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The Official UKFF RAW thread (part 2)...


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7 minutes ago, Supremo said:

“We never talk about politics, religion or any other subject matter that’s divisive.”

No, they never cast a Muslim wrestler as a terrorist, booked God in a match, gave a platform to a mayoral candidate, state governor etc, had an ostensibly gay character turn straight as a babyface turn, had two apparently gay characters renege on a wedding and admit it was a publicity stunt, had another wrestler pretend to be gay only to reveal it was a ruse to get into the head of their crush/title rival....

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3 minutes ago, air_raid said:

No, they never cast a Muslim wrestler as a terrorist, booked God in a match, gave a platform to a mayoral candidate, state governor etc, had an ostensibly gay character turn straight as a babyface turn, had two apparently gay characters renege on a wedding and admit it was a publicity stunt, had another wrestler pretend to be gay only to reveal it was a ruse to get into the head of their crush/title rival....

You’re missing out the most glaring contradiction to that speech about how they don’t get involved in politics:

 

 

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Curiosity got the best of me.

You've got to give them credit. Assuming the idea is to keep the stockholders and Wall Street happy by making it appear to be as seamless and steady a transition as possible, they absolutely nailed it.

Bar Roman’s one cute line about, “Daddy not being here anymore,” this was every episode of Raw from the last few years and every reason why I haven’t watched in forever. Empty calorie pro-wrestling. Three hours filled with nothing. A show broadcast by a billion dollar company, with access to unlimited resources and thousands of wrestlers, and yet the whole thing is formatted like a holiday camp show, everyone working double duty, going through the motions and trying to fill time. In every sense it was business as usual.

Bloody hell though. The whole first hour being the Life and Times of Austin Theory was bonkers. I bet even Vince himself was sitting at home thinking, “bit too much of Austin Theory, for my tastes.” Theory interrupts a Roman promo, which then transitions into a match between Theory and Drew, which then transitions into a tag match with Theory and Sheamus against Lashley and Drew, which then transitions to an angle with Theory and the Usos. Nearly sixty fucking minutes of this charmless, useless prick on my screen. The only entertainment you could glean from it was how absolutely fucked he was. Lad looked knackered. Bright red. Drenched in sweat. Commentators banging on about this bright young star and he looked ready to have a heart attack!

Same thing with the Rey Mysterio stuff. Overlong promo transitions into a nothing match, which then transitions to a stilted backstage segment, which then transitions to a crap brawl, then they come back later to him being tended to and have another crap brawl. Whole thing just feels like an exercise in filling time. Worse still, Rey’s slow, dramatic delivery made it seem like a big angle was coming, with Dominick maybe turning on him or something. Nope. Just further padding out of the endless nothingness.

Worst crime of all though? No Elias or Kevin Owens. Unforgivable. What’s happened to them? Did someone backstage realise it had some actual substance and fun to it, so it didn’t belong on this show?

I genuinely wonder how they get out of this rut, or if they even want to. They don’t want to make big changes in case it spooks investors, and equally they obviously have an audience who tunes in for this, so maybe you just continue doing this until the end of time. It’s easy money. Why try and bring pricks like me back if you don’t need to? All us wankers getting excited at the idea of change, maybe the smartest thing Triple H can do is continue as if Vince never left. It’s got a better track record of bringing in steady cash than Hunter ever did with NXT Skulls and Chains.

God bless him though. You can set your watch by him. First show in charge and they need music for Rey Mysterio’s career montage? Metallica, of course!

Other than that, the only positive I could really highlight was that Montez Ford appears to be on the gear, looks phenomenal and is still as athletic as ever. It’s always been the case, but even more so now he’s got the massive physique. Montez is the next big thing if they ever pull the trigger. In the meantime though, just keep giving Wheezin’ Austin Theory more and more TV time. See at what point he fully collapses on live TV. Soundtracked by Metallica, obviously.

Edited by Supremo
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They were never changing things up on a go-home RAW before one of their biggest PPVs of the year. That's not their style no matter who's in charge. Its the direction they take after Summerslam that should be interesting. That's their real opportunity to start building something different.

I say different. I don't think it'll ever be vastly different because they are what they are. I just hope it slowly turns into a more entertaining and better booked show. But only time will tell on that.

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I think if it does change it'll be so gradual and subtle nobody will realise, at least from an in-ring point of view. The only noticeable difference I can think of is that the presentation will be different when Kevin Dunn is gone. 

I could be wrong, maybe Tripper's NXT run was just to get it all out of his system.

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2 hours ago, Supremo said:

 

Bloody hell though. The whole first hour being the Life and Times of Austin Theory was bonkers. I bet even Vince himself was sitting at home thinking, “bit too much of Austin Theory, for my tastes.” Theory interrupts a Roman promo, which then transitions into a match between Theory and Drew, which then transitions into a tag match with Theory and Sheamus against Lashley and Drew, which then transitions to an angle with Theory and the Usos. Nearly sixty fucking minutes of this charmless, useless prick on my screen. The only entertainment you could glean from it was how absolutely fucked he was. Lad looked knackered. Bright red. Drenched in sweat. Commentators banging on about this bright young star and he looked ready to have a heart attack!

 

Totally disagree on this. I’ve fell away from WWE a lot and that was the best hour they’ve put out in a long time in my opinion. The segments tied into each other, the match was good with some nice spots, the breaks didn’t seem to be overly long and Theory getting hate from all angles was great. As much as I’m not really on board with the guy, there is no denying that the crowd were loving every bit of the grief he was getting through that first hour and they didn’t even need to can the noise much if at all.

Rest of the show felt standard but that first hour felt very different and definitely kept me watching when I’d normally have gone to bed 15 minutes in when giving RAW a shot lately.

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The first time i've 'Watch(ed) Wrestling' in a morning unspoiled in a long time, still took around 20 mins to get through the whole show. Other than the few quips from Reigns and Heyman, there wasn't any other hints to what was happened behind the scenes. As others have said, it's definitely going to be a longer process and with Summerslam at the weekend, I wasn't expecting too much change, however HHH coming out and doing his old NXT schtick with the spotlight on him before the lights came up would have been great for this show seeing as the arena was actually packed. 

Still irks me that you can't even tell a show is from MSG anymore. Why not use the old entrance on the hard cam side? You can see its still there in the crowd. 

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I also felt like there was a self conscious effort to at least have everything bleed into the next segment during the first hour. It was basically like one giant, evolving opening segment. Business as usual other than that, but to be expected. Triple H doing a Triple H thing would have been cool, but how long is it then before that gradually turns into another authority angle that nobody wants? 

The shows after SummerSlam will be revealing. With wrestling I'm like a fucking barfly to a motel bed because it keeps me sane, so I'm not a hard sell. Give me minor improvements and a few fresh ways to angle the shows. That Alpha Academy/AJ/Ziggler segment was absolute textbook WWE to try and avoid going forward. 

"I think you're stupid!"

"Yeah, what are you going to do about it?"

"WELLLL since we seem to be on a wrestling show, how about we do a match?"

"You're ON partner!"

Latino Metallica remix did get a laugh out of me. 

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As I said in the Triple H news thread, I wouldn’t be surprised if the (loose) creative framework is in place until the Cardiff show, at which point they draw a line, have a HUGE creative conference and map everything out until Wrestlemania, with 2 set cards.

Then again, I said they wouldn’t announce a new Head Or Creative until Summerslam weekend.

Shows what I know 🤣

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I can't imagine there's any drastic change until after Wrestlemania. There'll be some bones thrown out for the smart fans and some midcard changes, but the main event picture isn't going to look any different.

I'm not convinced there will be any sweeping change even then - people are basing their opinions of Triple H's booking, and Triple H's preferences, on his time running NXT, which is a completely different beast from the main roster, and was allowed to be that completely different beast by virtue of the main roster largely continuing as normal. It was an alternative, by design. He can't have the Cool Boss credentials when he doesn't have Vince McMahon playing bad cop.

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