First things first, a huge thank you to my friend and colleague Adam O Brien (follow him on Twitter and check out his Under The Spotlight series) for designing the new Raw Revisited logo for me. New year, more professional logo and all that!
Anyway, Raw was good this week for a number of reasons:
- No Triple H/Stephanie
- Daniel Bryan
- No Triple H/Stephanie
- Daniel Bryan
- NO TRIPLE H/STEPHANIE
I can’t emphasise these points enough because for the 2nd week in a row, Triple H and Stephanie were nowhere to be found and it was glorious. And Daniel Bryan’s back where he belongs. I’ll talk about why that’s great a little later, but then I’ll get sad because there was some bad news that came out this morning which deflated me a little bit, especially given the reaction that the end of Raw gave me, the fans and the crowd.
MLEHP
Raw opened this week with Daniel Bryan (still in Wyatt mode) teaming with Bray Wyatt to take on the Usos. The crowd reaction validated what most people thought – it doesn’t matter what you do to him, the crowds won’t stop cheering him, supporting him and they won’t conform to what that rotting corpse Vince McMahon wants them to do!
Of course, the match ended by DQ, which led to something even more awesome later in the show!
Grade: C (Nothing much happened here, just a setup for what was to come!)
John Cena: Redemption Stealing Prick
Here comes Cena, not even bothering to focus on his opponent at the Royal Rumble. Instead, he’s busy devaluing Damien Sandow again, because that’s what he does now – he comes along just to make things worse for someone who’s already on the way down.
I can’t talk about this too much without getting very angry, but there was one positive to this match – Sandow managed to get some decent offense in before falling to Cena.
Grade: F (What was the point of this?)
Big Show Be’s A Star
I don’t think that anyone cares about Big Show anymore. He’s in his mid 40’s, can’t really go in the ring like he used to and Brock Lesnar is wasted on him.
Why not just let Lesnar go on a tear in the Rumble and have him be in the final four before he’s eliminated by Punk – thereby giving Punk retribution for losing to him at SummerSlam. But what do I know? I’m just a 20+ year fan of wrestling that writes about it on the internet. Maybe if I were a soap opera writer I’d have better luck!
Grade: F (Come on guys, what is up with the matches tonight)
CONSISTENCY WINS! CONSISTENCY WINS!
Last week, I complained about the fact that the New Age Outlaws were helping Punk when they’re part of Triple H’s former group – D-Generation X – and are still his friends both in and out of kayfabe.
This week, I was rewarded for moaning when the Outlaws left Punk high and dry in a 6-man tag match, leaving him to be pummelled by The Shield. It was good because we now know that they weren’t just throwing them out there for a cheap pop last week. It gives us a bit of consistency and forward momentum towards the obvious Punk/HHH program at WrestleMania!
Roman Reigns got the pin on Punk after a spear again, further cementing himself as the “man” of the Shield.
Grade: C (Good match, good storytelling, and CONSISTENCY)
Naomi vs AJ Lee – Book It
If you ignore that stupid airhead Cameron and the embarassment to the Snukas that is Tamina, then you have the makings of a great Divas Championship feud!
WWE seem intent on shoving the Total Divas down our throats on Raw to promote their vapid and fake-as-shit show, so if that’s going to continue, then at least highlight the actual wrestlers on the show. Naomi and Brie Bella would be the only two I would pick. I know lots of people like Nattie, but I hate her so much that it actually hurts me!
WHAT THE HELL?!
What happened here? Was this a mistake? Did Orton not kick out in time? Because there’s absolutely no reason that a midcard scrub like Kofi Kingston – who hasn’t been booked favourably in years – should score an upset over the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. God that’s a mouthful!
What does it accomplish, other than making the champ look like a chump 2 weeks before his first title defense as unified champion. If he beats Cena at the Rumble, then this loss won’t be an issue. But if Cena wins, I’ve got to wonder what Orton did (other than his perceived bad attitude) to get brought down like this.
Grade: E (Weird booking again)
Is Ryback Leaving Or Not?
Over the weekend, Ryback went on a bit of a drunken/crazy rant on Twitter about a number of things – including how fat Paul Heyman is, how Tensai sandbagged him, and how he might quit. It was weird, stupid and most importantly, unprofessional!
I thought that there was no way he would be featured on Raw this week after that, but here he was – teaming with Curtis Axel to take on the tag champs.
I can’t fathom why they’d continue to use him. Vince can’t have that much of a hard-on for a guy who can’t control his opinions on Twitter to almost Kurt Angle-level proportions and who’s been continually named as someone who is unsafe to work with!
Please send him to TNA so I (and most people) don’t have to see him anymore!
ULTIMATE WARRRRRRRRIIIOOOORRRRRR!
This is great news. In 2014, it’s almost a sin that Warrior isn’t already in the Hall of Fame, but it’s good that Vince and Warrior could overcome their differences, rebuild the bridge and get to this point.
If this leads to Warrior potentially making a small comeback and having a match against someone like Punk, even better because the dude is jacked as hell and in great shape!
How Raw Should ALWAYS End!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t remember a Raw ending with that level of crowd reaction since the early 2000’s?
It was such a feeling of elation and awesomeness that I have watched it on repeat several times. I’m 100% certain that this wasn’t meant to happen for another few weeks (at least), but the reactions from the crowd have led to HHH/Vince pulling the plug on it and it was brought forward to this week.
If this leads to Daniel Bryan either winning the Rumble or being elevated into the title scene again, then great. Obviously we’ll need to wrap up the Bray/Bryan feud at the Royal Rumble, but after that, all bets are off.
And I defy you to point out a better moment than this in the last decade:
And Now, The Bad News!
This morning (Wednesday), I opened the dirt sheets and Twitter as I normally do to check out the latest news, SmackDown spoilers etc, and I saw something that completely deflated me – Daniel Bryan apparently suffered a concussion during the steel cage match on Raw.
It was unconfirmed when I first read it, but after doing some digging, it was officially confirmed by the WWE to a number of sites. There’s still no word on the severity of the concussion, but Bryan can’t remember the majority of the main-event on Raw, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Let’s all cross our fingers and hope that it’s not too serious and that he’ll be back in 2 weeks, because Bryan had a star-making moment on Monday night (even though he’s had over 75,000 of them already).
***If you want to hear more about how Raw went this week, then tune in to the latest episode from our new partners, MFX Podcast, which goes live on the site tomorrow night***
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