GIVING IT TO YOU RAW…What Happened Last Night (Jan. 19th, 2015)

What’s going on, Enthusiasts?  Well, I don’t know about the lot of you but, I was quite impressed with this week’s “downgrade”.  Maybe RAW Creative was getting sick of all the shit talk coming in its direction but, it made a strong showing last night, getting most of us all hot and bothered for The Royal Rumble coming up this Sunday.  Needless to say, I’ll be throwing down the $9.99 to take a gander and so far, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be money poorly spent.  Yet, as per usual, we shall see.

We open in Dallas, Texas and it being Martin Luther King Day, we get a brief history lesson as to why most of us have the day off to start.  Then, we get right to it because Brock “Gun Jack” Lesnar is in the house and he’s a bit pissed.  Well, pissed enough to speak for himself and who can blame him!  That little punk, Seth Rollins, had the nerve to think he could get away with Curb Stomping him last week.  Where the fuck is he at, anyway!  Lesnar stomps around, Paul Heyman close behind, looking for blood.  With The Beast Incarnate on the warpath, Heyman does his best to talk him down but Lesnar’s not having it.  Where the hell is Rollins at!  To appease him, Triple H saunters out.  Brock, please…what’s all this about?   You know how it goes in the WWE Universe.  Everyone gets “touched” every now and then.  Calm down.  But that just gets Triple H the Beast’s ire, prompting Stephanie McMahon to come out and try settling things down.  Naw, son!  I want Rollins’ ass!! Lesnar demands.  Well, Rollins eventually obliges from safety and appears on the “big screen” to poke The Beast more with his proverbial pointy stick.  Heyman warns The Authority to do something about Rollins or they’ll end up having to put him to sleep after Lesnar gets through with him.  And after that, he’ll go on to obliterate John Cena to retain the Heavyweight Championship.  Um, say what now?  Cena heard that from backstage and walks himself out to go WTF?  Um, wasn’t it me who dumped Lesnar's ass through a table last week?  Whatever! Stephanie McMahon chimes in.  Let’s not forget how you got your co-workers, people you seem to profess standing up for, fired!  Who’s gonna care what you do, anyway?  Yet amidst this, Triple H feels it’s time to play “Good Cop” for once.  Seeing how there are 3 good wrestlers “without jobs” at the moment, why don’t we give Cena a chance to get ‘em back.  John, let’s try this.  If you win your match tonight, these wrongfully dismissed men will get their jobs back (just in time for the Rumble) but the only caveat is the WWE Universe will decide the stipulations of the match.  How’s that?  Not much Cena can do but go along and so, there you have it.  Cena to battle whomever (but you can probably guess) and a win gets Dolph Ziggler, Erick Rowan, and Ryback back to “active” status on the roster.

The first match of the night was intriguing as Daniel Bryan is pitted against his former kinda/sorta nemesis in Bray Wyatt.  This match was well executed.  Wyatt has been doing a good job of establishing his “other worldly” yet violent persona and with Bryan fresh off the Disabled List, We the Audience can’t help but get apprehensive again.  We just don’t want our hero hurt.  No doubt Bryan plays up this sympathy and Wyatt does as well, being rough and merciless in his attacks, honing in on Bryan’s head and neck.  Bryan manages to wriggle out of quite a few tight spots but mean, old Dad (Kane) does his duty and interferes while the ref "isn’t looking" and Wyatt is able to swoop Bryan up in a Sister Abigail and get the win.  Dad, pleased with his fine work, turns his attention back to Bryan after the match.   Something’s missing…Oh yeah! And Dad hoists Bryan up and Chokeslams him down, giving him plenty of hits to take home with him afterwards.

There’s a lot going on RAW tonight.  It’s a “Raw Reunion” with the likes of Shawn “HBK” Michaels, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash among others in attendance.  There are a lot of promos/asides this evening and they do a good job of getting us nostalgic and feeling old.  I remember HBK but outside of that, the memory’s fuzzy ‘cause a lot of these cats were before my wrestling time.   Yet, they definitely harkened back to when this shit wasn’t for any pansies.  In any case, Flair, HBK and Hogan get themselves in the ring for Byron Saxton to conduct a playful round robin to get the Legends’ thoughts on how things are going to play out at The Rumble.  They give good or at least plausible answers.  Some favor Dean Ambrose, others Bray Wyatt yet before they can fully sink their teeth into the possibilities, out comes Big Show, all ornery and spitting some sparks of hell-fire.  These “legends” are all washed up.  No one cares what they have to say, shit most these people don’t even know who the hell they are.  They know me, though.  And I’d even go so far to say that some of you got beef with me and are probably even jealous…As Big Show goes on and on, Flair decides he’s had enough and lets the Holy Ghost course through him so he can give Big Show a taste but, Big Show responds by KO Punching our lovable, crazy veteran.  Well, that’s the line.  We hear Roman Reigns’ music hit and with a focused and deliberate advance, Reigns serves up the beating to Big Show that we know Flair can’t and to further punctuate this, Reigns sends Big Show over the ropes, something that just so happens never happened at the Royal Rumble.   This is how Reigns should more or less be booked.  This is how he should have been booked.  He should only speak when necessary and even then, less is more.  He doesn’t need to do anything other than kick ass.   As he evolves, so will his character and we’ll finally have something we can get behind.  Geese, was that so hard?!  I don’t know who had the idea to make him a cartoon mockery of himself but I’m glad they’re getting back to basics.  If they had done this, point blank, from the get go, they probably would have been able to pull off this “push”.  But no, WWE Creative went out of their way to dress up a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” thinking we wouldn’t notice.

Anyway, up next we have Dean Ambrose and Wade “Bad News” Barrett go for it in a “Let’s See What Happens” match.  Not much does actually.  It takes a little bit to get Ambrose’s motor running but once it does, “the Crazy” does the rest, even with the “bum knee”.  This is a match I haven’t seen though, so there are points for that but they didn’t have the best chemistry yet, we can maybe chock that up to this being their first official dance.  Perhaps next time it’ll go smoother.

After that, the New Day comes out to tango with Tyson Kidd and Cesaro with Adam Rose & the Rosebuds at ringside.  Well, the New Day isn’t well received this time around and the match itself comes off as merely something to do and in all this, Cesaro and Kidd meet with another loss, as well.  Doesn’t look like anyone is really sure what to do with these guys.  The match itself wasn’t bad but it wasn't all that great either so…that’s one everyone’s gonna have to have a think on.

To Follow, The Ascension are laid to waste by Tag Teams’ Past where Scott Hall, X-Pac and Kevin Nash find themselves in the ring and The Ascension decide to address them all.  Look here “Used-to-Was-es”,  clear the way for the Future!  The old-timers look amongst themselves, unsure what to make of these costumed ruffians.  This, gets JBL’s goat from the Announce Table and in a fit of anger he disrobes from his jacket to reveal an APA shirt and his true feelings about these young braggarts.  He calls out Ron Simmons who ambles down the ramp, not too old to put a foot up it.  The New Age Outlaws are also in attendance and they decide to show The Ascension what being a Tag Team is all about in the WWE and the old fogies "learn" these kids a thing or 2.  It looks like the WWE are going to pitch The Ascension as a bit of comedic relief until further notice.

Next Up, we have some Divas action with Summer Rae and Alicia Fox up against Natalya and Paige.  The Bella Twins do us the “favor” of sitting in on commentary.  It cracked me up how the Bella Twins’ boring commentary actually distracted me from the match.  On the Twitters, someone made the comparison to them sounding like Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon on the “Delicious Dish” when they were on Saturday Night Live, which was spot on.  Out of the Divas, AJ Lee is the only one that seems to have fun when on commentary.  In any case, Paige gets the win via submission.

Then, we have Rusev and Lana come out to make quick work of R-Truth, we basically figured that out the minute R-Truth came hopping down the ramp.  The same could be said about the singles match after that with Jey Uso against The Miz.  Seeing how these fellows have been dancing for what seems like a marathon event, We the Audience simply figured The Usos won the coin toss this time around and they did.

This leads us to the Main Event.  John Cena to face Dad (Kane), Big Show and Seth Rollins in a 3-on-1 Handicap match because the majority of us deemed it so...mostly.  Well, this match was a blast!  At first, it definitely read as these unfair battles generally do.  Cena up against It in whatever form The Authority takes.  Rollins starts off only to hand off to Dad and the pummeling begins.  Cena does his best, despite being outnumbered and taking cheap shots.  If he lands a hit to Rollins, Dad or Big Show and sometimes both would tag him back, making it look bleak for the return of Ziggler, Rowan and Ryback.  Then, all of a sudden, the big screen comes on to display a stoic Sting.  He stands frozen, the icon that he is.  The Heels look to the screen in awe, not sure what this means and We the Audience wonder as well but, with giddy anticipation especially when Sting walks away prompting We the Audience to expect a real appearance!  In all the hub-bub, Cena takes the opportunity to roll-up Rollins and get the pin for the win in exhilarating fashion.  And if that didn't do it for you, Triple H gets on the mic just mad as hell!  Goddamnit, Sting!  You can't do this!  Get back here!...Get back here!...and then Gun Jack (Lesnar) comes out 'cause he hasn't beat anyone's ass yet.  You know what, these guys will do and he proceeds to F5 everyone in the ring.  Both Dad and Big Show get some tornado to chew on while Rollins scurries away after taking some hits along with J&J Security and Cena rides the victory wave to black.   I’ll just say that it’s mighty bad-ass to set everything off by just standing there.  Sting is a true legend in this respect not to mention that RAW actually didn’t suck for once.   Like with last week's Smackdown, I’m at a bit of a loss.  I’m so used to criticizing it that I’m almost not sure what to do with it once it's good.  I’m not knocking it in the slightest, though.  For once, there’s something to look forward to as opposed to lament.  Keep it going.  There is hope yet. 

On to you, Smackdown.

See You Thursday,

-Nicole Alexis (^_~)