wrestling / Columns

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

April 30, 2016 | Posted by Jack Stevenson
Stephanie McMahon WWE
7
The 411 Rating
Community Grade
12345678910
Your Grade
Loading...
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-THREE 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.


 photo New-Raw-Logo_zps845786a1.jpg

Raw 4.25.16:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
– AJ Styles defeated Sheamus @ 14:35 via pin
– Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows defeated The Usos @ 12:45 via pin
– Sami Zayn defeated Rusev @ 11:53 via pin
– Apollo Crews defeated Stardust @ 3:10 via pin
– Natalya defeated Emma @ 2:13 via submission
Non-Title Match: Champion Roman Reigns defeated Alberto Del Rio @ 13:00 via pin

THE Right:
AJ Styles vs. Sheamus: AJ Styles is a tremendous professional wrestler, and has recently joined a tremendous WWE roster. Because of these two things, a massive amount of first time ever dream matches have opened up for AJ, and even the 27th or 28th person you’d want to see him wrestle still makes for a pretty damn exciting opponent. Case in point: AJ Styles vs. Sheamus! Literally no one has ever fantasised about AJ Styles vs. Sheamus, but when it’s actually being presented to you, you realise what a brilliant idea it is. An all time great high flyer against an overgrown bruising grumpy Irishman? The Megapowers of Shit Hair explode? Sign me up! This was a darn good TV match that went basically how you’d want it to, Sheamus pummelling his smaller foe all over the place before Styles rallied with some flashy moves and won comfortably with the Phenomenal Forearm. It’s not going to be remembered very far in the future but it suggests that, if motivated by a PPV slot and the promise of 20 minutes, these two could definitely have a really great match with each other. And there’s still so many more ace Styles matches we’ve yet to see! AJ vs. Rusev! AJ vs. Cesaro! AJ vs. Luke Harper or Bray Wyatt or Triple H or Seth Rollins or Brock Lesnar or Kalisto or…

Sami Zayn vs. Rusev: Sami Zayn and Rusev is another pairing I’d like to see more of in the future; they could have some terrific Sting/Vader matches with one another, Zayn repeatedly flinging himself in the general direction of his foe whilst Rusev just swats him aside. On this occasion they had a decent TV match in a show full of decent TV matches, one which ended with Zayn picking up a clean victory, which was good as he’s come out on the losing end of a fair few high profile matches recently. It’s a shame to see how far Rusev has fallen, but hopefully now the League of Nations are almost disintegrated WWE will remember what a wonderful talent they have in the Bulgarian Brute, and get him back on the right track.

Dean Ambrose and Chris Jericho irritate each other: Dean Ambrose and Chris Jericho seem like the kind of duo that would bring out the worst in each other, and to be honest I’m not expecting too much from their match this Sunday. But, you know, I’ve actually quite enjoyed their verbal exchanges over the last couple of weeks, even if they are rooted in a premise as daft as ‘Ambrose’s phony talk show replaced Jericho’s phony talk show.’ They’ve struck a reasonable balance between zany humour and believable dislike, and this week’s confrontation was the best of the bunch they had, with Ambrose mocking Jericho and Jericho mocking the Hartford crowd in pretty amusing fashion. From there tensions escalated to the point where Y2J locked the Lunatic Fringe in the Walls of Jericho on top of the announce table, which made for a cool visual and a pleasingly intense way to lead in to Sunday’smatch. Like I say, I’m not convinced about how good that match is going to be (I have this annoying hunch that it will be Ambrose doing all his annoying rebound clotheslines while Jericho lurches around struggling to keep up) but at least the feud has been much more watchable than it could have been.

Cesaro and the Miz are the best of enemies: This feud is probably my favourite thing going in WWE at the moment. Cesaro and the Miz are two wrestlers in absolute top form, who happen to find themselves in the Intercontinental Championship’s gravitational pull, and keep crashing into each other in really entertaining fashion. They’re polar opposites as characters; the Miz inhabits the pretentious, preening Hollywood A-Lister role so perfectly you’d barely be surprised if that turned out to be what he’s actually like in real life, and the addition of Maryse in his corner has given him that little bit of extra mojo, because now he has a stunningly attractive, doting wife to back up his bravado and make him even more punchable. Maryse is brilliant too, more brilliant that I remember her being in her original WWE run, head over heels in love with this utter dickhead and determined that the whole world knows it. And Cesaro, essentially what James Bond would be like if you put him on a Croissant diet, is the perfect foil for these guys; he looks down on them with a detached amusement, he knows he’s really great, but he doesn’t feel the need to shove it in people’s face like Miz and Maryse do. They all have such good chemistry with one another, and I hope their match is of the quality merited by the build. This week’s Raw featured another high quality segment with all three of them, and ended perfectly with Maryse saving Miz from the Giant Swing, allowing Cesaro to pose with the Intercontinental Title, which seems to sum up all of their current roles perfectly. This has been a great fun rivalry, and I’m pleased that everyone involved has made the most of their TV time over the last few weeks.

puRgatoRy:
Control of WWE hangs in the balance! For some reason!: One of the nice things about the last few weeks of WWE is that Shane McMahon has been a refreshingly laid back authority figure. He’s not all over the show squabbling with fan favourites or telling the WWE universe what losers they are, he’s just quietly made matches and popped up here and there just to say hello and cancel the Highlight Reel and thank everyone in the crowd for being so kind to him. It’s been nice. Sadly, this week Raw opened up with Stephanie McMahon coming back and initiating a sibling rivalry, informing Shane-O that at Payback, Vince is going to put one of his offspring in permanent charge. Having Vince go for Stephanie would be a massive anti-climax but having him pick Shane would require one heck of an explanation, so I’m not overly enamoured with either choice, but I do appreciate them adding a pivotal plot point to the PPV. It’s another neat incentive to watch the show, alongside all the really promising wrestling that they’ve lined up. The segment itself was OK; I’d rather not watch any kind of authority figure power struggle, but if I’ve got to I’m at least glad it’s being performed by good talkers like Shane and Stephanie. It was a frustrating segment in the sense that it was a return to a tired old formula, but in its own right it was a watchable beginning to the show.

The Usos vs. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows: I’ve really enjoyed how Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows have been used so far in WWE. They’re intimidating and mysterious, and there’s genuine uncertainty as to what precisely they’re up to. Do they sincerely want to help out AJ? Is AJ secretly in cahoots with them? Or are they going to turn on him? Are they going to turn on him and align with Finn Balor? Are they going to turn on him and align with early 1990s midcarder Skinner? Probably not the last one. Still, we’ve all seen so much professional wrestling and have grown accustomed to its patterns of story telling, making many supposed twists and turns easy to guess. It’s nice to be in a situation where it does feel like there are multiple possibilities. We also saw Anderson and Gallows make their Raw in ring debuts this week in an enjoyable tag outing with the Usos; perhaps a more dominant display would have been in order, considering Karl and Luke are debuting, the Usos aren’t doing much, and one of them is supposedly injured anyway, but I don’t want to complain too much about having all this good wrestling offered up to us, and the Bullet Club alumni picked up the required victory in the end, so all is well. I mean, they did then get single handedly taken out by Roman Reigns post match, so maybe all is not well, but WWE has for a long time booked the best singles wrestlers to be a notch above even the best tag wrestlers combined, and since they’re all in on Roman Reigns at the moment I wasn’t surprised to see him deal with Gallows and Anderson with such ease. I’m still really looking forward to seeing what happens with these two at Payback.

THE wRong:
Roman Reigns vs. Alberto Del Rio: This was the one match tonight that didn’t really work. Alberto Del Rio has been wildly inconsistent since his WWE return, and against Roman Reigns he just didn’t seem quite capable of shifting through the gears, appearing listless and bored for much of it. While I will defend Reigns’ wrestling ability much more than most, he’s certainly not at the level where he can drag a good match out of an opponent who doesn’t particularly care whether or not they have one, and so this bout sputtered and spat and died a death in front of a Hartford crowd who were flat all evening. At least the post match angle featured more Anderson/Gallows intrigue, with AJ appearing to work with the two of them to take out Reigns, but there could have been a much better match leading up to it.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 1086th edition is over…

 photo NEW DAY_zps2tbip4xh.gif

7.0
The final score: review Good
The 411
I liked an awful about this episode, with the caveat that nothing on the show blew me away to the point where I'd say Raw was a must see this week. Still, there was lots of good wrestling and intelligent angle advancement, qualities that have been sorely lacking on WWE TV in recent months. I enjoyed Styles/Sheamus a good deal, am very intrigued to find out more about Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows, and am rapidly becoming evangelical about the abilities of the Miz. If you're the sort of person who is willing to spend three hours watching a pro wrestling program that isn't a massively significant PPV, then you'll find plenty to enjoy on Raw. And, hey, Payback's shaping up to be a real good one!
legend

article topics :

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