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

[The King of Old School]

Heyman is insufferable.

Roman Reigns didn't miss a single week of TV during Covid, as long as you don't count March-August 2020 that is.

[Supremo]

Two quick positives I’ve just remembered.

Roman’s trainers were spectacular. I loved that even Pat McAfee and the camera team took a moment out of the match to marvel at them, whilst he was getting chucked into the table. Remember when Roman supposedly wore the vest long past leaving The Shield to hide his physique? Feels like a million years ago. He looks the absolute business essentially dressed in joggers and trainers. Maybe not Emmy worthy, mind.

Macaulay Culkin was the best worker on the show. The way he revealed his face, getting one of the biggest pops of the whole show, was amazing. Sign him up. Give him whatever money was set aside for The Rock appearing at Mania.

[TheScarlettChad]

18 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

I did notice his demeanour, but I assumed that was deliberate, given that he owes CM Punk ‘a favour’ - I do wonder if he knows what that is, and we’re about to find out. 

Honestly a feud to between them over Heyman would be so refreshing after five years of Samoan bloodline stuff..

[Hannibal Scorch]

No idea how it compares to a regular 3 hour Raw.

[DavidB6937]

I imagine it's incredibly annoying for those watching live. Luckily I never do.

[d-d-d-dAz]

19 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

No idea how it compares to a regular 3 hour Raw.

The problem with this is, it assumes that the matches are the most important part of the show.

They're not, and haven't been for as long as I've been watching WWE I don't think.

Attitude Era and even before was similar.

If they made a show that was 75% matches, no sod would watch. 

[Arch Stanton]

'Wait Times' hahahaha, for fucks sake. It's absolutely mental that there are people out there in the world that obsess over stuff like that and are able to miss the point of a wrestling TV show so spectacularly. Even more mental to think it's worth sharing here.

[LaGoosh]

I wonder cumulatively how much time entrances take up on your typical episode of wrestling. Fans are accustomed to it  and just accept it as being part of wrestling but it's pretty mental when you think about it how much time is dedicated to people just walking to the ring and often doing the exact same thing every time they do.

I listened to the producers of Lucha Underground on a podcast once, they were ex-WWE producers but also had loads of Hollywood experience, and they said that as TV producers they were always insanely frustrated at how much absolutely precious TV time on wrestling shows was wasted on entrances and making the audience wait for something to actually happen. That's why the entrances in Lucha Underground rarely lasted longer than 10 seconds.

I'm not at all saying that you should cut entrances but it's interesting to think if you looked at wrestling TV with that outside eye there's probably loads of stuff we accept as just part of wrestling that you could cut out without having any detrimental effect. 

Edited January 7, 2025 by LaGoosh

[RedTwoster]

26 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

No idea how it compares to a regular 3 hour Raw.

What @d-d-d-dAz said. 

I have no issues with time being given to strong angles or story content - it just so happens that there wasn’t a great deal of that on this show. I think that was a mad decision as I’ve said, but it’s not going to kill the company or anything like that.

[Dr. Alan Grant]

Grandpa Hogan with his shirt around his arse, which was the style at the time. 

I’m all for Macauley Culkin getting a Sami/Knoxville style Mania match where he leaves traps around the arena for some goofs like A-Town Down Under to stumble into. Give Vanessa Hudgens a contract too. Just keep that Fluffy fella off my tv please. 

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

The problem with this is, it assumes that the matches are the most important part of the show.

They're not, and haven't been for as long as I've been watching WWE I don't think.

Attitude Era and even before was similar.

If they made a show that was 75% matches, no sod would watch. 

This is absolutely true but Raw was 3 hours long and had 4 matches, which feels like it's more than a few steps beyond the limit of this logic. 

And Twoster is right, really, it's not that it wasn't matches, it's that a lot of it was absolutely nothing.

 

Unrelated, and I don't want to go full Doog here, but it felt really weird that your Raw champion wasn't booked. Nor was the IC champion, come to think of it. Or the Tag champs. If you're only going to do 4 matches and 2 of them are titleless grudge amtches, I guess that happens, and it's hardly a big deal, but a surprise for your big show.

[Slapnut]

5 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

What @d-d-d-dAz said. 

I have no issues with time being given to strong angles or story content - it just so happens that there wasn’t a great deal of that on this show. I think that was a mad decision as I’ve said, but it’s not going to kill the company or anything like that.

Yeah you’re spot on here. I wouldn’t care if there were only 3 or 4 matches on a story-heavy episode, but last night they filled the spare time with absolutely fuck all of note bar the Cena promo.

[wandshogun09]

Didn’t even see the show and it sounds like I didn’t miss much.

Caught that Heyman ‘Emmys’ clip on Twitter though. Fuck me. Can’t stand the sight or sound of the big sack of BO. And not in a ‘heel heat’ way. I just can’t stand him. He’s been told he’s a genius for so long he now talks like he invented oxygen or something. It’s seriously cringeworthy how big a deal he seems to think he is. 

[digforvictory]

3 minutes ago, Duke said:

This is absolutely true but Raw was 3 hours long and had 4 matches, which feels like it's more than a few steps beyond the limit of this logic. 

And Twoster is right, really, it's not that it wasn't matches, it's that a lot of it was absolutely nothing.

 

Unrelated, and I don't want to go full Doog here, but it felt really weird that your Raw champion wasn't booked. Nor was the IC champion, come to think of it. Or the Tag champs. If you're only going to do 4 matches and 2 of them are titleless grudge amtches, I guess that happens, and it's hardly a big deal, but a surprise for your big show.

 

Hey they had the tag champs on the show!

Sat in the crowd waving at the cameras like total nobodies, same as  WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. I know he later did a run in but what the fuck was that? Why are you having the WWE champion make his first appearance on this historic show sitting in the crowd?

That was another part of the show that felt very Vince.

[The King of Old School]

1 minute ago, wandshogun09 said:

Didn’t even see the show and it sounds like I didn’t miss much.

Caught that Heyman ‘Emmys’ clip on Twitter though. Fuck me. Can’t stand the sight or sound of the big sack of BO. And not in a ‘heel heat’ way. I just can’t stand him. He’s been told he’s a genius for so long he now talks like he invented oxygen or something. It’s seriously cringeworthy how big a deal he seems to think he is. 

Roman Reigns was definitely cringing inside when he was talking too.