wrestling / Columns

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

May 1, 2015 | Posted by Jack Stevenson

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 4.27.15:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Bad News Barrett d. Dolph Ziggler in a King of the Ring Quarter Final
* Big E d. Tyson Kidd
* Ryback d. Bo Dallas
* R-Truth d. Stardust in a King of the Ring Quarter Final
* Adam Rose d. Fandango
* Naomi d. Nikki Bella
* Sheamus d. Dean Ambrose in a King of the Ring Quarter Final
* Neville d. Luke Harper in a King of the Ring Quarter Final
* Roman Reigns & Randy Orton d. Seth Rollins & Kane

THE RIGHT:
Dean Ambrose vs. Sheamus: A pretty good match here- I really liked the gritty mat wrestling that they kicked things off with, and then they transitioned into a solid if decidedly controlled brawl. Dolph Ziggler interfered to attack Sheamus and inadvertently cost Ambrose the match, which was a frustratingly inconclusive finish on a night that certainly felt like it had a lot of them. Still, this was an interesting glimpse at something that could be really great in the future.

Neville vs. Luke Harper: This match made me feel so much cheerful about an interminable episode of Raw! Coming at the tail end of a largely lethargic three hours of wrestling, Neville and Harper’s match was completely energizing, filled with big, cool, creative moves and sequences. It’s been a great start to life on the main roster for Neville, he’s being booked well, getting good opponents, and came out of the King of the Ring tournament looking pretty ace. Harper’s been doing well recently as well, and he provided a good base for the highflying antics of his opponent. They made a spot where Neville easily German Suplexed Harper seem entirely plausible! What an achievement!

puRgatoRy:
Dolph Ziggler vs. Bad News Barrett: This was an entirely adequate effort from these two, but if you’ve seen any of their previous Raw outings, you’ve seen this one. Except, this one had a worse ending! Sheamus came out and mocked Dolph Ziggler, causing the fan favorite to forget his surroundings and wander into a Bull Hammer for the defeat. Try harder, booking team!

Big E vs. Tyson Kidd: A match too short to be of any real value, but the New Day’s wonderfully sarcastic heel turn continues to provide entertainment. Kidd stamping on Big. E to the tune of the “New Day sucks” chant was a fun bit of crowd interaction as well.

R-Truth vs. Stardust: R-Truth was quickly sent into the King of the Ring semi finals in this fun, brief bout. I wish they would do more with Stardust. Maybe he really likes spiders and thus loathes R-Truth and his spider killing policies? That sounds like the sort of thing they might consider.

Ryback vs. Bo Dallas: A quick squash for Ryback, which got him in the ring so that Bray Wyatt could attack him. My hopes for this feud are low, I kind of feel like the only think that’s going to rouse Bray from this slump in form is being pitted against The Authority in a gutsy heel vs. heel storyline or something. If he just keeps mowing through assorted fan favorites I don’t see where the motivation is for him to change things up, to cut a different promo once in a while. Still, I think we should get a decent big man match out of it, and, hey, it would be cool if the real life ties of Bray and Bo were played on, wouldn’t it?

Heath Slater should probably consider challenging for the Intercontinental Championship: For the second straight week, Slater attempted to enter John Cena’s U.S. Open and for the second week got physically prevented from doing so. This time out he was splatted by Rusev in order to send a message to Cena- they’ll be having an I Quit Match at Payback, which is largely unnecessary since their scores have been comprehensively settled, but hey. Lana briefly appeared by her pal’s side but the Bulgarian Brute sent her to the back to the dismay of the crowd, furthering the pair’s ill conceived break-up. Neither of them will be any more over for being apart from one another, and Lana particularly will suffer from being flung into the cold abyss that is the Divas Division, especially if she gets shorn of her Russian identity as is being rumored. Not a bad angle on the night, but it isn’t leading anywhere good.

THE wRong:
Main Event Antics: Roman Reigns and Randy Orton will both challenge Seth Rollins for the WWE Championship in a Triple Threat match for the WWE Championship. This was decided by the fans in one of the sporadic app vote things they do, besting out genuine tantalizing alternatives like ‘Orton vs. Rollins in a singles match’ and ‘Reigns vs. Rollins in a singles match’ and ‘Rollins vs. Superman Machine vs. Viper Machine.’ There was a tag team main event as well, Orton and Reigns vs. Rollins and Kane, and predictably the bad guys fell out and lost themselves the match. It’s all so bland! If this is, like, your second year watching wrestling, I feel as if you’ll already have seen derivatives of this kind of angle multiple times.. There’s no energy or purpose to the booking at all, it’s the third straight PPV with an Orton-Rollins match on it, with Reigns tossed back into the mix after a month spent chipping away at his colossal grudge with the Big Show. The Kane/Rollins split is more interesting but seems quite forced, it feels like Rollins has to take really awkward detours in his promos to cram in an accidental jibe against his Authority cohort. If they fight at Money in the Bank for the title it’ll be one year after Kane helped Seth win the Money in the Bank briefcase in the first place, which is at the very least pleasingly symmetrical. It’s not going to radically change anyone’s feelings about WWE’s current direction or lack of it though.

Fandango vs. Adam Rose: Why has Fandango dramatically reduced the amount of time he spends dancing since he turned into a fan favorite? Surely it needs to go the exact opposite direction? Rosa Mendes has shacked up with Adam Rose now, which could be the trigger for weeks of unwelcome two-minute midcard skirmishes. Fandango and Adam Rose are the wrestlers on the rocket that gets crashed into the sun on that Treehouse of Horror episode of the Simpsons.

Naomi vs. Brie Bella: What is actually going on with this Bellas face turn? It is the most inexplicable thing. They’ve only been heels for a few months, and now suddenly with no warning or build up we’re meant to like them again because they’ve been placed in the orbit of the grumpy Naomi? It’s infuriatingly stupid, The Bellas aren’t the best in the Divas Division or anything but they’re competent performers and so at the very least should be booked competently as well. Naomi is trying her best but doesn’t seem to quite fit her heel character at the moment, and I’d imagine in a few weeks she’ll be made to look indistinguishable from Cameron anyway. Booooo. If you can’t trust a Twitter protest to create some meaningful long-term change, what can you trust?

Damian Sandow is a fucking child: This segment started off so well. Damian Sandow was in the ring, shorn of any Miz paraphernalia, and he cut a really nice, refreshingly honest promo about his career and his transformation from an intellectual savior of the masses to a total copycat. There were no histrionics, dumb jokes or bellowing, it was a calm, straightforward, self deprecating monologue from Sandow, and when he turned his attention to addressing his future, I was feeling quite hopeful about his prospects. Then, Curtis Axel came out and everything went downhill very quickly, because Sandow essentially decided to just copy everything he said in a silly voice. It was sub-playground material, so, so dire, and it eroded any likeableness Sandow had built up in the preceding minutes. I assume Damian’s new gimmick isn’t just going to be ‘copies what other people say,’ but then, he did the exact same thing to the harmless Renee Young in a backstage interview on the Youtube, so maybe that is where he’s going. Regardless, this segment sent the ‘new’ Damian Sandow stumbling out the blocks and it’s difficult to see him recovering from here.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 411:

Another boring, boring, middling Raw, seriously lacking in direction. I really liked the Neville-Harper match, but almost everything that surrounded it did nothing for me. It was very hard to summon up enough opinions on the images drifting across my screen to comprise a column, and I hope you all appreciate that I have eventually managed to do that.

Show Rating: 5.0

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 983rd edition is over…

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I know, I’m shocked that WWE Studios continues to lose money off of gems like this…

article topics :

RAW, Wrestling's 4Rs, WWE, Jack Stevenson