Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Raw: WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs 2015 happened, and The Big Dog once again failed to become (and/or stay) WWE World Heavyweight Champion. But hey, he took out his aggressions on Triple H, who technically had nothing to do with the match besides making it a TLC on the TLC pay-per-view. Also on the show, Dean Ambrose became the new Intercontinental Champion, Kalisto gave an Uso a Salida Del Sol from the top of a ladder, and Jack Swagger though it would make an ankle lock hurt more if he put a chair on Alberto Del Rio’s leg when he did it. It was weird.
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Please scroll through for the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for December 14, 2015.
Best: Rolling Women’s Special Slap #2s
I’ll get into the parts of this that didn’t work for me in a minute, because of course I will, but I’ve got to give it up for Stephanie McMahon’s finish, the Special Slap. That thing is brutal.
If you missed the segment, she opened the show by calling Roman Reigns a disgrace. Roman hospitalized her husband on Sunday for either “no reason” or “misguided WWE babyface revenge reasons,” depending on who you speak to. Roman responds by telling her her ENTIRE FAMILY is a disgrace — sorta the equivalent of that time Triple H and Stephanie told Paul Heyman to never mention their children, then immediately insulted his children — so she slaps him. And slaps him again. And again. Stephanie was bringing those slaps like she was being motivated by DJ Khaled, and Roman just kinda had to stand there and take it. What could he do, Superman Punch her? WWE even posted Roman’s dino damage on Instagram for emphasis.
The segment was relatively quick and just there to set up Mr. McMahon’s return later in the evening, so it is what it is. Like I said, more on that a little later.
Best: Kevin Owens, Sore Loser
Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler wrestle the first match of the show, and they continue to be Exhibit A and Exhibit B in WWE’s weird Aimless Wrestling experiment, where you take two of the most talented pro wrestlers on the planet and have them (as JBL would put it) “just do stuff.” Ambrose wrestles like he’s Ted Mosby doing a rain dance, and Ziggler’s obsessed with realistically selling a body part and then stopping for the finish, or ignoring it for huge chunks of the finishing sprint. That all said, Aimless Wrestling is still pretty good wrestling, and Ambrose and Ziggler are certainly capable of putting together something special, if the world around them could just gel and mold a little bit and give them important reasons to do it.
Anyway, the money here is the run-in. Sore Loser Kevin Owens shows up to avenge his Intercontinental Championship loss at TLC by giving Dean Ambrose two (2) pop-up powerbombs. If there’s one thing Ambrose does better than anyone in the company, it’s sell a pop-up powerbomb. The “pop-up” part is supposed to give it added momentum, right? So if you sell it like a normal powerbomb, it’s nothing. If you use that momentum to complete the bounce and flip over on your stomach, it makes it look vicious. Like he’s slammed you so hard into the mat that your body had time to invert on the rebound. A+ on that.
Owens earns bonus points for then powerbombing Ziggler ONTO Ambrose, and I am 100% down for a three-way feud between these guys that takes advantage of the things they do so well. Ambrose and Owens are two of the best talkers in the company, and Ziggler is right alongside them if you’re not asking him to be likable. He’s like a singular, white Uso. He’s probably a cool guy, but when you ask him to seem nice in a wrestling ring on a microphone, he sounds like a sociopath. If you let Goofball Dean Ambrose be your face, you can give Ziggler an edge and play them both against Kevin Owens, who is the Worst Person. Or, hey, just give us a month of Ambrose and Owens feuding over something more interesting than thrown soda.
Worst: R-Truth And Bo Dallas Didn’t Team Up To Take Out Mr. McMahon
In my opinion, one of the biggest and most unforgivable f*ck-ups in recent WWE history is the misuse of Awesome Truth. Those guys were MAGIC together, and the hottest act in wrestling for like a week. The Rock showing up took the wind out of a lot of peoples’ sails — CM Punk, I’m looking in your direction — but throwing Awesome Truth under the bus to make the two most popular people in WWE slightly more successful was the worst.
What I’m getting at is when Vince McMahon returned to Raw for the first time in a year and immediately pursed everyone’s balls, R-Truth and Bo Dallas should’ve just jumped him. How unexpected would that have been? A damn Bo-Dog to Mr. McMahon. I’m kidding, but tell me you wouldn’t pop if they formed a team called Positive Mental Attitude.
Best: Seriously Though, Vince McMahon
Nobody has the in-ring presence of Vince McMahon. Nobody. Not Hogan, not Austin, not Rock. Those guys had personae that would put butts in the seats, but nobody can physically stand in a wrestling ring and conduct the crowd like an orchestra like this psychotic 70-year old.
I’m saying that as a guy who grew up watching the NWA and WCW, and as a guy who runs a wrestling blog that regularly shares “Vince is out of his mind” news and rumors. Vince is the guy who wrote “sufferin’ succotash, son,” and there’s a 105% chance he authored “tater tots.” As a fan, I’ve either grown or have been taught to believe that Vince McMahon’s brain is not connected to the pulse of pro wrestling, and that his lifelong resentment toward becoming a billionaire and the most important person in a profession he hates — professional wrestling — has given him a business and social disconnect that not only makes him the reason for the existence and proliferation of the things I love, but the reason they’re never truly made for me.
No matter what goes on behind the scenes, Vince McMahon the on-screen performer is unmatched. Bottom line. That guy shows up and everything’s instantly important. He’s been in SO MUCH CRAP over the years — dressing up like a surgeon and pulling objects out of a prop Jim Ross ass, dying in a limo explosion and waking up from a coma to make political jokes with Doctor Freddie Prinze Jr., wrestling God, calling John Cena the N-Word, whatever — but when asked to anchor an important moment, there’s nobody more reliable.
Worst: “Your Balls Are Like Food!” — Roman Reigns, Just All The Time
Roman Reigns shows up, and Vince demands an apology for what happened to Triple H. Also, being called a disgrace. Roman refuses and they tease a fight, but Sheamus interrupts. Nothing kills the moment like Sheamus, and he sets up a WWE World Heavyweight Championship rematch for basically no reason. That’s one of the worst things about the rise of Roman Reigns … he’s upset about not getting title opportunities and being screwed when he gets them, but it’s all bullsh*t. He gets SO MANY opportunities. Heel champions are showing up and holding out the belt and saying ROMAN, HERE, TAKE IT. These motherf*ckers are Tim the Enchanter.
Here the guy hospitalized his boss, his heel boss who actively makes babyface lives a living hell, and not only was it instructed by said heel that Roman not be fired, he GOT ANOTHER TITLE SHOT ON RAW. There was a stip, but it was still another goddamn opportunity. There is zero drama for Roman. You don’t even have to wait a full cycle to see if he’ll get another shot. When he lost at Survivor Series, the next Raw announced the PPV main event and gave him a bonus match to win. It’s like when John Cena lost to Kevin Owens, and they announced the rematch before the show went off the air.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that Roman Reigns loves to talk about balls. He LOVES IT. Last week he was incessantly comparing Sheamus’ gonads to tater tots, and on Monday he said Vince McMahon has “shriveled up prunes.” I’m surprised he didn’t call Stephanie “Tater Tits.” Vince’s deadpan response of, “you son of a bitch” is the funniest thing, and if you want proof that Mr. McMahon is a wrestling show performance scientist, there you go.
Like the opening segment, this all ties in to the main event, so more on it in a bit.
Worst, But I’m Always Down For A Good Tommy Dreamer Joke: The Rosebush
You know what I was dying for? An Adam Rose/Tommy Dreamer feud in 2015, based on sarcastic remarks Rose made in a parody of a 22-year old Weekend Update aside. +1 to Rose for saying “the biological father of Sesame Street’s Ernie” without it turning into that scene from Scanners.
Worst: The League Of Not Interested
I might just start posting crossword puzzles or something in place of Alberto Del Rio matches.
I’m happy the League of Nations picked up a win as a team, especially since they couldn’t beat Roman Reigns 4-on-1, but it happened on the same show as Sheamus cashing in his Worst Champion Ever briefcase. King Barrett visited the Springfield Mystery Spot and hasn’t been seen since. I think Del Rio’s the only guy on the team allowed to straight-up win matches. Rusev has to have a wacky, Colonel Parker-style distraction in every match now, and even this one had Lana getting on the apron so the League could hit a double-team the ref probably would’ve allowed anyway.
Honestly, all I want is for Del Rio, Swagger, Rusev and Ryback to all be as far away from each other as possible for like, six months. 50/50 booking has officially beaten me to death, and we need to reshuffle the deck. Stop segregating mid-carders into these little groups they can’t escape from. Get somebody out of that Ambrose/Owens/Ziggler/Breeze rectangle.
Best: New Jack Makes It Onto Raw
That’s who the fourth man for Team ECW should’ve been. He might not be Denzel, but he could be Denzel’s friend. Buy the rights to the unedited version of ‘Natural Born Killaz’, play it all the way through on a live Raw and have f*cking New Jack cut Erick Rowan up with jagged guitar edges and aluminum trash cans.
(Seriously though, I’ve said enough about not wanting another go-round on the ECW nostalgia train, but actually using ECW footage to illustrate the legacy and importance of these guys seems like a long overdue lay-up. It’s like looking at grandpa’s old war photos. You don’t really realize the gravity of him flying planes and killing people until you’ve seen him young and in uniform. I think I’d forgotten what Tommy Dreamer looked like before he was Wayne Skyler from the Married News.)
Best: The Match These Guys Should’ve Had At TLC
At TLC, the Wyatt Family and Team ECW had an elimination tables match that kinda-sorta felt like a production of Cape Fear at a retirement home. Dreamer spent most of the match wandering around, Bubba Dudley sh*t the bed so hard it broke the frame and the tables looked like they were made out of cornbread. You rub your butt against one and it falls apart. Dreamer did a bunch of “THANKS EVERYBODY IT WAS A GREAT RIDE” tweets so I assume that was supposed to be the end, but I’m happy somebody said, “no, let’s give it one more shot, we can do better than that.”
The extreme rules match on Raw was much, much better. It had what the tables match didn’t: fun. ECW wasn’t about mindlessly smashing each other over the head with trash can lids, it was fun. The Raw match had a much quicker pace and kept everyone doing something. We got moves off the stage through tables, Braun Strowman driving Tommy Dreamer upside down through the ringside barricade and making me think he might’ve accidentally paralyzed him, Sister Abigail being countered with a stick to the head, the works. Erick Rowan even got to win a match for once, and not be the Sh*tty Wyatt Family Member for a night. He did a splash through a table, which by itself upped his yearly workrate by 5000%.
The right team won (again), ECW got its latest (and hopefully final) sendoff with a fun match in Philadelphia, and now we can move on. Send Dreamer to feud with Adam Rose on Main Event so I don’t have to recap it, let the Dudleys be team #3 in a four-way tag with at least two more important teams, send Rhyno back to Orlando to be Eskimo Brothers or whatever with Baron Corbin, and resist the urge to bring back the Hardy Boyz and do this all over again.
Worst: NXT Ghosts On The Main Roster
This match made me feel bad.
As you probably know from me spending the last few years with my head up my ass, NXT’s one of my favorite things. Before NXT guys were able to give interviews about how much they love it and want to stay there and represent the “brand,” the goal was to cook these guys in developmental for several years, get them TV ready, make them as interesting and great at wrestling as possible, then erase ALL OF IT so they can more easily fill throwaway roles on Raw and Smackdown. Neville got that. He showed up to Raw with a purple cape, and to date, his character development is “owns purple cape.” Tyler Breeze got it, too. He was brought up as the most 2-D version of his character possible, assumedly to avoid the knee-jerk reactions the WWE Universe has to anything that isn’t hyper-masculine, and now he’s just going through the motions in the same matches every week. Here, Neville beats Breeze in a couple of minutes with a Red Arrow, and the story of the match is The Miz trying to “coach” Neville from ringside.
I just wanted to pour one out for the incredible Adrian Neville/Tyler Breeze chemistry from NXT, as we’ll probably never get to see it again. The interview where Breeze calls Neville during an interview just to passive-aggressively insult him and they get into a conversation about games is one of my favorite NXT interviews ever. They’re so good there. They feel like people. Cartoon people, but people. They have identifiable character traits other than “flips” and “model.”
I also want to give a supplemental Best to The Miz, who repeatedly reminds me that he’s a better character and actor than pro wrestler. Him yelling at Summer Rae for being an extra was amazing, and him wanting to mentor Neville in exchange for learning a legitimate British accent so he can audition for James Bond is just stupid enough to be perfect. Letting these guys who aren’t doing much play around with ridiculous concepts and try to get them over is what worked so well for The New Day. The Miz/Neville story is reminding me a little too much of Miz/Naomi, though, where Miz seems like a decent guy for like two months and we repeatedly doubt him because he’s “a heel,” whether he’s actually doing anything bad or not. Let the guy mentor you, Neville. What’s your other option, waiting around for Stephen Amell to come back?
Best: This Angle Needs To End With The Formation Of The Actual Four Horsewomen
There’s no better option.
Okay, so to recap it for people who don’t actually watch the show, Charlotte has spent the past few weeks proving she’s nothing like her dad by bringing her dad to the ring and having him help her win matches. It’s not the character choice I would’ve gone with, but whatever. Becky Lynch is this noble aw-shucks type who doesn’t want to cheat or be cheated on behalf of, but her only remaining friend has turned into a dickhead so she’s along for the ride. She and Charlotte team up against Team Bella on Raw, and Ric trips up Alicia Fox without Becky seeing it. Becky puts the Disarmer on Fox and taps her out, and is now an unwitting accomplice. Team B.A.D. watched from the crowd, because they’ve got to buy tickets to get on the show.
The end of this story HAS to be the formation of a main roster Four Horsewomen. The faction was never an official thing in NXT — they were mostly rivals who cried and hugged after they wrestled — but in WWE’s stable-obsessed Divas Division, it’s the choice that makes sense. Keep Ric around to be the J.J. Dillon of the group, because none of the women are great on the microphone, and also because he’s Ric f*cking Flair. Have Sasha join the team. You can bring up Bayley here and compromise literally everything that works about Bayley, or just shoehorn Paige back in. The alignments don’t matter and everybody’s cheating everybody, so who cares?
What I’d do (and sorry for the fantasy booking) is bring in Ronda Rousey as the fourth. She wants to wrestle, she lost to Holly Holm and lost her mystique in the process, and she wouldn’t have to be around all the time. Bring her in and make her the Flair of the group. The NWA Champion who is bigger than the rest of them and kinda operates above them, but keeps them around as a posse to stay strong. Flair never really gave a sh*t about the other Horsemen, despite what he said. That would be a great dynamic for Charlotte, who you’d assume would be the Flair, and give her a reason to find an identity other than “girl Ric Flair.” I wouldn’t even make her the Tully. Sasha is the Tully. The one who talks a big game but secretly lacks self-confidence. Charlotte can be the Barry Windham, the tall blonde one who shouldn’t ever talk. Becky can be Arn, because she’s the workhorse who is technically better at wrestling than the rest of them.
Worst: The Lucha Dragons And The Usos Are Jerks
Okay, you know that stuff I wrote earlier about Kevin Owens being a sore loser, and how great that was? It was great because he’s a despicable person. It doesn’t work when you’re supposed to be the good guys.
WWE may be actively trolling me now. The New Day show up (in their throwback, babyface New Day track suits) to put over the TLC ladder match and their opponents, the Usos and the Lucha Dragons. The other teams show up, and you keep expecting the other shoe to drop, but it doesn’t. Kofi Kingston puts over Sin Cara more in one promo than WWE’s been able to in years, and there’s never a moment where you see the “tell” and know The New Day’s f*cking with them. Even after the handshakes and speech, when New Day’s about to launch into a celebration, Woods reiterates that they are sincere and mean everything they said. There’s nothing heel about it, besides previously heel guys doing it.
New Day starts to celebrate — on their own, with no sudden massive insult to the other teams — and get jumped. By the babyfaces. The crowd openly boos it, too, which sorta validates me in my perspective and makes me feel less like a warped smark trying to justify the heels as good people. This was one of the brashest, most openly tone-deaf responses to “heeling” they’ve done in YEARS, and everybody picked up on it. If they’re going for a double turn, God bless them, but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like Sheamus sh*tting in Alberto’s car. It’s mean and petty for the sake of being mean and petty. The Usos and the Lucha Dragons are f*cking jerks, and they deserved to lose. F*ck them. New Day rocks.
Best: Please Ignore The Last 8 Months And Welcome To Roman Reigns Vs. Mr. McMahon
Finally, it’s time to tie this all together.
To give you a MOMENTS AGO style recap, here’s where we are: Vince McMahon has agreed to give Roman Reigns one final shot at the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, because Roman called his balls prunes. He was already emasculated by Stephanie in the open, giving Roman an entire night of being pissed on by McMahons. If Roman doesn’t win the match, he’s fired. There are so many odds against him that somewhere at home, John Cena felt a disturbance in the force.
The match is good, which you’d expect from Sheamus and Reigns, and the crowd’s actually into it because the match has stakes. At Survivor Series, the title change happened at the end of a tournament with the Money in the Bank briefcase, making it simultaneously the cheapest and most obvious thing in the world. At TLC, nobody expected a title change because there wasn’t any time to build drama. Reigns immediately got another shot at Sheamus, pinned him clean on Raw and speared him through a table. It seemed so one-sided and Roman seemed so weirdly relaxed about everything that you couldn’t buy into a title change, especially not in a no-DQ situation where one guy has a team of evil heel friends. Two teams of evil heel friends, if you count The Authority. Here, there are stakes, and we’ve seen them play out in the actual episode. Roman and Vince have a reason to beef, Vince calls the shots and Roman’s on his last legs. It’s now or never. I mean, WWE has a way of turning “now or never” into “anytime, for any reason,” but contextually and without snarky assumptions, it’s now or never.
The thing that’s so great about Vince is that he sets up these reasons, and isn’t afraid to show ass. With Stephanie, she can slap Roman a bunch of times and screw him over, and what can Roman do? He can’t punch her. He doesn’t have a female friend who can punch her on his behalf. Survivor Series 2014 proved that if you DO win and they DO get their comeuppance, something will happen in a couple of weeks to reset everything. Nothing matters. The Authority just wins, and it’s not even exciting. With Vince, he instantly raises the stakes. He not only comes up with justifiable reasons to get angry at the guy, but he goes the extra mile in heeling on him. He kicks him in the balls. He goes full on outrageous with it, and, for lack of better phrasing, shows his work. “Here’s why you should hate me, and cheer the other guy.” When Sheamus enters, Vince doesn’t just sit on commentary and say he hopes Sheamus wins. He’s at ringside doing ridiculous nWo points, clapping and cheering. He’s showing everyone in the arena where he stands, so he can give a little heat to Sheamus and feel like an integral cog in the match. He’s not an omnipotent third party. He’s real, and he’s there.
When Roman’s about to win, Vince interferes in a way that won’t cause a DQ, mostly because he’s the boss. He pulls the referee out of the ring. That’s one of those unforgivable bullsh*t heel things that you don’t ironically cheer for. It’s not Woods throwing a trombone at a guy. It’s a terrible person trying to manipulate a pro wrestling match to ruin a guy he hates. This is set up on one show and is ancient carny wrestling, and it f*cking WORKS. The crowd now not only knows why Vince wants Roman to lose, but sees him trying to make it happen. He’s building the heat, building it and building it, and when it’s time for the finish, Roman Superman Punches him and knocks him out. Vince doesn’t care about winning and gloating for 80 straight weeks to set up somebody finally beating him … he knows the value of telling the story you need to tell and telling it NOW, so people might actually f*cking watch your show for 80 more weeks. Stephanie can never get comeuppance. Triple H will milk it for months, maybe even years before he lets it happen, and there’s always a feeling he’ll get it back tenfold. Vince shows up, instantly makes things important, sets up the pins and knocks them down.
It works, and the reason so many people liked this episode is because THINGS HAPPENED. Isn’t that absurd, that we have to point and say “WE WOULD LIKE YOUR SHOW IF YOU JUST LET THINGS HAPPEN ON YOUR SHOW?” Between Ziggler/Ambrose with the Owens run-in, Vince’s return, the extreme rules match and the main event title change, this felt more like a pay-per-view than any non-WrestleMania pay-per-view this year. Bottom line. I hope they watched it and realize that “important things we wouldn’t want to miss” were more of a contributing factor to its success than “one important guy is here.” I really hope they do.
This show could be so good if we were brave enough to let it work. The production, the talent and the resources are all there. The history is there. The crowd WANTS it. The Internet WANTS it to be good. We’re so into the idea that we’re these jaded, impossible-to-please basement monsters that we can never be happy, but we can. When the show’s good, all but the very worst of us are happy. You don’t even need it to be your definition of “good.” Like, on paper I don’t want Roman Reigns as champion and a 20-minute ECW match in 2015, but I can see a happy crowd and a fun, constructive performance and know it worked. Let it work. Let it work every week.
Let this be the end of the bullsh*t. It can be. Any episode can be.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night
Big Baby Yeezus
RAW should open with a 10 bell salute to HHH and then Demon HHH appears to resume the feud
Cami
Gotta hand it to Roman, they only gave him one chance, and he succeeded.
Harry Longabaugh
Hopefully Neville will do better than Miz’s last project, Sandow: the Man Creative Forgot.
Mr. Royal Rumble, TheCensoredMSol
Now Bo Dallas has something in common with Ben Franklin. They were both buried in Philadelphia.
Calzington
If there isn’t some kind of internet coalition to get Sasha Banks a slammy, then I don’t even know what we do any of this for.
Billy Boy
Excitement! Drama! Unpredictable stories ! These are just some of the things you’re missing by not changing the channel.
Aerial Jesus
Bark like a Big Dog!
Kevin Nash Booked This
Bo Dallas is so wet right now if he jumped in the ocean the ocean would get wetter.
Clay Quartermain
JBL is happy because when Vince is in the ring, the angry voice in his ear/head goes away.
SuedeGuy
I don’t even care, I actually really dug all of that.
Thanks for reading, everybody. Be here on Wednesday for NXT TakeOver: London, or you’re dead to me.
