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

[Merzbow]

Is this the most uncertain a 'Mania card has been since 13? You can usually pinpoint what's going on months and months out from the event.

[The King of Old School]

That Mania with Undertaker/Shane HIAC was all over the place too, but that's because every bugger kept getting injured.

[air_raid]

The worst recently was the one where Rollins was going to win the WWE title at Day One but they panicked when Reigns got sick and moved it to Lesnar instead, then had Lesnar lose the belt but win the Rumble, then despite winning the Rumble let him win the belt back inside the Chamber, ending up unifying the belts (which hadn’t been the plan) and ultimately THE title ending up on Reigns (which hadn’t been the plan) - which he then held for two bloody years necessitating creation of Seth’s Silver Medal.

Edited February 22, 2025 by air_raid
Atchoo!

[air_raid]

On 2/5/2025 at 9:54 AM, The King of Old School said:

Triple threat matches should only ever be for a title.

….not so much this sentiment but the discussion that fell out the arse of it, about “do WWE even do random triple threats.”

On 2/5/2025 at 1:52 PM, MVP RULZ said:

I can't really think of the last triple threat match that didn't have something specifically on it stakes wise

You can now. This one was less of a Punk vs Reigns vs Rollins and more of Farooq vs Crush vs Savio, maybe Penta can move away from driftwood now.

I didn’t watch lWo skins vs New Day because as soon as it was clear the turn wasn’t to facilitate Big E’s comeback, I lost interest in New Day. They sure made babyface Dragon Lee look stupid at the end, didn’t they?

Valkyria vs Kai served well to remind me that there’s still much about the production I dislike - ring announcer takes foreeeeeverrr to say the word “Champion,” Michael Cole still says “for the win” far too often. I really can’t get over that Cole actually said that Lyra has held the belt 42 days and yet this is her first title defence. So, not just a Brock Lesnar or Roman Reigns level megastar that can flout the fabled 30 day rule, but this loser too? Way to push the title and the champion, that she hasn’t defended the title for the first 7 weeks but did find time to get cleanly pinned by Bayley. To add to this rubbish, Ivy Nile, last seen losing to Dakota, attacked the Intercontinental Chump after she retained, suggesting she will be next to challenge. Makes perfect sense that the woman that can’t even win a contenders match in the losers division can just step up, doesn’t it?

From a secondary title devalued from day 1, to one in the safest of hands… Bron Breakker. That Frankensteiner from the top may be my favourite move from any match since the Crossrhodes that finished the story. Although the back and forth between him, Judgment Day and AJ seems to be threatening triple threat.

The champ actually wrestled. I’m confused though… is Alpha Academy still a thing even though Gable is a heel aligned with the Creeds? Do you know what, doesn’t matter. Gunther beat Tozawa like the JTTS he is, outsmarted babyface Otis with Maxxine Dupri watching, then ran away from Jey Uso. This really is the European title feud, isn’t it?

Cody talking I watched, Rollins talking I didn’t. I hope Dwayne’s defrosting isn’t leading to him vs Reigns at Mania, not because I don’t want to see the match (I do) or because this “soul” drama is a cackhanded sideways way to get there (though it is) but I had my heart set on Punk vs Reigns. That said…. I would really enjoy the American Thesaurus declining the offer from the Board by going off on one about already having “a brother” in a mirror image of him bringing Rock out to confront Roman last year, ill-fated as that was, waxing lyrical about “forged in the fire of combat” or better yet ridiculing the Bloodline bonds - “the blood of the covenant is thicker than water in the womb” and so on. I can’t believe how invested I’ve become over the last two years in Cody “Adequate” Rhodes.

I can’t believe that for the third time since I started watching again, to the best of my memory, a Liv Morgan match was the highlight of the show for me. Wasn’t she meant to be shite? Real “Shawn & Diesel” vibes given off by her and Raquel. Enjoyed the match a lot, though still think that union Codebreaker is too spectacular to just be a nearfall. Several further false finishes tricked me both ways, and I’m delighted that Belair is no longer burdened by being half of the tag champs five days before we learn who challenges Ripley at Mania. It’s coming home! Gwarn the EST.

Despite flaws, at the end of the show I’m still happy I part watched it and they hyped Ripley vs Io AND the tag title match for future telly, both of which I’m looking forward to. So to give credit where deserved, they’re doing something right.

[theringmaster]

5 hours ago, air_raid said:

a Liv Morgan match was the highlight of the show for me. Wasn’t she meant to be shite?

I honestly think its the sort of 'Internet tells people she is rubbish' bit like Cena. I'm not saying she is the best wrestler in the world but the amount of hate her in ring work gets from the IWC is ridiculous, she is lengths ahead of so many other women in wwe/Aew/tna etc.

Likewise, i think alot of people kind forget that heels are supposed to be annoying and appear inferior to faces

[Supremo]

Good show. Leagues better than Smackdown. Still far too much aimlessly treading water for this time of the year, but hopefully that’ll change after the pay per view.

Good opening promo, mostly carried by CM Punk. I think Logan Paul has jumped the shark. There’s a real Ronda Rousey vibe about him these days. Even the greatest Celebrity Wrestlers quickly become average when they sign on full time and are now measured fairly against everyone else. He should have packed it in after that unbelievably crisp finish in the LA Knight match. You’ll never top that.

Remember when Hangman Adam Page won that Charity Battle Royale and donated his fifty grand to the Chicago Public Education fund? I thought it was funny that days after the Ryan Nemeth lawsuit is released, CM Punk was wearing a Chicago Teachers Union T-shirt. Nature is healing! Everyone’s making friends! Punk, Hangman, The Bucks, Jack Perry and Tony Khan, all coming together in court to laugh at Ryan Nemeth calling himself, “a successful actor, comedian and stuntman.”

Fun triple threat between Penta, Ludwig and Dunne. Still feels like this is all beneath Penta though. Pure European Title fodder. Hopefully he moves up soon enough.

Great fun watching Breakker beat up Dirty Dom. Maybe that’s how we conclude the Judgment Day. Bron goes full Goldberg and murder every last one of them. Demolishes The Clubhouse with Spears. Eats the PlayStation. 

Shockingly good main event. Liv Morgan has quietly been improving for a while, but this was definitely her best night.

My hope is that they drop everything else and just do Bianca vs. Rhea at Wrestlemania. That’s the match. A thank you to Bianca for slumming it for twelve months.

Fair play to the production crew, trying to make a coherent video package out of Rock’s promo. An insurmountable task. Meltzer’s description was the best. In one promo, the man switched between babyface and heel more times than Big Show did in his entire career! Rock’s a Double Ket Whopper with Cheese. Even if this somehow turns around and becomes amazing, exactly what’s the best case scenario? Another Heel Authority angle? Seriously?

Great promo from Seth and Cody. Cody mentioning Brandi made me smile. Imagine how much better Friday’s promo would have been if she popped up and asked Rock, “who told you it was open mic night, bitch?!” Anyway, fair play to these lads trying to make sense of whatever the fuck is in Rock’s head. They did an excellent job refocussing it and tying it all together. Second year in a row these guys have had to steady the ship after Rock did his best to sink it. Fucking hell, Dwayne. You’re so shit, Seth Rollins is looking like the saviour of the company again!

Sami Zayn stole the show. Amazing package detailing his history with Kevin, followed by a phenomenal promo. Crying in shame at going over to Kevin’s house! Fucking yes! Vulnerable, emotionally mature top babyfaces is my jam. These guys are the best. I’m excited for Saturday, but it’s so bitter sweet. This should have been the WWE Title match at Wrestlemania. Watch; at this rate it’ll end up being Kevin Owens who sells his soul to The Rock. What’s the exchange rate on a Canadian Dollar? Think of the car he could buy! Set up an interview set in the back to cut promos!

On that subject, assuming they still might go with Sami vs. Kross at Mania, this made me laugh. They noticed! It’s all our fault!

Ah, shit. We all turned a corner on Kross, became fans, and now they wrongly believe that we want to see him wrestle a match at Wrestlemania! No! We want him to be silly backstage! Not wrestle! What have we done?! All of us card-carrying members of the Karrion Kross Krew have caused this! Who could have possibly guessed that Hunter would listen to the KKK?!

[Snitsky's back acne]

Dakota Kai and Lyra Valkyria have great chemistry. Enjoyed their match. Main event was really good. More than compensated for them getting shoved for The Rock on Smackdown. 

I like that they are slowly pushing other talent. It seems like Hunter wants to do something with the men's tag division so I'm all for him giving teams a bit of time on each show. It won't happen overnight (and may not happen at all) but hopefully they can have an interesting tag division at some point. 

[AndyUK]

Yeah I enjoyed that show. Agree that Kai and Valkyria have great chemistry. Fun main event and the Punk/Paul, Cody/Rollins and Sami segment were all very good. 

I don't know what the feck they're doing at Mania, and The Rock's return has muddied the waters even more. I'm slightly concerned they're going to do Punk/Paul though. They do like to tease all of these different combinations these days but these two are interacting quite a bit, and obviously you had the Rumble elimination etc. Hopefully it's a red herring.

Edited February 25, 2025 by AndyUK

[RedTwoster]

18 hours ago, Supremo said:

Ah, shit. We all turned a corner on Kross, became fans, and now they wrongly believe that we want to see him wrestle a match at Wrestlemania! No! We want him to be silly backstage! Not wrestle! What have we done?! All of us card-carrying members of the Karrion Kross Krew have caused this! Who could have possibly guessed that Hunter would listen to the KKK?!

Ach, do you know what? If they go with Sami vs Kross, I’m fine with it. The actual build-up will probably be very entertaining, and Sami can probably carry him to a solid little match. If Kross actually does show the ability to hold his end of the bargain in ring, that’s great. I’m enjoying his character enough to be perfectly happy with the prospect of him getting a push, if he’s able to have a decent match.

I enjoyed Raw, and I’ll echo the praise of Liv Morgan. She’s improved significantly in ring, and she’s become one of the best characters in the company - certainly, she’s the MVP of the WWE women’s division for 2024 and early 2025 for me. 

I actually enjoyed the triple threat. I like Ludwig Kaiser a lot, and I’m also a fan of Penta. Dunne is Dunne (and also done, some might say), but he held his own in this match so fair play to him.

[Devon Malcolm]

It was a decent Raw but it felt rudderless.

I'm not against getting interactions going between all of the EC competitors so I understand why they did the Logan Paul / CM Punk thing but it didn't work as well as I'd have hoped. I don't think Paul benefits from being on TV all the time and he doesn't need to be. I think the most notable thing about this was Punk's t-shirt but I'll talk about that in the assigned Punk thread. Paul's jacket was amazing, where did he get it and how many jobs do I have to take to afford it?

A triple threat match without a title? Oh dear.

Decent enough match - and Ludwig won! He was great in this although I could have sworn he got a small chant during this. I told you all I'd get him over.

The New Day tag match was weird. Nobody was really reacting to them but the crowd was odd all night. Joaquin Wilde looks like a talent but he'll realistically never go anywhere here. Match was alright but I've already forgotten what happened.

The Gunther / Tozawa match was odd. I don't get why you would make this match even slightly competitive, it should have been a straight battering. I think Gunther needs to take a break after Wrestlemania, bring him back and give him a stable / manager because he's drifting now.

The crowd didn't care about Lyra Valkyria vs Dakota Kai to start with but they had them after a while. Lyra is really, really good and they hooked everyone with some really good shit. I didn't mind Ivy Nile's run-in because these three need a STORY, which the women's divisions almost never have. Now they have one and an actual feud. Hooray!

Sami's promo was really good but he's done better. The Cody Rhodes / Seth Rollins segment was outstanding though, and it made some sense of The Rock's drug-addled Smacksown nonsense, but at some point they do need to clarify some things ahead of Wrestlemania. Almost everything ia up in the air.

Bron Breakker's match with Dirty Dom served its purpose. Nobody knows whether Breakker's a heel or a babyface. Maybe they should work on that. Can Finn Balor just GO AWAY. Who actually wants to see him on television? Ever?

Agree with the consensus that the end tag match was fantastic. Everyone put in a great shift with Liv Morgan the star, she's improved so much since turning heel. One of the best matches of the year so far - and an actual title change! I'd forgotten what those look like! Fireworks for the heels though? Fuck's sake. Game's gone.

I forgot the Iyo Sky / Rhea Ripley bit. Iyo Sky is so rubbish and unconvincing at everything that I can't believe it sometimes. Her stern face that she's been trying to do looks like the comedy one Jack Nicholson does when he's stalking Shelley Duvall up the stairs in The Shining. Just waiting for her to say to Rhea "You think MAYBE he should see a doctor?!"

[DavidB6937]

4 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Smacksown

Honestly I thought this was a typo at first.. then I remembered the stupid logo.. then I realised the s and d are next to each other on the keyboard and now it all makes sense.

"Dear marketing,

Hey guys, we need a new logo for Smacksown ASAP!"

RECALL. RECALL DAMNIT. Shit too late.

[air_raid]

On 2/13/2025 at 8:28 AM, air_raid said:

Logan vs Styles? I could see it.

Here we go.

Dismayed that Punk talking wasn’t a catalyst to start building things with Reigns. Though steel cage match, hmm? Seems a good bluff to move on from Punk vs Rollins in a match where people can’t interfere, but definitely will.

Learned in the tag title match that a Shooting Star Press is only good for 2. Indy wank.

Was I “+10” too fast to miss Cathy asking Belair about Jade & Naomi or did they just not bother? Either way, very surprising result to Ripley vs Io, I’m shocked they’re not doing a straight Ripley vs Belair in favour of the dreaded triple threat. Gave Rhea an excuse I suppose, and maybe makes sense that Bianca would want to win the belt from Io - she hasn’t been a singles champion since Io cashed in on her. But my main takeaway is that Michael Cole is still rubbish. His insistence on saying “to retain” every time Ripley went for the pin was as annoying as ever, and despite there being about five Codebreakers in the average Liv Morgan match, he still confused a backstabber for one. Dunce.

 

[The Gaffer]

I've only been half watching since the move to Netflix and have denied myself some of the excitement/saved myself some of the frustration of trying to decode what they can run with for their main events this year but regardless of what happens, I had a big grin on my face watching Punk's promo just now. Punk Vs. Cody, Punk Vs. Reigns, Punk Vs. Rock and Punk Vs. Cena are all massive to me and potential all-timer short term build ups (albeit getting to call on history for the last two).

Bringing Bald Fraud from r/soccer to the squared circle? BEST IN THE WORLD! 

[RedTwoster]

As excited as I am for Cody/Cena, I’m slightly concerned they’ll try to get away with keeping Cena away from WWE until Wrestlemania itself, convincing themselves that people will tune in wanting to know what heel Cena looks like and what his theme song is. We’ll see though.

I’m also a bit disappointed to have Rhea/Bianca taken away from us in favour of, I assume, another triple threat. I don’t quite understand what their logic is this year; they have an outstanding card sitting right there on a plate - Punk/Reigns, Rhea/Bianca, Cena/Cody - I can’t understand why they would think the path they’ve chosen is the best course of action. 

[Mr Kennedy]

Punk slapping his arm calling out Rock’s goosebumps schtick was brilliant. It popped the fans too, Rock will be fucking gutted. ?