wrestling / Columns

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

November 28, 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 11.23.15:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* The Wyatt Family d. The Dudley Boys
* Sasha Banks d. Becky Lynch
* Neville d. Mark Henry
* Goldust & The Prime Time Players d. Stardust & The Ascension
* Charlotte vs. Paige went to a double count-out
* Dolph Ziggler & Dean Ambrose d. Kevin Owens & Tyler Breeze
* Roman Reigns d. Rusev (***½)

THE Right:
Roman Reigns vs. The Entire Continent of Europe: It’s Sheamus, then, for the foreseeable future. The Celtic Warrior is the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and is that really such a bad thing? It certainly felt like it in the immediate aftermath of his successful Money in the Bank cash-in; when the briefcase is used well, it gives hungry, energetic young talents with a solid groundswell of fan support the extra little cajole needed to spectacularly gatecrash the main event scene, but when used lazily it allows WWE to book people atrociously for months on end and then just make them WWE Champion anyway. It goes without saying that Sheamus has fallen into the latter category, and to see him with the belt seemed especially egregious considering much more interesting options in Reigns, Ambrose and Owens were also eyeing up the prize. It’s also quite alarming that the primary reason Sheamus seems to have won the title is because Vince McMahon is hell-bent on Roman Reigns being the face of wrestling in the near-ish future, and is deliberately having him get cheated by even less over wrestlers (i.e. Sheamus) to try and make fans see him as an odd parallel universe Daniel Bryan. It makes a perverted kind of sense, but does indicate that when Reigns eventually snares the gold we can look forward to challenges from Viktor of the Ascension and Michael Cole. More intriguingly, it demonstrates that WWE are tantalizingly close to figuring out that there’s not really such things as fan favorites or rule breakers any more, and that people get over primarily based on a mixture of talent and a sense that said talent is being wasted by an arrogant, uncaring corporate machine. But I digress- the point was, at first glance Sheamus’ title victory seemed to herald a shift back into mediocrity after a deeply flawed but still largely enjoyable title tournament. His first Raw as champion, however, showed genuine promise. Being dragged free of the midcard mire and into the fresh air of the main event scene seems to have invigorated him, and the in ring promo with which he opened Raw was really good. It was confident, witty, and deliciously smug. Roman Reigns interrupted it to a shockingly, unanimously popular reaction, so perhaps the grand plan is working, and after going back and forth on the microphone a little bit with Sheamus and Triple H was sneak attacked by Rusev, making a welcome return to action. All of this led to a very good main event between Reigns and Rusev, with some hard striking and exciting stretches of meaty power moves. Bad News Barrett eventually interfered to cause a disqualification that didn’t feel a wholly dissatisfying ending to the show, and the trio of Barrett, Rusev and Sheamus tried to beat down Reigns only for the five minute champion to fend them off with a steel chair. So, for the next month at least, we’ve got Roman Reigns taking on a little European Union, presumably with Dean Ambrose backing him up from time to time. That sounds good fun to me, Rusev and Barrett deserve to be floating around the main event scene and Sheamus is at his best when beating the tar out of people who are also perfectly capable of beating the tar out of him, so he should match up with Reigns quite nicely, especially with the smoke and mirrors that a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match can provide. Perhaps we won’t hear the Roman Reigns stealth push over the sound of thwacking forearm shots and steel chairs. I’m quite happy to be distracted in such a way.

The New Day at One: A few weeks ago I made a conscious decision to make drastic cutbacks on the amount of times I referenced The New Day in these columns. This is because The New Day are, and have been for months, the most enjoyable thing about your average episode of WWE television, and I was concerned that my massive enthusiasm for their oddball sense of humor and erotic dance moves would get a bit annoying, especially because everyone loves the New Day. Nobody gains anything from reading a paragraph on a tremendous New Day segment because you’ve already seen the segment and loved, and transcribing it on the internet made me feel like one of those people who can only converse in social situations by reeling off popular sitcom quotes. It is with that disclaimer that I now embark on a special one off holy fuck I love the New Day ramble to celebrate their first birthday. Holy fuck, I love the New Day, and it’s not just because they’re really, really funny and have great chemistry together and are a capable of trio of wrestlers to boot. It’s because there’s actually some ambition to their humor. It’s not just the safe, lowest common denominator stuff favored by most of the WWE roster that largely revolves around people’s appearances and things Vince McMahon might chuckle at; instead, it’s all gleefully geeky pop culture references and endearingly awful trombonesmanship. I like that they were originally saddled with a gimmick that was at best outdated and at worst actively racist, were soundly rejected by swathes of the WWE universe, and yet persevered and through sheer force of willpower morphed it into the best thing going today- they really have earned their success. Most of all, I just like how visibly happy they are to be performing. You can tell they look forward to pretty much every single show, they’re working with their friends with free reign to be as daft as they want and they’re just having an absolute blast and a half. Prior to the New Day, Kofi and Big E had both had moments as singles wrestlers where they looked on the verge of cracking the main event, but it hadn’t quite worked for them and they’d petered out into midcard purgatory. Xavier Woods had debuted as a one note funky sidekick to R-Truth (which feels like forever ago now) and had never advanced further than ‘cannon fodder for Rusev.’ The New Day was very much sink or swim for all three of them; had it not worked, Xavier’s days in the company would surely have been numbered, while Kofi and Big E would have been themselves trapped in a loop, winning on Main Event and Superstars, losing on Raw, going nowhere. They had to make up for about four months of lost time devoted to trying to make the faction work as happy go lucky good guys, but since embracing heeldom, they’ve been so successful that they could at the very least take a shot at a short main event run. In fact, I’ll make the prediction now- assuming they’re still together come the 2015 iteration of Money in the Bank, one of the New Day will win that match and then they’ll Freebird the briefcase. It’s not inconceivable, is it? So, all in all, the New Day are marvelous, and I’m sure you’ll all like to join me in wishing them an incredibly happy anniversary, and many more of them to come. We don’t want to be seen as sour now.

puRgatoRy:
Charlotte vs. Paige: General consensus surrounding this seems to be that it was slightly better than their match at Survivor Series; I felt it was slightly worse, with a frustrating non finish, but it’s just splitting hairs. I liked that despite being the heel Paige had a genuine justification for the rematch, it made the eventual bout seem more significant and Paige a more credible threat. I also enjoy Paige’s habit of locking in the P.T.O on top of the announce table- I’ve seen people mock it because obviously the submission hold shouldn’t be any more painful for taking place there instead of the ring, but really it’s all about the visual, and it looks darn cool to see Paige standing on a platform with some unfortunate foe tangled up beneath him. Despite this small plus points, though, I don’t feel a great deal of enthusiasm for the Divas’ Division going for. Last week’s contract signing showed that neither the writers nor at least two of the performers are quite ready for the extra attention, and despite being two of the more talented ladies on the roster Charlotte and Paige haven’t done anything special with their matches together so far. Sasha Banks needs to get a title shot pronto and if she strikes out then there needs to be a serious rethink.

Goldust is back!: Hurrah! Goldust is such a fantastic wrestler and he only seems to get better and better the older he gets, so I’m really hopeful he’ll get up to some interesting stuff in his latest run. A proper culmination of the feud with Stardust would be nice and then stick him in the Intercontinental Championship picture on a near permanent basis. I’d love to see what he and Kevin Owens could do, and the idea of him and Ambrose trying to out-weird each other also has promise. I don’t feel I can put this in the right because the actual match in which he returned was nothing, a six man tag in which he teamed with the Prime Time Players against Stardust and the Ascension, the only properly notable moment being O’Neil’s typically dominant hot tag. Goldust’s bizarre interpretation of the Millions of Dollars dance was very, very right though, in a completely wrong sort of way.

THE wRong:
Super Patriot Jack Swagger: The sole reason for Swagger’s continued presence on the WWE roster is that he serves as a convenient, established shorthand for America as a nation; whenever there is a foreign bad guy with a burning dislike of the Stars and Stripes, that dislike can be translated into a short rivalry with Swagger. ‘We the People’ is also a popular catchphrase that it would be a shame to waste. So Swagger survives, but it’s not a fulfilling existence on the roster. In fact, he essentially disappeared in between his feud with Rusev and this new one with the dastardly MexAmerican Alberto Del Rio, and presumably once he loses at TLC he will vanish again until some kind of dreadful Indonesian or Paraguayan or Eritrean turns up with a loathing for liberty and freedom and the American Dream. It goes without saying that MexAmerica is still an awful, baffling gimmick which neither Colter nor Del Rio seem to entirely understand themselves, and that this feud is going to be cheap and boring and a waste of time.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 411:

This was a very average episode of Raw. Reigns vs. The European Union promises some good action in the future and provided a great main event this week, while the New Day’s anniversary celebration was bags of fun. Otherwise, everything else was kind of just there, which made the show hard to get through at times but never actively offensive and unwatchable. I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse.

Show Rating: 6.0

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 1045th edition is over…

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MY ARM NOW

article topics :

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