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

[RedRooster]

27 minutes ago, Daaaaaad! said:

I have a wacky theory behind this, seeing as this week's Raw suggests to me that this isn't, in fact, a clever angle (surprise surprise).

First of all, according to the DIRT SHEETZ~! both MVP and Lashley have been at Vince about this Hurt Business break-up as, clearly, they also know it's a terrible idea. Vince however has decided to push on with it regardless. My theory is:

• Hurt Business was a great heel stable and made Lashley a semi-credible WWE Championship challenger
• Vince knows this and wants Drew to get all the cheers at 'Mania
• Vince fears that Lasher will get cheered because he's part of a good stable, so split them up to make Lashley less enjoyable as an act

This, of course, will get Lashley booed and, by proxy, make Drew the big babyface.

Does it make sense? Nah. But all the shite on last night's Raw didn't make a lick of sense either, so my guess is as good as anyone's at this stage I reckon. 

I think that's probably the logic, but if Lashley/Drew does end up being the first match on the card, I don't think there's any danger of Drew being booed at all during his entrance - what happens during the match itself is anyone's guess, but I'd imagine the live crowd will cheer a title change, should it happen. 

I wouldn't be shocked to see Lashley reunite The Hurt Business on the Raw after 'Mania, turning him face. If he doesn't have the belt, he can move over to Smackdown and they can run a Hurt Business vs. Reigns/Usos programme, culminating in Reigns vs. Lashley for the Universal title. 

[BomberPat]

I think the only thing close to a guarantee for that match is that Edge isn't winning now. At some point, a babyface comeback story like Edge's - a company lifer, seemingly well-liked by everyone in charge, returning from a career-ending injury to win a World Title he never really lost - seemed set in stone, but with him turned heel and Daniel Bryan added to the mix, he's quickly become an afterthought, and I can't see a situation where they have Edge pin Bryan unless it's to retcon either Edge or Reigns back to a babyface role and try and do that feud "properly" after Wrestlemania. Which isn't unthinkable.

In almost any situation I'd find myself rooting for Daniel Bryan - I found the Royal Rumble really deflating because it teased us with an Edge & Christian reunion and a Daniel Bryan win, and then went down the route of an Edge singles push which, honestly, I find far less appealing than either of the alternatives. But I think the right decision is for Reigns to go over, and beat Bryan in the process. Not because Daniel Bryan is there to "take the pin", but because it's guaranteed heat on Reigns - putting an end to Bryan's babyface underdog story is the sort of thing that will, hopefully, keep Reigns heel with audiences that might now paradoxically finally be ready to cheer for him. 

And, in all honesty, I want Reigns keeping that belt for at least another year. Give us The Rock vs. Roman Reigns in Hollywood next year, and Reigns beat him too. He shouldn't be dropping the belt until after that match is out of the way, in my opinion. 

 

Alternatively - if Reigns loses, and it's possible to get a Rock appearance either at Wrestlemania or on RAW/Smackdown after the fact, Reigns should swat Heyman to one side and look like he's turning face by abandoning him. The Rock comes out to console Reigns, hold out his hand, tease the face turn, Reigns levels him and destroys him with a Spear. We get Reigns vs. Rock set up for next year, with Reigns now even more dangerous than before because he doesn't have Heyman in a position to keep him under control. In the interim, Heyman can bring Brock Lesnar back in to get revenge, and they can do heel Reigns vs. babyface Brock at Summerslam, or some other point between this year's and next year's Wrestlemania.

Basically, whatever happens, I feel like the week after Wrestlemania will likely be a bigger deal than the show itself, even by "RAW after 'Mania" standards. I feel like they just want to get Wrestlemania out of their system, and then hit the reset button and start building to the real major storylines for next year.  

[Perry]

1 minute ago, BomberPat said:

 

And, in all honesty, I want Reigns keeping that belt for at least another year. Give us The Rock vs. Roman Reigns in Hollywood next year, and Reigns beat him too. He shouldn't be dropping the belt until after that match is out of the way, in my opinion. 

 

 

It's Texas next year. Los Angeles is 2023

[BomberPat]

ah balls, never mind then. They should still do that match, but for some reason had it in my head that because this year was supposed to be in Hollywood, they'd just knocked everything back a year. 

Still, everything else stands! Or they could have Reigns hold it a whole other year, I'm not fussed.

[tiger_rick]

I watched some of The Rock and Cena promos to kick off their feud last night. It's another sign of our age given rumours of Rock/Reigns this year that his previous comeback is now just over TEN years ago. Cena still smoked him. It's undeniable. Still can't quite believe they let Cena point out his teleprompter or having his lines written on his arm either. Lots funny about it in hindsight. Rock promising he'd never leave again. Cena being the company babyface only to leave himself.

One for the "did that really happen" thread but I completely forget the anonymous general manager thing ever happened. I'm normally reminded watching that Rock comeback promo.

They mentioned a "King Sheamus" too. No memory of him being "King".

[Chili]

8 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

I watched some of The Rock and Cena promos to kick off their feud last night. It's another sign of our age given rumours of Rock/Reigns this year that his previous comeback is now just over TEN years ago. Cena still smoked him. It's undeniable. Still can't quite believe they let Cena point out his teleprompter or having his lines written on his arm either. Lots funny about it in hindsight. Rock promising he'd never leave again. Cena being the company babyface only to leave himself.

One for the "did that really happen" thread but I completely forget the anonymous general manager thing ever happened. I'm normally reminded watching that Rock comeback promo.

They mentioned a "King Sheamus" too. No memory of him being "King".

Oh King Sheamus fucking died. They kinda tried to go a bit celtic or something with it, because his crown looked like a kid made a deer's antlers in an arts class, if my memory serves.

Here's himself. There we go.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Chili

[DCW]

Was the GM ever revealed? I stopped caring about those sorts of things by that point. I remember crap King Sheamo alright, mainly due to that awful getup.

[LaGoosh]

10 minutes ago, DCW said:

Was the GM ever revealed? I stopped caring about those sorts of things by that point. I remember crap King Sheamo alright, mainly due to that awful getup.

It was dropped then ages later they revealed that it was Hornswaggle. Though that was clearly because they never actually bothered working out who it was supposed to of been at the time.

[WyattSheepMask]

4 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

I’ve thought for some time that the WWE’s problem is that nothing has any foundational logic. Things just happen, realities just form, and they spend weeks building off of that new reality without taking time to explain why it happened in the first place. There’s a million of examples of things that just happen that made no sense, but then people just pretend like it did make sense.

It renders everything pointless and means nothing really matters if anything you want is just a retcon away.

That said, to a passive viewer, it’s hard to give a solid example of how nothing matters. You need to watch over a period of weeks and months to see that nothing fucking matters and things just happen.

Until now.

Riddle’s entrance.

Riddle’s entrance is all that is wrong with WWE in one handy 30” piece of content.

There are birds now. Why are there birds now? ...Because there are birds now and everyone will respond like there’s always been birds. Fucking hell.

WWE programming is like one huge experiment to gaslight an ever diminishing number of people into thinking some of the craziest shit in the world isn’t crazy.

I had to look to see what you were meaning. Never did I expect it to be whatever that was. 
For anyone else wondering-

 

[NavigatorFan]

That got a genuine LOL from me. WTF 🤣🤣

[AshC]

Modern day fans: 'We don't want 50/50 booking, give your stars a sustained push, full of victories'.

 

Also modern day fans: 'If you get a sustained push, full of victories, we will fucking turn on you'.

 

Anyone booing big Drew on Saturday needs to question what they're doing with their life.

[Chris B]

It's weird seeing any clips of Raw these days - the show feels unrecognisable to even a few years ago. That clip the other week of Riddle and Asuka... is there some context that I'm missing there? Riddle was excited that he'd found or replaced his scooter, and was going around showing people, and Asuka was genuinely excited and impressed that he'd done so and was oohing and aahing.

It's honestly like they have no idea what human beings are. I get that Riddle is weird stoner dude, and Asuka is out there, but it's really, really odd writing. If Asuka being excited and impressed were a reversal of some kind, it would have at least made more sense. I'm guessing the scooter has been a thing for a while, and it's possible it was the end of multiple segments where Riddle had been showing people the scooter and nobody gave a shit. I'm not going against weird, but it's like there's not a straight man - if it was that the reactions were confused or politely interested, I'd get it a lot more. Even just a 'Hey, you're doing you and that's awesome, keep doing you' kind of enthusiasm, I'd get it. But it was more that Asuka seemed really keen to know more and seemed as excited as Riddle. I guess, also, this didn't feel like it was a particular Asuka thing - like, almost any face would be scripted to react the same way now.

I've seen a couple of clips like this over the last year and it feels like it's more of a thing. People might have weird gimmicks, but only the heels act more like a human being would actually react. It's not even just acceptance of each other's gimmicks, it's a weird thing where everyone's just constantly like this. It's like the scenes they'd do at Wrestlemanias where old wrestlers interact, and they're all gimmicked and catch-phrased up, except it's like that all the time with everyone.

Was I seeing something very out of sync with the rest of the show? It just felt really bizarre and I have no idea who it was aimed at. I'm not trying to dunk - I hope Mania is good for those watching. I'm just honestly baffled by it.

[The Dart]

33 minutes ago, AshC said:

Modern day fans: 'We don't want 50/50 booking, give your stars a sustained push, full of victories'.

 

Also modern day fans: 'If you get a sustained push, full of victories, we will fucking turn on you'.

 

Anyone booing big Drew on Saturday needs to question what they're doing with their life.

Also...

Why do they have to have everyone on Mania making the show 6 hours long?

then

Why have they relegated the tag team title match to Smackdown?  Those guys deserve to be on Wrestlemania, the show can be longer.

[WyattSheepMask]

13 minutes ago, The Dart said:

Also...

Why do they have to have everyone on Mania making the show 6 hours long?

then

Why have they relegated the tag team title match to Smackdown?  Those guys deserve to be on Wrestlemania, the show can be longer.

This was in relation to the Women’s Battle Royale at WM35, all because it was on the Pre show. 
Notice how Becky is keeping him at arm’s length 

[DavidB6937]

The thing is about the women 'deserving better' - do half of them genuinely deserve better? I watch some of them and think they're fucking lucky to get what they do. If I had to watch some of them in longer matches it'd be horrific.