BRM Reviews the 12/28/2015 Raw
Posted: Dec 29th, '15, 03:38
OPENING SEGMENT- a hollow echo of something amazing we saw almost two years ago.
Vince comes out to the ring wearing a really ugly tie. He calls out Roman Reigns, so Roman shows up. Vince says that Roman is a terrible person for attacking Hunter and for the terrible crime of turning his back to Steph after she told him to leave. Vince gives the whole “I own everything” speech.Daniel BryanRoman Reigns tells StephanieVince McMahon that the fans are the ones who really have the power. The fans chant for Daniel Bryan Roman Reigns… wait. No. They actually did chant for Daniel Bryan instead of Roman.
Roman says he’s not afraid of Vince’s threats. Vince brings up Afa and Sika and says “I’d like to remind you that you’re just one generation away from a bone through your nose.” My first instinct was to call this out as being racist. Then a little voice in my head said “well… Vince is accurately describing the Wild Samoans’ characters.” And then a louder voice shouted at me “and who was it that put those characters on his TV?!” Yeah. This was racist (and yes, I am aware they used the gimmick before their time in the WWF, but Vince could have changed the gimmick when they came in to work for him in 83, but he chose not to).
Mr. McMahon, the evil promoter, claimed to have exploited the Wild Samoans and gotten rich off of them, etc. etc. Roman gave him a light shove and Vince sold it like his neck was hurt. No one believed him. Steph came out and made it clear this was all a plot because she immediately pointed out that Roman had put his hands on a 70 year old man and called for security to arrest Roman. Meanwhile, Steph has still not been arrested for her much more vicious and much less provoked assault on Tom Phillips last week, which WWE was kind enough to recap for us at the beginning of this show.
Security refuses to do as Steph asks, declaring that they are not her personal enforcers. Silly Steph. You should have taken a page out of Heyman’s book and hired the Bashams. Steph yelled at the security guy, so he told her that if she didn’t stop yelling at him, he would arrest her instead. ON WHAT GROUNDS?! Vince tried to calm Steph down but wound up yelling at security as well and they threated to take him to jail, too. Vince grabbed the security guy, so the cops rushed the ring and arrested Vince.
Roman was smart enough to stick the mic in the guy’s face while he read Vince his Miranda. So Vince is going to jail and Steph has been put in her place. Hip! Hip! Hooray! Three cheers for the hero of our story: Mr. nameless security guy.
At the end of the segment, Roman stood there, smug, like he had actually done something. This all blew chunks. They tried to do both Occupy Raw and “Steph gets arrested,” but with no build and no real heat and Roman isn’t over anywhere near the level Daniel Bryan was, so it didn’t work at all.
As the announcers recapped this segment, the crowd very loudly chanted for Kevin Owens, who was in the during this recap, but WWE production quickly turned down the sound on the crowd so Cole could talk.
KEVIN OWENS vs. NEVILLE- no rating.
If this whole deal results in Neville getting added to the IC Title feud, this was a good segment. If it doesn’t, then this was a top contender for an important title and a guy who should be protected being jobbed out for no reason, and not in a way that helps Neville either because he won with a flash pin and got his ass kicked afterwards. And this went on for a while. You’d think some of those security guys we just saw would maybe come out and break this up or something, but apparently not.
We come back after the commercial and we saw the refs helping Neville to the back. That was good because it sold the beating in a way we don’t normally see. Then Owens came back out and beat Neville up some more. This was bad because at this point it just felt redundant. Dean Ambrose finally came out to make the save. Where was he five minutes ago?
CLIPS OF JOHN CENA ON THE TODAY SHOW- is there anyone who watches Raw that gives even a single sh*t that John Cena was on The Today Show?
THE ROCK WILL BE AT WRESTLEMANIA- see the news thread for my thoughts on this.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WOMEN’S MATCH FROM SMACKDOWN- the women are all wearing silly Christmas themed costumes in order to help us take them more seriously as athletes.
JOJO INTERVIEWS BECKY LYNCH- Becky was awesome.
Apparently Charlotte, the champ, has just decided to take a day off of work in order to let Becky prove that she can win by herself. Sure. Why not.
We’re getting Becky vs. Sasha tonight… and they’ve f*cked this all up so much that I’m not even excited for it.
TEAM B.A.D. PROMO- good heel stuff. Tamina was not allowed to talk because… well… we’ve seen her try before and it’s usually kind of disaster.
Okay… after those promos, I’m a little bit excited for this match…
BECKY LYNCH vs. SASHA BANKS (w/Naomi & Tamina)- 7/10
Sasha the consummate heel, replies to chants of “NXT!” by dismissively saying “I’m on the main roster now, okay?”
So this was great! They told a great story with B.A.D.’s interference getting in Becky’s way, and I loved the finishing sequence. This got fifteen minutes. Is there maybe some hope for 2016?
They showed us a goofy mugshot of Vince.
RENEE YOUNG REPORTS LIVE FROM THE SCENE- poor Renee has to stand outside in the blistering cold for this stupid angle.
SMACKDOWN ON SYFY COMMERCIAL- OMFG they are actually showing in-ring action!
NEW DAY PROMO- a horrid waste of time.
KOFI KINGSTON (w/the New Day) vs. KALISTO (w/Sin Cara)- 5.75/10
Great for the time it got. Tons of cool athletic stuff. I’d love to see these two get more time. After the match, Xavier cut a promo which led to…
SIN CARA (w/Kalisto) vs. BIG E. (w/the New Day)- 5.5/10
Wow. That landing on the outside looked like it hurt like a motherf*cker.
Kalisto needs to drop the “LU-CHA!” chant. It comes across as too desperate. Like he is begging for cheers.
MIZ & RYBACK SEGMENT-
Ryback very rudely interrupts Miz TV and says that “the WWE Universe doesn’t care about the past,” which explains why so many people show up to the Hall of Fame every year. He also dares to claim that Miz looks stupid when he is the one wearing that ridiculous “Feed Me More” necklace.
Then Goldust showed up to remind us that it would have made sense for him to appear least weak during the awards show. Goldust showed up to be Goldust-y while talking about the possibility of Miz winning real acting awards in 2016. Then Zack Ryder reminded us all he existed by showing up and getting a HUGE home-town pop. Then Truth showed up to talk about Superstar of the Year voting, which ended last week, because this passes for humor in WWE. Then Heath Slater, whose existence I had forgotten even more than I had forgotten Ryder’s, showed up. The only ways this can possibly turn out good are:
1) Kane shows up and chokeslams them all
2) Daniel Bryan shows up and chokeslams them all
3) This is all some sort of clever trap that Miz laid for Ryback, and all of the others are going to turn on him, beat him up, and rip off their shirts to reveal that they are the newly reborn j.o.b. Squad.
Instead, we got Big Show showing up and killing everyone. BOOO! I want Kane (or Bryan)!
Big Show decides he wants to be entrant #1 in the Royal Rumble so that he can win the Rumble and win the world title at WreslteMania. Um… so why would he want to be #1?
BIG SHOW vs. RYBACK- DUD!
They wrestle for a bit, then Big Show walks out. If you’re going to do a finish like this that doesn’t even lead to anything, then it’s better to just not book the match at all.
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS vs. DEAN AMBROSE & THE USOS- 6.75/10
Owens attacked Dean after the match. Roman Reigns was nowhere to be found while his best friend was being brutalized. Some friend he is (then again, Dean deserves it for not helping Roman when the League of Nations attacked him at during the main event at TLC).
VINCE HAS POSTED BAIL AND IGNORES THE MEDIA- so poor Renee had to stand out in the cold all of this time for nothing. Vince wouldn’t even give an interview to his own reporter.
JOHN CENA PROMO- he says it’s bad that Del Rio won’t put the US Title on the line. Cena does deserve a rematch, but I’m sure that what will happen tonight is that Cena will cleanly defeat Del Rio tonight to get his win back, and yet Cena will still never get his rematch because he will move on to his WrestleMania feud.
Del Rio comes out and says he doesn’t want to put the title on the line. Cena then called Del Rio a “punk b*tch.” I certainly wasn’t expecting that. Del Rio agreed to give Cena a title match.
When we got back from commercial, instead of the match we were promised, we got a tribute to the recently-deceased Lemmy. I’m not saying Lemmy doesn’t deserve it. I’m saying that this was the wrong place to put it in the show.
WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Alberto Del Rio(c) vs. John Cena- 6.5/10
Stuff happens. Del Rio works the arm. Ref bump. Del Rio taps but there’s no ref. League of Nations interfere but Cena kicks out anyway. Cena takes out the League. Now Del Rio gets screwed because the ref was out again even though he didn’t get bumped a second time. Cena hits he AA… and there’s the DQ we all knew would happen once this was made into a title match. Cena gets Brogue Kicked after the match. The Usos come out to make the save. No sign of Roman, which is even more ridiculous when you realize that the Usos (Jey in particular) are still injured from their earlier match, while all Roman has done tonight is be smug.
Ah. Here comes Roman, late as always. Roman Superman Punches Sheamus’ chair, then takes the chair and hits Sheamus.
VINCE SHOWS UP- he announces that Roman will defend the title against Sheamus next week with Vince as the Special Guest Referee, meaning we are guaranteed a f*ck finish in the main event next week. What a great way to start off the year!
And speaking of the new year, the showed ended with Vince repeatedly saying “Happy New Year!” as if he wasn’t satisfied with his first take and just kept saying the phrase over and over until he got it right.
A MUCH better Raw than we have been getting all year long, but nothing particularly great, either.
Vince comes out to the ring wearing a really ugly tie. He calls out Roman Reigns, so Roman shows up. Vince says that Roman is a terrible person for attacking Hunter and for the terrible crime of turning his back to Steph after she told him to leave. Vince gives the whole “I own everything” speech.
Roman says he’s not afraid of Vince’s threats. Vince brings up Afa and Sika and says “I’d like to remind you that you’re just one generation away from a bone through your nose.” My first instinct was to call this out as being racist. Then a little voice in my head said “well… Vince is accurately describing the Wild Samoans’ characters.” And then a louder voice shouted at me “and who was it that put those characters on his TV?!” Yeah. This was racist (and yes, I am aware they used the gimmick before their time in the WWF, but Vince could have changed the gimmick when they came in to work for him in 83, but he chose not to).
Mr. McMahon, the evil promoter, claimed to have exploited the Wild Samoans and gotten rich off of them, etc. etc. Roman gave him a light shove and Vince sold it like his neck was hurt. No one believed him. Steph came out and made it clear this was all a plot because she immediately pointed out that Roman had put his hands on a 70 year old man and called for security to arrest Roman. Meanwhile, Steph has still not been arrested for her much more vicious and much less provoked assault on Tom Phillips last week, which WWE was kind enough to recap for us at the beginning of this show.
Security refuses to do as Steph asks, declaring that they are not her personal enforcers. Silly Steph. You should have taken a page out of Heyman’s book and hired the Bashams. Steph yelled at the security guy, so he told her that if she didn’t stop yelling at him, he would arrest her instead. ON WHAT GROUNDS?! Vince tried to calm Steph down but wound up yelling at security as well and they threated to take him to jail, too. Vince grabbed the security guy, so the cops rushed the ring and arrested Vince.
Roman was smart enough to stick the mic in the guy’s face while he read Vince his Miranda. So Vince is going to jail and Steph has been put in her place. Hip! Hip! Hooray! Three cheers for the hero of our story: Mr. nameless security guy.
At the end of the segment, Roman stood there, smug, like he had actually done something. This all blew chunks. They tried to do both Occupy Raw and “Steph gets arrested,” but with no build and no real heat and Roman isn’t over anywhere near the level Daniel Bryan was, so it didn’t work at all.
As the announcers recapped this segment, the crowd very loudly chanted for Kevin Owens, who was in the during this recap, but WWE production quickly turned down the sound on the crowd so Cole could talk.
KEVIN OWENS vs. NEVILLE- no rating.
If this whole deal results in Neville getting added to the IC Title feud, this was a good segment. If it doesn’t, then this was a top contender for an important title and a guy who should be protected being jobbed out for no reason, and not in a way that helps Neville either because he won with a flash pin and got his ass kicked afterwards. And this went on for a while. You’d think some of those security guys we just saw would maybe come out and break this up or something, but apparently not.
We come back after the commercial and we saw the refs helping Neville to the back. That was good because it sold the beating in a way we don’t normally see. Then Owens came back out and beat Neville up some more. This was bad because at this point it just felt redundant. Dean Ambrose finally came out to make the save. Where was he five minutes ago?
CLIPS OF JOHN CENA ON THE TODAY SHOW- is there anyone who watches Raw that gives even a single sh*t that John Cena was on The Today Show?
THE ROCK WILL BE AT WRESTLEMANIA- see the news thread for my thoughts on this.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WOMEN’S MATCH FROM SMACKDOWN- the women are all wearing silly Christmas themed costumes in order to help us take them more seriously as athletes.
JOJO INTERVIEWS BECKY LYNCH- Becky was awesome.
Apparently Charlotte, the champ, has just decided to take a day off of work in order to let Becky prove that she can win by herself. Sure. Why not.
We’re getting Becky vs. Sasha tonight… and they’ve f*cked this all up so much that I’m not even excited for it.
TEAM B.A.D. PROMO- good heel stuff. Tamina was not allowed to talk because… well… we’ve seen her try before and it’s usually kind of disaster.
Okay… after those promos, I’m a little bit excited for this match…
BECKY LYNCH vs. SASHA BANKS (w/Naomi & Tamina)- 7/10
Sasha the consummate heel, replies to chants of “NXT!” by dismissively saying “I’m on the main roster now, okay?”
So this was great! They told a great story with B.A.D.’s interference getting in Becky’s way, and I loved the finishing sequence. This got fifteen minutes. Is there maybe some hope for 2016?
They showed us a goofy mugshot of Vince.
RENEE YOUNG REPORTS LIVE FROM THE SCENE- poor Renee has to stand outside in the blistering cold for this stupid angle.
SMACKDOWN ON SYFY COMMERCIAL- OMFG they are actually showing in-ring action!
NEW DAY PROMO- a horrid waste of time.
KOFI KINGSTON (w/the New Day) vs. KALISTO (w/Sin Cara)- 5.75/10
Great for the time it got. Tons of cool athletic stuff. I’d love to see these two get more time. After the match, Xavier cut a promo which led to…
SIN CARA (w/Kalisto) vs. BIG E. (w/the New Day)- 5.5/10
Wow. That landing on the outside looked like it hurt like a motherf*cker.
Kalisto needs to drop the “LU-CHA!” chant. It comes across as too desperate. Like he is begging for cheers.
MIZ & RYBACK SEGMENT-
Ryback very rudely interrupts Miz TV and says that “the WWE Universe doesn’t care about the past,” which explains why so many people show up to the Hall of Fame every year. He also dares to claim that Miz looks stupid when he is the one wearing that ridiculous “Feed Me More” necklace.
Then Goldust showed up to remind us that it would have made sense for him to appear least weak during the awards show. Goldust showed up to be Goldust-y while talking about the possibility of Miz winning real acting awards in 2016. Then Zack Ryder reminded us all he existed by showing up and getting a HUGE home-town pop. Then Truth showed up to talk about Superstar of the Year voting, which ended last week, because this passes for humor in WWE. Then Heath Slater, whose existence I had forgotten even more than I had forgotten Ryder’s, showed up. The only ways this can possibly turn out good are:
1) Kane shows up and chokeslams them all
2) Daniel Bryan shows up and chokeslams them all
3) This is all some sort of clever trap that Miz laid for Ryback, and all of the others are going to turn on him, beat him up, and rip off their shirts to reveal that they are the newly reborn j.o.b. Squad.
Instead, we got Big Show showing up and killing everyone. BOOO! I want Kane (or Bryan)!
Big Show decides he wants to be entrant #1 in the Royal Rumble so that he can win the Rumble and win the world title at WreslteMania. Um… so why would he want to be #1?
BIG SHOW vs. RYBACK- DUD!
They wrestle for a bit, then Big Show walks out. If you’re going to do a finish like this that doesn’t even lead to anything, then it’s better to just not book the match at all.
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS vs. DEAN AMBROSE & THE USOS- 6.75/10
Owens attacked Dean after the match. Roman Reigns was nowhere to be found while his best friend was being brutalized. Some friend he is (then again, Dean deserves it for not helping Roman when the League of Nations attacked him at during the main event at TLC).
VINCE HAS POSTED BAIL AND IGNORES THE MEDIA- so poor Renee had to stand out in the cold all of this time for nothing. Vince wouldn’t even give an interview to his own reporter.
JOHN CENA PROMO- he says it’s bad that Del Rio won’t put the US Title on the line. Cena does deserve a rematch, but I’m sure that what will happen tonight is that Cena will cleanly defeat Del Rio tonight to get his win back, and yet Cena will still never get his rematch because he will move on to his WrestleMania feud.
Del Rio comes out and says he doesn’t want to put the title on the line. Cena then called Del Rio a “punk b*tch.” I certainly wasn’t expecting that. Del Rio agreed to give Cena a title match.
When we got back from commercial, instead of the match we were promised, we got a tribute to the recently-deceased Lemmy. I’m not saying Lemmy doesn’t deserve it. I’m saying that this was the wrong place to put it in the show.
WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Alberto Del Rio(c) vs. John Cena- 6.5/10
Stuff happens. Del Rio works the arm. Ref bump. Del Rio taps but there’s no ref. League of Nations interfere but Cena kicks out anyway. Cena takes out the League. Now Del Rio gets screwed because the ref was out again even though he didn’t get bumped a second time. Cena hits he AA… and there’s the DQ we all knew would happen once this was made into a title match. Cena gets Brogue Kicked after the match. The Usos come out to make the save. No sign of Roman, which is even more ridiculous when you realize that the Usos (Jey in particular) are still injured from their earlier match, while all Roman has done tonight is be smug.
Ah. Here comes Roman, late as always. Roman Superman Punches Sheamus’ chair, then takes the chair and hits Sheamus.
VINCE SHOWS UP- he announces that Roman will defend the title against Sheamus next week with Vince as the Special Guest Referee, meaning we are guaranteed a f*ck finish in the main event next week. What a great way to start off the year!
And speaking of the new year, the showed ended with Vince repeatedly saying “Happy New Year!” as if he wasn’t satisfied with his first take and just kept saying the phrase over and over until he got it right.
A MUCH better Raw than we have been getting all year long, but nothing particularly great, either.
