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Wrestling’s 4Rs: The Right, Wrong and Ridiculous of WWE Raw
Loading...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 8.15.16:
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
– Sami Zayn defeated Sheamus @ 10:20 via pin
– Non-Title Match: Champions New Day defeated The Dudleyz @ 1:38 via pin – Nia Jax defeated Rachel Leavy @ 1:02 via pin
– Big Cass defeated Kevin Owens @ 6:00 via DQ
– The Shining Stars defeated The Prime Time Players @ 2:45 via pin
– Neville defeated Jinder Mahal @ 2:54 via pin
– Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson defeated The Golden Truth @ 2:16 via pin
– Charlotte defeated Alicia Fox @ 1:28 via pin
– Non-Title Match: Roman Reigns defeated US Champion Rusev @ 25:57 via pin
THE Right:
Lesnar vs. Slater: The Epic Encounter: When Heath Slater is an integral part of the best segment of the whole show, you know it’s not been a great episode of Raw. I don’t mean that as a knock on Heath, who is a consistently funny comedy loser, but comedy losers shouldn’t really be the highlight of three hours programming. Still, watching Slater call out Brock and talk smack to him as if they were remotely on the same level was really great, and his eventual annihilation was the most satisfying bit of Brock ultraviolence there’s been in ages. Once he’d been taken out, Paul Heyman wrapped things up with his usual solid, quirky promo hyping the Orton/Lesnar match at Summerslam, which could be great or awful or mediocre, it’s genuinely hard to say. This was a rare segment where WWE pulled off comedy well, using it to accentuate the strengths of two different characters and approach the Orton/Lesnar build from a different angle. Hopefully Heath Slater is not forgotten, and gets appropriately rewarded for all the hard work he’s put in to get his character over since the draft.
puRgatoRy:
Rusev and Lana throw a strop: Rusev and Lana have a strop: This wasn’t bad, as far as formulaic opening promos go. Rusev was in a hideous mood because Roman Reigns crashed his wedding celebration last week, and, you know, he had a point. He lashed out at Mick Foley for allowing this to happen and even giving Reigns a title shot, and then Reigns turned up to suggest Rusev and Lana would have ugly babies? Huh? As I specifically mentioned last week, Rusev and Lana are going to have utterly magnificent babies. Can you imagine a human being that combines Lana’s good looks with Rusev’s rugged charm and bear like strength? They’d be absolutely unstoppable. They could easily become World God Emperor. Anyway, after Reigns had finished spouting his clearly inaccurate bullshit, Foley made a non title match for the main event, which Stephanie McMahon wasn’t best pleased with. Parts of this worked well; Rusev is fantastic in these sort of segments, and I liked Stephanie defending Mick from Rusev’s criticisms; it really feels like they’re trying something different with two sets of authority figures broadly getting along, despite the odd bit of tension here and there. On the whole it was too much of a standard opening promo to be truly impressive though, and the match it set up was a weird one…
Sami Zayn vs. Sheamus: This could have been much better considering the talent involved, but they had to work in an impassive atmosphere and that really hurt the middle portion of the match especially. They worked hard and built to some good near falls however; it excites me that we’re probably going to get a PPV match between these two at some point, because they’ve got it in them to tear the house down. The finish was odd, Cesaro distracting Sheamus so quintessential babyface Zayn could pick up a tainted victory. The Cesaro-Sheamus feud is continuing just because it can, but hey, they have terrific chemistry together in the ring so I will not complain.
The New Day vs. The Dudley Boyz: A match with two purposes, both of which it served adequately. PURPOSE UNO: To give the New Day a victory before Summerslam. PURPOSE ZWEI: To increase the dissension in the Dudley Boyz. D-Von accidentally hit Bubba while the veterans were in control, and from there the match slipped through their fingers. The Bully Ray run that Bubba has been nakedly desperate for for years seems to be on its way, and it could be a good shift in direction for him.
Big Cass vs. Kevin Owens: This was an OK bout, but was just a means to an end for the angle surrounding it. Chris Jericho attacked Enzo Amore on the floor, and then JeriKO (or JeriKev, which isn’t a pun but I just think sounds better) mashed Big Cass into the mat. Nothing you’ll remember in, ooh, a day’s time, but a fine little angle to keep the Enzo & Cass/Jericho & Owens feud in the spotlight heading into what should be an entertaining Summerslam tag match. Bonus points to Enzo and Cass for lighting up the dull crowd with their pre match promo. They really are a talented pair.
The Golden Truth vs. Gallows & Anderson: Happily, the Golden Truth weren’t dicking about playing Pokemon this week, instead putting up a respectable fight against Gallows & Anderson. Goldust’s snappy hot tag was a reminder of how desperately he needs to be doing something that actually makes use of his 2010s career renaissance. As it was, Luke and Karl weathered the storm and polished him off with the Magic Killer for the comfortable victory. Post match saw the New Day get a bit of revenge on their rivals, almost squishing Anderson’s nether regions with Francesca. This might indicate that Gallows and Anderson win the titles at Summerslam, which I wouldn’t be opposed to at all; The New Day’s reign has been flagging for a couple of months now.
Charlotte vs. Alicia Fox: Charlotte seemed to be tiring of having Dana Brooke as her back-up this week, warning her that she could win the Women’s Championship back on her own, and would contemplate replacing Dana after she did. Charlotte went on to polish the consistently underutilised Alicia Fox off in 90 seconds, before challenging Sasha Banks to come to the ring. When the champion obliged, Dana Brooke pounced and wore down her knee, before Charlotte slapped on the Figure Eight. This was pretty basic stuff, but it got the job done; the otherwise dead crowd actually seemed somewhat upset at the sight of Sasha getting ambushed, and this was the best use of the limited Dana Brooke in a good couple of weeks. Not a remarkable enough segment to go in the right, but a decent effort all the same.
THE wRong:
The Prime Time Players vs. The Shining Stars: Having been at each other’s throats for the past couple of weeks, Titus O’Neil and Darren Young teased reuniting this time out, clearly so thrilled by the idea of wrestling the Shining Stars that they were willing to put their grievances beside them. It’s a pity, because O’Neil and Young’s ceiling is as a lightly comedic tag team together, and there might have been some value in some silly skits with them and Bob Backlund, but predictably the reunion fell apart within minutes. Young accidentally crashed into O’Neil, and Titus responded with Clash of the Titus to gift the Shining Stars the win. I don’t think anyone benefited from this, really.
Enter the Demon: I mentioned last week about the risks involved in taking Finn Balor and Seth Rollins and building a feud between them based mostly on live in ring promos. This week, the last before Summerslam, was the first time it really didn’t seem a great idea, as Rollins took to the ring and embarked on this long and boring promo about how ‘the Demon King’ doesn’t scare him. Seth’s ability on the microphone has improved considerably since coming to WWE but he’s still not at a point where there’s anything exciting about the idea of him talking. This was all leading up to Finn Balor debuting the Demon entrance, a decision that I can imagine sounded pretty cool on paper. Six nights before Summerslam, show off this really cool facet of his character, get everyone buzzing ahead of the big title match. Unfortunately, in practice it misfired a bit, as the crowd were just so quiet all night and aside from a pavlovian round of “this is awesome!” chanting, didn’t seem all that impressed. As such, the whole entrance fell flat. It’s so disappointing that the Demon entrance didn’t get the reaction it deserved, and it essentially made the whole segment a complete waste of time. Very disappointing.
Roman Reigns vs. Rusev: I’m not sure what the logic was behind booking Roman Reigns and Rusev in a full length singles match on Raw, just six days before they were meant to face off at Summerslam. I mean, the Raw match was non title and Summerslam will see the U.S. Championship defended, but the main draw of Roman Reigns vs. Rusev was very much Roman Reigns vs. Rusev, and not the possibility of a second tier title change. If the match had turned out to be so kick arse fantastic that everyone simply had to see it again at the weekend, I suppose it would have been a worthwhile gamble. Unfortunately, this match went for 25 minutes and felt even longer. The final stages were great, exactly the sort of full throttle shitkicking you’d expect from these guys, but there was absolutely no justification for taking so long to get there. On top of all that, Reigns beat Rusev clean as a whistle with the Superman Punch, which heavily implies that the result on Sunday will be different. So, to sum up, this was far too long and did nothing to build excitement for Summerslam. You can’t say it worked on any level, really.
THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING
GLORIOUS!
