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

[digforvictory]

It honestly feels like there's been a CM Punk Seth Rollins brawl on every episode of Raw for about 8 or 9 months, and there's no end in sight.

 

 

[Guest]

The rest of the MITB line up is so mid-card compared to Seth, and it's so telegraphed that he'll win it, that I'm assuming he won't, because of Punk interference. I guess LA Knight might be the favourite, because pitting him against Cena might be really good for him, until he gets "fine speech"ed

[I Bent My Wookie]

El Grande Americano to win it.

They'll do a whole Gable wanting to cash in as himself but can't reveal his true identity deal that ends up with him beating a fat guy in the mask for the briefcase.

[The Dart]

Or Chad gets injured during Worlds Collide, which means El Grande has to pull out of MITB and get replaced by someone (Punk or Zayn).

[Supremo]

The decisions they’ve made this year, fucking Andrade is probably favourite to win the briefcase.

[mim731]

24 minutes ago, The Dart said:

Or Chad gets injured during Worlds Collide, which means El Grande has to pull out of MITB and get replaced by someone (Punk or Zayn).

This was my thought, I can definitely see there being a swerve on who is in the match. 

9 minutes ago, Supremo said:

The decisions they’ve made this year, fucking Andrade is probably favourite to win the briefcase.

Actually Andrade getting attacked and removed feels almost inevitable now. 

[wordsfromlee]

I don’t mind too much giving the briefcase to people lower down the card like Gable. I see it as a good way to move people up into the main event scene. 
 

CM Punk is in the position where he doesn’t need to win MITB to get a title shot. He can just go out and cut a promo challenging Cena to a match.

Although I can see Punk challenging Cena at Summerslam only for Rollins to cash in the briefcase against Cena straight after the match. 

[tiger_rick]

37 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

I don’t mind too much giving the briefcase to people lower down the card like Gable. I see it as a good way to move people up into the main event scene. 

It should be a star-making device. It's almost 20 years old as a gimmick and I don't think anyone has really become a star off the back of it since the very first time. The only real "moment" I can think of that needed the gimmick since 2006 is the Seth Rollins one at Mania 31 and I fucking detest that - but, I do accept it's a big thing for other people. Every other winner is someone who was already a star, someone who was going to be a star anyway or someone who had their bit with the briefcase and dropped back to where they started. Often being harmed by the terrible booking while holding the case.

Even someone who did fairly well out of it, like Damien Priest, the gimmick is just a shortcut. They could easily have pushed Priest into a position to challenge for and win a belt with good booking, but they prefer the easiest, laziest way. Priest has, to his credit, seemed to stay in a solid enough position after his "run". 

I'm not a fan of it. I don't think it's a good booking tool. It's a brilliant bit of merch, will give them that.

Imagine owning a rival wrestling company and finding yourself ripping this shit off though? You'd hand in your pencil!

[Chili]

It works as a concept when a heel does it in a specifically cunty way, Edge's being a brilliant example. I don't know if any babyface has repeated what RVD did where he pre-announced when he'd cash-in like a proper face would, any time it's done by a face on the sly I just always thought 'Nah.'

[The King of Old School]

1 minute ago, Chili said:

I don't know if any babyface has repeated what RVD did where he pre-announced when he'd cash-in like a proper face would, any time it's done by a face on the sly I just always thought 'Nah.'

Cena did it as well from memory.

But yeah agree, I think it's had it's day to be honest as it's the same thing every year, twice.

Edited June 3, 2025 by The King of Old School

[NeverYield]

Jey vs Gunther again? Uggh ugghh....

Apart from the opening segment with Punk there was nothing of any note that happened on RAW and WWE is not getting it lately imo, and no-one wants the company to be built around Seth Rollins

Edited June 3, 2025 by NeverYield

[I Bent My Wookie]

Jey vs Gunther was remarkable at Mania for being a fairly decent match, this one having the briefcase holder hovering around all night just seems a foregone conclusion unless it means Reigns returns to kick Seth's head in.

Staying up for that match...4 letters, one word, uh uh, nope.

[Snitsky's back acne]

1 hour ago, I Bent My Wookie said:

Jey vs Gunther was remarkable at Mania for being a fairly decent match, this one having the briefcase holder hovering around all night just seems a foregone conclusion unless it means Reigns returns to kick Seth's head in.

 

There has to be a reason they specifically booked that match for two days AFTER MITB.

[air_raid]

I caved and watched Styles vs Punk vs Americano. It was an exercise in frustration because even after WWEs official Musker doing an xTweet about the first time Punk and Styles had wrestled for 20 years, the VAST majority of their exchanges were hampered by the third man having to be involved. I fucking hate triple threat matches, some of you may recall. My biggest takeaway is that Michael Cole is still a useless bore, hammering home “that’s Chad Gable” and “that move is one of Gable’s” with all the subtlety of a Kiss My Ass match, and near the end starting his sentence of “shades of last week with Sami Zayn” before the camera shot had even revealed it was Breakker pulling Punk out - I don’t know why, but it bothered me. Then, Styles actually paused and considered whether to dive onto four blokes fighting - none of whom are in the match - or capitalise and go after the win on Grande with Punk lying on the floor… and did it anyway. Really made the babyface and veteran look stupid. Didn’t mind Americano winning and in hindsight Styles vs Punk should be preserved for a proper match on a PLE, which given the rate at which they present matches these days, will be in about 10 years.

11 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

There has to be a reason they specifically booked that match for two days AFTER MITB.

Because they decided Jeys in the big Cena vs Cody tag match (fuck sake) and with their current desire to do as few matches as possible but make every match seem to have a point, it’s a huge match to stick on Raw On Netflix. Gotta win the ratings war, I read it on tpww.net.

21 hours ago, The Dart said:

Or Chad gets injured during Worlds Collide, which means El Grande has to pull out of MITB

What has one got to do with the other?

Joking aside… as means of forcing the reveal, that would be fucking awful. Gable needs to see his arse in the ring, not from a hospital bed.

I’ve long given up guessing what the payoff to the story is but my dream is that people enjoy the joke so much the company is forced to turn Americano face, and he ends up wrestling a Mask vs Hair match against the ultimate rudo, Dominik Mysterio.

[mim731]

5 hours ago, air_raid said:

Joking aside… as means of forcing the reveal, that would be fucking awful. Gable needs to see his arse in the ring, not from a hospital bed.

It would be easy enough for Gable to get "injured" and they can say EGA missed his flight, rather than also being injured. There's plenty of ways to do that without it being the reveal, and Gable continuing to suggest he's not under the mask. Whether any of them are any of them good options, given it would be wholly unnecessary to go that road, that's less certain.