Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Raw: Samoa Joe debuted as Triple H’s “destroyer,” choking out Seth Rollins and tearing Rollins’ MCL, which will put him on the shelf for like eight weeks and cause him to miss another WrestleMania. Brock Lesnar challenged Goldberg to a match at WrestleMania, Roman Reigns cost Braun Strowman the Universal Championship, and more than one champion lost a non-title match. Some of that is progress!
HEY, YOU! YOU WITH THE COMPUTER OR PROBABLY THE PHONE, READING THIS POST, STOP FOR A SECOND AND READ THIS: It’s time to vote in the 2016 RSPW Awards, so make sure you pop over and cast your vote for With Spandex on UPROXX for Best Wrestling Media. We’ve won two years in a row, so help us three-peat! Voting ends on February 9, so please go cast yours now!
Remember that With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter. Also, make sure you’re reading the vintage Best and Worst reports.
Hit those share buttons! Leave us comments, spread the word about the column on Facebook and Twitter and your Model Mayhem page. If you’ve got a Tumblr you use for Adventure Time quotes and suddenly NSFW GIF sets, share us on that, too. Everything helps.
And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for February 6, 2017.
Best: Ba-bum Bum, Bum! Ba-bum
This week’s episode opens with Samoa Joe showing up in a suit looking like the reincarnation of Professor Toru Tanaka to sign a Raw contract, his reward for bodying Seth Rollins and putting him on the Sasha Banks Memorial Injured Reserve last week. Here’s a quick list of everything Samoa Joe did right:
– He interrupted another in a seemingly endless series of “Mick Foley is either stupid or passive-aggressive and gets emasculated by Stephanie McMahon for either doing or not doing his job” segments by politely interjecting and explaining that Foley says a lot of nice words, but rarely do his actions back it up. Because …
– Despite Foley saying he was a big fan of Joe’s and that he’d pushed for him to get a shot in WWE, the one man who actually opened the door and gave him an opportunity was Triple H. That blends fact and fiction a little too much for a character who on TV is a manipulative, self-centered, power-hungry asshole and in real life plays Extreme Warfare Revenge with a functioning WWE developmental brand he’s turned into a fan service utopia, but it’s the truth. The guy really is a creator and a destroyer. But it makes perfect sense that these indie legends who had to fart around in VFW halls for nearly two decades would be super loyal to the guy who gave them a shot long after they thought their shots had passed.
– Joe’s promo style is less “talk to the WWE Universe” (like almost everyone else, especially NXT guys) and more “here’s something I actually believe, and I’m going to say it passionately.” Joe manages to sound like a threatening bad-ass without trying too hard, like someone like Neville, who turns into a Dragon Ball character when they turn heel. Joe’s able to work some real-life frustrations in with the truth of his WWE history AND the Raw storyline to make himself feel and sound like a fully formed person who actually exists in a fictional universe. That’s key. Not enough people do that. Or, not enough people are “allowed” to do that. However you think it works.
– They need to have Pee-wee Herman guest host Raw again and do the FRANCIS IS BUSY, HE’S HAVING HIS BATH bit with Joe backstage.
– Roman Reigns interrupts, talking about dogs and yards — hello, incoming Undertaker feud — and, thanks in part to Joe but moreso to WWE creative finally realizing they’ve got to keep it succinct and to the damn point — sounds as good on the microphone as he ever has. He’s still corny, but it’s a corny that works. I like that he doesn’t stop to smirk and look at the audience and “c’mon man” them about booing him, he just gets in and says his shit independently of the reaction and, in doing so, CAUSES the reaction. That’s why I begged them to have Cena just be JOHN CENA in capital letters for so long. The audience’s reaction is going to get even truer and hotter if they don’t feel like they’re allowed to be “in” on it. He’s Roman Reigns. He should know he’s got a rating of 100 and a Wolverine healing factor and infinite specials.
– It’s Samoa Joe vs. a Samoan named Joe!
In fact, the only thing I didn’t like about the opening is that they set up the money match of Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe on Joe’s first night in the company, which means there’s a 100+% chance of the match going long enough to kill the mystery of what a Reigns/Joe match would look like, but not actually having a real finish to protect them both, because Raw. Reigns is in the middle of a story with Braun Strowman, and Joe’s going to have to do his best to look good in that weird interim between the match starting and the point where Reigns starts no-selling and winning and gets interrupted.
In fact, let’s go ahead and touch on this.
Worst: Book-ending Raw With The Same Match
The first match of the evening is Bayley vs. Nia Jax, a week before Bayley’s set to challenge Charlotte Flair for the Raw Women’s Championship. As you might’ve predicted from the “Bayley’s got a title shot next week” note, Bayley loses here. But how she gets there, and how often Raw goes to that well, is the problem.
Bayley struggles against Jax for most of the match, but manages to gain the upper hand and looks like she’s got Jax beat. That brings out Charlotte, who gets physically involved and distracts Bayley long enough for Nia to recover, hit a Samoan Drop and pin her. Now, without any further commentary on that match, let’s copy and paste those two sentences after a video of Samoa Joe vs. Roman Reigns and see if we can’t just fill in the blanks.
Roman Reigns struggles against Samoa Joe for most of the match, but manages to gain the upper hand and looks like he’s got Joe beat. That brings out Braun Strowman, who gets physically involved and distracts Reigns long enough for Joe to recover, hit a Bossman Slam (?) and pin him.
These aren’t matches separated by weeks, or by cycles. It’s the first match of Raw and the last match of the same Raw. With the exact same plot outline, so they can build to matches that aren’t these. So this is basically a waste of time, right? If I ever got a job working for WWE creative, and let’s be honest, I’ll have a job as Miss America before that happens, my first Executive Order would be “you’re not allowed to repeat a match or finish on the same episode of TV, ever, for any reason.”
Worst: And That’s Not The End Of The Frustrations
Just to point it out really quickly, Samoa Joe vs. Roman Reigns physically kinda ruled, but it was hurt by all the same shit that makes anybody who’s paying attention and not contrarian for the sake of being contrarian boo Reigns. Joe is supposed to be this bad-ass destroyer, right? The baddest man to step into a WWE ring. He jumps Reigns before the match and wrecks him, simulating the attack on Rollins from last week. He leaves Reigns lying, even though Reigns is wearing a goddamn tactical vest and should be fine, and the announce team goes on about how he might have a cracked rib.
Reigns does an okay job of selling during the match, but here’s the thing … it doesn’t help Joe. Joe beat this guy up with extreme prejudice before the match, but he’s STILL GOING TO LOSE. He’s absolutely dead in the water until Braun Strowman saves him. So to beat Reigns, the baddest man in the company or whatever had to have a pre-match sneak attack AND somebody’s help to get one (1) pinfall victory. And I get it, heels gonna heel, but fuck, do all heels have to be ineffectual boobs who can’t win a match by themselves, and do all top faces have to be indestructible Doomsdays who can only ever lose if the entire world and fate itself is ganging up on them? Sometimes the football team you like loses. Sometimes the best football team loses. Wins and losses happen, for thousands and thousands of reasons. I wish WWE would adopt an understanding of wins and losses beyond, “he won because he’s good!” and “he lost because the other guy cheated!” Sometimes an asshole is just good at stuff. The pre-match attack should’ve been enough, but sigh (x 100), it is what it is.
Another interesting trip back in time is Braun Strowman vs. your entire local wrestling promotion. It feels like a story from three months ago, with Strowman beating up jobbers, getting on the microphone to say Mick Foley’s not giving him enough competition, then stomping backstage to confront Mick about it. They really shouldn’t let the lady from 50 First Dates book these shows.
Best: A Definitive Ranking Of Braun Strowman’s Opponents
1. That fake CM Punk with Kaitlyn’s hair we’ll just call Fake Shannon Moore, who gets absolutely brutalized and donkey punched in the head for the majority of the match.
2. Neckerchief Guy, who takes a throwing vertical suplex and the powerslam that actually ends the match.
3. The one who runs away
4. Rainbow Singlet Guy, who opens the match by getting knocked out by a forearm and lies on the mat motionless for the rest of it. That guy is NXT Chris Atkins-level bad.
Best: Corey Graves
Byron: “These guys probably gonna be using a POOP EMOJI to describe THEIR mood after this match!”
Graves: [with all the disdain he can muster] “Shut up, Saxton.”
Also, bonus points for Graves’ continued use of Pantera albums to describe Braun Strowman. This week, he’s Far Beyond Driven. I wish he was in the Elimination Chamber match so he could Reinvent the Steel.
Best: Charlotte Is Trying To Use The NXT Oculus To Turn Sasha Banks
You know there’s a mirror in there somewhere.
Sasha Banks is in physical therapy when Charlotte comes in all like, “LOL, remember when people thought we were equals, now you’re a cartoon character with bandages on your head walking with one crutch, how embarrassing it is that you can’t even wrestle a match without your legs falling off, see you never.” I’m paraphrasing. She promises to put Bayley on the DL right beside Sasha.
It’s kind of a layup so I’m not pretending I’m a wrestling expert, but I’m calling it now: next week, Sasha tries to interfere in the Charlotte vs. Bayley championship match to help Bayley win, accidentally costs her the match, and ends up as the Arn Anderson to Charlotte’s Ric Flair again by WrestleMania. I still think they should just pal up Charlotte, Sasha and Nia as a Horsemen-esque stable to give Bayley some motivation beyond, “I wanted to be champ when I was 10.” Throw Dana Brooke in there as a cross-eyed Ole Anderson. Better yet, throw Tessa Blanchard in there and do it right.
Best/Worst: Tag Teams Are Meaningless, Part One
The Club finally won the Raw Tag Team Championship from Sheamus and Cesaro at Royal Rumble, and because Sheamus and Cesaro and the New Day are the only active tag teams wrestling as tag teams on Raw, the Club defends against Sheamus and Cesaro. The problem is that tag team four — Enzo Amore and Big Cass — are sitting at ringside “scouting” in the hopes of challenging the winners, which worked a lot better when the announce table as at ringside and not up on the stage. So now if they want to do that “someone gets shoved into the wrestler doing color commentary” bit, they have to detach color from commentary, and it’s telegraphed like a motherfucker.
The match is going really well for a while (despite Sheamus being so white and The Club being so blaze orange that when they’re on the mat they look like one of Donald Trump’s eyes) until the finish, which is just Luke Gallows booting Enzo in the face for no reason, Cass booting him back, and the match ending in a disqualification. Presumably this is going to lead to The Club vs. Sheamus and Cesaro vs. Enzo and Cass at Fastlane, and, also presumably, The Club vs. Enzo and Cass with a title change at WrestleMania. Or hell, maybe WWE will turn logic upside down again and have The Club beat Enzo and Cass in 400 straight Tag Team Championship matches to build to the title change on 401. What do I know?
Best/Worst: Tag Teams Are Meaningless, Part Two
Up next is New Day vs. The Shining Stars, in which Michael Cole tries to rationalize that the Stars have been one of the “top teams on Raw” for years and feel like they deserve an opportunity. That’s about as believable as when Roman Reigns came out at the top of the show and Cole was like, “he’s called Seth Rollins FRIEND over the years!” Some major, major storyline skimming.
Again, it’s not a bad match necessarily — The Shining Stars were dope in that one match when they were a serious team, if you’ll remember — but it’s certainly not GOOD, and isn’t happening for any reason other than, “we need to get New Day on TV this week and the other three teams are busy.”
+1 to the New Day’s gear, though, which is far and away the nicest looking gear in their closet.
Emmalina Premieres Next Week, Just Like They Promised In December
It’s not going to be worth the wait unless the second hour of Raw starts with drones drawing Emma’s face in the sky, and Emmalina jumping off the roof of the arena to hover down and wrestle every woman on the roster while pyro explodes. She has to win, jump off the top to the outside, catch a football on the way down and disappear for another 10 months.
Best: Tom Brady Makes The List
You’re doing it wrong, Chris. White people don’t make the list. You write them down as, “US person.”
Best/Worst: Pissed-Off Canadian Dad vs. Pissed-Off American Dad At Fastlane
Bill Goldberg interrupts a Team Chris and Kevin promo to accept Brock Lesnar’s challenge for WrestleMania and challenge Owens for the Universal Championship at Fastlane. Jericho accepts on behalf of Owens, which should finally officially be the thing that pushes us toward the long-assumed Jericho vs. Owens match at WrestleMania. Which will be for the United States Championship, I guess, because if Goldberg can beat Brock Lesnar in 80 seconds he should be able to tap out Owens to a pre-match handshake.
The segment is probably the most effective use of Goldberg since his return, because he’s asked to keep it simple and threateningly, confidently react to things instead of reciting a monologue, and yeah, the guy is money, but it’s pretty disheartening as a regular fan to see WWE going this way heading into WrestleMania. Suddenly we’re gonna end up with Cena and Goldberg as the champions. It’s like there’s no reason to watch between May and January. Imagine if Major League Baseball did that. Imagine you sat through 162 regular season games as a Cleveland Indians or Chicago Cubs fan, and you watched them be the best teams in their league all year. And then when it’s time for the World Series, MLB subs in the Yankees and the Dodgers. They’re big market teams! The World Series is important! And then you never actually get to take the team you like seriously, because they never actually get to be important, they’re just playing until the important teams show up expecting people to watch.
Ah well, thanks for being great at your jobs all year and not getting hurt, Jericho and Owens, enjoy your show opener to get the crowd hyped for Shaq, Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor, The Rock, Jon Stewart and whoever they get to announce the attendance. Corinne from The Bachelor? The Cash Me Outside girl?
Best, But Also Oh My God Seriously, Are You Doing This AGAIN: Sami Zayn vs. Chris Jericho
Last week, Sami Zayn pinned Chris Jericho in a non-title match, earning him a title match. This week, he gets that title match. If I asked you to guess how it ends, would you be able to without banging your head on a desk?
As always, the match is perfectly enjoyable until the finish, which is Jericho distracting the referee, allowing Kevin Owens to hit Zayn with a superkick. Jericho follows that up with a Codebreaker and wins. It’s mostly to say “Kevin Owens is still on Jericho’s side, for now,” and also probably, “Sami Zayn does not win wrestling matches.”
Raw should do a match where one of the wrestlers gets distracted by someone outside the ring and then loses.
Best: The Rock n’ Roll Express
Congratulations to Ricky Morton, followed by a hot tag and slightly fewer congratulations to Robert Gibson as they build to the finish of being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. They were my favorite wrestlers when I was little, as seen here:
https://twitter.com/MrBrandonStroud/status/828800426304741376
Really hoping this means we get the RNRs in the next WWE video game, preferably with the Midnight Express and a punchable Jim Cornette included. Also, I don’t know if we can make this happen, but can NXT TakeOver: Orlando have The Revival vs. the Rock n’ Roll Express on the card? I know they’re 60-years old, but 60-year old Ricky Morton selling for Scott Dawson feels like something that should happen. If they can wrestle in Matt Hardy’s backyard, they can get a farewell match against the team that decided tag team wrestling could still be art, then proved it.
Worst: My Favorite Baseball Player Is, [Jackie Robinson]!
I think Cedric Alexander said it best when he said, “Jack Roosevelt ‘Jackie’ Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball second baseman who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era.[1]”
I was nearly in tears when Naomi added, “While Robinson wore several different numbers during his UCLA career, the school chose 42 because it had become indelibly identified with him.[304] The only sport this did not affect was men’s basketball, which had previously retired the number for Walt Hazzard (although Kevin Love was actually the last player in that sport to wear 42, with Hazzard’s blessing).[305][306][307][308]”
Best: Akira Tozawa
This week we’re pulling a Reverse Nitro by starting with the main event angles and ending with the cruiserweights.
The best cruiserweight moment of the week is the debut of my favorite person from the entire Cruiserweight Classic, Dragon Gate’s Akira Tozawa. I was lucky enough to see Tozawa wrestle in Texas for like six months during a U.S. excursion several years ago, and the guy just keeps getting better and better. They call him a “stamina monster,” which is code for, “anybody who has had to wrestle in Dragon Gate.”
What I love about Tozawa is that he oozes physical charisma, and has the early Tajiri thing going on where it doesn’t matter where he’s from or what language he’s speaking, you know what he’s feeling in the ring at all times and can connect to it. Plus, he’s still that “HAH! HAH! HAH!” thing that will give him a repeatable hook and make WWE audiences excited to see him. The only real problem I see Tozawa having in WWE is having to slow down his EVERYTHING. You can see him between moves just kinda fidgeting, because he’s used to doing like four sequences in the time WWE wants him to take between a dropkick to the knee and a shining wizard.
Love you, Tozawa. Tozawa vs. Neville as soon as possible, please and thank you.
Speaking of Neville, here he is being interviewed by Austin Aries until he’s interrupted by drywall, a patch of grass growing, paint drying, waiting for your phone to recharge and TJ Perkins. The five most boring things in the world!
Best/Worst: Please Watch 205 Live Brand Programming
That’s mostly a joke. I like a lot of these guys, WWE’s just booked the cruiserweights as a collective rectangle of white noise, so it’s hard to get excited for them. Because the ghost of Teddy Long still haunts these halls, we end up with a six-man tag — Neville, Noam Dar and Tony Nese vs. Cedric Alexander, Jack Gallagher and TJ Perkins — to set up a five-man match featuring everyone except Neville for a SHOT at Neville on 205 Live. The goal here, as always, is to get you excited to see the cruiserweights by SHOWING YOU THE CRUISERWEIGHTS DOING NOTHING EXCITING. I still don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish here. Imagine if WCW booked their cruiserweight division by having 90 seconds of Juventud Guerrera chinlocking Billy Kidman before Kidman wins with a hip toss.
Still, there’s some good stuff here. Neville gets pissed about Noam Dar tagging in ahead of him trying to impress him and ends up walking out on his team. I like that Neville just indiscriminately hates everybody, which is how it should be. I also like that Cedric got to pin Dar without Alicia Fox showing up and attacking him with a soda, or whatever.
And that’s your ongoing statement for Raw. Not a “yay” or a “boo,” just an, “oh, okay.”
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night
Dave M J
Is this the show where the Falcons pin the Patriots in a non-Super Bowl match?
Mark Silletti
I want them to both headbutt each other and both no-sell it
AJ Dusman
Will the Undertaker’s dong lead to the distraction finish?!
TANKA
“Samoa Joe can do it all and it all hurts.” I want that on a shirt.
Ryse
Cole: Joe is going to beat down our heroes!
Me: Then why is he attacking Roman?
FeltLuke
Like maybe the Emmalina is the place inside each of us, created by our goodwill and teamwork.
The Real Birdman
TJ Perkins knows what it takes to win that title: Kota Ibushi not signing and Gran Metalik having to finish his contract in Mexico
Sliced Bread No.2
These cruiserweights could cruiser-wait, brother.
troi
such a missed opportunity for Jericho to mention his numerous count out victories against Goldberg
ccxxii
Can we rename it the Universal Soldier championship when Goldberg wins it?
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading, everybody. Be sure to click those social buttons to share the report, make sure to scroll back up to the pre-show notes and vote for us for Best Wrestling Media in the RSPW Awards, and leave us a comment in our comments section below.
Join us on Sunday for the Elimination Chamber, Monday for the Festival of Friendship, some Sunday after that for Fastlane, and for a month of programming after that that will be completely reset at WrestleMania. Also, if we’re lucky, Emmalina.
Oh, and one more Best before we go:
Sign Of The Week
Atlanta blew a … what does that say? So much love to this guy for starting his timely sign on Monday morning, having his Sharpie run out of ink, and deciding to finish anyway.
