wrestling / Columns

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

October 2, 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 9.28.15:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
US Title Open Challenge: Champion John Cena defeated Xavier Woods @ 9:26 via DQ
– New Day defeated John Cena and the Dudley Boyz @ 6:45 via pin
– Big Show defeated Mark Henry @ 2:36 via pin
– Brie, Nikki and Alicia Fox defeated Paige, Charlotte and Becky @ 6:51 via pin
– The Swamp Monsters defeated The Prime Time Players @ 4:20 via pin
– Neville defeated Stardust @ 2:45 via DQ
– Randy Orton defeated Bo Dallas @ 1:50 via pin
Non-Title Match: Champion Kevin Owens vs. Rusev went to a no contest 0:49
– Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt went to a double countout @ 13:07

THE Right:
John Cena & The Dudley Boyz vs. The New Day: This week’s Raw began with John Cena resurrecting his U.S. Open challenge, which we can all surely agree is an unequivocally good thing considering it’s been directly responsible for all the best matches on Raw this year. His first challenger of his fifth United States Championship run would be Xavier Woods, but their match had only just started to get going when Big E & Kofi Kingston charged to the ring to break up a pinfall and cause a disqualification. This transitioned into the titular six-man tag match, and if there are two things I genuinely love about professional wrestling, it’s the New Day and six man tag team matches. Ergo, I was very happy with this as a start to the show. The New Day were hilarious as ever, and the six man tag provided everything I want from a six man tag, fast paced sequences, interesting combinations of wrestlers, and great near falls. A nice victory for The New Day as well, although it does make me worry that their championships are in jeopardy this weekend. This was an absolutely textbook way to start a wrestling show, and it would take me a while to start complaining if Raw copied this formula almost week in, week out.

The Two Faces of Kane: I have a feeling some people in the comments section might question my mental age for saying this, but I thought this week’s zany antics involving Cheerful Corporate Kane and Nightmarish Hell Monster Kane and whether or not the two might be the same person were good fun. Stupid, and completely impossible to take seriously even by relaxed professional wrestling standards, but definitely entertaining. The night got off to a bad start for Director of Operations Kane, who was informed that an anonymous complaint had been made against him, and so he would have to be evaluated over the course of the evening by the feared Ashley from Human Resources. For no adequately explored reason it was decided that the most appropriate venue to air the results of this evaluation was ‘in the middle of the ring,’ and it was there we found out that Ashley considered Kane a super employee, polite and kind and friendly. Seth Rollins couldn’t accept this and tried to take the DOO by force, Pillmanizing his ankle and cackling with glee as he was stretchered out and placed in an ambulance. But then! The Ambulance filled with smoke and began to glow red! Demon Kane stepped out of it! He stamped his own shattered ankle back into place, then marched down to the ring and sent a terrified Rollins fleeing for the hills. Now, if you utterly despised this, I can see your point. It would be nice if WWE regularly strung together compelling title fights with big match atmospheres between competitors with well realized, sympathetic, realistic personalities, and Kane vs. Seth Rollins at Hell in a Cell will not fulfill any of that criteria. However, wrestling has always been a home for weird, silly, sometimes supernatural storylines, and used sparingly they can make for a likeably quirky addition to a card. That’s what I think this storyline has been so far. Kane and Rollins have each played their roles perfectly, the story has a degree of internal logic to it, it’s just the sort of thing you can turn your brain off and laugh at through a mouthful of Doritos. This time two years ago The Authority were bullying The Big Show into punching his friends in the face and that happened for weeks and weeks and it was agonizingly trite. Rather spooky Kane than sad Big Show. I also enjoyed Seth Rollins stoically insisting that he had received an audience with a Pope, who had assured him that he was definitely going to heaven. Even though he committed adultery with a Nazi! The Pope’s letting his standards slip.

Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt: I felt this was an up and down episode of Raw on the whole, and on episodes like that the quality of the main event can really color your opinion of the entire show. Happily, Reigns and Wyatt delivered a really good brawl that segued into another really good brawl, and ended the show on a high. These two are developing some properly good chemistry with one another, they come into their matches prepared to strike each other very hard and bring plenty of intensity. When the bout ended off a double count-out I groaned inwardly, but they largely justified that questionable decision by redoubling their attempts to beat the shit out of each other, spilling in and out of the crowd and culminating proceedings with a spectacular, announce table obliterating spot. It was a really effective way of keeping this bastardized Shield/Wyatts feud ticking over until it can presumably reach its conclusion at Survivor Series, and it was a very satisfying way to conclude the broadcast.

puRgatoRy:
Randy Orton vs. Bo Dallas: I can’t really put such a one sided, relatively meaningless squash in the ‘right,’ but, hey, I do enjoy a good squash match. And Randy Orton looked like he was having fun with this one, rattling through all his signature moves and interacting with the Buffalo Bills at ringside. I watched the Randy Orton ‘Unfiltered’ interview with Renee Young on the Network a couple of days ago and was surprised to discover it was largely about his relationship with his fiancĂ©e and how happy they are with each other. As a seemingly permanent single loser it made me physically sick, especially because Larry Csonka assured me that once I’d got the prestigious 4Rs spot on 411 Mania I’d be crushing all the pussy, but it did offer an explanation as to why Orton has seemed noticeably happier in the ring over the last couple of years- he’s in love, and he doesn’t care who knows it! Maybe there is hope for all of us. Anyway, a fun squash match featuring two guys enjoying their respective roles. I’d be happy with a few more of these changing the pace on Raw.

King Barrett is back: Dishearteningly, he seems to have retained the ‘King’ moniker that led into the worst run of his entire career, but he knocked out both Neville and Stardust, so maybe he’s going to be taken a bit more seriously this time. We’ll see.

THE wRong:
MizTV w/ Charlotte & Becky Lynch: This was an opportunity for those involved in last month’s fucktastrophe of a MizTV with P.C.B to demonstrate they had learned from their mistakes, but while Miz had at least ditched the overbearing casual sexism, other flaws still remained. Charlotte and Becky Lynch spouted some cringe worthy lines when they had the microphone, the segment eventually degenerated into another petty brawl, and it all just felt markedly less professional, with much less thought and care put into it, than your average segment that revolves around male members of the rosters. Having said this, the ensuing six woman tag with the temporarily reformed P.C.B facing Team Bella was much better than the infamous one from the night after Summerslam that went completely off the rails, and I liked the slightly surreal scenario of Paige agreeing to team up with Charlotte and Becky despite having seemed to burn her bridges with them spectacularly last week. It provided some genuine tension and uncertainty and could have made for a really intriguing dynamic, but that dynamic wasn’t truly explored until the finishing sequence when Paige tried to walk out and then Natalya confronted her and Team P.C.B lost complete control of the match. The match definitely had some redeeming qualities about it, then, but what I remember most strongly from the whole affair is Becky Lynch attempting to convince us all that she’s a bit mad really but in a good funny way that we should all support, and failing painfully/ The wrestling wasn’t quite good enough to overshadow the failings of the angle as a whole, which I think sums up the whole of this so called Divas’ Revolution quite nicely, actually.

Midcard Hell: Well, hell is a strong word, but if I’d more accurately branded it ‘midcard purgatory’ it would have messed with the very foundations of this column. Kevin Owens and Rusev had a nasty, disdainful little brawl for about a minute before they rolled into Ryback at ringside and the match got thrown out. Dolph Ziggler charged out to join in as well but by that point the air had been let out of the segment. A Fatal Four Way between these guys for the Intercontinental Championship could be really good on its own merit, but it could be even better if they’re not consistently booked in cheap, frustrating angles like this one.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 411:

For the second consecutive week, I think I enjoyed this episode of Raw much more than everyone else. I thought it was structured pretty much perfectly for what the show had to offer, starting and finishing with two strong matches and spinning a show long yarn about Kane and Seth Rollins throughout the middle to keep things ticking along nicely. The bad stuff wasn’t as noticeable as the good stuff, and it made for a pretty good episode. The complete lack of build to Hell in a Cell for the second week in a row was a bit weird, and I won’t try and pretend it was an unmissable three hours of television or anything, but I was essentially entertained throughout. Not bad for the last show of September, I’d say.

Show Rating: 6.5

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 1029th edition is over…

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article topics :

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