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

July 16, 2016 | Posted by Jack Stevenson
WWE Vince McMahon Stephanie Image Credit: WWE
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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 7.11.16:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
#1 Contender’s Battle Royal For a Shot at The IC Title: Darren Young @ 13:15
– Sheamus defeated Zack Ryder @ 2:18 via pin
– FaBreeze defeated The Lucha Dragons @ 4:30 via pin
– Kevin Owens defeated Cesaro @ 12:22 via pin
– Titus O’Neil defeated Heath Slater @ 3:05 via pin
– Enzo and Cass defeated Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson @ 10:45 via pin
– Sash Banks defeated Dana Brooke @ 12:02 via submission

THE Right:
The Rollins Report: This was a promo of two halves. The first, which saw Seth Rollins splice together old interview footage of Roman Reigns to make it look like he was saying embarrassing things about his suspension, was reasonably entertaining but nothing we haven’t seen a thousand times. Rollins then cut a fired up promo about the Battleground main event in which he seemed so darn motivated to pull out the victory that you couldn’t help but get behind him a little bit. It’s really frustrating that Seth is stuck in a heel role that often leads to him being a whiny coward, because he’s so, so much more effective as an underdog fan favourite who takes no shit. Ultimately, Dean Ambrose came out and responded with an even better promo, the best one he’s cut possibly ever in WWE, in which he branded himself the king of the company and the last man standing when everyone else pisses off to do MMA or drugs or whatever. It just had so much heart and passion and conviction to it, you really felt like Dean sees the world as if it’s, as a pal of his might say, one versus all. It is perhaps a concern for Roman Reigns that his Shield brethren are getting all the more likeable while he sits unpaid on the sidelines, but this was a week where Dean and Seth seemed to make a proper play to be the guys to build the main event scene around, at least for a while. Two strong promos, back to back!

Cesaro vs. Kevin Owens: Predictably, this was the best match on the show, and had an utterly delightful finish where Kevin Owens won with a kind of Inverted F-5 of sorts. Maybe this is a new finisher being debuted, but if it isn’t, kudos to them for mixing up the formula for a change, it’s good to plant the idea in people’s heads that you don’t need to hit three finishers to win a match. This was good fun from start to finish, and while Cesaro suffered a clean defeat he still took the opportunity to look impressive, pulling off his dazzling springboard European uppercut and then unleashing a barrage of them while wearing JBL’s cowboy hat. Outside the ring he might still be a little uninspiring on the microphone, but inside the ropes Cesaro’s immense physical charisma and utter adoration of professional wrestling is almost palpable. I’m not sure these two even have the most natural chemistry with one another, but it’s impossible for them to underwhelm.

puRgatoRy:
Battle Royal for an Intercontinental Championship shot: The good news is that this match was the very first thing to happen on this week’s Raw- no interminable twenty minute promo or anything. I am in favour of anything that messes with the weary old format, and was pleased we got a change here. The bad news is that change took the form of a Battle Royal, and Battle Royals are shit. They reduce everyone involved to characters in a 1980s wrestling video game where the console only has enough power to allow for four moves, three of which are ‘punch,’ ‘kick,’ and ‘special punch.’ I would be quite happy if there was never another battle royal again. The good news is at least this one had an interesting winner in Darren Young. He fluked a victory when Apollo Crews and Baron Corbin eliminated each other simultaneously, which is such a spectacularly stupid way to hand someone their highest profile win in years that I assume it’s going to be part of an ongoing angle where Young keeps winning in bizarre ways and Bob Backlund tries to pretend it was all part of some marvellous scheme. The Miz was on commentary and was really funny, particularly with a vicious jibe at the expense of John Morrison. The bad news is, that’s not enough to lift this segment as a whole out of purgatory.

The New Day Invade the Wyatt’s Compound: It’s a pity this was such a blatant attempt to siphon good will away from Final Deletion, because in its own right this was quite good fun, and definitely something different to your standard Monday Night Raw fare. It was shot in a cool and sinister kind of way, the New Day seemed legitimately scared, the Wyatts seemed legitimately scary, and their brawl had plenty of intensity as a result. Xavier Woods was kidnapped early on but made a dramatic return to save his stable mates right at the death, which was a nice moment for him after trying to warn Kofi and Big E about how dangerous the Wyatts could be over the last couple of weeks. This wasn’t bad at all and if had taken place another week I might be even more enthusiastic about it, but it’s impossible not to compare it to Final Deletion, and it largely lacked the gleeful sense of mischief, the surreal sense of humor, and the sheer batshit insanity that Broken Matt and Brother Nero poured into their magnum opus. Thus, it takes a dive into purgatory, but I’d be enthusiastic about more ambitious segments in different settings popping up on Raw semi regularly.

Enzo & Cass vs. The Club: This served its purpose, albeit in a not super exciting way. Enzo and Cass cut their usual promo on the Club pre match, full of witty barbs and general silliness, but when the bell rung it was Anderson and Gallows in control. AJ’s henchmen have not taken to WWE with quite the same ease that the man himself has; I don’t remember a match yet this year where I’ve been really interesting in what either Karl or Luke were doing, and nothing changed in this one. Happily, Cass livened things up by coming in off the hot tag, and once AJ interfered to cause the DQ, John Cena hit the ring to even the odds and help his new pals clear the ring. All of this got a super response so maybe the crowd were more engaged by the Club’s heat segment than I was. For me, the whole thing levels out in purgatory.

THE wRong:
Sheamus vs. Zack Ryder: By his own (admittedly not very high) standards, 2016 has been a really good year for Zack Ryder. He won the Intercontinental Championship Ladder match at WrestleMania in a genuinely heartening moment, and while he dropped the belt the very next night on Raw, he was able to parlay his brief return to the spotlight into some sporadic appearances on Raw and Smackdown, albeit with a win/loss record of, erm, 0-11. But then last week, he secured victory for Team USA in an oversized tag match against Team Rest of the World, and followed it up with a win against Sheamus on Smackdown! He’s also been irritating Rusev a bit, and will get a United States Championship match as a result. It seems like WWE envisage Ryder as a plucky underdog, always coming second but putting up a valiant effort in doing so. That’s all well and good, but there’s a fine line between ‘plucky underdog’ and ‘incompetent dweeb,’ and Ryder is still being booked a little too much like the latter. This week, Ryder officially challenged Rusev to a U.S. Championship match, and was then promptly attacked from behind by Sheamus. They had a match, which Sheamus… won clean… and then Rusev came out and beat up Ryder some more and accepted his challenge. Zack looked out of his depth and ineffective, being pummeled around by these bullying Europeans and then fluking a title shot, which he will surely lose. I wish WWE could just make up their minds with Ryder- is he going to be a legitimate midcard presence, or just a warm body for Superstars? Either would be fine, but the stop start booking of him is just disappointing.

Sasha Banks vs. Dana Brooke: This was basically a complete fucking disaster, and made me a bit concerned about the future of the women’s division. Dana Brooke is still noticeably inexperienced and so sticking her in the ring for over ten minutes was an, erm, interesting decision, one that was never likely to bring good results. What was really troubling was how incapable Sasha seemed of bringing anything out of her- for someone who ordinarily exudes such confidence, who seems to possess an entirely merited belief in her own abilities, she looked lost at times here, unable to string moves together in a vaguely coherent fashion, executing a couple of them quite badly. It makes me wonder if a major problem with Banks and the other feted women of WWE is that they can’t put together quality matches without having lots of time to plan them out. It’s notable that comfortably the best main roster women’s match of the last few years, the superb Charlotte-Becky-Sasha Triple Threat at WrestleMania, was one which everyone involved would have been aware of for weeks and had lots of time to plot meticulously. When tasked with putting together ten minutes with Dana Brooke, presumably with much less notice, Sasha didn’t seem to know what to do. It’s something that needs to be ironed out, because the Women’s Division can’t blossom if it’s being dragged down by matches like this, which didn’t work on any level.

You’ll Never Stop the McMahons: So for the last few weeks, Shane and Stephanie McMahon have been running Raw together and everything has been more or less the same as it always was. Unfortunately, the main event segment on this Raw was built around the daft idea that the siblings have some profound philosophical difference on how the show should be run, the implication being that Shane’s the nice guy who just wants to use his magic healing hands to fix all of Daniel Bryan’s neck and concussion issues, then bring him back to the ring and make him World Champion, while Stephanie McMahon wants to create a Frankenstein’s monster with the body of John Cena, the hair of Roman Reigns, and the insufferable sense of self-worth of Triple H, and have him reign over the company for ever more. We got some sibling bitching back and forth, and then it was decided that come the brand split, Stephanie will run Raw and Shane will take Smackdown, and they’ll both have to appoint general managers as well, so we get four more authority figures than necessary across the two brands. Super. This didn’t work as a dramatic ending to the show because we could all guess that Shane and Stephanie would get a brand apiece after the split, and it bodes badly for the future direction of both of those shows that McMahon children will be such an integral part of their identity. Not a ton of positives from this.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 1103rd edition is over…

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4.5
The final score: review Poor
The 411
A pretty poor Raw livened up considerably by an excellent Dean Ambrose promo and a good Cesaro-Kevin Owens match. Otherwise, there was not a lot interesting going on, and some segments, like Sasha Banks vs. Dana Brooke and the confirmation of McMahons on both Raw and Smackoown, seem to bode badly for the weeks ahead. Your average episode of Raw should not make you disenchanted about the future. This one did.
legend

article topics :

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