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

[TheScarlettChad]

56 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Jimmy gets dragged out with Hogan every time he shows up, just to jump about in the background, though God knows what the financial set-up for it is. This is the definitely the closest to looking his age that Jimmy has ever come, though, he looked completely lost.

I absolutely love Jimmy, and him being joined at the hip to Hulk Hogan is the one thing that makes me question that love.

Isn't Jimmy Hulk's real life manager? 

[Chili]

35 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

 Now you either like McAfee or you don't but his straight up murdering of Hulk here should get him fired faster than that New Japan commentator, but it won't. 

Agree, but McAfee is big enough a name with cache elsewhere that you can sack him and so what, he wouldn't give much of a toss.

[garynysmon]

51 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Saying he doesn’t have the charisma or aura of a Rock or Austin is because we’re all older. We’re not the target audience anymore and so Roman is to the under 20’s what they were to us. That’s just how it works. But even then if you’re fully invested in WWE, you would still see him at the same level as they were 25 years ago.

I’m not sure about that.

Part of the aura of Austin, and slightly later the Rock, was that they were everywhere and on everything. You knew that they were the proper stars and usually shone just as much outside of the confines of a WWE production. 

(Other than Austin sacking off Pj and Duncan and refusing to appear on SM:TV Live).

Roman Reigns doesn’t appear anywhere that’s not the wrestling. No one that doesn’t follow WWE will know who he is. 

While he is the biggest act in WWE, I’d argue that his star is not as bright.

On another note, I really like the smaller stage setup.

Those big stages that took up half the arena really are unnecessary, when you come to think of it, and give out a more of a sports vibe.

Edited January 8, 2025 by garynysmon

[TheScarlettChad]

2 minutes ago, garynysmon said:

I’m not sure about that.

Part of the aura of Austin, and slightly later the Rock, was that they were everywhere and on everything. You knew that they were the proper stars and usually shone just as much outside of the confines of a WWE production. 

(Other than Austin sacking off Pj and Duncan and refusing to appear on SM:TV Live).

Roman Reigns doesn’t appear anywhere that’s not the wrestling. No one that doesn’t follow WWE will know who he is. 

While he is the biggest act in WWE, I’d argue that his star is not as bright.

Cody is bigger. He did Blue Peter ffs. And that Christmas show. He's more mainstream. 

[Devon Malcolm]

So anyway, I watched this last night and my first note is that the crowd were shit. They only woke up to boo Hogan. They always seem dead for Los Angeles shows.

The first thing we see is Seth Fucking Rollins dressed like Grady from The Shining. Disheartening. And then out came The Rock with his toy belt.

Like everyone else, baffled by this, and even more so after he seemed to attempt to roll things back on NXT. He's not just shit and boring but nothing he's involved with makes any sense. Plus he looked like he'd aged 10 years in the last year so maybe he's too old to do anything in the ring now. Go away, you turd.

I didn't really like the use of the Boo Day (I'm going to get this over) on this and using them to call out Kendrick Lamar. I don't care. Jackie Redmond's disapproval was wonderful though.

Save us, Big Promo John! Just one of the greatest of all time on the mic. He seemed genuinely emotional all the way through this and he had everyone. Terrific work, nice background, it's good to have him back.

I really cannot express how much I hate Rhea Ripley's entrance music. It's easily the shittest around right now. Come on HHH, make her have something good. A fucking cacophony. Anyway, this feud with Liv Morgan's gone on too long and the in-ring stuff hasn't worked because they're desperate to make Morgan competitive. And she has improved but this should have been a comprehensive victory for Ripley. Not great.

Undertaker should have got the Hogan pop too, because he's a wretched MAGA prick too. Headbutt him, Rhea.

Hello, Scarlett Bordeaux. Something with the Miz and an increasingly funny Karrion Kross.

Give Vanessa Hudgens a contract, like Maria Menounos used to have. She obviously loves WWE and they could do something good with her, and then we also get to see Vanessa Hudgens on TV a lot more.

The Hogan segment was the best moment of the night, though. They can't put him out on TV again unless they're in Louisiana or Mississippi. I'm not even sure he was aware what was going on tbh, he just blathered on regardless while poor Jimmy stood there with a flag looking gormless. A compelling disaster.

Punk vs Rollins was pretty good, though. It felt like a proper fight, they played it as such. Michael Cole was superb during this, pointing out how Rollins' emotions were leading to mistakes. A shame that the end passage was the usual procession of big moves and swapped finishers and dumb kickouts, but it was enjoyable for the most part. Now we move on.

Not a great episode but it was always going to be more about the spectacle and presentation than the action. 

[Chili]

A completely wild guess is maybe not a lot of the Netflix exec millionaires saw Rock's heel run last year and during his mid morning bottle piss, Rock might have thought going out first and being a heel slagging off the fans would confuse the execs. Just pulling an answer out of the air there. 

[FUM]

12 minutes ago, garynysmon said:

Roman Reigns doesn’t appear anywhere that’s not the wrestling. No one that doesn’t follow WWE will know who he is. 

From experience that is simply not true. In work there is a knowledge I like wrestling - Roman, Cody and Rhea are the 3 current names who have cropped up to me over time when anyone who isn’t a fan has asked me about it.

Yes, he’s not Austin or Rock because nobody ever will be as that was as popular and mainstream as wrestling will ever get but him and Cody are the current day embodiments.

[King Pitcos]

I wasn’t a fan of the show, mostly because of the slog of watching a three hour Raw live. They still seem to have as many ad breaks in America as usual, but the Netflix UK feed’s way of dealing with them was a mixed bag. Those interviews with the crowd in the background were a nice touch, but they were mostly less focused and more throwaway (and pointless) than the interviews on the show proper. And I really didn’t like just watching Seth Rollins or Jey Uso or whoever standing in the ring for a few minutes with their music playing waiting for the break to finish. Sucked the momentum out of the show. It flowed weirdly when they’d cut to break during the match but then immediately come back for the international viewers as well. All of that probably won’t bother me as much in future episodes when I’m watching on a Tuesday and skipping through more than 50% of the show.

The actual content was up and down as well. It was like the opposite of Saturday Night’s Main Event - that moved along at a fantastic pace, this felt glacial. Everything took forever. The matches all seemed too long, but they were mostly decent (I didn’t think much of Uso vs McIntyre).
 

Cena’s promo was better than the meta nonsense he’s usually done in WWE over the last few years. Rock’s promo was a terrible shame, seemed like the end of all the great Final Boss stuff. I didn’t watch any video of Hogan’s appearances at Trump rallies so I don’t know if he was any good on them, but the Hulkster’s been absolute rubbish at wrestling promos for well over a decade. He’s like Ric Flair, he just can’t do them anymore. I suppose part of the problem might be that, like Rock, he didn’t seem to have anything of importance to say. They’ve done that with Hulk a few times now, given him TV time without any substance. Undertaker’s bit with Rhea Ripley should have been the most egregiously lazy example of shoehorning a legend into the show, but that Hogan nothingburger was on another level.

Having so many shots of wrestlers and celebrities waving in the crowd got old fast. It was a waste of Logan Paul in particular. And some of the celebs were a bit shite for a Nick Khan era WWE show in LA. They’re constantly working with big time current musicians and whatnot these days. Travis Scott means nothing to me, a 40 year old English nerd, but I get that he’s a very big deal. He’s the sort of celebrity that they should be showing in 2025. And at the other end of the scale, Home Alone and Seth Green are the sort of people who’d have been guest hosts of Raw in 2009. And there was no need at all for the likes of Lyra Valkyria, Shinsuke Nakamura and X-Pac to be taking up time here.

On the bright side, I think it’s the first special episode of Raw that didn’t devote half an hour to DX invading WCW. The open of the show was great. And the hype video for Gunther was perfect. And I liked a lot of the presentation, although some of that might be arena-specific.

Funny the mentions of Kevin Dunn, as though he was ever the director of WWE shows. He wasn’t the one cutting to different angles during the shows, and Lee Fitting isn’t the one doing it now. It’s fascinating how certain things just become part of the hivemind belief despite being completely wrong, like WWE using an “8k camera” for years when they’ve done nothing of the sort.

This post is even longer and more tedious than a three hour Raw, fucking hell.

Edited January 8, 2025 by King Pitcos

[Chili]

5 minutes ago, King Pitcos said:

 

Funny the mentions of Kevin Dunn, as though he was ever the director of WWE shows. He wasn’t the one cutting to different angles during the shows, and Lee Fitting isn’t the one doing it now. It’s fascinating how certain things just become part of the hivemind belief despite being completely wrong, like WWE using an “8k camera” for years when they’ve done nothing of the sort.

This post is even longer and more tedious than a three hour Raw, fucking hell.

Genuinely interested to know more about this and what you know Pitcos.

[JLM]

26 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

 

I really cannot express how much I hate Rhea Ripley's entrance music.

Yes! I am such a huge fan of literally everything else she does and the whole presentation but that song is shit. The previous one was so good too, and felt way more triumphant and babyface-y. She clearly absolutely loves this theme and the band though, so guess it'll be sticking around for quite some time. Shame. 

 

Agreed on Cena's promo. Was in such stark contrast to The Rock's dead behind the eyes opener. Cena still got his brand ambassador admin stuff in there like a true pro, but the rest of it he was so sincere and vulnerable that I was 100% behind him. Really happy to have at least one story I'll be emotionally invested in this year after being spoilt in 2024 by Sting and Danielson's  all-timer retirement runs.

Edited January 8, 2025 by JLM

[Hannibal Scorch]

@King Pitcos The definitely said they used an 8k camera for a while on Smackdown on Fox. They made a big deal about it at the time. Only used for entrances, or was that a lie and really they just used the cinematic mode on an iphone camera (thats what it looked like anyway). 

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I am not a fan of Roman Reigns, but even I acknowledge (pun intended) how over he is and how much charisma he oozes.

Saying he doesn’t have the charisma or aura of a Rock or Austin is because we’re all older. 

Sorry no, I'm not having that. I don't think you can even compare Roman Reigns to prime Rock and especially not prime Austin. Just pick any Austin promo from 96-98 and put it against whatever is considered Roman Reign's best promo is and tell me if their charisma is anywhere close.

And I'm not even knocking Roman Reigns at all here - he's been very successful at what he's been doing. I just don't think it can be understated how charismatic Austin was in his prime. Genuinely one of the most charismatic people on Earth.

Age has nothing to do with it.

Edited January 8, 2025 by LaGoosh

[JNLister]

It's a bit simplistic to suggest everyone has to fall into the categories of "everything in WWE's TV formatting is perfect" or "the majority of the show should be made up of long wrestling matches."

For me the problem isn't too short matches/not enough wrestling on the show, or even too much time between matches. The problem is that, to me, the vast majority of a wrestling TV show should be matches, angles or promos (preferably ones building up matches). The ratio between those three should be a combination of the audience's tastes and the strengths and weaknesses of the roster and the people you're highlighting. Some hype videos are good now and again, but ideally they'd relate to what's going on in the wrestling and storylines.

The problem with both Raw (where they chose their own ad schedule) and NXT (where they chose how to work around the TV ad schedule) is the sheer proportion of the show that doesn't fit into any of those categories. It's just guff to fill time or shill something other than the characters and the wrestling. They bill it as a mix of sport and TV drama, but your getting stuff that isn't either a (worked) sporting event or advancing any storyline or developing character. At one point in NXT it felt like 10 minutes went by where the only close-to-meaningful thing  that happened was three women walking to the ring for a match, and where the entire 10 minute slot could have been stuck into any episode without affecting continuity or drama.

[Hannibal Scorch]

8 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Sorry no, I'm not having that. I don't think you can even compare Roman Reigns to prime Rock and especially not prime Austin. Just pick any Austin promo from 96-98 and put it against whatever is considered Roman Reign's best promo is and tell me if their charisma is anywhere close.

And I'm not even knocking Roman Reigns at all here - he's been very successful at what he's been doing. I just don't think it can be understated how charismatic Austin was in his prime. Genuinely one of the most charismatic people on Earth.

Age has nothing to do with it.

If I did what you did, I would say Mr Goosh, you're absolutely right. If I got my godson to do that, he would find Austin boring. I know because we have tried to show him old bits from the attitude era before and he thought it was dull. He started watching about 2018, thats his wrestling origin.

Same way when I was a kid I thought the music my parents listened to in the car was lame and when I grew up realized a lot of it was decent.   

@JNLister I believe that there are still some TV deals for Raw out there in the world, so they probably still have reason to place ads where they do. I am happy to be corrected.

Edited January 8, 2025 by Hannibal Scorch

[stumobir]

First episode of Raw I’ve watched in full for a very long time and while I didn’t hate it I won’t be rushing to watch another.

When The Rock’s music hit I thought we were getting off to a great start - straight in to the big stuff to get us all hooked. As a barely casual fan, The Final Boss/Bloodline/Cody arc was the most invested in wrestling I had been for decades so I was excited to see the direction they were going with this. By the end of his banal promo, boasting about the gate and thanking a couple of Netflix suits and the only mention of the massive storyline he was involved in was to kill it stone dead, I was pretty deflated. What a bizarre way to open.

The in-ring action was ok, nothing spectacular and exactly what I’ve come to expect from modern WWE - solid, formulaic but forgettable.

Solo/Roman was decent if predicatble, with the gulf in talent between the two you really need that sort of finish to make for a semi-interesting match.

Rhea/Liv match was better than expected. Rhea Ripley is a fantastic talent and should be absolutely everywhere for the company. The last thing she needed was for that old NRA prick to come out on his bike and do fuck all.

There’s no denying that Jey Uso‘s entrance is over af but as soon as the Poundland glasses come off he’s about as bland a (singles) wrestler as I have seen. Should be nowhere near the top of a card and certainly shouldn’t be going over Drew McIntyre. Worst match of the night by a distance but in fairness it did just feel like a bog standard Raw match. 

Punk/Rollins was match of the night but I still expected more, maybe my expectations for the full night were just too high. Whether it’s true or not, it felt like there’s proper animosity there and that helped carry it. Rollins can’t sell for shit but that’s the least of his worries, I’d happily watch him awkwardly position himself around the ring in an Iron Man Match if I never have to see his entrance again (or hear that cackle).

Cena was highlight of the night was the only one who gave me reason to maybe watch again. I’ll admit to being anti-Cena back when it was cool to be but with my hindsight glasses on it’s remarkable what he was able to do working with some of the dross and material around at the time. Arguably the company’s most important player of all time and I hope he has a belting run in his last year, no one deserves it more.

I enjoyed the production, it was the one thing that made me feel like this was a big deal. I get why they do it, all sports do it now but the awkward lingering on every celeb, wrestler or whoever was very jarring, especially when most of them had the expression of being held against their will, and to be honest, 5 mins in to Rollin’s entrance I shared the sentiment.

Hogan getting booed out the building was some perfect schadenfreude to perk me up when I was struggling to stay awake. I just wish Jimmy Hart went in to business for himself and whacked him with that flag pole. Hopefully that’s the last we’ll see of the racist old cunt.

3/5 Slim Jim’s.

 

(this was much longer than I anticipated)