The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw 1/15/18: Oh, The Strowman-ity


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Previously on the Best and Worst of Raw: The Champions Club fought the Bálor Club, the Miz returned, and Braun Strowman got his hands on a grappling hook.

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Here’s the Best and Worst of the first Raw of the year, January 15, 2018.

Best: Braun Has A Story To Tell

If you’ve ever watched Monday Night Raw before (and just for the record, I have), you know it’s going to start with somebody coming down to the ring to talk for a while. Fortunately, this time it’s Braun Strowman, which is about as exciting as a Raw opening promo gets. Even better, Braun is here to recite from his latest book of short fiction. “I wanna tell you all a short story,” he announces, “A short story with a happy ending.”

Braun goes on to tell an uplifting fairy tale about a large boy from North Carolina who beat the hell out of his two rivals with the help of a grappling hook, and therefore gets to be the Universal Champion at the Royal Rumble. Kurt Angle interrupts this episode of WWE Storytime with nofewers than six security guards in tow, all of whom have haircuts and grooming choices that say “I’m an indie wrestler from Texas,” but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief if you are.

Kurt explains that the whole grappling hook thing was a step too far, and not only is Braun out of the triple threat at the Royal Rumble, he’s fired from WWE. Kurt quickly leaves the ring, and Braun saunters after him, followed by the very slow-moving sextet of security guys.

This leads to a series of vignettes across the first hour or so of Raw, in which Braun Strowman rampages around backstage causing chaos. He beats up the security guards. He ransacks Kurt Angle’s office. He invades catering, mauls Curt Hawkins, and grabs a piece of chocolate cake on his way out. He invades a TV production truck, yells “WHAT DOES THIS DO?” a bunch, but doesn’t actually smash anything, because that stuff is expensive. Instead he gets out, disconnects the semi truck from the trailer, and flips the semi. It’s really something to see.

The climax comes when Braun returns to the arena and closes in on the announce table. Booker T, with his usual mix of heelishness and not knowing what’s going on, shoves Michael Cole to the ground as he flees. Braun picks up Cole and manhandles him across the stage, until Kurt Angle interrupts, cell phone in hand, to say that Stephanie McMahon has rehired Braun and he’s back in the Royal Rumble triple threat main event. Braun is pleased, but he throws Michael Cole off the stage into a crowd of security guards anyway. Tom Philips, who literally waits in the wings for moments like this, shows up to do play-by-play for the rest of the show.

Worst: Dana Calculates The Circumference Of The Bar

I wanted to give this a Best — I tend to want to give everything a Best — but I just couldn’t. I love the Bar, but I love Titus Worldwide too. Titus O’Neil was born to be this sort-of-heel manager who’s a babyface and also a wrestler, and this stable is giving Apollo Crews a purpose for the first time since his NXT debut. I miss Akira Tozawa, but I love statistician Dana Brooke, who obviously takes her job very seriously.

The Problem is that this is a rematch from last week, when the Bar suffered an embarrassing fluke loss to Titus Worldwide. So what happens this week? The Bar suffer an embarrassing fluke loss to Titus Worldwide. This time it’s Jason Jordan’s fault, of course. He does the classic WWE thing (like Brandon says, Jordan knows how the show works) where his music plays and he comes out just far enough to distract Sheamus, enabling Apollo Crews to roll him up. Then Seth Rollins came out to chide him for doing stuff like this, because he’s definitely never done any such thing.

We’ve seen it all before, is basically what I’m saying. We saw it last week. I hope we don’t see it in the main event! On a show where Braun Strowman flips a semi truck, this just doesn’t cut it.

Best: Dracula Versus Garlic

I’ll be the first to admit I’m sick of Enzo Amore, but I have to concede that sometimes good words come out of his mouth. This week, for example, when he came out with Tony Nese, his ankle was all bandaged up. After saying that he might be shuffling down to the ring for the Royal Rumble all stitched together and bandaged like Frankenstein, he added, “If I’m Frankenstein, what does that make Cedric Alexander? Dracula, ‘cause he sucks.” Okay, so it’s not cerebral, but it works. He also calls Tony Nese “my garlic,” which is a nice touch.

Things get better, though, when Cedric Alexander and his best friend Goldust enter. Goldust is furious that Enzo likened himself to “the great Boris Karloff,” and calls him “straight to video.” Everything Goldust is doing lately fills me with delight. I was also delighted by the Alexander/Nese match that follows. Cedric Alexander has it all, and the Goldust connection makes him even better. This guy should be champion. This guy should at the very least be Cruiserweight Champion. Here’s hoping, friends. Enzo, at least, looked pretty concerned after Alexander pinned Nese.

Best: The Unstoppable Versus The Immovable

I had concerns about how this would go, and I have to say I was pleased. WWE wants both of these women to look dominant, so putting them in the ring together was risky. Fortunately, this match makes them each look powerful in different ways. Asuka is clearly better at wrestling, and everyone including Nia knows it. But Nia doesn’t need wrestling moves, or so the story goes. She’s a monster. Most of this match was Nia powering out of Asuka’s holds and throwing her around the ring.

This powerhouse vs. technician dynamic they’ve built between them totally works, and I can see it leading to more exciting matches in the future. Asuka does eventually get the win, but it’s not a good win. She just kicked Nia’s leg out of her leg, causing her to injure herself on the ring steps, leading the ref to end the match. Assuming this (almost certainly kayfabe) injury doesn’t keep Nia out of the Royal Rumble, she’s going to be looking for revenge.

After the match, Alexa Bliss comes down to the ring to check on her supposed best friend, but stays outside the ropes just in case Nia’s in an attack-y mood. It’s a very Alexa move. Another nice touch is the backstage sequence that follows, in which Alexa and Enzo both want to be there for Nia, and Nia chooses Enzo.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Alexa and Nia as BFFs, but I get plenty of that on Total Divas. Since they’re both heels on Raw, I like them not really loving or trusting each other.

Worst: The Revival Fight … These Guys

Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson have a squash match against Bayley’s real-life fiancé Aaron Solow and his buddy Ricky Starks. As much as doing NWA World Championship Wrestling-style jobber squashes suits the Revival, these guys are too good not to have a proper storyline. They need a purpose in life.

Best: The Revival State Their Purpose In Life

Fortunately, Charly Caruso shows up for an in-ring interview that turns into what might be the best Revival promo of all time (which is saying a LOT).

Dawson takes a very specific swipe at UpUpDownDown as he explains that the Revival aren’t here to play video games with their friends, they’re here to wrestle. When Charly asks if they’re excited to see Shawn Michaels or Stone Cold Steve Austin at the Raw 25th Anniversary show next week, both guys make faces and Dash explains that guys like that aren’t nearly old school enough for the Revival to respect them. In fact, he says that the Attitude Era is what ruined wrestling.

Basically this whole promo cements the Revival as what they’ve always been — a pair of legit old-fashioned professional wrestlers in a world of Sports Entertainment, who refuse to let themselves be changed. It’s a great gimmick, and they should get the tag titles as soon as possible. Hopefully there’s enough left of them after they get beat up by HBK and Stone Cold next week for that to happen.

Best: Elias Gotta Eat

There’s a whole lot of people cheering for Elias these days. Fortunately, he’s always ready with a disparaging reference to a local sports team so he can get that heel heat back as best he can. What’s really great, though, is when he announces he was highly paid for the next bit, and then sings an introduction for the Miz. This is exactly the sort of thing the Miz should be doing: throwing his money around to get services from other heels.

The Miz cuts a great promo (of course he does; he’s the Miz) about how he’s the real star of Monday Night Raw. He cites the fact that USA is giving him and Maryse their own show, Miz and Mrs., as evidence, which is hard to refute. It makes him at least as big a star as Todd Chrisley, after all. What’s great is that he never even mentions Roman Reigns. In the Miz’s mind, Roman’s not even competition when it comes to star quality. But of course, Roman comes out anyway, for a previously-announced handicap match against the Miztourage.

Worst: The Big Dog Man

I’m not a Roman Reigns hater. You know me, I don’t hate anybody (except Jerry Lawler, but he’s not here till next week). Still though, I had a hard time with this match. See, like most people, I don’t usually pay really close attention to all three hours of Raw. But this week I had to, because I’m doing this column for the very first time. Out of the whole three hours, this match was the only thing I had a really hard time focusing on.

It’s not that the match was bad, really. Everybody did fine, and there were a couple of nice spots — like Roman holding Bo’s hand to stop him from reaching Axel for the tag. The thing is, what am I supposed to latch onto, narratively, in a match like this? Will Roman Reigns be able to defeat the combined might of Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel? Of course he will! He’s Roman Reigns! It was just a matter of time until he overcame the odds, and he did, and now we can move on.

Best: Screaming For You

No definite answers about Paige’s future this week, although we did learn that she won’t be in the women’s Royal Rumble match, which is a shame. She’ll still be there to back up Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose, which is what she did tonight as well.

At some point, by the way, Sonya and Mandy are going to need music of their own. When Paige’s music started playing, I thought “Is Paige wrestling? Maybe the rumors were false all along!” and then had to deal with the emotional fallout of how wrong I was, when I should have just been excited that Sonya, a newcomer I very much like, was having her first singles match on Raw.

The match was way too short, but otherwise great. Sasha and Sonya both got some moves in, and I was pleasantly surprised that Sonya won. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Absolution as a faction, especially if Paige’s wrestling career really is over. What I do know is that Sonya Deville, green though she may be, has a lot of potential as WWE Superstar, and I really want to see her realize it.

Worst: Woken But Still Half-Asleep

So the word is that Matt Hardy can legally do any of the “Broken” stuff, even though they’re still calling him “Woken.” Or as Corey Graves puts it, “Matt Hardy has reached his breaking point, and now he is woken.” So for the love of the Seven Deities, send Matt home to North Carolina with a camcorder and a little bit of money, and let him create some vignettes.

Right now, this gimmick is over in WWE because it was over in Impact. But it wasn’t over in Impact because he laughed and bit people’s hands and did that admittedly cool spot where he leans really far over the rope.

It got over because of a bizarre and entertaining series of videos starring his entire family that even people who didn’t watch Impact were watching online. If you want people to care about Woken Matt Hardy, reignite the Woken Universe. Don’t just send him out to squash Heath Slater. Anybody can do that.

Best: The Irish Stomp

Every once in a while, WWE does remember that the past happened. For example, Seth Rollins and Finn Bálor fought for the Universal Championship at SummerSlam 2016, and Finn badly injured his shoulder, won anyway, and then had to vacate the title the next night. That was a long time ago, but it’s relevant here, and the commentary team even acknowledges it.

Now, Finn has the Club on his side, and Seth shares the Raw Tag Team Championship with Kurt Angle’s terrible son. They’re both still good guys, but Finn seems like he might turn bad pretty soon. He’s reunited the Bullet Bálor Club, after all. His entrance just keeps getting cockier, and I’m not just talking about how tight his little shorts are. I actually thought that tonight might be Finn’s full heel turn. That he’d really beat the crap out of Seth with the Club’s help, and declare that the Prince is back.

But instead, something else came back. After an intense, hard-fought match, in which the Bar at one point ran in but ended up brawling with the Bálor Club instead of their Royal Rumble opponents, Seth Rollins did win. More surprisingly, he won with a curb stomp, his finisher that’s been banned since 2015. Problematic name aside, it’s a great looking move, and hopefully it’s back to stay. (Maybe with a different name, even. It was called the Blackout, its original name, when Rollins hit it on Monday, so we’ll see if that sticks.)

So a great main event, despite interference from pretty much everyone, to cap off a much-better-than-usual Raw. Sorry you missed this one, Brandon!

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week

FeltLuke

Braun: I want to tell you all a short story.
Short? Babyface confirmed.

JonSte13

They tried so hard to make Roman the new John Cena, that they ended up making Braun the new Steve Austin. Wrestling is weird.

specialkaos

Since we’re going to New York next week can we end this story the right way… with Strowman climbing the Empire State Building clutching Alexa Bliss in one arm?

The Real Birdman

Dean Ambrose not walking out with a goldfish to replace Cole is a huge breach of continuity

Ryse

Graves: Michael Cole is not an athlete, he’s not a competitor.
Me: Wish someone had told him that going into Wresltemania 32.

pdragon619

Braun and Asuka back to back? Come on guys this is a wrestling show not a grind house double feature.

Endy_Mion

It’s ok Nia, I get weak in the knees when I see Asuka as well.

Harry Longabaugh

Every relationship is a battle between love and happiness. Nia just happens to be torn between Amore and Bliss.

Mr Grift

Bo Dallas looks like if Truck Nutz became a person.

Baron Von Raschke

If Kevin Owens doesn’t rush the stage and powerbomb Goldberg during the Hall of Fame ceremony, what are we even doing?

That’s all for this week! Drop us a comment in our comments section below, share the column on social media to help us out, and come back next week, when Brandon will be back to give you the full Best and Worst of Raw’s 25th Anniversary!

(Check out our must-listen McMahonsplaining podcast with WWE superstar Big Show. Subscribe on iTunes or Google.)

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