The Raw Re-Write 12.14.2015

Welcome to the Raw Re-Write, with Daniel Wilcox.

For far too long now, Raw has been creatively stale and a chore to get through. The problems are many, and the majority of them have been discussed at length. That isn’t the aim of this new weekly feature. Instead, I will look at Raw each week and break down the subtle creative changes that could have been made to make the show better. The idea isn’t to completely change the product or fantasy book something drastically different, but to find more intriguing and entertaining ways of getting to WWE Creative’s desired ends.

Stephanie McMahon Calls Out Roman Reigns

The opening talking segments have long been a controversial topic when it comes to Monday Night Raw, but this was absolutely the right way to go. What was great about this is that, instead of going over what we already know, this got straight to the point. We’re coming off an incredibly hot angle to close TLC, so let’s capitalize on that, especially when you know you’re going to be in front of rabid crowd like Philly, who ate this up. This was short, to the point, and dropped the massive bombshell that Vince McMahon was on his way, setting up things for later in the show. An on-point opening segment. While we’re here, let’s mention the controversial topic of Stephanie McMahon “emasculating” the male performers on the show. Here, it worked. The crowd was hot and reacted huge to the slaps, which were vicious. And it was justified, because Stephanie should be pissed off about her husband getting his ass kicked. People argue that, because of the company’s policy of no male on female violence, there can be no comeuppance, but that’s what makes it such a dick heel move and that’s why Stephanie is so universally despised. Similarly, it worked at WrestleMania with The Rock because Ronda Rousey was there to take care of business. I can go along with the argument that verbally tearing down performers on a near-weekly basis can get frustrating but in this scenario, it was perfect. I know there’s a whole other debate about whether you should allow any intergender physicality, but that’s a can of worms I don’t particularly want to open right now; it’s a whole other article in its own right.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Dean Ambrose

the first thing I thought here was that this is at least the third time that Ziggler has been involved in the opening Raw match in a row, against Breeze, Owens and now Ambrose. When it becomes noticeable that guys are being used in the same slots week after week, the show comes off as paint-by-numbers and predictable. It’s a minor complaint for now, but just something I’ve noticed since starting the Raw Re-Write. Anyway, the match was good, both guys were over with the crowd and we made Ambrose title victory the night before seem important. The Kevin Owens interruption was great; he sold being upset about losing his title and kicked all sorts of ass. His backstage segment after this sold the whole thing well, and it looks as though we’re getting a three-way feud for the title, which is fine because it’s three good workers who are over. So far, we’re 2 for 2 for good segments.

R-Truth vs. Bo Dallas Vince McMahon kicks Roman Reigns in the Tater Tots Prunes Balls

So Vince shows up, and cancels a match in progress and calls out Reigns. On the one hand, the mid-match thing was completely unnecessary and helped no one. On the other hand, it’s R Truth and Bo Dallas, so nobody cared anyway and at least it put over that Vince was furious and ready to set things straight. Again, you’re selling the angle from last night. We then got the verbal back-and-forth with McMahon, Reigns and then Sheamus, who wanted to impress his Authority friends and Vince. It was all fine, Reigns goaded Vince into the match and then got kicked in the balls. Other than the low blow itself looking incredibly soft, this was perfectly acceptable and again, set up a hot angle for later in the show.

The League of Nations vs. Ryback and Jack Swagger

This was a paint-by-numbers tag match, sensibly merging two singles feuds into a tag match and furthering the League of Nations angle. For me personally, I’m not currently invested in any of the guys here, although your mileage will vary on that. The match was fine, the new heel stable got a relatively clean win over two guys who don’t really need to be protected right now, so again, no issues here. That’s 4 for 4 in terms of logical and well-booked segments. Perhaps I can now retire this column?

Neville vs. Tyler Breeze w/ The Miz on Commentary

This was more angle than match, as we focused more on what The Miz was going at ringside than the action in the ring. Miz is an annoying dick heel usually but no one is yet to buy-in to this angle. Tyler Breeze took a loss, and yeah, there’s people already pissed about his main roster status, but not everyone that comes up from NXT is going to be a main event guy, or beating John Cena on their first night. If Breeze’s ceiling is a jobber to the stars, that’s fine. It’s little more than a one-dimensional gimmick anyway, and let’s not pretend he was much more than an enhancement talent on NXT. The difference was that creative made the audience care about him in NXT, even though they knew he’d lose much more than he’d win. Anyway, we got some quasi-pay-off to the Miz/Neville thing post-match because Miz wants an authentic accent to play the next James Bond. Firstly, that’s awful. This could have been kept to Main Event if that’s as far as this goes. Secondly, I think we’re far more likely to get an American James Bond than a Geordie James Bond.

Team ECW vs. The Wyatt Family

This was an Extreme Rules match, and a rematch from TLC. They showed a promo earlier in the night featuring Team ECW. It was really old school and really well delivered. Of course, we were in Philly so the crowd was hot as hell for this. The match itself was wonderful, something completely different from the stuff we’d typically see on Raw. Sure, it was a PG version of an ECW clusterfuck, but these guys took some great bumps and got the crowd involved. The right team went over once again, and this was a fun pay-off (presumably) to in an inoffensive short-term angle. This is the way you use part-time talent. Bring them in for a short angle to put over the new guys.

New Day Doesn’t Feel Like Partying

This was great. The New Day sold the beating all six guys took in the Ladder Match at TLC, invited their opponents out and looked to sincerely applaud them for their efforts and apologize for their cheatery. I whole-heartedly approve of tag teams getting more promo time in-ring, rather than just trading wins back and forth and such. The Usos and Dragons were sceptical but eventually took the olive branch, before The New Day put the spotlight back on themselves in a wonderful dick move. They then got beat down. This was glorious. If there’s one issue here, it’s running this angle in front of a Philly crowd, because you had to know the Usos and Dragons would get booed for putting the beating on the champs. I don’t believe this was a case of faces acting like heels here, as some have argued, because the New Day were assholes and put themselves over in tremendous heel fashion.

Charlotte and Becky Lynch vs. Brie Bella and Alicia Fox

Like the Neville/Breeze match earlier, this was more about the angle than the match. On this instance, it was much better executed. Flair helps an unknowing Becky pick up the win for her team. You get the feeling we’re heading to Charlotte vs. Becky, and because there’s six weeks to the Royal Rumble where the match will likely take place, we don’t need to rush things. A few weeks of this before Becky realises what’s been happening and then we get the big blow-out between the two. My only issue here is the lack of Paige, or rather the lack of explanation for the lack of Paige. She was pissed that she was robbed at Survivor Series, but gets blatantly screwed at TLC and doesn’t say a word. Just have Cole say she’s at home recovering from the turnbuckle spot and we’re done.

WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns

A few elephants in the room that need addressing; the lack of Barrett, and the lack of Usos/Ambrose both last night and tonight. Again, it’s not necessarily that they’re not there, but that we’re given no reasoning for them not being there. In the case of Barrett, who was supposedly injured but has since return to action, just say he’s nursing a minor injury, or on PR duty. It takes five seconds of commentary time. As for Roman’s Family not helping out either at TLC or tonight when the League got involved, just do a quick backstage segment where they offer to come to the ring with him, but he tells them it’s a battle he has to fight on his own, because he’s an all-conquering face bad ass hero guy. My bigger issue is that Stephanie McMahon should have been ringside with her father. She was drawing nuclear heat at the start of the show and would have done so here as well. Her selling distress as Reigns knocks out her father could have been glorious. All that stuff aside, I don’t think there was anything else I would change here. And I think that’s justified by the Philly crowd and its reaction to Reigns second title win. The key issue here is follow up.

Final Thoughts: A mammoth improvement on recent week’s show. The show-long angle involving Stephanie, Roman, Sheamus and Vince is what this show will be remembered for, and quite rightly. WWE has followed up a hot close to a pay-per-view with an even hotter close to Monday Night Raw that also leaves us with lots of questions heading into the coming weeks. Next week should be interesting, as viewers should be back down because of the holiday period, but we’ve also got the Slammys, where something big usually happens, and the follow up to Reigns’ win. Outside of the Roman Reigns stuff, there was nothing actively bad here – we put some focus on some title feuds and featured a great hardcore plunder match in front of a fanatical crowd. So unless you’re offending at Bo Dallas’ screen time being cut short, it’s hard to find much fault with the show.

Thanks for reading.

Daniel Wilcox is a lifelong fanatic of music, movies and professional wrestling and a writing enthusiast, both critically and creatively. Having contributed to 411Mania since 2006, Daniel is thankful for the platform 411 provides and for every reader who takes the time to indulge his opinions.

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