The Official UKFF RAW Thread...

[melina_mma]

I thought it was a fun show, it felt right having Bryan wave off the authority since they began with him last year.

 

I'm guessing the format for the next few weeks is bringing back old gms for one night only, would explain why they recently trademarked Eve Torres name again and you know Foley would be up for it

 

I really enjoyed all the Rusev/Lana/slaughter stuff, like Stephanie she is so good at playing the Pantomime villan who throws a tantrum when things don't go her way. Sgt also looked in great shape.

 

I'm liking the direction they are ending the year in, its obviously fun filler mode now until new year and then they can Ger serious for Road to Mania

[Snitsky's back acne]

So, hang on - Brie's now a smug heel that helped her sister win yet Nikki is still pushing her around like she's her slave, despite the 30 day thing being up...... Do they like each other now then?  
No, wait - why do I care?

I don't. Move on.

 

Erick Rowan, despite triple teaming people for almost a year with Bray Wyatt, is now not a fan of people who bully others, despite no real blow-up with either Wyatt or Harper? I'm so confused. Plus, Cena's not mad at The Big Show for punching him in the face and Ziggler doesn't confront him for almost costing him his career?

I know wrestling is meant to be 'disengage brain and enjoy' kinda entertainment but it just feels a bit thrown together in WWE as of late.

I'm not a doomsday'er who's saying I'll never watch again, of course I will, but WWE's pretty much 'watch a few clips and fast-forward the rest - catch any important bits (like Sting's debut) on Youtube before it gets taken down rather than buying the whole PPV just for the moment' kinda material for me at the moment.

[Dr.PeterVenkman]

I thought it was decent, except the way they tried to make the anonymous GM being back next week a big deal when no when really cared

 

Opening half hour was good, Bryan and HHH/Steph finally getting a proper resolution, Ambrose/Harper was good, Lana looked white hot in her, erm, white outfit, AJ's line was pretty funny but don't think it got the reaction they wanted

 

Main event was decent, thought they would've built up Noble and Mercury even though they're a comedy act, they could've mentioned that they're ex champions or whatever but not a big deal at all, Rollins telling Noble to take his tie off made me piss myself

[GavinSAFC]

Made it to about 15 minutes in and couldn't watch any more. Are the crowds always so dead on Raw these days? 

 

Unless they're in Chicago, or England, or it's the night after Wrestlemania, then yes.

[SpursRiot2012]

There's a difference between dickhead crowds trying to get themselves over and just generally dead crowds.

[GavinSAFC]

There's a difference between dickhead crowds trying to get themselves over and just generally dead crowds.

 

One good example of this at the minute are the NXT crowds. I've started watching with the volume turned down. The crowds do my tits in trying to get themselves over.

[melina_mma]

 

Are we supposed to have forgotten that Hornswoggle was revealed as the anonymous GM?

 

 

Hornswoggle being revealed as the raw gm was supposed to be tongue in cheek, they were not seriously saying it was him the whole time, it was just a throw away joke

So, hang on - Brie's now a smug heel that helped her sister win yet Nikki is still pushing her around like she's her slave, despite the 30 day thing being up...... Do they like each other now then?  

No, wait - why do I care?

I don't. Move on.

I think it is all leading towards Brie turning on her to gain revenge, she is supposed to be letting Nikki think they are on the same side and then bam she takes the belt from her

 

When i first watched Survivor Series i thought it was going to be a stockholm syndrome storyline, which could have been awesome but from watchign raw i don't think they are going down thsi angle

 

I swear i'm the only person still interested int he storyline

[Linus]

WARNING: This post is as long as The Big Show's talky on Raw last night...

 

Hey, it's Raw, and it's the night after the PPV! Last time we had one of these I was so excited to watch, and I bet this is going to be great, too!

<watches Raw>

Jesus.

Okay, it's a terrible show but if I've sat through over 3 hours of it, you can bloody well read what I thought about it, okay? Yes, even you.

Show opens with a recap of the action at Survivor Series. Then HHH and Stephanie came out like nothing has happened. I thought last week's Raw was the last time we would see them?

They do pretty good job of acting broken up. The talky skills of these two will be a big loss while they're off doing whatever it is they do when they're off. Is Stephanie pregnant again? Congratulations.

Aaaaanyway, a garden gnome in a plaid shirt came out and taunted them. I kid, I know it's Daniel Bryan. He looks ridiculous. Like a roadie for the midget tribute to Lynard Skynard. I do not like it.

He gets in their faces, chanting YES YES YES! as the crowd ape him. I accept I wasn't around for the bullying of his character that led to this retribution but it annoyed the fuck out of me. I wanted HHH to kill him for it. That should not be.

Bryan announced that John Cena had made him GM for the night, which is just stupid. That wasn't the stipulation. The stipulation was that the Authority wouldn't be in power, it made no regard as to their replacements. I was hoping we'd have a few weeks/months/years of no GM at all, but they had to give us the fucking gnome. Boourns.

Bryan called out Team Authority and told Rollins he'd be in a 3-on-2 handicap match against Dolph Ziggler and John Cena. That seems unfair. Oh, his partners would be selected by the WWE Universe, using the WWE App. They set up two decent pairs before also throwing in Noble & Mercury, who are to be called J&J Security. I wonder who will win...

Next Bryan dealt with Kane, and told him that he was no longer director of operations. He was now director of food and beverage, and put him in charge of a concession stand. That's not how jobs work. Kane sold it well. There's a first time for everything.

Rusev got the choice of either pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States or defending his title in a company-wide Battle Royal, while Luke Harper was told he would defend his title against Dean Ambrose tonight.

Mark Henry tried slinking off, and I half wished they'd have let him, because he's beneath them, right? But, no, he's got to face Ryback, and he's got to do it NOW!

All this took 30 minutes, by the way.

So, yeah, Mark Henry versus Ryback, and Ryback DESTROYED him. Afterwards he was shouting TWO YEARS, because apparently Mark Henry beat him up at Wrestlemania last year, which is only 20 months ago, but why quibble over 4 months, eh?

Backstage, HHH & Stephanie were leaving the arena and Vince was waiting for them at their limo. He had a weird tie on, where the knot was a different colour to the rest of the tie. Innovator. Vince said he wasn't angry with them, just disappointed, and then acted all angry that they'd failed and ruined the WWE. IT WAS YOUR IDEA, DUDE! For the second time in a few minutes, I wanted HHH to deck someone.

Hey, it's Dean Ambrose! He's fighting Luke Harper in an Intercontinental title match. This was mostly good, with a few awkward spots. Jerry Lawler couldn't help making fun of Harper's inability to take a drop toehold properly at one point and I don't blame him.

Bad ending to the match when Harper was DQ'd for pushing the ref into Ambrose, even though the ref was right between them. Ambrose then decked Harper and got ready to bring tables, ladders, and chairs into the ring, but was cut off by Bray Wyatt, who buried him under the announce table and a ton of chairs, both folding and office. Build, build, build. Good stuff.

Larry the Cable Guy (topless, and wearing a wrestling mask) and Santino Marella came out and the fans went absolutely home. No-one

gave a shit. They're in Jingle All The Way 2. Come on, surely you remember the first one? Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad (nb, not the pirate)? Yeah, this is like that. Available on DVD on December 2nd, apparently.

These two WWE Films stars were cut off by the Dust Brothers, on their way to the ring to face tag team champions Miz & Mizdow. Lilian Garcia introduced Mizdow as "Damien Sandow", which annoyed Miz. Oh, yeah, Miz was carrying both title belts so Mizdow had toy ones. Gold.

They did the usual stuff early on, but then Miz got "hurt", and a doctor attended to him at ringside, while Mizdow worked the match against the Dust Brothers. He did alright, though this kind of killed the heat he's built up over the past few weeks of NOT wrestling. He was all set for the win but Miz miraculously recovered, tagged himself back in, and hit the Stroke for the win.

Backstage, Kane was working at a concessions stand. A teenage girl, who is his boss now apparently, told him he was in charge of chips. Wait, is he director of food and beverage or not?

Hey, it's filthy, filthy Lana and that Rusev guy! They came out to make their choice. They were torn, it seems, so the gnome came on the TitanTron and said he'd send them some help. Out came a terrible animatronic Sgt Slaughter, who led Lana through the opening lines of the pledge.

Rusev, though, had had enough, and decided this would not continue. He backed up Slaughter, which brought out Swagger to make the save. Yeah, that Swagger who he killed a few months ago, and who was so badly injured on Raw the other week that he was blah blah blah.

I thought perhaps Swagger was the first entrant in the company-wide Battle Royal, since Rusev did not pledge allegiance, but they just kind of walked off. Eeeeeeeeeeh.

Backstage, Kane did more comedy. With predictable results.

Hey, it's Justin Gabriel! He lost to Fandango on the pre-show last night so I can't wait to see who he's fighting tonight! Oh, it's Fandango.

He did the longest entrance ever, and some ballroom dancing in the ring, which is sure to hit the very same target audience that Larry the Cable Guy does. Then he won a match. He was very stiff in places. They kept showing Rosa on the outside, doing a sexy ballroom shuffle but she's so not hot. They had Katrina, man, THEY HAD KATRINA!!!

Backstage, Big Show was walking to the ring, in a suit, making people move out of his way. He's a heel, you see.

He came down to the ring and did a talky that went on FOR EVER about how he's not a traitor blah blah blah. Crowd booed him a bit but really didn't care all that much. He challenged the boys in the back to stop whispering about him and come out and say stuff to his face.

Out came ERICK ROWAN, who said, "I don't like bullies", and sent Show packing. I don't like bullies, either, Erick. Good for you.

Backstage, Seth Rollins was talking down J&J Security to their faces. Ziggler walked in and told them he'd asked his 1.4m Twitter followers to vote for them. They were made up. Rollins was not. They said they could be Shield 2.0. Rollins was not convinced.

Hey, it's the Bellas! Last night they were involved in the best divas match in recent history, so I had high hopes for this. Despite Brie still being Nikk's bitch for another day, they were best friends here. Heel best friends, apparently. *Shrug*.

AJ came out and said, "Lez be honest, you're a bigger skank than your sister" to Brie. Get it? FFS. They had a match. It was the usual stuff. If you hate professional wrestling as an artform you might have enjoyed it. Brie won after interference from Nikki and afterwards all the irony in the world got sucked into a black hole when AJ (sleeping with CM Punk) told Brie (sleeping with Daniel Bryan) and Nikki (sleeping with John Cena) that talent wasn't a sexually-transmitted disease. I have no idea.

Santino and Larry the Cable Guy came down to do commentary for Adam Rose and That Fucking Bunny versus Tyson Kidd and Natalya. Well, this sucked. Natalya's entired role in the fight was to look doe-eyed over the bunny and be put in her place by her husband. Kidd won after That Fucking Bunny accidentally tripped Rose. Everyone involved in this segment should cut themselves. Figuratively and literally.

Backstage Renee spoke to Ryback. He said he was hungry and asked Backstage Renee if she knew where a good concession stand was.

Hey, it's A New Day! Next week on Raw! This aired while race riots were on another channel.

Ryback found Kane's concession stand and abused him. Now Kane's just trying to do a job, you big bully! Ryback chased Kane off, which presumably means his supervisor will fire him. Happy now? Oh, he made a bad joke, too. I hate Ryback.

Backstage Renee spoke with John Cena and Dolph Ziggler about the goings-on of the last few days. They were hyped up for the main event and life in general, and Backstage Renee grinned like a damp schoolgirl as they walked off to the ring.

It was time to reveal who Seth Rollins's partners for the 3-on-2 match were, and - of course - it was J&J Security. Ha, joke's on you, WWE Universe, because Jamie Noble's a better worker than any of the others and Joey Mercury was in MNM (I looked that up)!

They did some comedy early on, as J&J - who wrestled in their shirts and trousers and wrestling boots - were all over the place, but then they remembered that these two held titles in the WWE once upon a time and let them not be geeks. Didn't matter, though because they were simultaneously pinned by Cena and Ziggler as Rollins looked on, disgusted.

Rollins tried to leave but the gnome ran down and threw him in the ring so he could be finishered by the faces. Everyone celebrated until the lights started dimming. All you could hear was the sound of that "you have mail" beep and the sound of thousands of groans. Cole looked delighted to be a part of this as he hopped up to a laptop-on-a-lecturn that nobody had noticed seconds before and made the announcement that the Anonymous GM would be in charge of Raw next week.

This was a terrible show. I've gotten back into Raw lately, because there's been a plan for it to go somewhere and that carries you along. This had fuck all direction. You had a nonsensical GM humilating all the company's top heels, and ending with something that didn't work the first time round. Just bad.

[Sergio Mendacious]

I couldn't hack it... it was far, far too painful to make it all the way through, so I turned it off and watched Missouri Burning instead.

 

I don't understand the pissing point of most of that show. I do assume that the Brie/Nikki angle went the way of almost ever "participant x gains control of participant y" angle, i.e. Brie and Nikki got it on, and now they're on the same page. 

[Loki]

90s Throwback Linus is right about Bryan.  I also missed his big run, and too thought he looked utterly ridiculous.  This is the guy people want to beat Lesnar at Wrestlemania?  I guess it's just not for me, but I absolutely do not get the Bryan love at all.

[Undefeated Steak]

90s Throwback Linus is right about Bryan.  I also missed his big run, and too thought he looked utterly ridiculous.  This is the guy people want to beat Lesnar at Wrestlemania?  I guess it's just not for me, but I absolutely do not get the Bryan love at all.

 

He's pretty much the only person whose career I've really followed since the early days so I'll admit I have a bit of a soft spot for him (Bryan, not Bum Bag Linus). He looks like an idiot with his hair and beard and Roley Poley Foley shirts. It's like WWE gave him a bit of leeway with regards to his look and he's just taken the piss.

[Glass Smash]

Just got done watching Raw and that was lazy writing at it's fucking best. Starting this whole Anonymous GM is fucking pathetic. So it's back to "Can I Have Your Attension Please" every week again.  Only this time I think it's going to turn out to be Triple H that's supposed to be doing it from the HQ in Stamford.

[King Pitcos]

The best thing about Raw was that they're not doing Cena vs Big Show.

 

I don't really get any impression from that Raw on what Cena's doing for TLC, though. Or anything approaching a main event direction for that show. Triple threat ladder match with Rollins and Ziggler for the briefcase? There's certainly nothing going on now where anyone is desperate for big revenge on Rollins for anything.

[Sphinx]

I couldn't hack it... it was far, far too painful to make it all the way through

Genuinely thought you were on about Linus' post. Not that I've read that post.

[Slapnut]

Big Show's explanation for turning heel was ridiculous too. He saw that Cena and Ziggler were down and that his team weren't going to win, so he fucking punches his team mate? Well done mate, you're even more likely to lose now.