wrestling / Columns

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

October 1, 2016 | Posted by Jack Stevenson
Mick Foley Image Credit: WWE
6
The 411 Rating
Community Grade
12345678910
Your Grade
Loading...
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.


 photo New-Raw-Logo_zps845786a1.jpg

Raw 9.26.16:
US Title Match: Champion Roman Reigns vs. Rusev went to a double countout @ 25:40
Raw Tag Team Title Match: Champions New Day defeated Anderson and Gallows @ 11:03 via pin
– Bayley defeated Anna Fields @ 2:04 via pin
– Cedric Alexander and Rich Swann defeated Lince Dorado and Drew Gulak @ 8:25 via pin
– Sheamus and Cesaro defeated Jimmy & Johnny BootsNtights @ 3:33 via pin
Non-Title Match: Cruiserweight Champion TJ Perkins defeated Tony Nese @ 8:50 via pin
– Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens defeated Enzo and Cass @ 16:37 via pin

THE Right:
Cedric Alexander & Rich Swann vs. Drew Gulak & Lince Dorado: I liked this one a little bit more than Perkins/Nese later in the night, since it was a bit more mad and head drop-y. Of course, it was afflicted by the same wider problems that the entire Cruiserweight division faces, but I’ll get to those later in the column. For now, this was a nice tag match which went a sprightly eight minutes and was pretty much all action all the way. Bonus points to Alexander for his terrific, mangling Lumbar Check on Lince Dorado, and to Drew Gulak for being DREW GULAK on MONDAY NIGHT RAW! YAHOO!

Sheamus & Cesaro vs. Two Human Males: Ignoring the rather ludicrous route we had to take to get to this point (I say ‘ignoring,’ later in the column I’ll dwell on it for a good while), Sheamus and Cesaro should very much make for a great team. There was great promise here, as they got to show off their skills and try to one up each other against a couple of hapless dweebs. It was fun to watch them just run through some crash test dummies, and it promises a lot for their future together. Maybe the New Day won’t quite become the longest reigning tag team champions ever…

The Highlight Reel w/ Kevin Owens: It goes without saying that Jericho and Owens have such fantastic chemistry together, they’re both so witty and silly and entertaining and have such a visible love of what they do, and as such any segment where they get the time and freedom to just riff off one another and add depth to their odd best of friends/enemies relationship is going to be such fun to watch! Add Enzo and Cass to the mix, who came out towards the end of the segment to trade barbs with JeriKev and set up the main event tag match, and you’ve got a simple recipe for a good time. Seth Rollins also appeared at one point, riled up by Owens’ jibes at his expense, but security prevented him from getting any sort of revenge. The steady transition to fan favourite continues for Seth, and it’s a role he inhabits much more naturally than a rule-breaker. Lots to enjoy about this segment!

Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens vs. Enzo & Cass: A fine, energetic main event. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, the usual tag formula leading to a hot near fall sequence, but it did the job nicely. Enzo Amore may be far from the most polished in ring performer, but he launches into absolutely everything he does with such commitment and manic energy that it’s impossible not to be charmed by his style. That said, it’s also impossible not to laugh when Owens mocks his little apron walk. As much as it feels like Enzo & Cass are floundering a little lately, it was important that the champ won this one and won it convincingly, and that’s precisely what he did, An enjoyable main event, fairly light and easy to watch.

puRgatoRy:
Roman Reigns vs. Rusev: This was the very first thing to happen on Raw, which meant that for once, there was no tediously formulaic in ring dueling promo to kick off the episode. It’s remarkable how such a small change can be so refreshing, and Reigns and Rusev more or less delivered on the opportunity they were given. The match was far too long (25 minutes! Jesus!) and the finish under whelming, but there was enough action to justify its existence. I still think these two have a genuinely fantastic match in them and they still appear to have a little bit of time left to deliver it.

The New Day vs. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows: In what appears to be the blow off for their rivalry, The New Day’s dominance of the tag division continued as they saw off the strongest threat to their belts in quite some time. The most exciting moment of the match was, without meaning to sound like a total ghoul, Kofi Kingston inadvertently getting busted wiiiiiiide open. It’s an unfortunate fact of wrestling that blood leads to tension and drama, and it added a little something to the final moments of the match, in which he fought through the pain to crack Anderson with Trouble in Paradise and keep the belts in the New Day’s corner. It seemed slightly odd that Anderson and Gallows were split from AJ Styles in the draft, since they’d been so tied up with him from the minute they walked through the door. Now they’ve been comprehensively beaten in this rivalry with the New Day, it appears an even stranger decision. What’s their purpose now? Where do they go from here? They’re a deeply unconvincing pair of badasses at the moment.

Bayley vs. Anna Fields: A quick, simple squash match for Bayley to get her back on track after her defeat at Clash of Champions. It’s nice to see these kind of matches being used simply to re-establish certain wrestlers, rather than add lustre to some new, terrifying goliath figure. Fields probably got too much offense in overall as WWE continue to overegg the Bayley underdog pudding, but the idea was right, and all that people will remember in the end was that Bayley won.

Charlotte’s and Sasha, together forever: I understand why the focus has remained so resolutely on Charlotte and Sasha over the past couple of months, but their rivalry is beyond exhausted. They need to pull the trigger on Sasha winning the title, for good this time (injuries permitting) and then have everyone move on. It might not seem like it from the booking patterns of the last couple of months, but there are good wrestlers in the women’s division aside from the Four Horsewomen; Emma, for example, would be a worth a shot in a more prominent position. On the whole, this was one of their better segments in a while; you got a real sense of two strong personalities clashing, and both women delivered their lines with much more confidence than they’ve shown in the past at time. It still felt a bit like they could have got their point across in a fraction of the time allotted though, and ultimately the rivalry has outworn its welcome. Let’s just have a great match at Hell in a Cell, and then move on.

TJ Perkins vs. Tony Nese: So, the Cruiserweight Division. Both of its matches this wee were decent affairs, hence placing this in purgatory even though I’m going to do a lot of fretting about the general state of things, and indeed Perkins vs. Nese might have been the best match on the whole show this week (although on your average episode of Raw you’ll usually see at least one superior bout bell to bell). At the moment, the Cruiserweight Division really shines in its overall presentation, which has been cribbed from the Classic. The ropes are purple and the ring mat is different and even though they’re small details, they’re still very refreshing in the midst of a three hour show that often feels like a six hour show. Even the tiniest alterations to the norm can make a noticeable difference. Unfortunately, both Perkins and Nese are really let down by the fact that they’ve just been crammed onto the main roster with minimal explanation to fans who didn’t follow the Classic as to precisely who they are and why they’re here. A few weeks of video packages and mini promos would have helped clarify their backstories and given more casual followers a reason to invest in them, but instead their very athletic and technically sound match was wrestled to a backdrop of silence, occasionally interspersed with a chant of “Harambe,” in honour of that fucking gorilla. It’s deeply odd that the likes of Neville and Kalisto aren’t doing all that much on the roster at the moment but don’t seem to be wanted in the division; they could add a welcome boost of star power, and becoming big fish in a relatively small pond would be a big boost for both of them. Taken as a whole, it just feels like the return of the Cruiserweight division hasn’t entirely been thought through.

THE wRong:
Sheamus vs. Cesaro: There Mustn’t Be a Winner: So after weeks and weeks of matches, the Sheamus-Cesaro Best of 7 series ended IN A DRAW. NOBODY WINS. Essentially, it was all a set up to get the two burly Europeans into an odd couple tag team, and in one respect, that’s great. Sheamus and Cesaro should make for a fantastic tandem and we got six excellent matches between them leading up to it. What’s there to complain about? Well, as much as the positive aspects of their rivalry are worth appreciating, the overarching booking of their feud has been so cheap and contrived. It’s unbelievably irritating to invest in a series of matches that are supposed to provide a clear, definitive winner, and then not get one at all, just to trigger a storyline that could also have been started in a million different ways. Have Stephanie McMahon force them to team up or something. It would have got the point across just as well, and it wouldn’t have required seven ultimately meaningless matches to get there. This is an example of WWE getting too cute with their booking and wasting a good deal of TV time as a result. Of course, Sheamus and Cesaro will be great together, but the genesis of their tag team shouldn’t have been one big long bait and switch.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

The 1114th edition is over…

 photo komania_zpsxq6ddmd9.gif

LOVE IT!

6.0
The final score: review Average
The 411
Considering they were completely outmatched by Monday Night Football and especially the first Presidential Debate, it wouldn't have been surprising if WWE had thoroughly half arsed this episode of Raw. Happily there was some effort and positive thinking put into it, but it still wasn't a wonderful show. It didn't help that the crowd were pretty dead all evening, but then, they weren't given much to get excited about. Having said that, there were some reasonably bright spots, a couple of decent Cruiserweight matches, a nice pair of segments with Jericho and Owens and Enzo and Cass, and there was very little actively bad. It was all just a bit lifeless.
legend

article topics :

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