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 10.05.15:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
– Reigns, Ambrose and Orton defeated The Wyatts @ 15:50 via pin
– Sheamus defeated Neville @ 0:30 via pin
– Natalya defeated Paige @ 6:10 via pin
– Non-Title Match: Champion Kevin Owens defeated Sin Cara @ 2:22 via pin
– The Dudley Boyz defeated Seth Rollins and Citizen Kane @ 13:04 via DQ
– Team BAD defeated Team Bella @ 11:50 via submission
– US Title Match: Champion John Cena defeated Big E @ 9:55 via pin

THE Right:
It’s a New Day, yes it is: This week’s Raw main event ended with the New Day wiping out John Cena, Dolph Ziggler and the Dudley Boyz, and standing tall and dominant over them as the show went off the air. I’m fairly sure this doesn’t mean that Kofi, Big. E and Xavier are getting strapped on a rocket to the main event or anything, but it was still a fresh and exciting way for Raw to conclude. It would actually be kind of a shame if this angle is meant to signify a more vicious, focused New Day, because all their extracurricular zaniness, the obscure references and daft catchphrases and accomplished trombone playing, is of course what has turned them into the best thing on Monday Night Raw each and every week. Cruel heel beatdowns of the kind they dished out to Dolph Ziggler this week can be entertaining in their own right, but they’re harder to stamp your own personality on, and when each and every member of the New Day has such a terrific and hilarious personality, it seems a waste to limit how much they can shine through on television. While I’m doing the criticisms, the actual match that led into the aforementioned beatdown, John Cena vs. Big E, was a bit disappointing. Both guys are mega good and talented and the rumor back in late 2013 was that Cena was super impressed with TAFKA Langston and wanted to work with him and turn him into a big star, so I’d expected their first singles match together ever to be a high end edition of the U.S. Open Challenge in which all was allowed to hang out. Instead, it was just an OK, perfunctory kind of contest that didn’t really have the chance to go anywhere. Not an especially great match, then, and I have my concerns about the post match angle as well, but the intentions of this segment on the whole were very good. It put some fresh faces in the main event scene and allowed them to look dangerous and fearsome, and the New Day could absolutely use this as a springboard to take the U.S. Championship off Cena at Hell in a Cell and become solidified in the upper midcard, while still remaining the really funny Edge and Christians of the 2010s. I don’t think they will, I don’t think WWE have the nerve to see it through, but that’s not the fault of this individual segment, which accomplished everything it set out to do and did so in an entertaining fashion.

Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose & Randy Orton vs. The Wyatt Family: I kind of hoped this would happen at Hell in a Cell and go for 20 minutes and be ****+, but I will settle for it being on Raw and going for 15 minutes and being *** 1/2+. This was such a good six-man tag that evoked memories of the Shield/Wyatt classics. Braun Strowman is an absolute lump but he looks great in these situations, as he becomes less of a wrestler and more of an object for smaller humans to throw themselves at and bounce off. There will always be a spot where all of his opponents gang up to try and knock him off his feet and it will always be fun to watch. It will also always be fun to watch these six man matches completely break down towards the finishing stretch and become these chaotic frenzies of near falls and people flying in and out of the ring, rattling off big moves. A very good match, a very good start to Raw.

Natalya vs. Paige: I really dug this, it was a nifty five minutes of action and it’s very promising that Natalya and Paige appear to have good chemistry with one another. There were some stretchy submissions and nasty strikes, and it all added up to a very coherent and enjoyable encounter. The crowd didn’t seem that interested, but they’ve been given no reason to care about either woman’s character and the match wasn’t the kind of noisy, crashing affair that gets over through sheer willpower alone. I liked it, at least.

The Ballad of RuRu and RaeRae: Some pretty entertaining developments in the Rusev/Summer Rae romance this week, as the latter subverted gender norms and proposed to her boyfriend. Having first admitted that at the start of their relationship he felt active disdain for Summer, Rusev claimed to have grown rather fond of his notoriously sweet and submissive lady friend, and agreed to take her hand in marriage the very moment he wins WWE gold, so that he can get married as a success with a championship belt to prove it. Everything about this segment suited both characters to a tee, from Summer making the proposal to Rusev insisting he can’t possibly get married without being a champion as well because that suits the vague, angry picture in his head of what a man should act like. There’s plenty of room for silly, funny vignettes in the weeks to come as the wedding starts to take shape, and on a more serious note there’s proper intrigue every time Rusev steps into the ring now, as he’s fighting for the right to marry his girlfriend each and every match. I thought this was clever and well realized, and a good moment for both characters.

puRgatoRy:
Sin Cara vs. Kevin Owens: This wasn’t much of a match, but it was fun to pay attention to the little quips and insults Owens would spout while beating down his opponent, from repeatedly insisting that one counts should have been three to claiming Kalisto was 12 years old. Kalisto vs. Owens could absolutely rock, actually. It’d be neat to see that match get ten minutes on Main Event. Anyway, Owens seems super motivated to be the best Intercontinental Champion he can be, and that’s obviously nice to see.

Team B.A.D vs. Team Bella: It was a very good night for Sasha Banks, as she dodged the hometown curse that blights so many WWE wrestlers to pick up a victory in front of the adoring Boston faithful. Her name was chanted throughout the night, even while WWE Championship contenders were in the spotlight, and she came off really well from a segment early in the show in which she and her Team B.A.D cohorts confronted the Bellas and Alicia Fox in the parking lot, stole Nikki’s hat and flung it into the ether. It was genuinely exciting and so refreshing to see a female professional wrestler greeted with such relentless enthusiasm on an episode of WWE Raw, and she’s not even been booked especially well over the last few weeks! The actual six-woman tag wasn’t anything special, but it was energetic and reasonably well wrestled and served its purpose of getting The Boss on the show. I don’t have any major complaints with it.

THE wRong:
Big Show goes to Suplex City and returns relatively unscathed: I quite liked the Brock Lesnar/Big Show match from Madison Square Garden on Saturday. It was about five minutes long, and in that time Lesnar managed to kick out of three choke slams, deliver the usual fat stack of suplexes, and polish the match off with an F-5. They threw bombs at each other, and Lesnar’s caused more damage; for a five minute Big Show match in 2015, you can’t ask for much more. What I didn’t get was this weird epilogue that took place on Raw, in which Show sauntered out to interrupt a Heyman/Lesnar promo, get suplexed and F5ed once, and then be written out of the rest of the program, requiring Seth Rollins to find an alternative partner for his match against the Dudley Boyz. The Paul Heyman promo was the usual good stuff, but when Brock Lesnar has a limited number of Raw appearances per year, why are you using him as an obscenely expensive plot device to further the Seth Rollins/Kane feud? Lesnar is seriously one of the most astonishing performers in the history of professional wrestling. What is the purpose of using him this way? To launch an extremely limited attack on the same guy he beat down much more comprehensively two nights ago? Have him do something else. Have him brawl with Sheamus or Rusev for a bit, and come up with another reason why Seth Rollins has to team with Kane later on in the evening. If he must fight the Big Show, let him go apeshit and give Show a proper excuse not to compete in a tag team match, rather than just “oh, I took an F5 two hours ago.” This all just felt like a bit of a waste, and the most unremarkable day in the life of Brock Lesnar, who is usually a magnet for controversy and violence and rage.

Sheamus vs. Neville: This was daft. Sheamus won in thirty seconds after Bad News Barrett distracted Neville, leaving him susceptible to a Brogue Kick. You may have guessed, but Neville looked really, really daft, and to be honest Barrett or Sheamus seemed pretty silly just by association. Last week I pondered whether Barrett might perhaps be treated with a modicum of respect upon his return from injury, booked credibly and sensibly and perhaps even nipping at the heels of the main eventers. Obviously not.

The Dudley Boyz vs. Kane & Seth Rollins: I defended the Kane/Seth Rollins angle at length last week and I still think the concept behind it is a ton of fun, but I didn’t love the way things turned out this week. The Big Show was unable to fulfill his scheduled duties as Rollins’ tag partner for this match, and so Corporate Kane agreed to deputize for a match which tried to cram all these different plot points together and only succeeded in sucking the drama out of all them. Because he was wearing a suit and tie, Kane was suffering the effects of the ankle obliteration Rollins inflicted on him the week prior, and so could barely wrestle. Eventually WWE medical personnel tried to escort him out of the ring as he was in so much pain. Rollins was concerned that this disappearance would allow Kane to transform into his monster alter-ego, so he handcuffed him to the ring post to stop him from leaving, but the Director of Operations just snapped the restraints in two and tore his way free. This got almost no response from the crowd and was a clear indication that things weren’t working. Kane did eventually get to the back, and he indeed returned as the terrifying demon, tearing into Rollins before the Dudleys dropped him with the 3D as revenge for taking them out on Smackdown. Thinking he now had been gifted the advantage, the WWE Champion tried to polish off his nemesis and put him through a table, but Kane rallied and sent Seth crashing through it instead with a choke-slam. None of this was actively bad, per se, but it was rushed and lacking in drama.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 411:
Another week, another Raw I quite enjoyed, all things considered. The six-man tag was a really good opener, and there was some intriguing storyline development as well with the New Day dominating and Rusev and Summer Rae getting engaged. Not everything was a home run, with the Kane/Seth Rollins stuff falling flat this week, but I feel like WWE are showing more energy and ambition than usual during these frequently slow, bleak Autumnal months. There’s lots of different angles going on and some of them are quite good. It’s not unmissable television by any stretch, but it’s also far from unwatchable.

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 1031st edition is over…