each season.
So, all of that said, worst case scenarios: 1) Barrett is never seen again just as he managed to turn a dead-end gimmick into something through sheer force of charisma 2) Kane gets into the Chamber and costs Bryan the match and they do Kane vs. Bryan at Wrestlemania and no one is ever happy again
Batista is pretty awful right now. Just wanted to get that out there.
Echoing other things above: HHH, Stephanie and NAO refusing to go fully heel is impossibly frustrating and hurting multiple characters at once. Emma may be DOA after that "Ha ha ha, look at this thing, we are laughing so you will also laugh!" dud of an intro. I still don't know hat Miz is. Titus as a heel will almost certainly go nowhere, and I actually felt kind of bad for him at the end of that segment, where his face kind of betrayed the fact that he knew this was going nowhere and he'd be better off as a face.
But on the plus side, Daniel Bryan is awesome. Randy Orton when in the presence of Daniel Bryan on a free TV match is awesome. Antonio Cesaro's reaction shots (Stefon-like concern over Zeb a few weeks ago, rueful headshaking this week) is amazing. And The Shield is the best thing of all. I love pretty much everything the three of them do in the ring, and the Shield backstage/Wyatts in the ring exchange was even better than the Wyatts backstage/Shield in the ring version.
Originally posted by BigDaddyLocoI liked the Prime Time Players.
I did too, but they screwed up the turn by Titus a wee bit. The "Millions of Dollars" dance is perfect for the "I'm visibly mad but we're gonna make up and do our thing -- OH NO WE'RE NOT" clothesline. Dance, dance, dance, BOOM, down goes Darren Young. I'm disappointed they didn't take advantage of that.
Originally posted by Dr UnlikelyBasically, and I think I said this before, Barrett and Kane are occupying the exact same space.
I've thought for a long time that Barrett and Sandow were the same gimmick and cancel each other out.
I think Kane still has potential to work against the Authority and heed the call of the mask, but he'll continue to be, I don't know, chaotic neutral. The character has gone through a long stretch of trying to appease others, either through anger management or corporate protocol. His breaking point could still be good and effective.
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Only caught a few bits of this show. I'm trying to figure out what was more hilarious on commentary: 44-year-old Goldust being repeatedly called a "young gun," or the apparent bar bet over who could say "face of WWE" the most times.
Emma got over in NXT because she was so committed to how stupid her dance was. Then, over time, people realized she could wrestle too. Her debut has just been baffling to me. (Justin, the "Dancin' Homer" comparison was genius.) I think she can get over with time, though. When the Wyatts were called up, they were the hottest act in NXT, but were greeted on Raw with a combination of silence and faint "Husky Harris" chants.
Right now, I don't think there's an NXT talent that could have a Raw debut with any significant impact, short of Paige destroying the Divas roster, or Sami Zayn saving Daniel Bryan from The Authority.
Originally posted by SchippeWreckOnly caught a few bits of this show. I'm trying to figure out what was more hilarious on commentary: 44-year-old Goldust being repeatedly called a "young gun," or the apparent bar bet over who could say "face of WWE" the most times.
The announcers harped so much on Cody's age jokes during the match, I thought they were foreshadowing the eventual breakup -- in that Goldust would realize "Hey, all these old jokes my brother is making are about people my age! He's making fun of me, too!"
All rumors indicate a Rhodes brothers match at WrestleMania, but I'm still perplexed as to the angle that'll get them there. I guess there's still plenty of time, though. If they break them up now, they wouldn't be able to do much more than tread water til WM.
We're back to Batista/Del Rio again? What happened to that balls-to-the-wall awesome Batista/Brock match they were teasing? Going from Batista/Brock to Batista/Del Rio is like going from Louis CK to Dane Cook.
For that matter, what happened to Brock, period? Did he drop off the face of the earth again?
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