wrestling / Columns

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

February 13, 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 2.09.15:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns d. The Big Show & Kane via DQ
* Ryback d. Seth Rollins via DQ
* Paige d. Brie Bella
* Bray Wyatt d. Dolph Ziggler
* New Day d. Stardust & Goldust
* Cesaro & Tyson Kidd d. The Usos
* Sin Cara d. Damian Sandow
* Dean Ambrose d. Curtis Axel
* Roman Reigns & Daniel Bryan d. The Authority

THE RIGHT:
Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns vs. Kane & The Big Show: After a pleasingly snappy opening segment in which Bryan and Reigns cautiously traded some verbal jabs and then were teamed together by the Authority to face The Big Show and Kane, we got a pretty solid, engaging tag match as well. Bryan did a lot of the heavy lifting in this one, darting around the ring to bring all the energy the match needed. The Big Show and Kane were soon disqualified and in the ensuing melee Bryan accidentally cracked Reigns with a dropkick to raise tensions, which the Authority then exploit to create the handicap main event. Nothing spectacular, but it was a fast paced and entertaining start to the show that was a refreshing change of pace from the usual lengthy Authority talking segments. I had no problem with it.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Bray Wyatt: Last week these two had a really good match, but not so completely blowaway radical that a rematch the next week didn’t come off as mere lazy booking. Still, it was another good outing- not as good as last week’s, but still providing lots of exciting action, including a wicked superkick from Ziggler that smeared blood across Bray’s nose. Another win for Wyatt creeps us ever closer to a tedious WrestleMania clash between he and the Undertaker, while Dolph has lost two weeks in a row and is floundering a little. Still, it was the best match on the show, and fits neatly into the right.

Sting spooks The Game: They would have to work incredibly hard to spoil this rivalry. Just have Sting be mysterious in the rafters or just generally sprinkle some gothic weirdness throughout the show. This segment was very much the latter and, though the video package that confirmed Sting would accept HHH’s Fast Lane challenge was half hearted at best, and the Sting doppelganger that so terrified Hunter was far from an outstanding look-alike, at the moment the sheer novelty of The Icon’s presence on WWE TV is enough to sail these segments into the right. It was still more exciting than anything else on this show when the lights went out and when images of The Stinger began flashing around the arena, and that brief image of Triple H’s face merging into Sting’s on the Titantron was cool and unsettling.

Sin Cara vs. Damian Mizdow: I really liked this, as much as you can a throwaway midcard match, and I like the Miz-Mizdow rivalry as much as you can a throwaway midcard rivalry. It leads to some curious, cool situations, like this match where Miz constantly prevented his assistant from going on the attack by demanding he carry out errands. The Miz trying to claim that he popularized the Figure Four Leglock was just outstanding (aside from JBL ramming the punchline into our faces by bringing up Ric Flair). It’s all quirky and silly and it livens up the sludgy middle portion of the show a good deal.

Paul Heyman cuts a promo!: It kind of defeats the point, reviewing each individual Heyman promo- you know they’re going to be good, and you know they will lose something in transcription from mouth to page. He discussed how Reigns and Bryan were liars like Brian Williams if they claimed they could overcome Brock Lesnar, and it was super fun and charismatic!

puRgatoRy:
Paige vs. Brie Bella: A match! A Divas match! Events occurred and Paige won and after a fairly original start this feud predictably becomes as bland as all women’s feuds in WWE apparently must be.

The Usos vs. Cesaro & Tyson Kidd: A perfectly solid match, but it feels like I’ve seen a lot of the Usos vs. Cesaro/Kidd recently, and it’s not been quiiiiiite good enough to justify its presence. Still, their PPV match should be fun.

Dean Ambrose vs. Curtis Axel: Dean Ambrose ran through Curtis Axel in a couple of minutes, and then Bad News Barrett turned up to say he didn’t deserve a title shot. Ambrose, not Axel, obviously- the 2015 Royal Rumble winner deserves at minimum an Intercontinental Championship match! Anyway, the continuation of Axel’s comic little ‘uncrowned champion’ angle is nice but it will be better if he gets the opportunity to do fun vignettes and promos with it. This was essentially the same as last week but in match form.

Daniel Bryan & Roman Reigns vs. The Authority: I liked the continuity in Ziggler, Ryback and Rowan getting involved; their firing theoretically should have allowed them to come back as bigger stars than when they left but instead they’ve just floated around aimlessly for a few weeks, so it’s nice from a continuity stand point to have them show up. The match was completely fine as well of course, with seven people contesting an eight-minute match it would be hard to put on something actively bad as long as they kept a steady flow of bodies coming in and out of the ring. The booking was terribly formulaic though. Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns have a very intriguing, natural dynamic between them, and you can see that in the way they fracture the WWE fanbase, but that dynamic has been forced into the background in favor of doing yet another “tag partners who just can’t get along!” deal. Their match at Fast Lane is going to be interesting in spite of the build up, rather than because of it.

THE wRong:
Ryback vs. Seth Rollins: This was the second match of the show, and finished with a disqualification. Like the first match of the show. What a delightful start to the show! I wish more effort would be put into the layout when they’re going to do multiple DQ finishes in a night, at least spread them out across the show, and if you must condense them into one block, don’t start the show off with them! It’s a guaranteed momentum killer. The match was too short to override the disappointment of the finish.

Anti John Cena Propaganda: I feel they’re missing a ton of tricks here. I think they’re missing a trick by not putting Rusev and Lana’s video about John Cena’s failings together in the style of a Soviet propaganda film. I think they’re missing a trick by not going all in on chest-beating, flag waving patriotism, barely stopping short of sending John Cena round the country on a Pimp my Ride version of the Lex Express. Most of all, I think they’re missing a trick by making this feud all about John Cena and whether he indeed ‘still has it,’ rather than revolving it around Rusev and the potential end of his impressive undefeated streak. That’s what Rusev’s entire career in WWE thus far has been about; beating Zack Ryder in two minutes and then aggressively thrashing the Russian flag around. If those frequently annoying squash matches were building to a rehash of last year Cena-Wyatt feud but with less creepy cult antics, a feud that could be done with literally any rule breaker on the roster, it’ll be most infuriating.

The New Day vs. Goldust & Stardust: It’s nice that Goldust and Cody may well get a WrestleMania match but it’ll be in danger of sinking onto the pre-show if they don’t bring their dissension out of the mire of the undercard. The New Day are catastrophically not over. Wrestling fans don’t like the relentlessly cheerful.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 411:

I didn’t like this show all that much. There was little in the way of really good wrestling, and a lot in the way of apathy and laziness- two DQ finishes in a row to begin the show, repetitive matches, and the same old worn out clichĂ©s permeating the feuds. There were some individual bright sparks with a solid Ziggler-Wyatt rematch and a welcome Heyman/Lesnar appearance, but nothing that you have to see. It’s background viewing at best, this week’s Raw.

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 963rd edition is over…

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Um…

article topics :

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