Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Raw: Hell Inside Of A Cell happened, and we’ve got new Raw Women’s and Cruiserweight Champions. No new United States Champion though, because LOL. If you missed Hell in a Cell, don’t worry, Raw will be exactly like it, plus pumpkins.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for October 31, 2016, aka “the one you missed while you were walking around forming hot takes about Harley Quinn costumes.”
Best: Santa With Fewer Muscles
I think the best compliment I can give this week’s Raw is that it understood how terrible the Paul Heyman/Brock Lesnar promo from last week was, and went back to the fundamentals. This week’s segment felt more like a pro wrestling thing, and less like somebody standing still and winging it in front of an arena full of people who know nothing’s going to happen.
The formula is simple. Biker Grandpa shows up sweating his ass off in the world’s thickest and most collar-popped leather jacket and gets interrupted by Paul Heyman. Heyman is like, “HEY BROCK LESNAR IS HERE,” and the crowd is like, “YEAH BROCK LESNAR IS HERE,” and Goldberg’s like shadowbox shadowbox. Of course, anybody that’s ever watched wrestling ever knows Lesnar (1) isn’t there, (2) isn’t fighting Goldberg in the opening of a Raw, and (3) isn’t fighting Goldberg on Raw weeks before Survivor Series, but that doesn’t matter. The call and response, and Heyman getting “revenge” on a crowd of different but similar wrestling fans is great. It’s the fundamentals.
When it looks like Heyman’s about to get beaten up for screwing around with Goldberg, a mid-card heel — Rusev, more on that in a second — shows up and acts as as Surrogate Lesnar. He tries to throw hands at Goldberg and gets easily dispatched, and Goldberg goes back to giving Heyman his comeuppance. Again, fundamentals. Show the crowd Goldberg’s not fucking around, show them he’s still “got it,” and give his rival’s top henchman the what-for. The crowd’s popping like crazy throughout (except for that part where Goldberg got too excited and fell on his ass, but we’ll allow it), so it works.
Worst: Rusev As Meng
We’re between these eras in the Nitro reports, but WCW used to do this thing with Meng where he’d be a tough but defeatable stooge/tag team guy until they needed a Monster Threat. When it was time for that, Meng was suddenly unstoppable, getting wooden chairs broken over his back and/or head all the time and Tongan Death Gripping upwards of like 10 guys at once. They’d build him up for a few months, feed him to a mid-to-uppercard babyface and have him put them over. Then, he’d go back to being a normal guy. They did it with Dusty Rhodes, they did it with Chris Benoit, etc.
Rusev is the new Meng. He’s tough but defeatable (and occasionally a tag team guy, RIP The Lads) until they need a Monster Threat. When it’s time for that, he’ll spend a few months choking out Jack Swagger and Mark Henry and R-Truth, and he’ll get an unexpected win against a guy like Cena or Reigns. Then he loses, and goes back to being a normal guy. If a big star like The Rock shows up for a one-off (and the Miz isn’t available), Rusev’s the one who gets humiliated and instantly beaten up.
So that’s what Rusev is for Goldberg. He’s Goldberg’s New Meng. If they end up having a match before Survivor Series, it’ll go just like Goldberg vs. Meng. Rusev will beat him up a little, lock him in the Accolade and parade around like he won. That’ll give Goldberg time to get up, he’ll eat a spear and (another) Jackhammer, and that’ll be that. A few months later, probably before WrestleMania, Rusev will spend a few weeks beating up jobbers, and the cycle will repeat.
It’s not a bad spot to be in, you know? You’re the top expendable heel. Kinda disheartening when you consider how great Rusev is at literally everything a pro wrestler can be, but it’s a living. Maybe he’ll get a pizza commercial out of it.
Best: Bada Boom, Realest Toys In The Room
I wasn’t into the promo that went with it — your balls are like CANDY, and here’s why — but Enzo Amore and Big Cass as Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story was pretty goddamn fantastic. The “you’ve got a friend in me” line popped me, I’m not gonna lie. The only way it could’ve been better is if Karl Anderson had accidentally dressed like Sid (the one from Toy Story, not Actual Sid), and Luke Gallows had been Big Baby.
That leads to what’s become a tradition, the Whatever Holiday It Is-Themed Street Fight. They’re always harmless and fun in the best ways, and I wish they’d do them more often. I want an Arbor Day street fight — Pearl Arbor Job? — that’s Brock Lesnar beating up somebody with a tree. It’s definitely better than the old standby, the “put Divas in costumes and have them pull each other by the shoulders while they’re waist-deep in mush.”
Highlights include Karl Anderson getting hit in the face with a pie and getting knocked backwards into a dessert table, Cass and Gallows somehow botching putting a pumpkin on a man’s head, and a post-match celebration where Enzo and Cass play baseball with kendo sticks. See? Enzo and Cass can lose a million matches, show up on Raw dressed like children’s movie characters and still be 100% bulletproof.
But seriously, give me a Washington’s Birthday street fight where Big E puts in a set of wooden teeth and bites somebody.
Best: The Booty-O Train
Speaking of New Day, I think it’s safe to say they won the Halloween Raw by dressing up as the three most notable gimmicks of Charles Wright, aka The Godfather, aka Papa Shango, aka Kama the Supreme Fighting Machine. I guess we got closure on that “New Day isn’t actually a smiley positive group, they’re going to turn into the new Nation of Domination” rumor. I kinda wish they’d gone farther with this and brought in Cedric Alexander as The Soultaker, and Rich Swann as Sir Charles. I also kinda wish they’d dressed up Gulak, Nese and Daivari as Brutus Beefcake, The Zodiac and The Booty Man.
Best: The One Cruiserweight Story Gets Some Urgency
Worst: But Is There An Actual Cruiserweight Division, Or Are We Just Going Around In Circles
The cruiserweight division is still more DOA than fucking Crush, but I liked what they did here. After having Brian Kendrick outsmart TJ Perkins with the world’s most obvious heel mislead, they had Kendrick show up way too confident for having pulled off a lucky, easy ruse, and gave Perkins an actual sense of urgency. That helped a lot.
Instead of angrily exchanging wristlocks or whatever (which happens way too much), Perkins refuses to shake Kendrick’s hand, jumps him as soon as the bell rings and tries to put him away with big moves right away. That’s GREAT. He also ups the danger quotient by doing his headscissors from the top to take Kendrick out of the ring from IN it, nearly paralyzing himself in the process. Watch that bump, dude’s lucky he’s okay. He’s got that Sasha Banks neck injury fairy looking out for him. But yeah, I like him breaking this out here and almost dying, because it shows that he’s letting his emotions get out of control, and is willing to do something truly reckless to get revenge on Kendrick.
Kendrick’s extremely smart response after that big move is to use the champion’s advantage, consider a purposeful count-out on the fly, and leave Perkins back at square one. His rematch is ruined, he didn’t get the belt back, and now he’s (presumably) got to fight from the bottom to get back to the top. It’d make a lot of sense to have Kendrick drop the belt to Swann, then have Perkins work his way back up and have to beat Kendrick to get a shot at Swann. Take some time to develop these characters beyond the surface level, use some of those “meet the competitors in the Cruiserweight Classic” introduction videos and interviews to get the crowd and viewers familiar with the talent, and start telling some real, compelling stories. Don’t just decide on two matches — Kendrick vs. Perkins, 6-man tag — and do them on an endless loop.
Whoops!
Yeah, since we did Kendrick vs. Perkins, we also have to do the 6-man tag with the faces winning. Every post-PPV Raw is usually nothing much more than rematches, and this is just the Hell in a Cell kickoff show cruiserweight six-man with a couple of the faces changed. It’s fun enough, but god damn. A “division” in a fictional competitive sports organization is not just two things over and over. Imagine if Major League Baseball was just the Yankees vs. the Red Sox, followed by the All-Star Game every day for three months.
Anyway, my key takeaway here is that Rich Swann’s “bug eyes smile” face constantly being on makes him look like one of those No Mercy characters where they can’t do facial expressions, so they just texture map one on. You know what I’m talking about.
Best: The Golden Boo-th
Here’s two men in their mid-40s walking through a haunted house in their wrestling gear, getting scared by a bunch of clowns and running away in terror. This belongs on one of those old WWF VHS tapes where 20 minutes is devoted to Ricky Steamboat doing karate to ninjas in a Japanese tea garden, or the Bushwhackers walking around on train tracks. Don’t pull Goldust’s arm, he’s old!
Two things I wish had been added to this:
1. a cameo from someone dressed as Doink, and
2. the reveal that “clowns screaming and jumping out to scare you in blacklight” is how R-Truth sees the world, like when Kenneth revealed he sees the world as Muppets on 30 Rock
Worst: Mick Foley Needs To Stop Screaming At People
First of all, a supplemental Best to Raw for building their Survivor Series team. You put Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho on there because Owens is your champion, Jericho will do anything to protect him, and they’re devious scumbags that’ll do anything to get the job done. You supplement that with Roman Reigns, because if you’re trying to win a WWE match, why the hell wouldn’t you want Roman Reigns? Reigns could probably beat the Smackdown team 5-on-1, pending the absence of Cena. Then you run a battle royal and make Braun Strowman angrily toss a bunch of guys to earn his spot, which satisfies his need for competition and keeps him competitive and hungry enough to not be the old “I can’t believe he was eliminated FIRST” Wyatt Family version of himself.
That said, Mick Foley needs to chill out. Dude’s got some serious Stockholm Syndrome for a cage with a roof on it, and I don’t think Jericho and Owens cheating to beat Seth Rollins “makes a mockery of the cell” or whatever when Rikishi literally got knocked off the top of it onto a truck full of hay. Or when Undertaker fake hung and fake killed the Big Bossman from one. Remember when Dean Ambrose lost a Hell in a Cell thanks to interference via spooky ghost lantern? The cell’s already a goober, Mick.
And beyond that, Foley needs to temper his responses to people and stop going from jokey old amnesiac codger who wants to make everyone happy to SUPER INTENSE SHOUTY VETERAN without a build. He just flips a switch. He did it to scream at Sasha Banks and Charlotte for being okay with being in a match he agreed to put them in, and he does it here with Owens and Jericho. It’s disingenuous. I don’t want to keep living in a world where MICK FOLEY of all people is Raw’s most inconsistent performer.
Speaking of that battle royal, surprise, I loved it.
I thought for sure they’d have Sami Zayn win by eliminating Braun Strowman, to set up Strowman showing up at Survivor Series, beating up Sami and getting him eliminated. Hell, one of Sami’s signature moves is speed-walking backwards into the ropes and suddenly falling down to make his opponent fly out of the ring. But nope, they flipped it to keep Sami as the underdog, teasing us with the Benoit/Big Show Royal Rumble elimination choke only to have Strowman power up and toss him out. I think Sami vs. Braun is my favorite Raw story right now, mostly because they actually advance it every week and keep us guessing. Better than seeing the same one step done every week for a month to make sure we get it.
Other battle royal notes:
– How funny is it that Darren Young dressed up as Bob Backlund for the Halloween show and ended up being the only costumed guy in the battle royal? And he totally looked like Seth from King of Fighters, right? He should keep dressing like that and start accosting people about how he thinks they haven’t done their taxes.
– The Sheamus and Cesaro frienemy thing continued, with them briefly working together on an elimination and even fist-bumping before Sheamus turned on Cesaro and tried to eliminate him. Cesaro was able to reverse it and eliminate SHEAMUS, because LOL, Sheamus.
– Is Curtis Axel the new Damien Sandow? He’s the long-suffering old homegrown developmental guy with a beard everyone wants to like who gets instantly shut down every time he starts to get over.
– Calling it now: Sami Zayn will win the 2018 Royal Rumble. Maybe 2019. One of those.
Worst: The Shining Stars Didn’t Dress Up As Los Matadores For Halloween
The Sheamus/Cesaro story continues in this squash of the Shining Stars, reinforcing the three important plot points:
1. Sheamus and Cesaro hate each other (bet you haven’t picked up on that yet)
2. Sheamus and Cesaro are a dope tag team when they actually work together
3. Sheamus doesn’t realize how many times Cesaro is popping in with uppercuts and saving his ass
That’s pretty much all there is to it. Another easy win for two guys who’d be the Road Warriors if they’d just pull their heads out of their cartoonish asses.
Best: Welcome Back, NXT Bayley
With Sasha Banks sent to live on a nice farm where she can run around and not injure herself for a few months, it’s time for Charlotte Flair to start a program with the only other babyface in the Raw women’s division, Bayley.
I haven’t totally understood Bayley’s role on Raw so far — Sasha’s popular friend? Jobber squash push? Dana Brooke’s blood rival slash performance chaperone? — and last night’s segment actually made her work for me again. The reason Bayley worked so well in NXT is because she didn’t start with a high rating … she started as a jobber herself, a well-meaning jobber with an endearing personality and character we wanted to see win, but who barely did. People were always mean to her. Even faces like Natalya would show up and condescend on her, and it got us in her corner. By the time she was able to beat Becky Lynch and Charlotte and powered-up Boss Sasha, she was ours. We’d grown with her and watched her develop for years, and we got a full story from beginning to end.
So having her show up on Raw as end-of-her-story Bayley made sense if you consider NXT and Raw as connected universes everyone watches and understands, but that’s not really the case. NXT gets referenced, but it’s not really relevant in Raw stories. At Alamo City Comic-Con this week I overheard a conversation about how Seth Rollins hurts everyone he wrestles, and one of the fans was like, “he even hurt that new guy, what’s his name, Finn Baylor?” That’s how most Raw fans view NXT, even if we’re on the Internet too much to believe it. So maybe the better idea for Bayley is to tell the same story they told on NXT, but with a shorter lifespan. Like, tell it between now and WrestleMania. Or now and the Rumble, if you want to go super fast. Have Charlotte position Bayley against monsters and tough opponents who can take her out, and have her have to learn and adapt to defeat them. The story with Dana worked out that way, and Dana’s obviously step one. Now she’s gotta refocus and learn how to beat Nia Jax — for the first time in a Raw universe, where Nia’s undefeated — to prove she’s not the “weak link” in the Four Horsewomen.
Like, I don’t want to see Bayley jobbing all the time either, but I get it, and I see how it can work. Plus, hey, we got Nia Jax on Raw again! That’s something. I’d even love to see Bayley bring back Ariel Monroe and Rachel Levy as a support group slash faction of likeable Young Girls dedicated to figuring out the Nia Jax puzzle. Expand the division a little, you know? If Smackdown can turn James Ellsworth into a main-eventer, Raw can throw a contract at Delilah Doom.
Best: Roman Reigns vs. Chris Jericho
Worst: (Except For The Finish)
And now for the other time-honored WWE tradition, a great match that gets the crowd hype and conditions them to expect disappointment by ending in a mid-pinfall disqualification. I still don’t totally get why heels think taking a disqualification between the two and three count is somehow better or more protected than getting pinned. You still got pinned. If you’re gonna stop your guy from losing and get him DQ’d, why not do it like, in the middle of Roman’s big moves so you’ve actually robbed the crowd of something they might want to see and not just caused a thing that’s completely over in everyone’s eyes to end slightly differently?
Anyway, Roman wins, then wins again via DQ. Owens and Jericho try to beat him up, but do-gooder-ass Seth Rollins shows up to fight them off. Roman takes out Jericho with a Sling Blade, then somehow hurts Owens with a gentle diving eye rake. WWE guys have seriously gotta stop doing suicide dives if they can’t make them look good. Sign King Cuerno just to make him hang out at the Performance Center and teach folks how to do it.
This leads to two possibly important story developments: Owens finally saving Jericho from a Rollins attack by pulling him out of the ring before he can get Pedigreed — aw, thanks best friend! — and Rollins and Reigns sharing some smoldering eye contact. I probably won’t ever forgive Rollins for breaking up the Shield either, but yeah, it’s probably time for y’all to kiss and make up. I know the graphic said Braun Strowman was the “final member” of Team Raw, but if they’re doing 5-on-5, you’ve gotta think Rollins will be on the team too. And then the match comes down to Rollins and Reigns vs. Dean Ambrose. I can’t decide if I’d rather Ambrose think the Rollins/Reigns partnership is total bullshit and be disappointed in Reigns, or if I want them to suddenly team up and Shield powerbomb Owens out of the match.
(Probably the latter.)
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
oe90101
Golden Truth stumbling into a RAW creative meeting wasn’t pretty.
Captain Fram
Nia hit Bayley during her taunt for maximum spirit meter drain!
The Real Birdman
I wish The Revival would show up and destroy all these guys
Nevers
No Graves, the silence you just heard was the crowd.
Clay Quartermain
That costume is racially insensitive, Gulak.
AshBlue
WWE and Halloween:
Ridiculous costumes
Grown adults acting like children
Dead Man/people
Possibly cursed by Satan
Definitely unhealthy
TheGunslinger
All that just to be the 1st person eliminated at Survivor Series.
Baron Von Raschke
Foley: Hey, Sami. That was a heck of a job. Almost got it done. Close enough. I’m putting you in the match as our fifth person….If you can beat Kevin Owens in a non-title match next week on RAW….I know it doesn’t make any sense…but you know….Vince.
Bastian Booger
Bo looks confused that Darren Young dressed up as his dad.
N Casio Poe
just when you thought wrestling news today couldn’t get any worse for Pumpkins
That’s it for this week, everybody. Thanks for reading, and I hope you had a happy Halloween. Join us in a few weeks for the Thanksgiving Raw, where Titus O’Neil is forced to wrestle in a turkey costume, considers his position in the company and starts throwing up everywhere again.
Be sure to let us know what you thought of the show in our comments section below, and please consider Facebooking and tweeting out a link to this column if you enjoyed it. As TJ Perkins probably says, a winner is you.
