Loki Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 (edited) I guess Evan Bourne has been re-signed to WWE then, after that random mention of him on Raw.  That Ricochet match encapsulates everything that I dislike about Raw. - bland babyface with no character who's just won a title comes out and cuts the most generic face promo ever - exciting new star debuted WITHOUT HIS ENTRANCE and with no build up - face comes to help another face even though they don't know each other, because... faces. - impromptu tag match with no stakes ensues It's not that it makes no sense, or that it makes it painfully clear how fake and artificial Raw is as a program... it's just how BORING it is.  A match with Balor and Ricochet is boring.  That's RAW. Edited February 19, 2019 by Loki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Bus Surfer Posted February 19, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted February 19, 2019 12 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said: I thought that but Kevin Owens came up with the NXT belt. Also having The Women’s Tag Titles being defended on NXT makes me think they thought “fuck the only legit good team we have is Io and Kairi” Theres your new champs for sure. It'll probably be the same for them. Appearing on both shows before all dropping the belts at Takeover before a full call up and leaving NXT behind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam O'Rourke Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 I wrote a whole big thing about what a mess Raw is, but I won't post it. What's the point. Ratings are going to stink this week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 Well this is a discussion forum so that's probably the point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam O'Rourke Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 (edited) Good point. From a booking perspective, if it wasn't for Becky, Ronda and Charlotte, I'm not sure this promotion has ever produced a worse show than Raw. At least in 1995 you could say they had a lot of shitty talent, they were at least trying to get Diesel over and everything made sense in its awfulness. Bobby and Rush split at the PPV, they're back together next day. Huh? Braun does a job 3-on-1 with a new heel alliance? Next day the heel alliance seems to not exist and Braun gets his win back in a long match where he's selling for The Baron for most of it. Right. Four new great wrestlers introduced randomly and they might has well have been Barry Horowitz and Reno Riggins for all those people cared. Sasha and Bayley can defend their belts anywhere. Why? What's the point of all these Raw and Smackdown titles then? The titles are dead anyway, as evidenced by people thinking Kofi Kingston of all people got screwed by not winning the WWE Title after they'd decided it would be cool for five whole days. I hate to sound like a sadist, but I loved seeing Raw get killed in front of a casual crowd. They'll chalk it up as just a bad crowd, but this was a real world crowd, not a WWE bubble dwelling, we'll chant "You Deserve It" at Nia Jax crowd, and it spoke volumes to how detached they are. The ratings for this show are going to be interesting to say the least. The 1st to 3rd hour drops seem to be more pronounced with the women on last, and with a bunch of unknowns on the show and inconsistent stories elsewhere, with no real build to Mania or even Fastlane, I don't like their odds. If they were smart, they would look at the next three months as the time to lay the groundwork for after Mania, rather than just shooting their wad in April and going back to their usual malaise. This year is an anomoly in that the most important thing isn't WrestleMania, it's the switch in TV deals. You've got your big Mania match, nothing else is going to mean a lot on such short notice since nothing is being built. So just set things in place to come out strong after Mania. Even with them shaking up the rosters post-Mania, they need to start breaking a couple of people out of the pack and make them THE stars of their show. And I don't mean they just look good in their segments, I mean a concerted effort to build a show around somebody. They're doing it with Becky, but that's not enough to sustain this massive amount of content, as seen by Raw last night. There is almost no sense of hierarchy without Brock around. The champ that only appears every so often is fine if it's 1989 TV and you don't rely on ratings so heavily to carry you through, it's a vehicle to promote your primary money source, PPV. But since the entire balance of TV/PPV has flipped since then, that principle doesn't work with this format. There is no excuse for Smackdown to not have a strong championship, but it doesn't. At some point there's a debate to be had about whether the focus on the women has done a serious number on promoting anything the guys do as important, and whether the ratings drop coincides and has proven this "revolution" push a failure. Edited February 19, 2019 by Liam O'Rourke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snitsky's back acne Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 1 hour ago, Silky Kisser said: major NXT Belts. 'They're CHAMPIONSHIPS, dammit!' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Accident Prone Posted February 19, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted February 19, 2019 38 minutes ago, Liam O'Rourke said: I hate to sound like a sadist, but I loved seeing Raw get killed in front of a casual crowd. They'll chalk it up as just a bad crowd, but this was a real world crowd, not a WWE bubble dwelling, we'll chant "You Deserve It" at Nia Jax crowd, and it spoke volumes to how detached they are. This has always boggled my mind in regards to these quieter crowds (and it's always the same ones). What causes someone to buy a ticket to a show that they have little to no intensest in? Do some markets still only get by on the WWE brand name, despite the audience not being invested in the characters and stories? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The King of Old School Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 I'm just glad they didn't debut The Dream in front of that crowd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 19, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted February 19, 2019 Reading the results for this on Bleacher Report nearly put me to sleep. Why the fuck would anybody subject themselves to watching this terrible show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam O'Rourke Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 Apparently it was one of the smaller crowds for a Raw in a long time. I'll never understand it because I personally would never pay to see a show I don't care about, but I guess maybe casuals bought tickets a while back because its Mania season thinking its the hot period, but nothing they are did on the show screamed that? Depending on how small it was, being at a poorly attended show can deflate your enthusiasm, I guess... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snitsky's back acne Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 It's an interesting study into location and crowd response etc I think - Pittsburgh, for instance, is/was always known as being a cold audience. Alternatively, Chicago is/was known for having really hot audiences. Philadelphia is/was always the 'tough' crowd that would boo the babyfaces and cheer the heels. Mexico crowds have generally been considered to be more rabid and loud whereas Japan was regarded as being much more restrained I don't know how Louisiana is/was in generally viewed re: crowd responses. Of course, a cold and boring product never helps either.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
textonly Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 Wow, I feel like the reaction here is pretty harsh. Maybe expectations are higher because it's Wrestlemania season, which isn't necessarily unfair, but while I thought this was a strangely slapdash show - almost as if a bunch of big stars missed their flights - I'm not sure it was any worse than your average year-round episode of Raw. Hell, the only matches I fast-forwarded through were Corbin/Braun and the LHP vs. Hawkins/Ryder. That's a pretty good ratio. Sasha and Bayley was a little rough, but it's nothing new: WWE have been sending Bayley out to die on her ass with overlong promos she's not cut out for since day one. All the NXT guys delivered, I thought, and there was a reasonable main event. It's hardly a strong defence of the show, but Raw was regularly much, much worse a few months ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam O'Rourke Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 Absolutely. The criticism is not that the show was awful and devoid of any quality, just that it was a complete mess from a booking standpoint, which especially stands out at this time of year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Accident Prone Posted February 19, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted February 19, 2019 32 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said: It's an interesting study into location and crowd response etc I think - Pittsburgh, for instance, is/was always known as being a cold audience. Alternatively, Chicago is/was known for having really hot audiences. Philadelphia is/was always the 'tough' crowd that would boo the babyfaces and cheer the heels. Mexico crowds have generally been considered to be more rabid and loud whereas Japan was regarded as being much more restrained I don't know how Louisiana is/was in generally viewed re: crowd responses. Of course, a cold and boring product never helps either.  Last night's raw was in Lafayette, which is basically a swamp town in South Louisiana, wheres New Orleans, the main city and located in the South-East, hosted last year's Mania and Mania 30 and is generally a louder, more responsive crowd. It's similar to Pennsylvania, which houses both the typically quiet Pittsburgh and the typically loud Philadelphia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 I'd love to know who's actually behind giving the NXT guys a debut like that. On the one hand I'm excited for them but yeah, throwing them out there with little to no fanfare etc really isn't the best first impression. I spent a while this morning catching up on the WWE Performance Centre Youtube videos and they're top quality and make everyone seem so much more relatable and likeable and you really care about these people. Why they can't use these sorts of videos more on the main shows is beyond me. It would really do wonders to any new people where the majority of the crowds won't know who they are. Give them a reason to care beyond 'hey here's a cool new person who can wrestle well'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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