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 1.05.15:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Bad News Barrett d. Dolph Ziggler in a 2 out of 3 Falls match to become the NEEEEEWWWWW Intercontinental Champion
* The Ascension d. Some Fine Upstanding Gentlemen
* Roman Reigns d. The Big Show via DQ
* Natalya d. Nikki Bella in a Non Title match
* Luke Harper d. Erick Rowan
* The Miz, Damian Mizdow & Alicia Fox d. The Usos & Naomi
* Seth Rollins & Kane d. Ryback
* Big E d. Adam Rose via DQ

THE RIGHT:
Dean Ambrose vs. Bray Wyatt: I thought this was mighty impressive. They had three big hurdles to overcome here; one was that they’d already had a bunch of gimmick matches and there was no real reason for an Ambulance match to wrap things up; the second was that the feud itself was never really that convincing; and finally, Ambulance Matches are not a great idea since bundling someone into the back of an Ambulance is nowhere near as emphatic or dramatic as a pinfall or a submission, so you’re lumbered with building to something that isn’t going to be all that good. With those circumstances in mind, I thought they put a super fun brawl together, intense and energetic and featuring a shockingly great final sequence centered around the ambulance that kind of renders irrelevant that stuff I just wrote about Ambulance Matches having disappointing conclusions. They smartly located the biggest spots in and around the ambulance with Dean’s dive of it, and Bray’s Sister Abigail into it, so when it came for Wyatt to lock Ambrose away inside it, the vehicle was pretty well established in the match and didn’t come off like a baffling afterthought. It was still hampered by the fact that you can’t really struggle while being locked in the ambulance and can’t see one of the wrestlers while it’s happening, but we’ll take what we can get. Ambrose’s leg injury didn’t really end up meaning anything, but that’s another thing we can let slide, because they kicked an impressive amount of ass in this. I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

The Usos & Naomi vs. The Miz, Damian Mizdow & Alicia Fox: This was about as good as you can get in four minutes on Raw. The match was stuffed wall to wall with action, Mizdow’s antics were fun as usual, and it was nice to see two of the most talented yet recently ignored Divas on the roster get a little bit of time in the ring. Naomi looks just great every time she’s out there, I wish we could see what she could do in a longer match outside of Main Event or Superstars. I don’t think the finish came off very well, but otherwise this was a neat little addition to the card.

YOU’RE FIRED! If you’re Dolph Ziggler or Erick Rowan or Ryback. Otherwise you don’t need to worry, your job is secure. I’m sorry if I scared you: To sarcastically thank him for bringing them back to power, The Authority made this week’s Raw ‘John Cena Appreciation Night,’ which is the same as every other episode of Raw except more accurately titled. What this actually entailed was Cena being dragged down to the ring and told he would be appreciated by Dolph Ziggler, Erick Rowan and Ryback, who were all promptly fired for being part of Team Cena at Survivor Series. Then The Authority set off balloons and confetti and jaunty music to really underline just how hard they were appreciating Cena. I thought this was hilarious. Triple H and Stephanie were just so superbly smug and evil, and the image of Cena and the faces standing mopily in the ring while colorful confetti rained down around them was one of the funnier things I’ve seen on Raw in a while. Of course, as an angle it’s pretty bad, since the three fired faces will surely return imminently and nothing affects John Cena emotionally for more than three weeks at a time, so very soon this segment will be entirely meaningless. But it made me laugh while it happened, and it tied together all the threads of the show smoothly, so it’s going in the right.

puRgatoRy:
Dolph Ziggler vs. Bad News Barrett: Aspects of this match were really interesting, most notably the peculiar structure of the thing; they kind of went through the motions for the first five minutes until Ziggler won with a crucifix hold, then Barrett performed a lengthy post match beatdown, then Kane made it a two out of three falls match, Barrett instantly won the second fall, and it was only at that point that it became a recognizable WWE title match with all the melodrama and the near falls. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily a good way of putting a match together, but I appreciate any attempt at playing with the conventions of a wrestling match a little. It might have been noticeably better if Barrett’s control segments were better, but they were largely mundane; he’s definitely better doing full throttle slugfests with people who are his physical equals, rather than trying to impose himself on someone like Ziggler. The result of the match- an Intercontinental Title switch- is mildly disappointing considering Dolph seemed like he could be in the embryonic stage of a really great run, but I like Barrett well enough and it was a real shame when injury prematurely curtailed his run with the belt last year, so I can’t complain. This wasn’t entirely good enough to make it into the ‘right’ section, but it was at least something a little different.

Ryback vs. Seth Rollins & Kane: An unremarkable handicap match. It was moderately entertaining throughout but I was hoping we’d get more of Rollins being sneaky and less of Kane appearing in general. By both sets of criteria we were sorely lacking. Still, the action itself was totally fine.

THE wRong:
The Ascension vs. A Couple of Scrubs The Scrubs were some guys who couldn’t get no love from The Ascension, and the Ascension certainly couldn’t get any love from the commentary team after they branded themselves superior to Demolition and The Road Warriors. JBL in particular really tore into them, and while I get what they were going for, having them compare themselves to two of the all time great tag teams, and then hearing the commentators tell us they weren’t even in the league of these tag teams, was not the best way of putting these guys over. The throwback eighties gimmick can definitely work, but the early signs are that it’s not going to this time around.

Roman Reigns vs. The Big Show: Has there even been a good match that has ever finished with someone being hit with some steel steps while Michael Cole gasps something like “a sickening shot?” This was a noticeable step down from their surprisingly watchable encounter the other week- this one was mostly Big Show wearing down Reigns, whose selling is not very interesting, before the finishing stretch was rudely chopped into by the DQ. At this rate, Reigns no longer looks the certain bet to win the Royal Rumble that he once did, which is alarming if he is still seen as the future of the company. It’s not as if some exciting young upstart has stolen his thunder, he’s let it slip of its own accord, something that John Cena, like him or not, never allowed to happen during his rise to stardom.

Natalya vs. Nikki Bella: More dreadful booking of the Divas division, as Natalya and Nikki Bella trade wins aimlessly with no end in sight while Paige makes an inexplicable face turn mere months after an inexplicable heel turn mere months after she debuted as a cowering, naïve, supposed fan favorite who inexplicably won the Divas Championship on her first outing. There was nothing actively wrong with the match, but WWE aren’t going to have such a genuinely talented female roster forever, they urgently need to start taking advantage of it.

Erick Rowan vs. Luke Harper: I thought this would be quite good, but instead it was both boring and short. The antics of special guest referees Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury were pretty funny, it’s a pity they didn’t get a chance to do more comedy spots in the match. Otherwise, there was nothing to this.

Big E. vs. Adam Rose: Just bland shit. Big E. won a short match and I have no idea who WWE thinks finds these kinds of matches intriguing. The arrival of Cesaro and Tyson Kidd disguised as Rosebuds was kind of cool and gives me hope we’re getting another serious tag team, and I suppose we should always be grateful when the bunny neglects to show up, but by and large this match was frustratingly limited.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 411:

Show Rating: 5.5

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 954th edition is over…