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.

---

Raw 7.04.16:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
– US Title Match: Champion Rusev defeated Titus O’Neil @ 5:40 via submission
– Enzo and Cass defeated The Social Outcasts @ 2:05 via pin
– Non-Title Champion vs. Champion Match: WWE Champion Dean Ambrose vs. IC Champion The Miz @ 9:35 via pin
– Seth Rollins defeated Dolph Ziggler @ 11:21 via pin
– The Golden Truth defeated The Vaudevillains @ 1:23 via pin
– Becky Lynch defeated Summer Rae @ 2:58 via pin
– USA vs. The World Elimination Tag: Team USA defeated The Multi-National Alliance Elimination @ 22:23 via pin (Show and Ryder survived)

THE Right:
Rusev vs. Titus O’Neil: This was pretty close to a perfect conclusion to the Rusev-Titus rivalry. They clobbered each other around the ring a fair bit, didn’t go too long, and ended with a more or less clean victory for the Bulgarian Brute, as he made Mega-Dad tap to the Accolade. Rusev obviously has a bigger upside than Titus at this stage and I’m relieved WWE weren’t tempted by a sentimental ending on a sentimental day. There’ll be plenty of time later on for good, hard working Americans to stand up to their marauding champion, but this time around the bad guy won and won decisively. It’s a shame that they never quite managed the really good, shit kicking brawl I thought they had in them, but this was a reasonably worthwhile rivalry on the whole, assuming it is indeed over.

A HASHTAG IS BORN: This segment became relevant on social media, which is one of the most important things in modern professional wrestling. And in fairness, #BeatUpJohnCena deserved its moment in the sun, because this was a good segment which managed to be both heated and also quite funny at the same time. The Club’s enthusiasm for, well, beating up John Cena, and their discussion of all the different days they might do it on was genuinely laugh out loud funny, but it didn’t come off like they were straining for a joke, it felt like they were belittling Cena and happened to be pretty witty in doing it. This led to them actually, y’know, beating up John Cena, until Enzo & Cass made the save and set up a six man tag for Battleground. It seems a match that would better fit a Raw or Smackdown but it’s a good way to build anticipation for the eventual Cena/Styles rematch, and also serves as a very smooth push up the card for Enzo and Big Cass, who clearly have bright things in their future. The Cena-Styles feud has been of the highest quality so far, and this segment continued in that vein.

Xavier Woods has concerns: I’m digging this New Day/Wyatts feud quite a lot, it’s bringing something fresh out of the New Day at a time when their sense of humour and general chirpiness was really starting to become stale. Kofi and Big E came down to the ring in as good a mood as ever, mostly interested in mocking the Wyatts, but after the Family interrupted their promo to challenge them to come to the Wyatt Compound, Xavier snapped and pleaded with his pals to take the sinister cult more seriously. It was such a change in behavior for Woods and it worked really well; he’s always been the most vulnerable of the trio and it makes sense that he would be the one scared of what the Wyatts can do. He’s a genuinely sympathetic figure, which pro wrestling often struggles to pull off. Woods would later agree to join Kofi and Big E at the Compound; in the aftermath of the batshit Final Deletion and all the buzz that has generated, it will be most intriguing to see if WWE try to answer it in kind next week…

puRgatoRy:
Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins: This was every Dolph Ziggler match you’ve ever seen- if you like him, you’ll probably enjoy this. Certainly the string of counters and razor sharp near falls towards the end were pretty exciting, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that anything Ziggler does these days is just a way of treading water, and can safely be forgotten. Still, that’s not really Dolph’s fault, and in many respects this was the best match on the show, but I thought the Rusev-O’Neil match edged it for feeling actually consequential.

THE wRong:
Charlotte’s title reign is dead dead dead: dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead. Sasha Banks needs to win the belt two months ago. I understand why WWE chose Charlotte as the first figurehead of the revamped women’s division; she’s good enough in the ring to outshine the pre-NXT crop of females on the roster, and her esteemed father lends her an air of gravitas that she wouldn’t otherwise have. But, honestly, she’s not that good between the ropes, and her promos are dreary and sometimes frankly irritating. Maybe this would have been more watchable if it had been done by someone else, and I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if WWE had just gone “fuck it, it’s the 4th July, let’s just have all the other segments be a repeat of this one but with different wrestlers saying the words.” It built towards Charlotte and Sasha’s impending title confrontation in a logical enough fashion, with the former mocking the latter’s lack of success on the main roster, and the latter mocking the former’s over reliance on her father, but it was just a drag to sit through. Sasha’s not perfect, but she carries herself with a confidence befitting a Women’s Champion, and a year into her main roster run Charlotte still doesn’t look entirely comfortable. It’ll be fascinating to see the direction the division goes in once the switch finally takes place…

The Golden Truth vs. The Vaudevillains: I feel like I’ve asked this question before, but is there anyone in the world who actually cares about the Golden Truth/FaBreeze feud? Anyone at all? I really would like to know who WWE think they’re booking this for, because it isn’t funny and it doesn’t go anywhere and every segment has no thought put into it, but the rivalry just drags on and on. This week, the Vaudevillains’ debut for Evolve was hastened as they were sucked into the undercard misery, losing to Goldust (who deserves so much better) and R-Truth in about two minutes while at ringside Fandango and Breeze expressed their disapproval. It’s nice that all these guys have something to do, but… I wish they had something else to do instead.

Main Event Tag Match w/ Everyone: To commemorate the 4th of July, Raw finished with a massive 16 man tag pitting the USA against the Rest of the World. In one respect this was kind of neat, in that you got a lot of faces fighting faces and teaming with heels, which led to some fun, unique interactions. The likeable booking didn’t end there either, as Zack Ryder ended up winning the whole match for Team USA, flooring Sheamus with the Rough Ryder with a little help from the Big Show. Ryder is far too damaged to ever be a proper threat, but these kind of light, throwaway, but relatively high profile matches are the perfect outlets for him, as he can pick up feel good victories and get a pop from the crowd without it actually having to mean anything. Unfortunately, the main negatives of this match obscured the positives somewhat; the match went 22 minutes long and had too many bodies in it. Even under elimination rules as this one was, a 16 man tag is far too bulky to be satisfying, while the match was too short for said eliminations to be spaced out properly, and too long to stave off the feeling of monotony as the 11th man was taken out and we still had five more left in the match. Ultimately, the good points of this match were mere glimmers that couldn’t make the majority of it feel worthwhile. Credit where credit’s due for trying to deliver a distinctive main event, but it was destined not to work.

THE Ridiculous:
Raw is food based War: Having been born with an instinctive terror of getting into trouble, I didn’t even enjoy food fights when I was a child, lest I incur the wrath of a teacher or parent. I am now 21 years old and have no desire to watch pro wrestlers pelt each other with messy snacks. The fact that this was the very first thing that happened on Raw and was just over five minutes in length was an ominous sign that WWE weren’t going to try and tempt people to the television screen on the 4th July. There’s a reason why, as far as I can recall, the post WrestleMania Raw has never had a food fight on it, because everyone would agree that it would be a colossal and inane waste of time. I mean, I hope I don’t sound too Jim Cornette-y (Jim Cornetto?) here, but food fights are not pro wrestling. Fuck food fights and the horse they rode in on. And this wasn’t even too bad, as far as food fights go; there were some amusing individual moments dotted across it, from Cesaro and Apollo Crews rising above the mayhem and having an arm wrestling match to Fandango just standing still and going all Orlando Jordan with some whipped cream. Both of those deserved a chuckle if you spotted them. Neither of them were enough to lift this out of the ridiculous! See! I do use the ridiculous column! I think the last time I used it was when Vickie Guerrero’s big send off involved Stephanie McMahon pushing her into some mud, so maybe the one thing I really don’t like on WWE TV is UNNECESSARY MESS.

The 1102nd edition is over…

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

I was going to give this show a much worse rating but looking back on the column I've put a respectable amount of stuff in the right. The whole episode had this stifling atmosphere about it though, as if WWE were convinced that no one was watching and thus the bare minimum effort was required. Listen, I'm from England, so I resent the idea of the United States of America as an independent country enough as it is, but if you're going to rub it in our faces every 4th July and use that as an excuse to spoil my professional wrestling shows, I'm going to have to use my position as new leader of the Conservative Party to advocate for a more mid 18th century approach to the special relationship. This was a flat Raw. Since only the most dedicated wrestling fans are watching Raw live when it clashes with special occasions like this, why not just cater to them? Why not stick Cesaro and Sami Zayn in the ring for half an hour? It would take an equally minimal amount of effort to book but would create a lot more satisfaction than this dreary outing.