BRM Reviews the 2/8/2021 Raw (bad)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 2/8/2021 Raw (bad)

Post by Big Red Machine » Feb 9th, '21, 17:37

We opened with a good video package for Drew vs. Sheamus. If only the storyline itself was this good.

OPENING SEGMENT- bad
Adam Pearce introduces Shane O’Mac, who immediately murders a metaphor by saying the Road to WrestleMania is about to cross a double-yellow line. For those in countries whose lines might work differently than ours here in the US, the double-yellow line is the one in MIDDLE of the road, and thus a road doesn’t cross it (there are no yellow lines in intersections).
The purpose of Shane coming back was so he could announce that Drew will be defending his title at Elimination Chamber, in the Elimination Chamber, against five former world champions: Randy Orton, Jeff Hardy, AJ Styles, The Miz, and Sheamus.
This is so dumb for so many reasons:
1. Yeah, they’re former world champions, but so what? What have you done me lately? None of these men other than Randy Orton have been the world champion in the past four years, and in two reigns during that time, Randy held the belt for a mere two months. AJ is the only one other than Orton who has been champ in the past five years. If we go back six years, we’re just adding a three-week reign by Sheamus. For Miz it has been almost ten years since he has been a world champion. For Jeff Hardy it has been even more than that (if we ignore TNA, of course, as WWE does). Being a “former world champion” on its own shouldn’t be enough to get you a title shot. (And do you remember all of those times when Shane was a sanctimonious dipsh*t and lectured the wrestlers on Smackdown about how “title opportunities need to be earned here in WWE?” I guess that’s out the window).
2. Why these guys but not Edge? We’ve had it teased before that someone could win the Rumble, then win one belt and still challenge for the other at Mania. Edge is a former world champion, so why isn’t he in this match? Or how about Christian? Didn’t he just return? And Big Show is on Raw, too, right? Why didn’t they get picked? Or Jinder Mahal for that matter? Or how about a guy who is on Raw and just made a big return at the Rumble: Braun Strowman? Or Kofi Kingston, who we know is cleared to wrestle because he wrestles later tonight?
3. I bet Sheamus feels silly now, huh? If he had waited a week, he could have had a title shot AND still been friends with Drew
And outside of kayfabe:
4. This horrendously cheapens Sheamus’ turn. He wanted a shot at the world title so badly he was willing to throw away fifteen years of friendship for it… and it turns out a title shot is something you don’t even have to do anything to earn.
5. You just turned Sheamus in what is supposed to be this big angle, and now you’re going to muddy it up by sticking four other challengers in there, too?
6. You just turned Sheamus and now you’re sticking him in a match where there is no way around him getting pinned? (We all know Drew isn’t losing the belt in a six-way. Either that, or they would be once again having him lose it just for the sake of having him win it back, which only cheapens the title.

AJ Styles showed up to insult people and say he wanted to wrestle, so Jeff Hardy also came out, and I guess that’s going to be our opener. The announcers seemed surprised by this, but Jeff was clearly ready and waiting, so I’m not sure if this match was already booked and no one told the announcers or advertised it (which is idiotic considering it’s two big stars facing off), or if AJ and Jeff just booked it on their own (which is also dumb because it shows that management is lazy and the announcers also went along with it without an official signal), but either way it’s f*cking dumb.
This whole segment was dumb. The booking was dumb, AJ’s dialogue made him look like a goof, the announcers looked dumb, Pearce looked bad for letting himself be bullied by AJ. This company is just so f*cking dumb. And it’s about to get worse.
A DUMB SEGMENT WITH DREW MCINTYRE & SHANE MCMAHON- terrible
After Jeff came out, we went to a commercial break. Both competitors and the referee (who we saw before the break) are in the ring and have been for a few minutes now, but instead of coming back to the match about to start, we come back to Shane McMahon walking to his limo because he’s about to leave. Months of absence, he comes back to randomly announce one match, and then leaves. Even if the McMahons are being hands-off owners (in kayfabe, obviously), Shane shouldn’t be leaving the show in the middle. You don’t see the owner of a sports team leave in the middle of a game. You’d think Shane would actually enjoy the WWE product enough to want to stick around and watch it live, but apparently not.
Anyway, as Shane is about to leave, he is approached by Drew McIntyre, who tells him that he “would have appreciated a little heads up” about the announcement. DUDE... he’s giving you almost two weeks. Wrestlers in WWE almost always wrestle on less than a week’s notice, and often on no notice at all, and when a heel complains about wrestling on no notice, that is portrayed as a BS excuse, so now we’ve made Drew look bad, too.
Drew says he was under the impression that the match at the PPV would just be him vs. Sheamus. Shane responds by telling Drew that “you can Sheamus can have your one-on-one match, but we needed something really, really big for the Elimination Chamber.” In other words, this Drew vs. Sheamus match that they just hot-shotted a turn to set up and is still clearly the direction they want to do go is not even big enough to headline a PPV.
Shane convinces Drew to be okay with everything by telling him that if he wants to prove himself as a fighting champion, he can do it by defending his title in the Elimination Chamber, as if Drew hasn’t spent the past year proving himself as a fighting champion, and Drew buys this because he apparently needs Shane’s approval to validate himself.

JEFF HARDY vs. AJ STYLES (w/Omos)- 6.75/10
Jeff’s music has supposedly been playing this whole time, despite there being ZERO fans there. The illusions WWE chooses to try to maintain and the illusions they choose not to are fascinating.
Fortunately he was cut off before he could finish speaking and I had an aneurysm, but Byron Saxton started to point out that AJ and Jeff just lost the Royal Rumble but are now getting a title shot anyway in a tone of voice that suggested that he was about to spin this as some sort of positive.
AJ worked over Jeff’s knee. Tom Phillips told us that Jeff has been dealing with this knee injury “for months,” but I have no memory of it ever being mentioned before. The match was very good. I probably would have given it a 7/10 if Jeff had done a better job of selling his leg while he was on offense.

MATT RIDDLE & KEITH LEE BACKSTAGE- bad
Riddle talked about getting high and watching Air Bud a lot. Lee ALMOST managed to make the terrible dialogue he was given sound decent. He suggests that he would make a better challenger for the US Title than Riddle. He’s not wrong.

SHEAMUS CONFRONTS ADAM PEARCE BACKSTAGE- good
He, too, is angry about the card change for Elimination Chamber. I was shocked that he flat-out asked Pearce “are you saying I’m not a draw?” Sheamus used his anger to cut what was actually a pretty great promo.

NEW DAY vs. RETRIBUTION (Slapjack & T-Bar) (w/Mace)- 5.75/10
Mustafa Ali was on commentary and yelled a lot. I’ve enjoyed his promos as the leader of Retribution, but hearing him for a sustained period of time on commentary was very grating. I feel bad for the guy because his performance is actually pretty great, but I just had no interest in hearing him shout the platitudes he was shouting. I think the real issue with both Ali and Sami Zayn is that I don’t trust WWE to do anything intelligent or even useful with their complaints. If you put them (and especially Ali) in a promotion that I had more faith in, I think I would really enjoy their characters.
New Day won clean, but I don’t see why we’re supposed to care because this feud has been going on for what feels like forever and hasn’t moved forward. After the match, Woods shouted that he wanted to face Reckoning, which was quite odd.

“FACE TO FACE CONFRONTATION” BETWEEN LACEY EVANS & CHARLOTTE FLAIR- mostly good
This was billed as a “confrontation” rather than a match, and yet both women came out in their gear. I can easily rationalize why they did (they were expecting things to turn physical, and thus showed up in their clothing designed for combat), but having the announcers explain this is one of those things that I think makes the show feel fake if you’re going to have people come out already in their gear and lo and behold the segment turns into an official match.
Ric cut a great promo explaining that he going to train Lacey to be a megastar because he wants to, so everyone should just deal with it. Lacey cut a good promo on Charlotte for treating her father poorly. Both of them insisted that their relationship was completely professional. Seeing these two interact and cut promos together has me very optimistic. This segment alone had me thinking that this run will be the best use WWE has made of Ric since he retired.
Charlotte came out and told Lacey “if you really wanted to learn, you would go to Orlando and work your ass off in the WWE Performance Center.” Didn’t she do that? In kayfabe, she is clearly a fully-trained wrestler and a PC graduate, so why is Charlotte saying that she has anything more to learn at the PC? Wouldn’t PC training for people who have already graduated mostly consist of consulting with legends to figure out how they can improve their game? And isn’t that what Lacey is doing here? Ric and Lacey were clearly heels, but Charlotte came off as petty, even though he has been the wronged party at every turn.
Ric and Lacey wanted them to be a team but Charlotte turned it down. Lacey claimed that WWE officials told Ric that if she beats Charlotte, she would earn a shot at Asuka. Charlotte was happy to fight, so Lacey started said fight, over Ric’s objections. She ran Charlotte into the stairs and told her that she accepted the match.

IF LACEY EVANS WINS, SHE EARNS A RAW WOMENS’T TITLE SHOT: Lacey Evans (w/Ric Flair) vs. Charlotte Flair- 4.5/10
The commentary here was ridiculous. First of all, based on the promo we saw, Ric doesn’t seem to be acting any differently than he normally would, so any accusations that Lacey is “influencing” or in some way corrupting him are complete and total speculation, and their baselessness makes them arguably sexist. Then there is Byron trying to tell me that Ric and Lacey are “trying to damage the career of Charlotte Flair.” I guess that’s true in a technical sense, but they’re not doing anything that we don’t see other heels do all the time. Tom was upset that Ric Flair was influencing WWE officials to get up the possibility of Lacey earning a title shot, but if- as we saw earlier- merely being a former world champion is enough to get you a title shot, then surely it’s not unreasonable to suggest that beating a former world champion should earn you a title shot, right?
Lacey worked over Charlotte’s arm that was injured when Lacey shoved her into the steps. The match was good at times, and not very good at others. The finish saw Charlotte snap and get DQed for not letting up in the corner after five. She also pushed a referee. Ric came over and pulled her off. She yelled at Ric and left. On the one hand, it’s not bad that Charlotte losing her temper results in Asuka having to defend her title if you’re eventually building towards Asuka vs. Charlotte, but on the other hand, this doesn’t do much to make Lacey feel like a credible challenger.

EDGE’S PROMO IS INTERRUPTED BY THE MIZ, JOHN MORRISON, & ANGEL GARZA- fine
Edge was good, Miz was meh. This did a passable job of building up the Elimination Chamber, and- most importantly- gave us a logical reason to stop these “will Edge announce his WrestleMania opponent tonight?!” segments (because he now doesn’t know who the Raw champion will be. Although I think it’s fair to say that he didn’t know who either of the champs would be at Mania when this started last week and we know they’ve all got to defend their titles at some point between now and then, so the whole thing is kind of stupid. If only WWE would learn that they can spend the time between the Rumble and the last pre-Mania PPV telling a different story with the Rumble winner instead of having him/her have repeated confrontations with the champion on every damn show).
Garza came out with Miz & Morrison because they befriended him backstage earlier because the next match is…

ANGEL GARZA (w/John Morrison & The Miz) vs. DAMIAN PRIEST (w/Bad Bunny)- 2/10
Priest won a short match. The people on the outside got involved.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS DREW MCINTYRE- Fine built for tonight’s main event.

CHARLY CARUSO’S INTERVIEW WITH BIANCA BELAIR IS INTERRUPTED BY ASUKA-- bad
Lacey getting a title shot at Asuka has been announced for Elimination Chamber.
Bianca tells us that it’s smart to not give away who she is challenging before she has to. That’s a fair point. Asuka interrupted Bianca to tell her that she wasn’t ready for Asuka. Despite this total dick move by Asuka, Bianca was polite to her and they both insisted that Lacey Evans wasn’t ready for Asuka.
This was one of those segments that WWE needs to learn 1) not to do (because happily reciting catchphrases makes everyone look like geeks) and 2) that they don’t have to do. They seem to feel like they HAVE to get the Royal Rumble winner on TV having confrontations with all of the champions, but they really don’t. WrestleMania is months away, and- as Edge pointed out earlier- the title can easily change hands between now and WrestleMania, so these confrontations really don’t have much value. They seem to exist to hammer home the idea that the champion can choose whichever champion they’d like, but that’s not something that needs several segments to hammer it home (and just because you can choose to challenge someone from a different show doesn’t mean that you should be able to go to other shows, so this is once again pooping on the brand split. On the rare occasion that you DO want to have someone challenge someone on a different show, it’s more effective if most of the build comes from promos going back and forth from Monday to Friday, with face-to-face confrontations limited to the PPVs, so that the WrestleMania match feels even bigger because these two are finally in the same place).

KEITH LEE vs. MATT RIDDLE- 7/10
MVP was on commentary for this match. Lee built Riddle clean, making a good case for himself as a #1 contender for the US Title by beating the current presumptive #1 contender.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
Lashley attacked both guys and took them out. Yes, this gets heat and yes they were tired from their match, but I thought it would have been better to really establish Lee as a contender by having him get the better of Lashley here, rather than having Lashley beat the crap out of him with weapons.

RANDY ORTON PROMO- great

TABLES MATCH: Nia Jax (w/Shayna Baszler) vs. Lana (w/Naomi)- 1.75/10
This was announced via graphic during the New Day vs. Retribution match, and when I saw it, I became amazed by how WWE has managed to simultaneously build towards this for months without actually building up the match itself. We know intellectually that Lana putting Nia through a table would be some revenge for months of Nia doing the same to her, but they have completely failed at the emotional component of this. Where is the fiery promo from Lana vowing to end this once and for all by humiliating Nia by putting Nia through a table, and then the promo by Nia laughing this off, and then the big go-home promo by Lana about how it doesn’t matter how big Nia is; she NEEDS to put Nia through this table and nothing will stop her.
You have Nia put Lana through a table in the Rumble for no reason, then you do the three promos I just listed as your next three weeks of TV, which takes us to Elimination Chamber where you do the tables match, and Lana wins (on one of the weeks when Lana is cutting a promo, Jax and Baszler defend their tag titles). After Elimination Chamber, you have Nia cut a promo where she is screaming and almost crying about the humiliation she has suffered at Lana’s hands and vowing revenge.
The week after Elimination Chamber you have Naomi & Lana pick up a win. Nia tries to attack Lana after wards and put her through a table but Lana escapes and winds up putting Nia through a table with Naomi’s help. The next week Nia attacks Lana when Lana is alone backstage and sets up a table but security shows up to try to stop her. Nia takes out the security, but this has bought Lana enough time to get free and Lana again puts Nia through a table. The next week Nia comes out and demands a tables match rematch with Lana (so that security won’t be able to save Lana like they did last week). Lana will come out and say that she’ll agree to a tables match if it’s a tag match and the titles are on the line. Nia will agree. The next week we get our go-home promos and the babyfaces win at Fast Lane when Lana again puts Nia through a table. The next night on TV we get a rematch in a regular match where Nia tries to splash Lana through the announcers’ table but misses, resulting in her losing by count-out. Baszler blames Nia for the loss and you build to those two at Mania (with Baszler winning to start rebuilding her) while you find some heel team for Naomi & Lana to defend against (maybe Billie Kay & whoever she winds up with, to justify that storyline’s existence).
That’s two months of basic pro wrestling booking that it took me ten minutes to think up (and you don’t even have to break Nia and Baszler up if you don’t want to). Why can a team full of professionals not do the simple job of building up a gimmick match that they had to have known was in the plans for months?

As for the actual match, it just more of Nia beating the sh*t out of Lana until Lana got a semi-fluky win at the end, pushing Nia through a table that was already set up on the boards while Nia was recovering from a missing a leg drop on the apron.
And they couldn’t even let the win sink in, as we had to have Baszler attack during the celebration and get taken down by Naomi so it’s not even Lana whose music is playing at the end.

We went to a commercial and of course had to come back with…
SHAYNA BASZLER vs. NAOMI (w/Lana)- 1.5/10
Yeah. Lana’s “big” win was just an angle to set up a meaningless match between Naomi and Baszler.
Despite taking not much of a bump through the table, we were told that Nia was taken away to be looked at by the medical staff.
These two did some good stuff in the beginning, but the finish was HORRENDOUS. Baszler beats the crap out of Naomi, then distracts herself beating up Lana. This gave Naomi time to recover and roll her up when she headed back to the ring. To recap: 1) Lana gets beaten up yet again, 2) Naomi is a loser because if Baszler hadn’t distracted herself with a non-threat, she would have lost, 3) Shayna is an idiot because she had the match won and then gave it up to go beat Lana up for no reason.

It was announced that Lashley will defend his title against both Lee and Riddle in a three-way at Elimination Chamber.

RANDY ORTON vs. DREW MCINTYRE- 6.75/10
They were having a good little main event until Sheamus ran in for a f*cking DQ. He came out to distract Drew early on, so at least they let you know there was going to be a f*ck finish before you got too invested in things. I’d love to see the minute-by-minutes to see how many people tuned out the moment they saw a third party getting involved.
Sheamus attacked Orton because… umm… he wanted Drew to lose this totally meaningless match? Then Drew laid Sheamus out with the Claymore, so Drew gets to stand tall at the end, which accomplishes absolutely nothing.


Another Raw with another f*ck finish in the main event. In the ring, this was actually a better show than we usually get, but all I’m going to remember about it was the sh*t booking and the f*ck finish in the main event because if you don’ make the undercard matches feel important, I’m not going to remember them unless they’re spectacularly good (they weren’t) or you do something that really pisses me off (which a lot of these did with their terrible booking).
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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XIV
Posts: 1802
Joined: Aug 19th, '13, 11:38

Re: BRM Reviews the 2/8/2021 Raw (bad)

Post by XIV » Feb 9th, '21, 23:45

In the UK that Double Yellow lines doesn’t work, because those are on the outside of our “Main Street” roads indicating where you cannot park.

But “crossing” those lines is impossible and therefore does not work here either.
Have A Nice Day!

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