Rate RAW 11/16/15

[Roadster]

You know the drill.

 

[Roadster]

Match of the Night goes to Reigns vs. Cesaro
Worst of the Night goes to the divas
Props to Kalisto vs. Del Rio and Owens vs. Neville.

Everything else was ok, but the divas contract signing was freaking bad. Reid Flair, British Badass and Michael Cole sum up the segment very well.

 

[Neptune]

A 2 minute moment of silence thing for Paris followed by three years of Undertaker and Kane making their way to the ring. Once in the ring they said some things, got some cheap pops (no milk) and all that jazz. Oh and they did that druid entrance which I forgot about till just now. Bray and them homeless guys came out and laughed and said some things, then the druids were wearing sheep masks because they found out they were homeless too so they became enraged and started flying into the ring only to be beat up awkwardly and very slowly. I swear it was in slow motion. Some aliens may have been in the ring at this point, not really sure. I think I seen John Cena under one of the masks.

After that I basically got probed up the arse again by a completely generic and horrifically sleep inducing Raw.

Ziggler lost, Tripple H and KO talked about his weight and shook hands, something with divas, and I can't remember if there was a crowd there or not...

meh/10

I was going to give them a 0 but I will give them a 2 for the 2 minutes I enjoyed. Sadly it was the 2 minute moment of silence.

 

[edge4ever]

A 2 minute moment of silence thing for Paris followed by three years of Undertaker and Kane making their way to the ring. Once in the ring they said some things, got some cheap pops (no milk) and all that jazz. Oh and they did that druid entrance which I forgot about till just now. Bray and them homeless guys came out and laughed and said some things, then the druids were wearing sheep masks because they found out they were homeless too so they became enraged and started flying into the ring only to be beat up awkwardly and very slowly. I swear it was in slow motion. Some aliens may have been in the ring at this point, not really sure. I think I seen John Cena under one of the masks.

After that I basically got probed up the arse again by a completely generic and horrifically sleep inducing Raw.

Ziggler lost, Tripple H and KO talked about his weight and shook hands, something with divas, and I can't remember if there was a crowd there or not...

meh/10

I was going to give them a 0 but I will give them a 2 for the 2 minutes I enjoyed. Sadly it was the 2 minute moment of silence.

It wasn't that bad. Every match in the tournament was good. Not one of them was bad. Other than that, the rest of raw kind of sucked, but you're being way too harsh.

 

[Prince Bálor]

It was not a good go-home show, despite three of the tourney matches delivering. Everything else was just bleh. 4/10

NOTE: Just watch KO vs Neville, Ambrose vs DZ and Reigns vs Cesaro (which was the highlight of the show) and GET OUT for your own sake.
You'll be better off without watching the entire show.

Positives:
- KO vs Neville was good. The Pop-up Powerbomb he used on Neville was the best looking Pop-up Powerbomb so far.
Also, the Reverse Rana that Neville hit on KO was damn nice!

- Ambrose vs DZ was rock solid. I also liked Ambrose's post-match promo and the grapplefuck they had at the start of the match..

- The New Day's pre-match promo.

- Reigns vs Cesaro was very good and MOTN. Cesaro is such a ring general, yet he gets very little award for it. Wake up, Vince!
Kudos to Reigns, too. He's improved massively since coming back from injury in late 2014.

Negatives:
- The good bad ol' opening segment.

Spoiler: This sums up my feelings about The Wyatts/BOD feud

- Breeze vs R-Truth. If this was Breeze's RAW debut last week, it would've been fine. But this way, it's one week too late and I didn't like/care for it.
Also, ditch Summer Rae. Fly solo, brother.

- Ryback & The Usos vs The New Day.

- The Dudleyz vs The Ascension was random, filler garbage.

- ADR vs Kalisto was so meh and sloppy. Damn, ADR's streak of having underwhelming matches since his return continues.
Also, MexAmerica needs to die. I thought it was going somewhere at first, but now it's just nonsense.

- The divas segment was utter garbage. The reason why the whole #DivasRevolution is flopping is because the artistic geniuses in WWE's Creative department are failing to write decent storylines and outline decent characters for the girls involved. I guess it must be too hard for them to see what HHH is doing in NXT and translate it onto the main roster. Oh, well.
Just kill the divas division with fire already. I want Sasha, Charlotte, Becky and Paige back in NXT, please and thank you.

 

[Rogue]

6/10. It started off extremely slow, and it seemed to drag on throughout the entire night. However, if you strictly boiled it down to the wrestling; it was one of the best RAWs in recent memory. Aside from the Dudleys/Ascension & the 6 man tag, that is. They were both fairly short, on the bright side. Literally fitting of the term bathroom break match.

Outside of the wrestling aspect is a completely different story, though. Triple H talking to every tournament member aside from Ambrose was decent, as well as the New Day's promo. Avoid every other talking segment, as well the two matches I mentioned earlier. Do that and you'll find this was a pretty good go-home show.

 

[Prince Bálor]

To me, HHH approaching every tournament member besides Ambrose came off as there'll be some screwiness at the PPV.

But, if the semis at SS ended clean and the finals ended dirty (with either Reigns/Ambrose turning), it'd be pretty sweet.

 

[C.M. Shaddix]

Still no curves WWE for Survivor Series? Well at least Roman Reigns is improving with Cesaro's help as what I hear. But we need something unexpected to happen besides what we predict on the winner joining Triple H at Survivor Series. It's hard when everyone is injured.

 

[Snowman1]

To me, HHH approaching every tournament member besides Ambrose came off as there'll be some screwiness at the PPV.

But, if the semis at SS ended clean and the finals ended dirty (with either Reigns/Ambrose turning), it'd be pretty sweet.

But what if they swerve us by not swerving us and just let Reigns win clean???

...It may be better than it was before, thanks to the unpredictability of it. But still, RomanWinsLOL

Hell, if I'm doing it, I'd have Kevin Owens walk out with the title. Who's the first person who'd sell out on the roster? Gotta feed Owen, yo.

Anyway, I can't BELIEVE this show is getting the negative reviews it did, I thought it was phenomenal. Granted, watching the 90 minute Hulu version instead of the 3 hour snorefest helps TREMENDOUSLY. Someone tell Big Hoss to upload that show instead. It's basically exactly what you, Prince, wanted out of the show...

8/10

Good Stuff:

-CESARO. That is all. This has to be up there with the best one-man performances I've ever seen in the ring, it was incredible to watch! Flying uppercuts and reversals and hossing the hell out of Reigns and that dropkick to the floor and... Hell, if they want to get Roman Reigns over in the ring, the best way to do it - as we saw with Suplex City, Bitch - is to have some hoss knock the shit out of him and fight back, and we've established Cesaro is THE BEST at beating the living dog snot out of somebody. Damn, I loved this. Best Raw match in a long, long time. I really, really want to believe Cesaro's time is coming, and it might be. Not buying that report that Vince sees this guy as boring (even though I did at first too, but this is a different Cesaro) because it's literally impossible to think that. DID YOU SEE THAT SUNSET FLIP REVERSAL??? DAMN SON.

-Not far behind: Pretty sure it was cut for time, but what I saw of Kevin Owens vs Neville KICKED ALL THE ASSES! This isn't the underconfident Neville working at quarter speed during filler Smackdown matches with the Ascension or whoever, this was full on come at you from a thousand directions don't need a first name gravity can keep it Neville, to go with the Kevin Owens from the summer that literally could do no wrong. The action was fast and furious and exciting and YAY

Again, I just love tournaments. It's awesome to be able to just sit down and enjoy these matchups without having this empty feeling of "filler" like most Raw matches do. Wins and losses matter again, every match has a point...

-Ambrose and Ziggler was great! Love the spot where they traded the small package/superkick to set up It was a different match from the other two but plenty exciting in it's own right

-Kalisto tried, man. He really tried.

Bad Stuff:

-There truly is no bigger Alberto El Patron fan than Alberto Del Rio. That dude has clearly left his heart back in Boyle Heights, the guy just doesn't want to be there - loves getting paid for it - but it shows. And that finish really does have to go. The wrong person won this match, and I doubt that's even an opinion. If you're trying to appeal to the Mexican crowd, it's better to go with the hungry Rey Mysterio clone than Dos Caras Jr. going through the motions. Also LOL @ pulling off Kalisto's mask.

It's up to you:

-Some people may have enjoyed the opening segment, it wasn't for me. Bullshit with Bray Wyatt was fun for a little while, but... This whole thing is just not for me.
-Believe it or not, I actually... *gulp* Well, it'll take a whole 'nother post to explain my feelings on that Divas segment. :haha:

 

[The GOAT]

Ambrose turning heel and joining The Authority would be incredibly disappointing. I agree that that's what they're definitely teasing more than anything else, but who really wants to see Dean's crazed/lunatic character transformed into a corporate, paper champion who jobs repeatedly in non-title matches and gets talked down to like a child by Hunter and Steph just as his predecessors Orton and Rollins did before him? Granted, the alternative isn't any better (i.e. Sheamus) and at least Ambrose would be getting a championship run regardless (although I think he'd definitely be getting one eventually at some point in the future anyway), but still.

Reigns would be much more befitting of aligning himself with The Authority than anyone else, not that that has any real chance of happening.

Personally, I hope they finally just put the title on Reigns and see what happens. He's earned it and they aren't gonna know how well he does as champion until they finally let him carry the gold, so just pull the trigger on it already. But given the Rumble is in his home state of Florida, they'll most likely yank the rug out from under him one last time and put his title win off till Mania (or at the very least, have Sheamus cash in on him after he wins it this Sunday.) Hopefully not.

On another note, I really wish they had saved the quarter-finals for the PPV instead of just the semi-finals and finals. Oh well.