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 12.21.15:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler went to a no contest
* R-Truth vs. Bo Dallas went to a no contest
* Alberto Del Rio & Rusev d. RyBack Swagger
* Neville d. Tyler Breeze
* The Wyatt Family d. Team ECW in an Eight Man Tag Team Extreme Rules Match
* Charlotte & Becky Lynch d. Alicia Fox & Brie Bella
* Roman Reigns d. Sheamus to win the WWE Championship!
THE Right:
NO CHANCE. NO CHANCE IN HELL: When Stephanie McMahon screeched at Roman Reigns that Vince McMahon would be turning up later in the evening to fire him for all his misdeeds, I felt quite frustrated. Clearly, WWE were proud to be offering us this exciting guest appearance; it very much felt like a riposte to those who have been critical of the product in recent weeks. But Vince McMahon? Seriously? In the year 2016, Vince McMahon is the answer? Vince McMahon is 70 years old. Vince McMahon cannot appear on TV every week. Vince McMahon, I imagined, would be a shadow of his former self, a frail, gaunt septuagenarian, faintly confused as to who he was, what he was meant to be doing, and why nearly 15,000 people seemed to revere him. As it turns out, though, Vince McMahon, entering his eight-decade on earth, still has more charisma and presence in his little finger than most of us have in our entire bodies. I was shocked by how happy I was to see him, and possessed by an urge to bellow the lyrics to his theme music at the television screen. I don’t mean to ignore the opening promo involving Stephanie, far from it. It was a very good opening to the show- Reigns and Steph just seemed so consumed with hatred for one another, and their intensity was underlined by how relatively short and sharp the segment was for an opening promo. It didn’t drag on and on until all the heat was sucked out of it, they just spat venom and vitriol at each other for five minutes and then Stephanie whacked Reigns with some of the most wince-inducing slaps I’ve ever seen and then Vince was announced to be on his way, and that was it, the night was set up. It was really well executed, but it was overshadowed by Vince’s confrontation with Reigns.
First of all, I really liked the way McMahon arrived, interrupting a burgeoning R-Truth/Bo Dallas match and telling both of them to fuck off because he needed the ring. I can’t recall the last time a match ended in a no contest for this reason, but I’m glad it did. Obviously it doesn’t say much for Truth and Bo, but they’re not doing anything of note anyway; the important thing was that it was a genuine change to the stale Raw format, a hint of the ‘anything can happen’ mentality that made the show such compulsive viewing for so many in the late nineties. Vince then plonked himself down in a chair at ringside and announced that he was going to make Roman sweat before bringing him, and we faded to commercial on that image of him sitting smugly in his chair, which again was something different and a genuine cliffhanger to keep us watching past the adverts. When Reigns did come out, the confrontation was nothing you haven’t seen in a trillion previous ‘unruly fan favorite vs. despotic authority figure’ angles, but it was made all the better for Vince’s presence, and “YOU’RE FIIIIIIIIRRRRRREEEDDDD” is still such a great catchphrase. By the end of It, we’d learned that Vince wanted to fire Roman Reigns, but by demanding a title shot and then questioning the size of McMahon’s grapefruits and suggesting they closer resembled prunes when he wouldn’t grant him it (Reigns’ thing at the moment is to compare one foodstuff to another slightly smaller foodstuff, and suggest that the smaller foodstuff represents the testicles of an enemy), the former Shield enforcer was able to get into his boss’ head. Vince made the title match, under the stipulation that if Reigns lost, he’d be out the door. It was a bit convoluted, and I wasn’t convinced that McMahon would let himself be so easily manipulated, but it got the job done, and nicely teed up the main event…
Extreme Rules! Eight Men! Chaos!: It is nearly 2016 and Tommy Dreamer is a part of genuinely great matches on WWE’s flagship television show. Weird. Anyway, after their enjoyable but fairly tame Tables Elimination match at TLC, The Extremists and the Wyatts really cut loose here with a wildly entertaining hardcore war that spilled out the ring, into the crowd and up the entrance way. It felt genuinely out of control at times, but still had some semblance of structure to it that made it easy to follow and hook into. The crowd seemed to love it and it came across great on TV as well. Spot of the match, and the night as a whole, goes to Tommy Dreamer’s Dreamer Driver off the entrance stage through a table, Luke Harper the unfortunate recipient. It was executed perfectly, which is no mean feat considering how tricky it must be to get a guy of Harper’s size up and through the air when you’re a worn out, aging veteran of far too many bloodsoaked brawls. The Wyatts won for the second night in a row, which felt a bit depressing considering the Philadelphia setting and the excellent, hopeful, nostalgia tinged promo Team ECW had cut earlier in the night, which really convinced you that they were ready for one final night of glory in the heart of their old stomping grounds. But no matter the result, the match was a really good one, and carried the middle portion of the show very nicely indeed.
Roman Reigns vs. Sheamus: Despite the fact that WWE have been trying to prepare us for this moment since his very first day on the roster, it still feels rather weird to say that Roman Reigns is now WWE Champion. He’s had it for more than five minutes and everything. This odd feeling is partially to do with the title not having changed hands on Raw for about three or four years; we’re not accustomed to people winning it outside of regularly scheduled pay-per-view intervals. Mostly, though, it’s because of the terribly strange year Reigns had. In January, he won the Royal Rumble in Philadelphia and was booed out the building; just under a year later, he finally won the championship that seemed his for the taking, not on the grandest stage of all as had been prophesized, but on measly old Raw. A distinctly above average episode of measly old Raw, but still, measly old Raw. And where do we go from here? The idea of ‘making Roman look strong’ became a well-worn joke on the internet, but it was more than just that, it was genuinely the defining theme of 2015 in WWE. Everything Roman did, from the Rumble victory to his glorious failure against Brock Lesnar to his skirmishes with Seth Rollins to the interminable feud with Bray Wyatt, right up to this rivalry with Sheamus, the last, desperate hurdle in his path- it all had these questions hanging over it like a dark cloud. “When is he going to be champion? Does this mean he’s closer to becoming champion? Why isn’t he champion? Have WWE given up on him as champion? Will he ever become champion?” And now it’s all been answered in the space of fifteen minutes. Roman Reigns is WWE Champion and he will probably go into WrestleMania as WWE Champion. For all intents and purposes, he’s the man now. It’s a brave new world. We’re all going to have to find new talking points… or are we? It seems strange to even consider that winning the WWE Championship might take the pressure off Roman Reigns, but such was the weight of expectation surrounding him that it might be a blessed relief for him to have finally just done it, just ticked it off his to do list. Equally, though, the scrutiny usually intensifies when you’ve scaled the top of the mountain. Up until his first dalliance with the richest prize in the industry, John Cena was universally beloved. How is Reigns going to cope when he already has very vocal doubters, and when the glittering array of fabulous matches he’s had this year have been unable to fully silence them?
For what it’s worth, he had the full backing of a traditionally testy Philadelphia crowd on the night, as I’ve already briefly alluded to. The match started off quite slow but steadily escalated until the two were just throwing bombs at one another, which is what they do best. It was never as good as their terrific TLC match from the night before, but it did its job, especially with the rewarding epic booking of the finishing stretch. Reigns finally overcame everything the Authority could throw at him- he got the better of Sheamus in the ring, disposed of Rusev and Alberto Del Rio on the floor, and his climactic Superman Punch to Vince McMahon felt like he was decapitating the final boss on a video game. It would have truly tied all the loose ends together if Dean Ambrose and the Usos would have came out to help him, and it would have been perfect if Seth Rollins wasn’t maimed and could have got involved in some way, but you can rarely have everything. If we could, Reigns would have won at WrestleMania to the adulation of millions. The match felt like a remarkable rescue job; a rescue that should never have had to happen, but a rescue nonetheless. Whether or not WWE have learned from their mistakes with Reigns is going to be so important in the months to come. It seems likely that his feud with Authority will continue all the way to a match with Triple H at the Rumble or WrestleMania, which doesn’t sound too appetising- ‘plucky fan favourite vs. sinister overlords’ was enough to drag Reigns to the title, but it’s beyond played out as a rivalry and threatens to taint the early stages of his run. I’d prefer him beating Sheamus in a rematch, then maybe warring with Kevin Owens in the run-up to WrestleMania before a showdown with Dean Ambrose at the show itself. It’s going to be an intriguing few months one way or another, and it’s exciting to know that somebody’s whole life is going to change before our very eyes. In these uncertain times, I think we can at least all find one thing to agree on- hopefully Reigns doesn’t run into Kane as one of his first challengers. Even if he is, so the rumor goes, some kind of demon.
puRgatoRy:
Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler: When ever these guys meet they always do this masturbatory five minutes of mat wrestling at the start in a blatant attempt to demonstrate to us all what skilled technicians they both are. They made it even worse this week by adding RESPECT handshakes into the equation. All it needed to complete the horrible indy wrestling tropes checklist was them to do a quick sequence of meaningless counters and running around, and then a standoff. Anyway, once they’d got over themselves and launched into some near falls the match got much better, although not really worthy of the “this is awesome!” chant it got. Kevin Owens ended the match by force by beating the heck out of both men, presumably leading to a Triple Threat on an upcoming Raw. The Intercontinental Championship picture looks like it’ll be fine but nothing more for the foreseeable future. Owens shouldn’t really have lost the belt though.
Neville vs. Tyler Breeze: This week, The Miz revealed an amusingly silly plot to court Neville. He came down to ringside to ‘direct’ his match with Tyler Breeze, bellowing out instructions like “do a suplex that shows your emotions!” His end game is to get Neville to teach him his northern British accent, because Miz is under the impression that this will be important to help him become the new James Bond. Clearly this has no legs in it on its own, but I would like to see Miz round up a rag-tag stable of directionless jobbers and manage them from ringside with his director’s chair and loud hailer. It would be like the Damian Mizdow storyline, more serious, but still with a healthy degree of self-awareness. Neville won’t benefit from a long term association from the Miz, it will make it seem like that’s his level, but for someone like Curtis Axel it would be quite a step-up.
An Oddly Bland Segment Involving the New Day: Kofi, Xavier and Big E are usually no more than two seconds away from making a delightfully geeky joke or belligerently asking “WHY?” in a stupid voice or doing some very sexy hip gyrations, but in this segment, they seemed oddly lacking in personality, and behaved a lot like any other heel on the roster. They asked The Usos and the Lucha Dragons to come down to the ring, offered apparently sincere congratulations for their tremendous efforts in the Ladder match the previous night, and then performed an admittedly over the top victory celebration which their challengers were so offended by they felt compelled to break it up by force. Of course, The New Day shouldn’t be expected to bring the zaniness every week, sometimes a more sedate segment is necessary as a kind of reminder that they are genuine professional wrestlers underneath the unicorn horns, but it did feel like a bit of a shame that what is often the highlight of the show was this week so paint by numbers. It seemed as if they were trying to let us know that the three way tag team feud would continue, and decided to do so in the most straight forward, basic way possible. I suppose this is all nit picking though- it was an efficient and effective segment on the whole, albeit one that made the Usos and the Dragons look a wee bit petty, getting so worked up over what was essentially just some overenthusiastic dancing.
THE wRong:
Jack & The Back vs. The League of Nations: Now that Sheamus has lost his WWE Championship, the League of Nations feels rather redundant as a faction. Although, to be honest, this match took place while he was still champion and already Rusev and Del Rio seemed insignificant, which is concerning when you consider what good performers both of them are, and what genuine stars they have been earlier in their careers, and how much they still have to offer as wrestlers. Still, when their main role is foot soldiers in Sheamus’ shitty little army, tasked with keeping flotsam and jetsam like Ryback and Jack Swagger away, what do you expect? This match was heatless and boring, the only positive being the bizarre moment when Ryback started aggressively panting in the referee’s face for no apparent reason. He’s such a fucking weirdo, is the Big Guy, and he should be more proud of it.
THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING
There are still two more Raws left before we see the back of 2015, but this felt a lot like the final show of the year, finishing up Roman Reigns’ long running quest for the title in suitably dramatic fashion and wiping the slate clean for the next 366 days. It was a good episode on the whole, with the enjoyable Reigns vs. The McMahons angle keeping the show ticking over, and a really good eight-man hardcore tag match taking up a substantial chunk of the middle. There was nothing especially bad either, so this is a worthwhile way to spend three hours of your week.
Show Rating: 7.5
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
