WWE RAW Discussion Thread 2019

[Zack T 171]

That Brock beatdown was very brutal and excellent, but I don't know where it leaves Seth. Such a brutal beatdown suggests he won't be on Raw this week, and might not be on Raw next week either. Will he make it to Summerslam? If so, I can't believe that he'll be in good enough condition to beat Brock. We already saw it took Seth at 100% + low blows to beat Brock at WrestleMania. This beatdown went well beyond just making Brock look like a jerk, it made him look absolutely totally superior to Seth.

 

I hate the OC name too.

 

I imagine someone will catch Maria napping at some point.

 

Why is Roman on Raw more than he's on Smackdown, the show he was actually drafted to?

[Kam 243]

I'm not liking the Reigns angle, well, I like the idea of a mystery attacker but the segments come across a little too cringey.

 

They keep pushing Joe like a beast then job him out...it's getting harder and harder to take him seriously. He looked like he was going to rip Reigns head off...then has to act all concerned when Reigns almost gets hit by a car.

 

Speaking of cringey...they went all out on the set for the 24/7 title segment :p

 

I don't know what to make of the Rollins promo...don't think it came across that well.

 

Goldberg? Urg! :sick2:

[Zack T 171]

Joe is well on his way to becoming the big man version of Dolph Ziggler. So legit, and yet never wins anything important for more than a week or 2.

 

I dislike this Roman attack angle too, and also the fact that they left it hanging going into Summerslam. Are Roman, Bryan, and Rowan going to have a match? Is Joe gonna help Roman? Or the Usos? Or what's going to happen? This should've been wrapped up and ready to go for the PPV but instead we're awkwardly waiting for them to announce it via social media or surprise us at the show.

 

What about Drew McIntyre and Cedric? Why does Drew never win anymore? All he does is lose tag matches and brawl outside the ring before his matches ever start.

 

At least Goldberg/Dolph will be quick and hopefully wash the bad ending of Taker/Goldberg away from our minds.

 

Rollins seems destined to lose at Summerslam. I think these brutal attacks have served to protect him from losing totally clean to Brock, at least now they can say "Well Seth wasn't 100%". It's Seth's own fault that he isn't 100% though, so it kind've makes him look too proud and egotistical to be smart. But whatever.

[Zack T 171]

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2019/0...-a-658410/

 

TLDR: Basically Joe was booked as a face for a second because Vince didn't want the Toronto crowd to cheer Sami so much, so they tease Joe being face, then turned him heel again after.

 

 

 

You know, if you didn't want Zayn to get cheers due to his gimmick (Which makes sense), maybe a better option would've been to just NOT BOOK HIM IN TORONTO instead of doing this weird Heel-Face-Heel insta-turn. But common sense doesn't seem to be one of Vince's strong suits.

[Kam 243]

I was thinking about how strange that was! Speaking of Sami...I can't remember the last time he had a noteworthy win.

 

I thought that was a weird promo from Natalya, it sounded like she was going to turn heel...the proceeds to try and cry because it's the anniversary of her dad's death. I'm assuming she got some boos as fans thought she was just using it for the angle. Sasha was a nice surprise although I have to admit it felt awkward when the Canadian crowd were chanting 'thank you Sasha' while she beat down Natalya :oops:

 

Dash Wilder looked like a chump when Truth pinned Dawson. He literally just sat there whilst Truth could barely get up - why didn't he pin him again? Someone screwed up there. I quite like Elias as the champ, although I don't expect him to hold on to it for too long.

 

WWE seem to love doing these losing streaks - Finn Balor, now Rey.

 

Asuka and Sane got almost zero crowd reaction :sad:

 

Alexander/McIntyre was excellent, that Claymore at the end looked brutal!

 

I hope they make an effort with King of the Ring this year, oh and PLEASE do not have Baron Corbin get past his first match :)

[Zack T 171]

Rey is being used to put over younger talent, while Finn asked for time off so they used him to put people over on his way off.

 

A lot of 24/7 pins are that way though, they oftentimes take place where there's no opportunity to hit a proper move. So you see dumb stuff happen a lot, but just go with it.

 

Asuka/Sane get no reaction probably because they've barely been on TV in the last 2 or 3 months, maybe longer. Kairi's barely been on TV since she moved up to Smackdown.

 

Sami's last noteworthy win came before MITB, when he pinned Braun Strowman to take his spot in the match. However he had help from Drew and Lashley and Corbin. In fact that may be his only win since returning from injury.

[Kam 243]

I wouldn't have thought The Revival would work with Orton but they're great together! That Revival assisted RKO was excellent!

[Kam 243]

So Baley actually turned heel! It seems weird to turn her now when she has her match with Charlotte, who has been awesome as a heel.

[Zack T 171]

I suspect it's leading to Charlotte/Becky vs Sasha/Bayley. Charlotte will be forced face by virtue of "being honest" based on SD's promo

[Kam 243]

It's weird seeing Austin in 2019 getting a better reaction than anyone else on the roster, definitely in a league of his own on the show (similar to Taker's appearance on Smackdown).

 

I thought the Viking Raiders were heels so was surprised to see them save Cedric but I guess they can tie that back to their double DQ finish with Gallows and Anderson in the tag tourney.

 

Baron Corbin advances? :info7:

[Zack T 171]

They WERE heels, loosely. At least they were on Raw. In NXT, they were Face. On Raw, they weren't really heels because of cheating or dirty tactics, it was just because they booked them against faces or to team with heels in multi-man matches for some reason. But they never really did anything heelish.

 

Baron Corbin probably gonna win the tournament, and at this point that's probably the best option honestly. In the past, it's led to the winner of the tournament looking mighty stupid as they run around with a cloak/crown and call themselves King for months after winning. I'd hate to see that happen to Gable or anyone else in the tournament besides Corbin. He's not gonna do much anyway and people already hate him, so hey it might actually get him more heat. Who knows.

[Kam 243]

Urg! So Braun loses so they have to make him look strong by feeding both sets of tag champs to him! This is one thing I'm hoping we don't see in AEW. WWE has a habit of using their tag champs as fodder for anyone receiving a big push.

 

I thought the Cobin/Gable match was good, as @Zack T predicted, Corbin takes the crown. That makes Corbin a MitB winner, KotR winner and Andre The Giant Battle Royal winner! :oops: I hope they don't forget about Gable now, he deserves a decent push.

 

During the gender reveal party I was wondering why Ricochet was there, that was totally random - then I got it when Maria said he was the dad. I know they're meant to make Mike Kanellis look useless...but seriously, even Michael Cole calling Mike a loser after Maria was meant to have revealed someone else was the dad?!

 

Rusev was a surprise, he looked in amazing shape. But as with the likes of Samoa Joe and Braun Strowman, I can't see WWE giving anything other than mid-card titles to him. He built up the whole Rusev Day movement organically, yet WWE did nothing with it. We saw more of his personality previously whereas it looks like they might be switching him back to 'monster status' again. I wonder what they'll do with Lana or if she'll turn up at some point, no way they keep him as the father of Maria's baby.

 

 

Speaking of monsters, that AOP segment looked interesting.

 

As had been predicted, we're getting Baley/Sasha vs Charlotte/Becky...but like I said in the Clash of Champions post, they need to keep Baley and Sasha strong. There is only so much you can do when you're only keeping a few superstars looking strong.

 

I liked the R-Truth/Kane segments, we all knew Kane was going to pin him :)

 

I thought it was weird no one came out to help Seth, especially with the likes of Cedric/War Raiders having their own issues with The OC. When I saw Kane I thought what a waste, considering he's not on the active roster. It was good to see The Fiend look strong over him. Although as much I wanted the Fiend to look strong, making Seth look like a scared little kid cowering in the corner while The Fiend slowly got closer was a tad too much :D

[Zack T 171]

The back and forth of Glenn Jacobs and Kane was silly. I did appreciate having him come out as Kane only to be taken down by Bray Wyatt. At first, I forgot Bray was probably gonna show up and I just was like "I mean I like Kane but what's the point of having him come out here and stop the OC if he's not wrestling?" then Bray came out and I was like "Oh there it is, perfect". I loved the way they had the Fiend attack Kane, and how you could see him stalking Kane right behind him. Very good. Also crawling over to Seth, I liked that. My main complaint is that they need to stop with that creepy stringed instrument noise whenever the Fiend comes out. Or at least, play it for a few seconds and then stop. Playing it on a loop for so long takes away from the ambiance and turns it annoying. I agree with Chris too, the ending VHS thing was cool but went on WAAAAY too long. Would've been good at 10 or 15 seconds, not...however long it was. Felt like a minute.

 

I guess we're gonna eventually get Rey/Dominic vs some people, as the commentators made a point of talking about that being the reason why Dominic was talking Rey out of retiring. Probably cause Dominic forgot to say it himself, not sure. KIND OF SELFISH HUH? "Don't retire yet dad, I want you to be my tag partner". But I also get it, it'd be rad as heck for him. Also did anyone else notice Cesaro doing a weird modified GTS? Like he caught Rey, flipped him around for a minute like he was gonna press slam him, but then came down in GTS fashion?

 

Corbin winning the KOTR at this point was probably the best option. I laid out my opinion in full earlier but basically it seems like the KOTR winner ends up doing dumb stuff, posing with the crown and calling themselves King for a long time and going real 80's campy with it and honestly, I didn't want that to happen to Gable or anyone else besides Corbin. Let him engage in that stupidity, it won't matter for him.

 

Man I thought Sasha/Bayley and Bliss/Cross was a title match. But no. Non-title match. Well, fine. Leading us to Sasha/Becky in HIAC though and I am definitely down for that.

 

Supposedly Paul Heyman is high on Cedric Alexander and wants to give him a good slowburn push. I'm all for that, Cedric's great. But I'm not sure that losing clean to AJ at Clash and then losing clean to AJ on Raw and then losing the post-match beatdown to AJ again is a good way to get him going. I mean it's good for him to get to share the ring with a talent like AJ, but I feel like it'd make more sense and help Cedric more if AJ were cheating in some way to beat him.

 

EDIT: After writing this, I discovered that apparently Vince wanted to bury Cedric at Clash and on Raw. No reason given. Well, there you go, I guess.

 

I don't know what the point of a "Tag Team Champions Summit" would've been, beyond a way to get 4 guys out there for Braun to run through. I agree Kam, WWE uses it's tag team champs and the division in general as a tool to get singles competitors over and I HATE IT SO MUCH.

 

They did specifically mention that there will be no more wild card rule after this upcoming draft, so that's good.

 

 

I do hope the draft involves NXT just a little bit. Mainly I hope a couple people go to NXT. There's the rumor that Kevin Owens might go to NXT now that he's been "Fired" by Shane. I'm not sure there's much to that. I kind of think that it wouldn't make sense, because he's supposed to be a kind of badass face and it's not very badass to accept being fired by the boss you're feuding with and go somewhere else. But I hope they move a couple people over to NXT and leave it at that. I dunno that I'd move anyone off NXT right now, probably not, they need to keep most of their talent. Triple H has talked about thinking that 205 Live fits better with NXT so I wouldn't be surprised if they essentially fold 205 Live into NXT moving forward. That's probably the best thing for all those guys.

 

Hopefully they don't draft Finn Balor at all and let him return from his vacation to NXT, revitalize him down there. That'd be freakin dope.

[Kam 243]

I just can't take Seth (aka BEAST SLAYER) seriously when he's screaming like a little kid because another wrestler has a scary mask.

 

 

(From 2:00)

[Zack T 171]

I didn't like it either. But another wrestling fan gave me this perspective and I don't let the yelling bother me as much right now.

 

The Fiend is legit scary to little kids. This other fan's 6 year old gets scared every time The Fiend comes out. My own 5 year old son, I was showing him Firefly Fun House episodes and when The Fiend is revealed for the first time, my son wanted me to turn it off because it was too scary and he wouldn't watch it anymore. Kids are a huge target audience for the WWE and while the screaming may seem silly to us, a little kid would totally buy in to Seth screaming because they're scared too.

 

That being said, they need to shorten The Fiend's appearance, or at least stop using that screechy violin creep music so much. 7 full minutes of it was no good.

[Kam 243]

I get that they want kids to be scared of him...my nephews have the same reaction as your son :) I thought Finn played it well, he had a concerned look on his face during his match at SummerSlam. I still think the screaming from Seth was too much. The only similar thing I can think of is back in the 80s when some wrestlers would be terrified when Jake released his snake (:eyebrows:)...I was (and still am) ok with that. To this day I still remember when Jake tied up Macho Man in the ropes and had his snake bite his arm. I suppose The Boogeyman could also be used as an example but again, he had his worms...

 

 

 

With The Fiend, they all know it's Bray Wyatt under a mask and I don't think he's done anything particularly terrifying to anyone yet to warrant that reaction from Seth.

[Zack T 171]

There are others saying that Seth's acting (or over-acting) was a bad look on a guy who's supposed to be the face of the company (or at least the face of Raw) and be taken seriously as a top good guy. Good guys generally shouldn't show fear - They can show healthy respect, they can acknowledge they're in for a fight, but fear? Just makes them look like a wimp.

 

We'll see what happens. Big wrestling week this week!

[Kam 243]

We'll see what happens. Big wrestling week this week!

I'm excited! I'm looking forward to seeing the new sets of Raw/Smackdown...but most excited for AEW's debut.

[Kam 243]

I didn't think much of the new song/opening but it's alright. I also wasn't that fussed about the pyro, I never really found it noticable when it was removed.

 

The new stage layout is OK, I prefer the old one but this could grow on me over time.

 

Commentary seemed OK...I missed Graves but those 3 did alright and I think they'll improve as a team as time goes on (no idea how long Lawler is there for).

 

I thought that opening segment was excellent - Brock looked like a beast, Rey is always excellent as the underdog and that beatdown on Dominic was brutal! He's bound to have a few bruises after that!

 

I found the whole Miz tv segment cringey...it's weird seeing them do a big 5 on 5 match just prior to Survivor Series. Corbin got pretty much zero reaction when he came out :lol:

 

I guess they were trying to make Seth look strong with all these matches after last week's fright :p

 

Bobby looked a little silly constantly pointing at the entranceway for AGES before Lana finally appeared. It seemed like WWE is always trying to split up Lana and Rusev on screen, even though we can see from social media they're still together. I'm guessing Lashley was meant to make Rusev jealous but Rusev just watched... :oops:

[Zack T 171]

Lawler is probably a short-term commentator. I dunno how long exactly, but I think he's just there to help add familiar veteran voice while we get used to Dio and Vic. I really liked Lawler though, he was back on his quasi-heel jokes and I love that stuff.

 

Brock's beatdown was ridiculously brutal. Rey just walking around afterwards kind of removed some aura around the whole situation though. He took 2 or 3 F5's, right? And yet just a few minutes later he's running around, running his son to the ambulance like he's not even hurt.

 

Oh I absolutely hated that Miz TV segment. Not Miz's fault, Ric Flair is a liability now apparently. I dunno if he was drunk or if he's just in "I DON'T GIVE A F***" mode now (Maybe he is, if the The Man lawsuit is still pending) and the segment badly limped into the annoucement. It seems like Hogan was supposed to start things off with lighthearted challenge/diss to Flair and Flair tried to bait him a little to push it along, but Hogan just would not play along. So Flair had to just randomly act insulted and mad at Hogan and it was very awkard, to say the least. Not to mention Hogan somehow telepathically convening with Seth Rollins to make him team captain. Flair at least TRIED to say his captain was the Viper, but Randy's music played too soon and cut him off mid Viper.

 

That Lashley/Lana stuff was awkward too. The first kiss was great, wooooo scandal! But then they made out on stage for a couple minutes and it was like...ok, enough of that, let's move on. And THEN the Fiend comes out. That main event was just a cluster. And it didn't do much to make Seth look strong either.