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.

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Raw 06.06.2016
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
– Cesaro defeated Chris Jericho @ 12:10 via pin
– Non-Title Match: Champion Rusev defeated Jack Swagger @ 3:35 via countout
– The Vaudevillains defeated Enzo and Cass @ 2:20 via DQ
– Alberto Del Rio defeated Sami Zayn @ 8:20 via pin
– Dean Ambrose defeated Kevin Owens @ 6:35 via pin
– Tyler Breeze vs. R-Truth went to a double DQ @ 0:44
– The Club defeated New Day @ 5:19 via pin

THE Right:
Ladder Banter: In a welcome change from the norm, this week’s opening talking segment on Raw was actually hugely entertaining and easy to watch, although nobody involved really had much to say. All the Money in the Bank competitors climbed on top of ladders in the middle of the ring, snarked at each other for a bit, had a relatively tame brawl, and then Teddy Long of all people made a return, apparently deciding that this was the perfect time to announce he wanted to run Smackdown after the brand split. Stephanie McMahon shot it down and made three singles matches featuring all the MITB guys, and that was it. Long’s cameo felt utterly bizarre, especially since his mic skills were rather rusty and he didn’t make a tag team match like the joke dictates he must, but there were some really nice moments in the preceding Money in the Bank warm up debate. I was particularly partial to Kevin Owens claiming everyone in the match was famous apart from Sami Zayn, and Chris Jericho trying to pretend that he’d actually won a Money in the Bank match before, either the 1st one or the 6th one, whichever one took place in the Big Apple. It seemed like everyone involved was just having a good time; I can imagine when they all got to the back they laughed heartily amongst themselves and slapped each other on the back a lot in a jovial kind of way. Plus, with Stephanie splitting them all up into singles pairings we got a coherent direction for the rest of the show out of it, and, hey, it was also much shorter than your usual opening chat segment into the bargain. I liked this segment quite a lot, and would be happy to see more like it in the future, albeit with fewer rambling cameos from well liked ex administrative officials. Bring back Palmer Canon, that’s what I say.

Cesaro vs. Chris Jericho: It speaks volumes about the strength of WWE’s roster that Cesaro vs. Chris Jericho is probably one of the less mouth watering absolute dream matches that they could offer us. Still, this was a darn fine outing with an immensely worthwhile finish, as the Swiss Superman made Jericho tap out with the Sharpshooter. Not only was this a convincing and credibility enhancing victory for Cesaro, it also established a secondary finisher as one that has a genuine chance of ending matches, which in these modern, near fall heavy times is a valuable thing indeed. A good Raw match, and one with a purpose as well. Can’t ask for much more than that!

Cena and Styles exchange barbs: It’s a popular (and not entirely unjustified opinion) that John Cena buries professional wrestlers. AJ Styles even literally said this as the two of them hurled insults at each other during the most compelling segment on this week’s Raw. But as it happened, it was a segment that began with a great, simple line from Cena that really made his feud with Styles, and by extension Styles himself, sound like a big fucking deal. Cena claimed that the only time he had experienced an atmosphere as electric as last week’s, with the two minute stretch of duelling “Let’s go Cena/Let’s go Styles!” chants, was during his feud with the Rock. And it’s a fair comparison as well; in fact, for a certain kind of wrestling fan, John Cena vs. AJ Styles is a much, much more exciting prospect than John Cena vs. The Rock ever was. Certainly I’m way more excited for Cena and AJ at Money in the Bank than I was for either Wrestlemania 28’s or 29’s main event, and I think that’s because it feels like there’s a proper, philosophical difference between the leaders of the Cenation and the Bullet Club. Cena and Rock were basically similar pro wrestler, interpreted wildly different by two different eras of WWE. AJ Styles is nothing like John Cena, and he represents none of the things John Cena does. He’s a scrappy underdog, a world class high flyer, an internet darling, a man who spent most of his career wrestling for every single promotion except WWE. When AJ Styles insults John Cena, you really feel like he might resent this guy, that this guy might represent everything that he defined himself against as a professional wrestler. Similarly, you can understand why Cena, basically a really nice human being, would resent people like Styles turning up in WWE and taking pot shots at him and beating him up when he’s never done anything to them. You can believe his confusion that people cheer for Styles over him when Cena’s only crime is being a massive success, a much bigger one than non Royal Rumble winning, non Roman Reigns beating AJ Styles. What we’re getting at Money in the Bank is a clash of two diametrically opposed professional wrestlers, two opposing archetypes- WWE poster boy vs. independent icon. Increasingly, that’s what WWE do best, pitting these pro wrestlers against one another and letting the fans cheer for whoever they want. All of this is a long winded way of saying that Cena and AJ’s segment on Raw was superb, full of passion and biting, serious insults and culminating in an exciting stand off as the New Day saved Cena from the clutches of the Club. It was pretty gripping TV with a dash of something that resembled genuine human drama, and is the sort of thing you wish WWE would put on more often, because they’ve got more than enough talent to do so…

Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens: This was a bit of an odd match, but I think I quite liked it. Basically, Ambrose and Owens just ripped the shit out of each other for six minutes, culminating in a great sequence where Ambrose went for a suicide dive only to be caught, slammed into the barricade, and then crushed with a frog splash off the apron. Back in the ring, Owens went for a pop up powerbomb, Ambrose blocked it, hit Dirty Deeds, and just like that won the match. Now, if I had paid good money for this on a PPV (well, $9.99 and got more on demand pro wrestling than I could ever hope to watch as a bonus, but you know what I mean), I would have been quite disappointed. As it was a TV match, I’m more kind towards it. I think it’s good to at least suggest that matches can just end out of the blue, it adds a faint sheen of realism to proceedings, and we still got a few minutes of really good wrestling for free. It was moderately disappointing in a way, but I think that’s a sign of how spoiled we all are now as wrestling fans, with all this incredible action at our fingertips. I like attempts to do things differently, and I liked this bout.

puRgatoRy:
Sami Zayn vs. Alberto Del Rio: I seem to remember these two have wrestled before and it’s been vaguely disappointing? Have they? Was it? I know this match was. Theoretically Zayn and Del Rio should match up well- they’re both talented, athletic wrestlers, Zayn’s the best underdog in the company, Del Rio is a convincing, sneering bully. Yet they didn’t quite mesh together on Raw. It was the sort of back and forth match that just comes across as hesitant, neither man willing to take control, and it all ended with Del Rio winning clean as a whistle, furthering the impression that Sami Zayn isn’t quite at the level of his cohorts in the Money in the Bank match. Raw talent alone meant it was perfectly watchable, but it also wasn’t super exciting.

THE wRong:
Charlotte’s flat title reign: One clear positive of the ‘Divas’ Revolution’ is that now the women are booked just as badly as the men, in roughly the same way, rather than much worse and in degrading ways. This Charlotte/Dana Brooke vs. Natalya/Becky Lynch thing, for example, is just dull, dull in the same way that Dolph Ziggler vs. Baron Corbin is just dull. It really feels like Charlotte should have got her comeuppance at Wrestlemania; presumably they’re dragging it out now until Summerslam, and she remains the not especially interesting face of a division that badly needs one. Likeable underdog Becky Lynch or legit boss Sasha Banks would both be better choices, but instead we’ve got the Two Woman Oddly Bland Power Trip of Charlotte and Dana Brooke, and this week Natalya and Becky tried to warn Dana that Charlotte is a bad person that uses people, and ugh, who cares? We all know Charlotte is a bad person. We have seen it countless times. Dana Brooke has not shown any likeable characteristics, and so there is no reason to care about how their relationship develops. This is either leading to another Charlotte/Natalya match, or a slightly less stale but still not thrilling Charlotte/Becky showdown, a reminder of how wafer thin the division is. Progress has been made, but a lot of work still needs to be done.

This endless tag team comedy feud: This feud irritates me. It’s sporadically amusing, but not really enough to justify its existence, and while it’s nice that the likes of Goldust, R-Truth, Tyler Breeze and Fandango are being given things to do, wouldn’t it be better if it was something constructive and worthwhile? I just don’t understand why it keeps going. Months and months it’s been lumbering on in one form or another, and, just what’s the end game? Where does this go? When does it end? Why is it happening? Who cares about it? How does it exist?

THE Ridiculous:

NOTHING

The 1097th edition is over…