Wrestling’s 4Rs: The Right, Wrong and Ridiculous of WWE Raw

How the 4Rs of wRestling Work!
Here is a quick explanation of the 4R’s. The column will run TWO times a week. We will group our feelings on the shows in various categories: The Right, the wRong and the Ridiculous. The Right is stuff that worked very well: a great promo, a great match and so on. PuRgatoRy is a section between the right and wrong. It shows equal traits from both sides that cannot be ignored and needs discussed. It is not a bad place per say, as things can get remedied or go the wrong way the very next week. The wRong is what it sounds like: bad matches, bad or boring promos and so on. The Ridiculous is stuff that had no right on TV: Stupid angles and so on. And there is always a possibility of a 5th R, which is as bad as they come. This column is supposed to be analytical, and at the right time very critical of the shows, it was the whole reason it was created. This is not a “mark” column, nor a “smark” column, our goal is to analyze the show from many different fronts, reward the good and call out the bad. We will not apologize for our opinions, they are as they are, whether positive or negative.

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By: Jack Stevenson

Raw 3.23.15:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Dean Ambrose & R-Truth d. Stardust & Luke Harper
* Ryback, Zack Ryder, Erick Rowan & The Prime Time Players d. The Miz, Damien Sandow, Adam Rose & The Ascension
* Randy Orton d. Seth Rollins & J & J Security
* Nikki Bella d. Paige
* Los Matadores & El Torito d. Cesaro, Tyson Kidd & Natalya
* Rusev d. Jack Swagger
* Dolph Ziggler d. Daniel Bryan

THE RIGHT:
Woooooo! Sting is here: A cool moment to begin the final episode of Raw before WrestleMania, as Sting cut his first live in ring promo ever on Raw, not counting the Network extra from last week. It was brilliant as well; he showed no interest in engaging in any of the Authority’s grandstanding about WCW, putting the focus squarely on taking the despicable Triple H down at WrestleMania. Stephanie McMahon gave out and proved a good antagonistic, and the moment where Sting blocked her attempted slap was legit tense. They finished it in a kind of goofy way, with Hunter being all like “HAHA! A SLEDGEHAMMER!” and then Stinger saying “WELL WHAT ABOUT THIS BASEBALL BAT!” and HHH just slinking away. But on the whole this was good stuff, a great contribution from Sting.

Dean Ambrose & R-Truth vs. Stardust & Luke Harper: A solid tag match with an exciting finishing stretch. I didn’t think the body of the match was that remarkable, although it was totally fine, but they strung together some exciting moves during the finishing sequence. R-Truth getting the pin was a smart move since mostly he’s just been in this feud for comic effect, so he needs to be put across as a credible challenger with just days left until ‘Mania. Dean Ambrose’s post match dance moves were outstanding.

Nikki Bella vs. Paige: Oh wow! The Divas! They actually got a chance! And they enthusiastically took it! This was a really good match, and if it wasn’t the best match on the show (it might have been, I’m not sure), it was only because they had Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler as competition. There was a moment on commentary where Michael Cole was trying to put across how varied all the characters in the Divas Division are, and to demonstrate this he was saying stuff like “AJ is quirky! Paige is a bit like a goth!” The fact that these seasoned professional wrestlers can be summarized in short, vague sentences is an indication that maybe they’ve not had the chance to show rich, fully developed personalities. That is the only negative I have to say about this though, and it’s not even related to the match. The crowd, excellent all evening, seemed really engaged by what was going on, and they put together some smooth, crisp, impactful near falls. The post match angle with AJ accidentally hitting Paige was a little clichéd, but they performed it as well as possible. This seemed to have a confidence and ambition about it that most Divas matches don’t. It makes me feel much more excited for what they might be able to do at WrestleMania.

ManiaMania is Running Mania: Snoop Dogg, who claims to have spent two years as a pimp and smoke 70 blunts a day and has made appearances in porn videos, appeared in a WWE ring for a light hearted comedy segment with Hulk Hogan and Curtis Axel to the glee of the announcers. Remember: Chyna cannot be in the WWE Hall of Fame because won’t somebody think of the children! More specifically, Triple H’s children. Admittedly her erratic behavior since the snub has made this kind of a moot point, but still. Hypocrisy aside, this was a fun, silly segment that made me smile- Snoop seemed enthusiastic to be there, interacted well with Hulk and Curtis, and everyone looked to be having fun. Hogan grew tired of ‘Axelmania’ and dished out a right hand to its figurehead, before Snoop threw him over the top rope to conclude this likeable diversion.

Bray Wyatt taunts ‘Taker: This was the best Wyatt promo in fucking aaaaaaages. The content wasn’t anything new, but it was underscored by these crashing thunder and lightning effects, and combined with Wyatt’s typically fantastic delivery it all sounded just so, so cool. The theme of the promo was Bray subsuming all the stuff that made Taker so iconic, and ended with him mimicking his kneeling pose in a cool image. This was great.

Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler: Having spent much of this past week watching Money in the Bank Ladder matches, I’m no longer convinced that they’re going to steal the show with this IC Title bout. It could still happen, but I used to be certain and now I feel like it could just go the way of the 2009 and 2010 MITB matches where there’s too many guys and they can’t think of any properly new spots and it turns out to be entertaining noise but nothing more significant than that. This was a good little match in its own right though, as you’d expect. Bryan showed off some silky mat wrestling in the early stages and while the finishing stretch was too truncated to let Ziggler come into his own, it was good enough for a TV match. Dean Ambrose was special guest referee and called the action right down the middle, but attacked match winner Ziggler afterwards to trigger a big brawl with all the other members of the Ladder match.

puRgatoRy:
Ten Man Tag Team Action: This wasn’t anything special, but it was nice to see guys like Zack Ryder who are usually confined to two minute squash defeats get a little bit more time to shine than usual. It actually felt quite a fresh match because of that. The crowd were more into it than you’d expect, which helped keep the energy levels up, and in the end it turned out to be a pretty good way of reminding everyone that the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royale will be a thing.

Randy Orton vs. Seth Rollins and J & J Security: You can probably guess what happened here- Orton mauled the two security goons while Rollins tried to stay as far away from him as possible. There some nice cat and mouse segments, but really this was just a quick beatdown to squeeze Orton and Seth onto Raw.

Rusev vs. Jack Swagger: The All American-American trundled down to the ring for his customary beating at the hands of Rusev, and had to be saved by John Cena when the Bulgarian Brute wouldn’t release the Accolade at the end of the match. Rusev then launched into a vicious beatdown on his WrestleMania challenger, which was pretty good and aggressive. It was nothing special, but the image of Rusev splattering Cena on the announce team was a good one to roll into WrestleMania on.

Tug of War: The final Reigns-Lesnar confrontation before WrestleMania, wrapping up this episode of Raw, was a segment of two halves. The bit where they tried to steal the belt off each other like they were fighting for the Intercontinental Championship or something didn’t really work, as has been documented. It looked a bit childish and weak, and they really needed to head in to WrestleMania with a more powerful visual in everyone’s minds, like Cena and Rusev did. The Paul Heyman promo before it though… man, that was some good promo-ing. The stuff about taking food off the plate of Reigns’ children and then taking the children themselves and renaming them ‘Lesnar’ was utterly berserk and so, so entertaining. I could divide this segment into two and put that bit in the right and the battle for the belt in the wrong- I’m still tempted to put all of this in the right, really, but the closing scenes backfired too spectacularly on them.

THE wRong:
Los Matadores & El Torito vs. Cesaro, Tyson Kidd & Natalya: This existed! We’ve seen exist before, of course, and nothing new really happened here, it just felt like someone in the back was entirely too pleased with the idea of El Torito hitting moves on larger humans. I would have preferred a more serious segment to push towards WrestleMania, or more specifically the Mania-pre show.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 411:
Taking it as just an average episode of Raw, I really enjoyed this week’s show. As the final one before WrestleMania it was a bit under whelming, but then, this entire build has been under whelming. We got some good wrestling on this episode, including a hearteningly good Divas Championship match, and Sting, Wyatt and Heyman all brought their promo A-game. I hope everyone has a great WrestleMania! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Orton-Rollins, the Ladder match, and Rusev-Cena all deliver, that would probably be sufficient for a fun show if none of the weaker looking matches drag on too long. This episode of Raw made me a little more excited for it, and entertained me for its duration!

Show Rating: 7.5

As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…

0 – 0.9: Torture
1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
2 – 2.9: Very Bad
3 – 3.9: Bad
4 – 4.9: Poor
5 – 5.9: Not So Good
6 – 6.9: Average
7 – 7.9: Good
8 – 8.9:Very Good
9 – 9.9: Amazing
10: Virtually Perfect

The 974th edition is over…

“I’m invited to WrestleMania…. Right?”