wrestling / Columns
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.
By: Jack Stevenson
Raw 5.18.15:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Sheamus d. Ryback
* King Barrett d. Neville
* Bray Wyatt d. Dean Ambrose
* Kidd & Cesaro d. The New Day via DQ
* Dolph Ziggler d. Stardust
* Luke Harper & Erick Rowan d. Fandango & Zack Ryder
* Nikki Bella d. Naomi via DQ
THE RIGHT:
Ryback vs. Sheamus: I enjoyed this, it was a pretty fun power battle between two pretty decent professional wrestlers. Sheamus took an exciting and unpleasant bump on top of the announce table courtesy of a Ryback slam, but rallied to win the match by faking an eye injury and then hitting a flash Brogue Kick. It was a clever ending, and I liked the way after the match Sheamus continued to rub his eye with almost a bemused grin on his face, as if he was trying to convince us all that he really had suffered an injury and it was just a great bit of luck for the Celtic Warrior. Ryback is the kind of guy who could be quickly shuffled into the main event if there was ever an emergency, so it’s a shame to see him floundering a little bit in 2015. I’d quite like him to win the Intercontinental Championship, although that would probably lead to him losing even more.
Neville vs. Bad News Barrett: More good wrestling! A nice big man vs. little man bout between two wrestlers who are getting to know each other quite well. Neville’s selling of a leg injury was consistent and well performed, and had the welcome side effect of making him look strong even in defeat- he gave Barrett a run for his money even while hobbling along on a shaky limb, so if he’d been fully fit, the final result may well have been different. Also, Bo Dallas appeared and for the first time in ages actually looked relevant, arguing with Neville before the match, making reference to their days together in NXT, and then he beat him down as well! Good. Dallas is underutilized and a reprisal of his NXT rivalry with Neville would be really great for him.
Dean Ambrose vs. Bray Wyatt: Even more good wrestling! Bray Wyatt has an incredibly cool senton in his arsenal. If he spent less time cutting shit promos and more time sentoning the heck out of people off aprons and ledges and balconies, I’d be much happier with him. Though I really liked their Ambulance match at the beginning of the year, this was probably the best entry in the Ambrose/Wyatt rivalry, with some pleasingly vicious moves and properly exciting near falls. Having Wyatt pick up the victory seems completely pointless to me, since Ambrose is challenging for the WWE Championship imminently and Bray, who decisively got the better of their feud a few months ago, is going absolutely nowhere. At least it happened because of J&J interference though. Match of the night, most probably!
Raw is Kevin Owens (!!!!!!!!!!!): Guess who answered John Cena’s U.S. Open Challenge this week? The clue is in the title of this paragraph where I heavily imply it might be Kevin Owens. The NXT Champion stomped down to ringside, got into a heated argument with Cena, and arrogantly refused to challenge for the title on the basis that he only wanted to fight when it was on his own terms. Then, and I can’t believe I’m typing this, Kevin Owens flattened John Cena with his signature powerbomb and stamped on his U.S. Championship, before sauntering off, victorious, into the sunset/locker room. This is all leading to a match between the two at Elimination Chamber, where Cena will surely win relatively comfortably and put Owens back in his place, but let’s not allow anything to stop us from appreciating the fact that Kevin Owens completely humiliated Cena by way of a Raw debut. Let’s not allow anything to stop us enjoying yet another ridiculously brilliant installment of the U.S. Open. The year is 2015, the TV show is WWE Monday Night Raw, and John Cena is tearing down the house with El Generico and Pac and getting flattened by Kevin Steen. Did we enter some kind of bizarre parallel universe at some point over the last three years or so?
puRgatoRy:
The Champion With a Thorn In His Side: It should have been such a good Monday night for the Authority. Seth Rollins had retained his WWE Championship at Payback, Kane seemed to be back on their wavelength, and Stephanie McMahon would be making her glorious return to Raw after taking a few weeks out to consult with President Eisenhower on business affairs, or something, I might not have remembered that story entirely correctly. Unfortunately for our villains, Dean Ambrose proved to be troublesome all evening, and ended up worming his way into a WWE Championship match at Elimination Chamber. As with most angles involving the Authority, there were some good moments, there were some bad moments. I’m pleased to have Stephanie back on Raw, she’s a fantastic promo, but I think belittling Daniel Bryan for his injuries when he’s not around to defend himself and then just shrugging off some barbs from Ryback as if they meant nothing does much more for her than it does, you know, the professional wrestlers. Bits and pieces of the show closing Ambrose/Rollins brawl were terrific; the callbacks with the cinder blocks and Dean threatening to sacrifice Seth in the same way Seth threatened to sacrifice Edge were super clever, and if Jimmy Rave taught us anything, it’s that wrestlers who are not Triple H using the Pedigree is a tremendous heel tactic. However, the schisms in the Authority feel stilted and contrived, it’s like they’re all on the same page when it suits whatever other stories they’re trying to tell and when it doesn’t they all can’t stand each other again all of a sudden. Elimination Chamber’s shaping up to be a super fun card though- Rollins vs. Ambrose and John Cena vs. Kevin Owens alongside two Chamber matches should add up to a fun few hours of wrestling. I can’t help but wonder what JBL’s thoughts on the Elimination Chamber itself are though, and more specifically whether there are things inside the chamber that don’t hurt. He’s been very quiet on this pressing issue.
Fandango & Zack Ryder vs. Luke Harper & Erick Rowan: A brief squash for Harper and Rowan, who continue to re-establish themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Not that I don’t want the New Day in the most prominent position possible at the moment, but a lengthy Kidd/Cesaro vs. Harper/Rowan match could be completely superb.
Paige is back! Hooray!: After an uninspiring contest between Naomi and Nikki lurched to a halt thanks to interference from Tamina, Paige made a very welcome return indeed to take out both ladies. This makes a degree of sense because she and Nikki Bella were hardly best pals at the time of her disappearance, although it’s hard not to shake the suspicion that the creative team had forgotten about that and just had Paige attack the champion because all women are badly programmed video game characters, meandering through a series of random acts in a cold, unreal environment. But, hey, we have two legitimate challengers for the Divas Championship now in the form of Paige and Naomi, so the Divas Division has been in worse places.
wRong:
The New Day vs. Cesaro & Kidd: This promising tag match was cut down in its prime for the sake of a crap WWE finish. The referee stopped the match because the New Day wouldn’t stop double-teaming, and by double teaming, I mean ‘stomping on their opponents at the same time.’ It might actually have been quite cool if Kofi and Big. E had just unleashed this barrage of wicked tandem offense until the referee had to throw things out. But, no, this was just stomping. Afterwards all the other tag teams in the Elimination Chamber match came out for a goofy brawl ripped from every Smackdown before every Royal Rumble. While a tag team Elimination Chamber match had the potential to be rather nifty and inventive, it’s going to be a match staggeringly low on star power- The New Day, Kidd & Cesaro, The Lucha Dragons, Los Matadores, The Ascension and The Prime Time Players. Yikes. It would have probably been better if they’d discarded the latter three teams and put one man from the three remaining teams in each pod. The New Day’s (*FIVE*) antics were (*FIVE*) as enjoyable (*FIVE*) as usual (*FIVE*), although I wasn’t too keen on them throwing the usual insults at the fans, calling them stupid and stuff. Its their relentless positivity and utter conviction that any minute now people are going to come round and start cheering them that has made TND, as no one is calling them, arguably the best act in WWE.
Breaking Up’s Never Easy It’s True: The bit in the show where Rusev and Lana argued in the ring about the events of Payback was pretty good, for what it was. Both of them showed some decent acting skills and it felt quite emotional despite the fact we’ve been given no reason to like either human apart from “Lana is pretty and inexplicably wants to Fandango now.” But then Dolph Ziggler beat Stardust and afterwards Lana came out and kissed him and now this storyline is dafter than ever. How has Ziggler become WWE’s default midcard sex symbol? There was Summer Rae last year, now Lana, it’s like one day these valets wake up filled with guilt for their nefarious actions and decide to atone for their misdeeds by fucking straggly haired frat boy punching bag Ziggler. The moment their lips touched, Lana became 3000% less interesting. It’s a dreadful plot twist. If Lana had come out and made out with Stardust, I would have been entirely OK with that, they would at least have had interesting children. ZiggLana is the worst kind of silliness though.
THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING
Not a bad episode of Raw at all. The John Cena-Kevin Owens segment was really exciting and, for fans of the NXT Champion, hugely rewarding, while good wrestling was contributed by each of the opening three matches. After Cena’s open challenge went awry the episode as a whole did a bit as well, with a couple of meaningless matches and the braindead Ziggler/Lana angle, but if you stop watching on the image of Owens standing over Cena with his foot trapping the U.S. Championship, you’ve got an entertaining two hour show.
Show Rating: 7.0
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
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