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

[Chili]

The Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia. Fuck off!

Announcing to the crowd it's biggest paid Raw ever and thanking some millionaires at ringside. Really, fuck off.

Giving Hulk Hogan the reception that a man of his character deserves???

Delightful. I take those fuck offs back. Absolutely slated the old racist twat. THERE'S YOUR CINEMA!

[Hannibal Scorch]

The best bit 

Spoiler

 

[JLM]

RAW 06/01/25

The giant projection of the intro video looked amazing, as did the curtain drop to reveal HHH. All of the shots of the arena with both cameras and drones were spectacular too. WWE TV always looks impressive but it somehow all looked like a bigger deal this episode. Looked and felt like the biggest show on Earth at the start. 

Pat McAfee might have said he was honoured to be there a few too many times, but for the Netflix debut I'd definitely take his gushing enthusiasm over Graves' smug snarky wanker schtick. 

Rock thanking the Netflix suits I'm sure was necessary but was also pretty lame, as was the ever-cringey "highest gate" brag. Still very wise to open with a Rock rallying cry. His entrance was also a spine tingling moment.  

Great video packages and story recapping for Solo vs Roman. Particularly liked the one about the Ulafala. It was funny how they went to great lengths to explain everything, but I still imagined being a returning fan/new viewer on Netflix trying to process stock Bloodline Match Ending for the first time, particularly Kevin Owens outta nowhere. The match was fine. First half was ploddy because Solo in control of a match is just a very dull time. He also sounded dreadful doing the "I love you, I always loved you. Why you never love me? I love you. You no love meeee!" stuff.  Second half was standard Cody/Roman-lite Bloodline ending. It is fun how it's turned on its head and Roman winning at the end of all the bullshit is now the happy ending we want.

After the first ref got taken out by Tama Tonga, I pictured him being questioned about it after the match and going "Can't say I remember no Chad... Patton" in the style of SM33 from Star Wars Skeleton Crew and made myself laugh. So there that is.  

Good heat for New Day. Woods is having a great time being a dick and he's doing it well. I liked how long Jackie had to stand there doing different flavours of "I don't really condone this" face. Excellent work. 

I wonder if Saudi Arabia is disappointed to be getting the Royal Rumble, which is surely a step down from the GREATEST Royal Rumble. On a more serious note, it is shit that the actual Rumble will be in Saudi. 

Small amount of wee leaked out for the Penta teaser. As much as anything I've missed him during his between-promotions purgatory phase. Man I hope he kills it in WWE. 

Absolutely loved Cena's promo. It did make me even sadder that the Rumble is in Saudi Arabia (edit: I have been corrected on this and am happy this is not the case for Cena’s last rumble, though it’s still rubbish it’s going to be in Saudi in 2026) 

But yeah, a truly stellar declaring-for-the-Rumble promo. Cena retirement year has so much potential for gold. Can the old dog end his losing streak and bring back the glory days one last time? I’m so on board. 

Best bit of the Logan Paul video was "what keeps you up at night is that I'm so good at this". Too real. Despicable turd of a man but he is good at this. 

Once again the recap video for Liv/Rhea was outstanding. Match was the same as their other matches. Rhea is incredible, Liv is not great, they have to go to great lengths for Rhea losing to seem remotely plausible. Dom is a fantastic little prick of course. Very happy with the result. I know match quality isn't the main priority but I would like to see Rhea feud with someone who can hang with her in-ring. 'Taker stepping on a woman's moment like a true fat conservative dad there. 

Chad Gable bit made me very sad. Penta El Zero Debut.  I like Gable as a first opponent for Penta next week though. 

Karrion Kross bamboozling the Miz was amusing. 

Rock leaving HHH hanging on the handshake in his Instagram video was also amusing. 

Great call to get the celeb guest and milk the hell out of Jey Uso's entrance. Match was dull as shit and didn't have the crowd at all. This happens quite often when I'm watching WWE, both the TV and PLEs, where the body of the match is the bit everyone quietly sits through between the big pops for the entrances and the finisher kick outs/false finishes off interferences to garner the "this is awesome" chant at the end. Not always of course. They have a load of great wrestlers and there are some belting matches, but the standard formula is quite often this. This match was that formula at its worst. 

New Day/Comedian/Alpha Academy bit was some great cross promotional brand-centric synergistic content. It was definitely displayed in front of my eyeballs.

Hogan getting obliterated by the crowd was wonderful, a major highlight of the show for me. No-selling it and plugging his beer anyway, what a fucking worker. 

The young lad properly losing his mind as Punk and Rollins scrapped right in front of him was brilliant. Big fan of the hench Oompa Loompa referee for this match. Stop givin' me a hard time Seth, I'm reffin' ovah heeere. Good main event, best match on the show by leaps and bounds. The mutual disdain was there, it built the heat as it went on, the closing stretch was tremendous. Mostly kept the crowd's interest. Duelling chants a lot of the time but at least they made some noise. Don't know why they bother resetting the table between matches if it's gonna be used in every one of them. 

I'd say this show did what it set out to do overall. Felt extremely big time, some of the biggest and most important stories had very significant developments on this big stage, they wheeled out all the big guns for your returning/lapsed/curious fans. The faff/fanfare to in-ring ratio and the matches being the weakest part of the show means it's still going to be watching PLEs and only the odd TV highlight for me going forward. Also the whole "three hours long" thing. I knew that going in though, didn't expect this episod to change any of that. I still largely had a good time with the episode and was suitably bedazzled by the glitz of it all. Will also be watching Penta's debut next week of course. 
 

Edited January 7, 2025 by JLM

[TheBurningRed]

You know when words get repeated so much they don’t sound real anymore. Ula Fala. The whole first hour. 

[gmoney]

I thought this a pretty dull show, couple of good matches aside. I think I was expecting more angles and fun stuff, rather than roll calls of celebrities. Some of those were actually quite fun though, the aforementioned Topanga, Macaulay Culkin getting a Road Warrior pop, Richard Gadd looking as awkward as I would if a camera lingered on me for too long. Obviously Hogan getting booed was hilarious, and I did enjoy the fella smoking a biff. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

It was fine. Everything felt like a big deal, and the company is clearly very confident right now.

But... it felt like nothing really happened.

I'm guessing The Rock isn't working Mania as The Final Boss seems to be gone and he was just there as Board Member Dwayne. So Roman/Solo felt like a finale.

Cena just sort of announced that if he's why you're interested, come back at the Rumble.

Punk/Seth was good but also felt definitive without any real need to tune in next week.

I dunno. I just sort of felt like they'd do something with the big chess pieces to make you want to come back next week. Instead, they just seemed content to pat themselves on the back.

*edit* state of this; https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEgkum6pKDl/?igsh=NHRpNW5tYThlcG5s

Between Cody, Roman and Rock being bezzie mates and CM Punk saying him and Rollins might just feud forever, I'm feeling very un-Ucey right now.

Edited January 7, 2025 by d-d-d-dAz

[MVP RULZ]

2 hours ago, JLM said:

Absolutely loved Cena's promo. It did make me even sadder that the Rumble is in Saudi Arabia, but still, it was a truly stellar declaring-for-the-Rumble promo.

You'll be happy to know that it's the 2026 Rumble that is in Saudi Arabia 

This year's is in Indianapolis

[SaitoRyo]

3 hours ago, JLM said:

Rock thanking the Netflix suits I'm sure was necessary but was also pretty lame, as was the ever-cringey "highest gate" brag. Still very wise to open with a Rock rallying cry. His entrance was also a spine tingling moment.  

I hate that they fucking do this now. Not only is it cringey, it's basically telling the fans in the arena 'Have you seen how much money we made off you tonight?!'. 

Anyway, just saw clips of Raw. Expected it to be VOD on Netflix this morning, but I guess it'll come in a day or two? Hogan being booed was good, but I don't know what they were thinking having the MAGA poster boy plug his beer in fucking LA of all places.

[JLM]

56 minutes ago, MVP RULZ said:

You'll be happy to know that it's the 2026 Rumble that is in Saudi Arabia 

This year's is in Indianapolis

Yeah if I think about it for even two seconds, it would be quite late to be promoting it now if it was for this year’s. I have new year’s date blindness I think. I initially put Raw 06/01/24 on the review as well. 

Edited January 7, 2025 by JLM

[DavidB6937]

It's an odd one to give a review on as it was a show that needed to deliver on so many different levels. The celebration of Netflix. The attempt to win over new or lapsed fans. Still catering for your existing fanbase too.

What I will say is that it was the most WWE show I've ever seen. If any die hard AEW fans or just hardcore wrestling fans of other companies came to watch this.. well they probably had an aneurysm and will currently be detoxing on Max or NJPW World. I can imagine it feeling quite dirty. And I get it.. WWE is its own thing almost.

Was it a good WWE show? It was alright. As a regular viewer obviously stuff like The Rock and Cody was absolutely odd. Cena was Cena. The matches were okay. Jey Uso came out looking like a megastar and Michael Cole was on a table. A racist got booed. Undertaker decided to outdo his random Mania appearance with something even more random. There were a ton of celebrities and some bad editing and some weird omissions.

It'll settle down next week. We know it's on Netflix now I think. It's the biggest show in town and they damn well showed that and I guess that was always the main point. Did it live up to the hype? Probably not OUR hype but only because our wishes were never going to be met across the board given what else they needed to do.

It was fine. I'm glad I managed to watch it spoiler free. But I'll move on with life now with the occasional chuckle at the booing.

[JLM]

9 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

I hate that they fucking do this now. Not only is it cringey, it's basically telling the fans in the arena 'Have you seen how much money we made off you tonight?!'. 

 

The Backlash France one was particularly rough. Served them a completely inconsequential B-show and hit them with the “you guys paid SO MUCH for this, give yourselves a big hand!” 

[The King of Old School]

Sounded a pretty dull event where nothing really happened, although to be fair I didn't watch it live because life is short enough as it is.

Is it available on demand yet or is there a wait?

[DCW]

HHH being unable to resist being the first guy on the show, followed by Rock licking the arse of the dickhead looking Netflix execs & Taker interrupting Rhea for a leisurely spin around the ring on his big boy bike were cringe as fuck. At least Rock didn't appear to be setting anything up for Mania, I suppose. Scummy Hogan getting booed was excellent!

Other than that, it was a pretty by the numbers, safe pair of hands show and still not a hope I'd sit through it regularly. But it all looked great and came across as big time. No hitches from Netflix either stream wise. 

Can't wait to see what Cena gets up to also!

 

[JLM]

Oh the Gunther vignette was also tremendous, forgot about that. Also Netflix loses points for not having a “previously on Monday Night Raw” recap to fill the Netflix audience in on the previous 1649 episodes. Made this impossible to follow. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

I wonder if last year, after they clearly re-wrote Mania on the fly because the fans rejected down-on-his-movie-career-luck Dwayne, when Gurewitz and Rock were going on about 'stay with us, we're telling a story, this was always the plan', if what they meant was;

'His movie career is stalling, right? No one liked Black Adam and he's coming across like a bit of a marketing-lab created weirdo these days. So we're going to barge into wrestling to make him feel like a big deal again. Show that people love him, right?... but, get this yeah... the fans are going to reject him. We don't want another audience to reject him really, so we're going to reveal its all a big plan and over the course of the year we're going to create some admittedly good TV, hint at big things to come... but then, yeah... and this is when we've really got them by the Jaffa's... Moana 2 is going to be relatively successful, so we're going to let it fizzle out because who can be arsed?'

Bore off, Rock.

I hate how little regard he has for wrestling, and how he seemingly assumes the company has to part its existing storylines for him like some carnival Moses when he sees fit because he's a movie star.

There was a time when I'd probably have swallowed that, desperate for wrestling just to feel big and exciting again, but this is a Company on fire now, with big stars and good stories.

Just go away and take your Tequila and Phil-Mitchell-after-a-3-day-bender beard with you mate.