Leave your comments here for tonight’s edition of REWIND-A-RAW.
What did you think of WWE Raw?
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0 voters
Jesse from the 6
Let’s look at how Vince McMahon is building to his biggest show of the year.
He had the good fortune for Becky Lynch to come out of nowhere to become the hottest character in wrestling while also having Ronda Rousey signed to his roster. So what does he do? He books a 3-way, which is the wrong decision, but not one wholly without merit. However, he books it in such a way to include arrests, suspensions, and title “abdications”, such that it is completely convoluted. Now we have two SmackDown wrestlers competing for the Raw Women’s Title for no reason.
Then there’s Dave Bautista, a big star with a great online presence who is genuinely likable. So, of course, Big Dave’s the heel to the preternatural heel Triple H, who is the face.
Kevin Owens, last seen as a Raw heel, shows up on SamckDown! as a baby face, in the heel role of taking the actual babyface, Kofi Kingston’s title shot, against the heel Daniel Bryan, who a year ago was the most sympathetic babyface the company ever had. Great.
Then he calls up the four hottest starts in NXT to help his terrible show. But in doing so, he disrupts a carefully told and subtle story by throwing the heel champion and his tweener nemesis together as babyface tag team. He also made a team out of the guy who does flippy shit and the satanist who is now a blue collar worker, for some reason.
But Vince only called them up because of the colossal fuck-up that was the last batch of NXT call-ups, of whom, one is now a mute, two others lost their last names because Vince has some sort of sick complex with names, and Lacey Evans, for whom he is so bereft of ideas that she just walks around and . . . that’s it.
And don’t forget Vince’s big wet son, Shane, who he’ll have to shoehorn in there.
Then there’s the whole Dean Ambrose thing. Honestly, the turn back to face is the right decision at this point. Let’s just forget the whole truly disturbing mess that was his heel run. A run so bad that it made Ambrose want to quit the company.
Now that Vince’s pet project of Roman Reigns is finally a beloved babyface (thanks to leukemia, of all things) I half expect Vince to finally turn him heel. In five months, Reigns will be cutting promos on the crowd saying that while he was in his hospital bed recovering from treatment all he could think about was how bad the audience smells and how much the local sports team sucks.
Take Care
P.S. Apologies for the length of this post but I had to get this off my chest.
Sean from Toronto
I was prepared to shrug off this episode and its SNL backstage comedy, but I do have to say that I dug the closing angle and the apparent Ronda heel turn, which I guess was inevitable at this point. However, I never want to hear the phrase “screw the woo” ever again.
1 Like
Alex from Maple
Decent show overall.
Loved the HHH promo - not looking forward to a match with two old guys but the promo was good.
Bad match with Tamina and Banks.
Shield stuff was well done although it seems rushed.
The Ronda/Becky/CHarlotte stuff I am mixed on. It seems cold - not a good crowd reaction to the triple threat an Becky doesn’t seem as hot. Having ROnda come out and basically say she’s done being a fake wrestler and can really beat these girls in real life was odd. Ronda always sounds rambling and talks fast.
Stephane’s interview at the end was awkward. She sounded a bit lost.
WHy couldn’t they have done something simple like have Becky storm the contract signing for Wresltmania and sign her name on it like Michaels did for Wresltemanai XX instead of this none sense which seems to have cooled Becky off
1 Like
Chris from Queensland, Australia.
So let’s talk the main event, on less then 3 hours notice not only is the WWE Raw Women’s Championship vacated by Ronnie, but then Steph just hands it back to her when she shows up late to work by two and a half hours! Were told all night it’s “Charlotte Vs Becky” at Fastlane for the WWE Raw Women’s Championship, only to be changed to a screwy qualifier for Becky at Mania. Then during Ronnies beat down the referees don’t enter the ring to stop her.
Of all the options to make it a 3-way this was the laziest and most confusing. I thought Becky would run-in either at Fastlane during a match or the Raw after during the contract signing between Ronnie and Charlotte, thus forcing Ronnie to demand they add Becky into the Mania match or she’ll leave with WWE Raw Women’s Champion.
I guess in all of the confusion that was the WCW Nirto booking of the closing segment the Championship by association of being vacated then handed back to the former champion seems less meaningful then before, and less of an achievement should Becky or Charlotte win it from Ronnie at Mania.
TWO “Did they re-hire Vince Russo for the closing segment” out of TEN!
Jay from Colorado
After what seemed to be a promising turn for Raw last week, we again take two steps back. Its not that anything on paper was bad, but they just keep failing at the execution miserably.
Not sure if you guys noticed the same, but the audience really seemed checked out during the Triple H promo. They just didn’t seem to care.
And what’s going on with the women’s title match? Holy hell I can’t keep up with any of this.
I’m old enough to remember when they said “You are the authority” a few months back, but they keep making these decisions despite what the audience seems to want.
Fastlane is this Sunday, I have a colonoscopy on Friday. I’m looking forward to the colonoscopy way more. At least I get to be heavily drugged for that.
2 Likes
Andrew from Cape Breton
For the past few weeks, Jim Cornette on his podcast has reviewed some WWE programming. While there were great details on numerous issues, the one major issue that stuck out was that the current product wasn’t good for a new or lapsed fan trying to get into the product. He doesn’t watch modern wrestling, so he would go under the lapsed fan, so I decided to watch the show tonight with that in mind. Tonight, it took about 50 minutes to identify the announcers, the backstage interviewer wasn’t identified until the very end of the program by her first name of Charly, and numerous talents weren’t identified, such as the Riott Squad members and all of the tag teams in that backstage segment earlier. Who was that man spraying water on himself while looking in a mirror? Who was that tall man asking for pictures with the SNL guys? Why was that man dancing with people? He had a group of people chanting Jose, No Way. What did Jose do, and why are they chanting No Way at him? Sarah Logan’s name was mentioned, but wasn’t personally identified. The tag teams in the gauntlet eventually got names, but no lower thirds and only after they were in the ring. They did a decent job explaining some key angles, like the Shield, Hunter and Batista and the main event angle, but I don’t remember much details on why Dean Ambrose would have turned on Rollins and Reigns.
To people on this message board and who follow wrestling, these might not be big issues, but imagine a fan tuning in tonight for the first time in a long time or ever. The highlight of the show however, and one I think would resonate with new fans was the closing angle. Ronda has always been hateable and they explained issues with Becky Lynch, but I don’t know if they went into details as to why Charlotte is involved in all of this. I just thought it was interesting trying to look at the show in a different light. 5 jobber entrances out of 10.
4 Likes
Omri in Mexico,
I want to talk about the “women’s evolution”:
There were essentially three women’s segments tonight, two matches and the main event.
I didn’t time it but I’m pretty sure the two matches didn’t last more than six minutes put together, and Becky looked like a total geek, smiling and accepting a match while injured to MAYBE get a chance at Wrestlemania instead of still being upset about the fact that her winning the rumble match means nothing.
Oh and also Torrie Wilson is going into the hall of fame, where the WWE couldn’t show me even one reason she is worthy in that video package. They basically said that she was a model and that’s it.
Unrelated but Renee saying Dean is going to greener pastures might have been the single greatest pieces of commentary in the past few years
5 EC3 statues in front of a mirror out of 10
MJ Wai Ting for you in NYC
Loved the Batista promo straight from the school of Jericho
I oddly enjoyed the awkward ending with Steph killing time to go off the air. If there was a Raw next week and no ppv in between that is a useful way to sell tuning in next week and wrapping up the episode.
Not inspired by the Shield Reunion one bit. Didn’t do it for me. Feels like we are right back to same ol Roman and his lackies. Kills Rollins big Mo
Such a stupid, tiny detail, but I always enjoy that in this weird wrestling world with shortened names and some fairly shitty names, Dave still calls trips Hunter. His own wife calls him Triple H…
It’s the only reason H using naitch’s real name didn’t make me groan.
80% of hunter’s promo was great, could’ve done without the Reid mention, cest la vie.
Enjoyed that the crowd popped huge for the shield reunion.
Roman and Seth cleanly resolving Roman’s potential claim to the throne was refreshing, no unnecessary wrestling logic behind those quick few minutes.
Had to leave the house before the tag title match, hope it was better than the wrestling that preceded it, and hope Becky and Charlotte delivered…
I’m also a HUGE SNL fan and will apologize on behalf of Che and Jost from tonight until Mania. At some point Che will make fun of himself and throw massive shade at the shitty type of Wrestling Fans, make more fun of Jost and it’ll all be worth it… We can hope
For the 3 quarters I watched, 6/10 show. hope the rest is worth going back to the pvr.
Roger out of Athens, Georgia
Raw really gave me a headache tonight, and mainly due to the Raw Women’s Championship storyline. First off, how come Stephanie is suddenly allowed to reinstate Becky after it was her father that overrode her and Triple H and suspended Lynch in the first place? Furthermore, now that Becky’s suspension is suddenly lifted, why does that negate her Royal Rumble win? To further hurt my head, they announce this match between “Char” and “Becks” for the title, but since “Ronnie” demanded her title back, Steph just says okay and gives it to her? What? The bright side, I guess, was Ronda’s heel turn promo, although she needs to slow things down just a bit when she speaks, but at least she’s showing a lot of passion. I also found it kind of interesting that they featured Ronda during one of the Captain Marvel promos, when she herself once campaigned to play the character. My last complaint is the constant zooming in and shaking of the camera during beatdowns. They really made me nauseous at the end of Raw, and I actually had to turn away. I know enough people have complained about this, including Edge on his podcast who actually said it gives him motion sickness, so I don’t understand why WWE continues to do it.
3 “No More Mrs. Nice Bitches” out of 10.
1 Like
Jalen from Pickering,
Fair to say they’ve bungled up this women’s title program over the past week. If Stephanie is able to reinstate an injured Becky Lynch, then why not remove Charlotte, since those were both her dad’s call? But instead we’re getting the Rumble winner fighting for her opportunity at Fastlane, while a SmackDown star is guaranteed for the Mania match. It’s so nonsensical they should just throw Asuka in and unify those titles.
Hopefully the third reuniting of a faction made of guys that haven’t even been on tv for 7 years isn’t at Rollins’ expense like the previous one. But depending on where this goes, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rollins main events just for the closing shot of all 3.
I watched the final 30 minutes of the show to see how they’d end the show this week after last weeks enjoyable finish. This was so awkward and definitely seemed unintentionally rushed. Ronda was saying a lot, good and bad but she talks so fast, that before I could process everything she just said, she turned on the crowd and did the heel turn. It’s all about delivery and this was shit. This is like the old timers telling the high flyers to slow down and let the crowd react…that’s what this needed.
I feel like after she cut the promo on Stephanie and Charlotte she could’ve let the crowd cheer a bit, shake her head in approval and then give that nasty face and just say “yeah you cheer me now but where was this at the Staples Center. You people don’t know what you want and I want nothing to do with any of you.” Go partial Daniel Bryan on them or something. This feud went from flowing naturally to just feeling like an over produced WWE main event. Meaningless suspensions have come and gone already with really no “come-up-ins” (?!) Ronda supposedly vacated the title so now the winner at Fastlane will receive the title, then it changes when Ronda shows up, she is given her title back and now Charlotte doesn’t care that it’s not for the title now on Sunday and back to a #1 contenders match? Stephs a mom of three girls…and if this is how she parents in real life, I see why Hunter is on the road with NXT, what a mess.
1 Like
I enjoy the ‘gorilla spots’ but the 30 second promo for aliester black was odd …kinda ruins the entrance.
Trying to follow who was the women’s champion was tough tonight.
Overall they need to do better with all this talent. Like its mania season…
I thought that Rene had the line of the night with ‘why are there cameras in the locker room, that’s just creepy!’
I really think next year, just announce that from the Rumble until the draft, while they’re needing to set everything up at mania, just don’t have brands. People have the ability to show up wherever they need them, doesn’t mean they have to, just give them the option without it looking as dumb as Charlotte & Becky on Raw have been.