Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Raw: Jack Gallagher demanded satisfaction and slapped a dude with a glove. Also on the show, The Club ripped the head off a Dusty Rhodes teddy bear and then pinned Goldust with a distraction roll-up. This week, Goldust gets his revenge by not appearing. Emmalina has still not debuted, isn’t debuting this week, and might not actually show up until WWE Network decides to air a tournament of exclusively independently-contracted Australian Instagram models.
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Welcome to a new year. Here’s the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for January 2, 2017.
Best: Last Man Standing
I’ve got a lot of saucy shit to say about this week’s episode, so I wanted to start off by happily writing about something I loved: the Sami Zayn vs. Braun Strowman Last Man Standing match.
With the exception of the terribly executed “last 10 minutes” affair at Roadblock: The Second In A Series Of Roadblocks and some inconsistencies with Commissioner Foley’s increasingly senile ass, Sami Zayn vs. Braun Strowman has been the best story on Raw for months. It ignores some obvious character stuff — Sami Zayn’s already proven himself as a legitimate Superstar, he’s pinned Kevin Owens clean on pay-per-view and wrestles on a show populated by a bunch of dudes much smaller and lighter and less successful-at-WWE than him — but Zayn is superhuman at taking a beating, and Strowman’s working on making his beatings look superhuman. It’s a great combination. You’ve got a giant guy who still has some stuff to learn participating in a lengthy, engaging angle with a “vennern” (™ Michael Cole) who could take an ass-kicking from a 3-year old and convince you they were Bobby Eaton.
The Roadblock match was built around the idea that Sami “won” by simply lasting 10 minutes in the ring with Braun, and Braun being pissed that it happened because he knows it let it. Strowman had like, zero sense of urgency in that match. There’s two whole minutes where Zayn’s on the outside begging Foley to not throw in the towel, and Strowman’s just standing around. To make up for that, we’ve got a Last Man Standing match, where the goal is for Braun to just hammerblow Zayn to death until he can’t move. Zayn has to up his offensive game and not just “last,” but win. For real. He’s got to incapacitate the incapacitatable and more or less fight for his life. It’s a great setup, and at least acknowledges and tries to build upon the previous match.
The match itself is a hell of a lot of fun, and so pitch-perfect for the characters I’m mad they didn’t just skip to this part. Zayn FIGHTS here. It’s not passive. He gets his ass kicked, but the story is built around his refusal to stay down, and his survival instincts kicking in. The announce team makes a point to explain that he’s not running away from Strowman, he’s trying to put some distance between them to find a weapon that’ll help him fight back. He uses kendo sticks, he’s pushing carts in the way, he’s running and diving and knocking Braun off the stage through tables. Braun keeps getting up, and more than that, he keeps moving forward. And not that stupid, “I can’t stop running forward because I’m Bane from the Arkham games and you hit me with a Batarang” moving forward, he moves forward with purpose. He’s angry, like he’s supposed to be. He’s increasingly frustrated by Zayn not staying down, and it just makes him madder.
By the time Zayn’s used up pretty much all of his ideas, Braun’s still moving, and that’s trouble. Zayn ends up getting powerslamed on the floor multiple times, and Braun won’t let Zayn struggle back up to his feet. If he sees him move at all, he picks him up and puts him down again. That’s GREAT. He’s not leaving it up to chance. It’s not hubris. It’s indirectly kind of respectful, because he realizes Zayn’s going to get back to his feet if he’s got a single breath left in his body. So, you know, he makes sure he’s got no more breaths.
After he wins, the anger is still there. Because it’s not about whether or not he can beat up Sami Zayn, of course he can. It’s about breaking this little annoying thorn in his side’s spirit, so when Zayn’s being stretchered out, Strowman jogs over and throws him at the ground again. I love this because they fought on an even playing field, Strowman purposefully and smartly won the match, and is still so mad that winning’s not enough. That’s where the story (at least for me) changes from, “I wonder if Sami Zayn can survive against this guy,” to, “I hope Sami Zayn kicks this guy’s ass.” Really hoping the trajectory of the United States Championship goes from Reigns to Strowman to Zayn.
And I hope there’s hell to pay.
All right, now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Raw being Raw.
Worst: OFF THE DISTRACTION!
There was a lot of “new year, new me!” stuff going around on Raw, but Raw is Raw. I’m not sure it can even change at this point. The worst part of the episode for me is that they only seemed to come up with one finish: OFF THE DISTRACTION BY whomever!
The most important of these is Bayley vs. Nia Jax, which is going pretty well until the finish. Nia climbs the ropes to hit a Jumping Nothing (or whatever), when wait just a minute, we know who that is! That’s Sasha Banks, Taz! Sasha returns from injury and causes the dreaded Musical Distraction, draining all of Nia’s deductive reasoning and HP and allowing Bayley to pop up and hit a Bayley-to-Belly off the ropes for the win. Nia Jax just straight-up gets pinned on Raw to start 2017. Sure, that’s probably fine!
This is a means to an end to set up two matches for the Royal Rumble that’ll probably be good-to-great — Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair, and Sasha vs. Nia — but it’s the classic worst possible way to get there. They even do another one of those “Stephanie McMahon says she doesn’t believe in a person, then she says she might, then she puts them in a match against someone good as PUNISHMENT and not as, you know, a person running a wrestling show who knows how wrestling works.” This would work a lot better if we acknowledged NXT existed all the time instead of just when we need it, and realize we’ve already done the Bayley Comes Of Age And Realizes She Belongs story with the same damn people.
Another OFF THE DISTRACTION happens during Drew Gulak vs. Alicia Fox’s Dumb Boyfriend. How sad it is that Cedric Alexander went from a guy so beloved for his talent and hard work that he got respect from the boss before he even got to the back, showed up on Raw as the most over cruiserweight and now wrestles in front of 10,000 crickets and comatose mannequins because he’s DUMB BOYFRIEND instead? I like how “Bad at Jackets” Noam Dar says “Alicia Fauuughhhhsss” as much as the next guy, but it’s not going to do much for Ced.
But yeah, Dumb Boyfriend is doing well in dead silence until Asexual Gymnastics Dwarf Tony Nese tries to harass Alicia and causes a distraction. Cedric Alexander stops what he’s doing to go up on the ropes and ANGRILY POINT, which leaves him open for a roll-up from Gulak. Alexander loses via pinfall to (kayfabe) the worst dudes in the division. But at least his strained backstage relationship is still the most important thing in zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Speaking of distractions and guys getting their first-ever singles wins on Raw, he most disappointing distraction finish of the night goes to Cesaro vs. Karl Anderson. As you might expect if you’ve ever watched wrestling outside of WWE, it’s going really well until the WWE of it all kicks in.
Cesaro fucking rules right now, obviously, and Anderson’s one of the number one guys you can tell is hungry as hell to break out and start being a decent part of the show. I’m guessing the Demon Bálor getting hurt and turning into the Demon Bailer put a hold on whatever they were actually going to do. But yeah, the match is a lot of fun until the finish, which sees Good Bother Doc Gallows getting on the apron to cause a distraction. Sheamus takes a break from brilliantly putting over the match on commentary (note: not sarcasm, he was great) to help out, pulling Gallows down. Unfortunately for Cesaro, this causes Gallows to pull down the top rope and trip him up mid-superplex, and Anderson’s able to hit a Jumping Head Grab and win the match.
Not only is it disappointing to see a match this good end this badly, but the last thing I think any of us want to see is more “can they co-exist” material from Sheamus and Cesaro. We JUST stopped doing that.
The final distraction finish of the night happens during Big Cass vs. Rusev and Jinder Mahal, a handicap match, so it’s more of a “damn numbers game” than a distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.
Enzo Amore is apparently confined to the wheelchair this week, despite being able to get out of it, fight off a guy and do his finisher off the steps last week. Cass thinks he can take on both men by himself, and he does a good job of it until Jinder wanders over and smacks Enzo in the face. Jinder is great at that. Cass has to roll out of the ring to help, causing a distraction. He gets back in the ring and catches a surprise kick from Rusev, so they, uh, do the finish again. Jinder gets on the apron, causing another distraction, allowing Rusev to hit the kick he just tried to hit and win the match.
So to recap, in this one episode we have:
– a distraction roll-up
– a musical distraction
– a distraction leading to a tag team miscommunication
– a manipulated distraction in a handicap match using an injured tag team partner
Same episode. Four times. New year, new Raw.
Worst: I’M THE BOSS YOU LISTEN TO ME
SPEAKING OF FRESH NEW CONCEPTS FOR RAW, this week’s episode begins with General Manager Mick Foley going Full Commissioner Foley with his rehab haircut and unrealistic create-a-wrestler goatee talking about what he’s doing and getting interrupted by Actual Person In Charge Stephanie McMahon, who explains that everyone sucks but her. You’ve seen it a million times. It’s a thing.
The payoff is the bosses making the two most obvious matches in the world: Roman Reigns not having a chance in hell of losing the United States Championship to Chris Jericho, and Kevin Owens being the least important person in the world and losing to Seth Rollins. You’ve seen them a million times. It’s a thing. Jericho looks like a cowardly idiot, Owens looks like a cowardly idiot, Foley looks like an ineffectual regular idiot and Stephanie looks like a Digevolved Super Mr. McMahon with Fabio hair. She’s always right and frustrated by all these stupid people! We hope you noticed!
Rollins vs. Owens is fine, like it’s always fine, but it’s the weaker of the two matches. It ends with Owens losing via disqualification, causing him to be banned from ringside for the United States Championship match. I’m not sure I can even get my brain to notice Owens vs. Rollins happening at this point. Both guys are obviously good at what they do, but three straight pay-per-view matches with the same finish kinda beats you into submission. Wrestling is just happening. I’m not sure they could ever make this exciting again.
Chris Jericho vs. Roman Reigns is much better, as these guys have the most ridiculous in-ring chemistry right now. Jericho’s weird stunted WWE main-eventer style works like magic with Reigns’ absolute inability to do anything else. It’s just a perfect combination. The match is structurally very similar to the one from Austin a few weeks ago, with the added stipulation of Owens being banned from ringside, and the possibility of the title changing hands on a disqualification.
That sets up the Eddie Guerrero Special, with Jericho distracting the referee (woo!) with an exposed turnbuckle so he can grab the United States Championship belt, toss it to Roman and back-bump to make the ref think Roman hit him with it. In a crazy turn of events, the referee actually believes Roman Reigns when he says he didn’t hit him, which at first kinda makes Roman seem like a special entitled baby snowflake, but honesty makes a lot of kayfabe sense. Why would the referee who works for WWE and sees these fuckers all the time think Chris Jericho’s ever telling the truth, or thinks Roman Reigns is gonna start using foreign objects to win matches? That guy doesn’t even need wrestling moves, he just punches you and runs at you with his shoulder over and over. +1 to the referee for actually existing in this universe.
So yeah, a definite Best for this match, and a general Worst for the general environment of it. Reigns and Jericho have something special in the ring, so let’s actually do something with that, and not turn it into a thing we’re tired of seeing.
Best: Neville’s Gonna Kill You
TJ Perkins defeats the only person he ever wrestles, Brian Kendrick, in a solid, short match that somehow manages to have less heat than Cedric Alexander vs. Drew Gulak.
Same.
The highlight here for me is the 205 Live video package about Neville murder-death-killing Rich Swann on 205 Live and screaming BRING ME MAH CRAHNNNNNN. Age Nev is absolutely my shit right now. I love that his character is, “guy who hates the Cruiserweight Division.” Talk about a real man of the people. Here’s hoping we somehow get to the Neville vs. Kalisto fireworks factory by WrestleMania, especially since the UK Championship show is about to happen and fill 205 quota of an hour a week of little dudes nobody in the WWE Universe cares about.
Best: New Jack
Backstage, Best Cruiserweight and ginger Doctor reincarnation Jack Gallagher teaches The New Day how to win gentlemanly duels with umbrellajutsu.
.@GentlemanJackG shows #TheNewDay how to properly use an umbrella for self-defense. #RAW pic.twitter.com/H3h0i5B4lQ
— WWE (@WWE) January 3, 2017
That sets up an in-ring segment with Titus O’Neil trying to join the New Day, which for some reason does not end with three-to-four dudes beating the shit out of Titus O’Neil with umbrellas. It does feature Titus twerking, though, in case you were wondering how deeply in the musty-ass hole under the doghouse Titus O’Neil is still stuck.
Imagine how much better Titus’ life would be if he’d never touched Vince McMahon out of turn. Like, he could be one of those guys holding up sensitivity training certificates before he wrestles. The boyhood dream!
Worst: The Weak Link
Titus wants to join the New Day, because of course he does, which sets up Titus vs. Xavier Woods. I think the idea was to continue Woods’ hot streak, as he was New Day’s late Q4 MVP, but it didn’t work, mostly because most of the match is Woods struggling and having to come up with a counter to a power move to score a flash pin. Does Woods really gain a lot from being a guy who just lost to Mark Henry in like five seconds and spent the five minutes before this twerking?
Best/Worst: The Kevin Owens Show
So after all of this, the main event is a talk show segment where Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho try to get themselves over (despite the crowd having seen them both lose), and Bill Goldberg showing up to get in their faces at weird times and scream at them in his Timmy from South Park voice.
Goldberg is Very Intense with capital letters, and Owens and Jericho try to hold their own with him until Paul Heyman interrupts. Heyman’s just there to tease a Brock Lesnar appearance that doesn’t happen, and stand in the aisle for a few seconds until Roman Reigns interrupts him and just breezes past him to do actual important things. Thanks for coming, Paul! Glad they flew you somewhere to say “my client Brock Lesnar” and then disappear.
Roman and Goldberg end up nose-to-nose in one of those shots that pretty much guarantees they did it for the ending of a WrestleMania video package. Before that goes anywhere, they’re interrupted by Braun Strowman, the guy who got the most out of this episode. We watched him survive a ton of brutal attacks and manhandle one of the most talented and popular babyfaces on the show. Here, he steps into the ring and immediately gets speared.
I didn’t really like how that went down, but I get it. Braun looked like a chump, but it DID take finishers from Reigns and Goldberg to put him down, and he’d wrestled a Last Man Standing match earlier in the night. I just wish he’d like, made some kind of impact before it happened instead of just being an afterthought to put two unrelated guys over. Hopefully he uses it as a reason to finally go after Reigns and take that United States Championship, especially if Reigns is beating Owens at the Rumble and Goldberg’s winning to face Reigns at Mania. Or ROAD3LOCK, or whatever. Reigns and Goldberg tagging against Braun and Lesnar would be pretty fun. And hey, sorry if you don’t like the idea of Reigns/Goldberg at WrestleMania … at least you’ll have Shaq vs. Big Show and Stephanie McMahon vs. Ronda Rousey to look forward to!
Also, shout-out to Kevin Owens for being the fifth most important person in a segment called “The Kevin Owens Show.”
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
PhilBallins
Strow man, Ro man and old man
Full Nelson Reilly
Goldberg is looking like a kosher Popeye.
Lester
Roman and Goldberg spear each other at the same time, and the result is just Goldberg with a new luxurious head of hair.
Mr. Bliss
I legitimately forgot that Zayn lost the LMS Match earlier. I would probably be a great writer for RAW
The Real Birdman
Enzo’s not getting a reaction because Floridians are used to seeing drug addicts & people riding motorized wheelchairs
SaberDragon
Perkins/Kendrick again is like that kid in your neighborhood who insisted that you could get a secret character by playing the same level 100 times
Nevers
“I may not have a (famous) last name.” – Bayley.
Cami
“This is what happens when you touch a stranger in the ramps” – Vinnie Mac.
Slumdog_prince
*Dean Pelton voice* oh, Titus is in this?
TheGunslinger
Kevin Owens: We’re national treasures.
Nic Cage: We going to have to steal The List of Jericho.
That’s it for this week, folks. Thanks for reading, and thanks for starting another year of columns with me. Be sure to drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of the show, and click those social buttons to support the site and share the report. Next week The Undertaker returns to Raw and lays out a WrestleMania challenge to … oh, let’s say, Pete Gas. Be there!
