Rate Raw 4/18/2016

[Jacob Fox]

Feel free to rate RAW and leave your RAW comments below in the RAW thread... RAW!

Spoiler: Raw Results

1. The show opens with the Ambrose Asylum talk show with Shane McMahon as a guest. Shane and Ambrose are confronted by Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho. Sami Zayn also comes out to confront Owens. Two matches are made for Payback: Zayn vs Owens and Ambrose vs Jericho. A melee breaks out and two matches are made for the night: Kevin Owens vs Ambrose and Chris Jericho vs Sami Zayn.

2. Chris Jericho defeated Sami Zayn by pinfall following a code breaker.

3. Backstage AJ is greeted by Karl Andersn and Luke Gallows. Gallows says they're going to make the most of their opportunity in WWE and they know AJ will at Payback too. AJ says he's just glad they are here. They leave together to go catch up.

4.Enzo and Cass defeated the Dudley Boyz by pinfall when Bubba was pinned. Enzo and Cass then advanced to the finals of the tag team number one contenders tournament.

5. Roman Reigns comes out to very loud boos and continues his "I'm not a good guy, I'm not a bad guy, I'm the guy," spiel. He compliments AJ Styles who comes out and the two talk decently. When AJ leaves, Anderson and Gallows attack Roman in the ring and AJ seems shocked.

6. Backstage AJ approaches Roman and while admitting that Anderson and Gallows are his boys, he said he had no idea that they were going to d that. Roman doesn't believe AJ. Styles leaves.

7. Baron Corbin defeated Fandango by pinfall after hitting the End of Days. After the match, Corbin is attacked by Dolph Ziggler who had been sitting at ringside. Corbin hits the End of Days on Ziggler outside the ring and leaves Ziggler on the ground.

8. Miz TV. Miz is interupted by Cesaro and the two have a standoff. When Cesaro is about to attack Miz, Miz introduces Rusev as Cesaro's opponent. cesaro then informs Miz that he spoke with Shane McMahon who changed the match to League of Nations and the Miz against Cesaro and the New Day.

9. Cesaro and the New Day Defeated the Miz and the League of Nations when Cesaro hit Sheamus with a Neutralizer.

10. In an interview with Charlotte and Ric Flair, Natayla announced that Bret Hart will be in her corner for her match at Payback vs Charlotte.

11. Natalya, Becky Lynch, Paige and Sasha Banks defeated Naomi, Tamina Snuka, Summer Rae and Charlotte when Charlotte tapped out to Natayla's sharpshooter.

12. The Vaudevillians defeated the Usos to advance to the finals of the tag team number one contender's tournament to face Enzo and Cass at Payback.

13. Apollo Crews defeated Heath Slater

14. Dean Ambrose defeated Kevin Owens by pinfall when Ambrose pinned KO. Jericho hits Ambrose with a codebreaker after the match.

 

[Jacob Fox]

7/10. This is the third decent Raw in a row. I'll try to post more about it later because I have some work to do but it's a good Raw and hopefully this keeps up.

 

[Roadster]

The main event was good, much better than any of their IC title matches. Anderson and Gallows attacking Reigns was cool, and the tag matches were good.

Pretty average. 5/10

 

[Rogue]

When it's hard to choose a favorite moment they're definitely doing something right. From the MizTV segment, to all the Roman/AJ interactions, to Enzo & Cass, to Baron Corbin. Nothing was really ground breaking per se, but it was just a lot of good moments put together to make a really solid episode.

Instead of breaking things apart one by one I'm going to clump them all together, and applaud the combined attempts they've been making post-Mania. Like I said in the chat, every story is getting time to shine and actually mean something. It's great, really makes Payback feel bigger than it normally would.

Going to rate it an 8/10, just because I generally enjoyed the majority of the episode. And that's nearly impossible with any 3 hour event.

 

[C.M. Shaddix]

8/10 Great flow with the storyline and the bullet club tease make this RAW very enjoyable

 

[Snowman1]

A perfectly solid 7/10 Raw this week. Trying to keep these thoughts brief...

-I love how the main storyline is "We want to put on a good show!". It's legitimately the best thing ever.
-Roman Reigns is a heel. You are not supposed to be cheering this man. He came across as Alex Riley after a shower with a shiny new belt.
-The Bullet Club thing was really interesting! Styles vs Reigns on its own was pretty cold. This is better. Still hope they're gonna swerve us by having a clean match, though!
-Chris Jericho can just stop winning matches in 2016
-Bully Ray is still amazing. Can we get him in the World Title picture? Please?
-Really get the feeling Natalya is going to win at Payback... As good as Charlotte vs Sasha sounds, Natalya vs Sasha may be even better!
-Tag formula sucks, matches that matter rule. Kinda like this whole show. On Hulu a shocking about of stuff was cut, my usual " wrestling for wrestling's sake" gripe was here, but this show just flew by and was never remotely boring. Thumbs up!

 

[Prince Bálor]

This week's RAW was good. Holy shit! That's 3 GOOD episodes in a row! Keep this up, WWE. Please and thank you.

I'm going to give it an 8/10 simply because it was an enjoyable 3 hours of RAW.

Positives:
- The Ambrose Asylum segment. Suddenly these 15-20 minute opening segments have become a lot more tolerable when The Authority's not out there putting us to sleep.

- Y2J vs Sami Zayn was good.

- Seeing Styles, Gallows and Anderson backstage made me smile. LOL'd at the Machine Gun saying to AJ: "When I grow up, I wanna be just like you."

- Enzo & Cass vs The Dudleyz was decent. Enjoyed the pre-match promo by Zo & Cass, as well as Bubba's banter during the match.

- Liked the Roman Empire/AJ Styles segment, as well as Gallows/Anderson kicking Roman's ass afterwards. It hyped the title match in a good way and created some doubt with Gallows and Anderson.

- The MizTV segment w/ Cesaro was good.

- Cesaro & The New Day vs The Miz & The LoN was rock solid, the homestretch was surely fun.

- The Vaudevillains vs The Usos was decent. I'm glad there was no distraction finish or some other BS, The Vaudevillains were aggressive and due to their manliness, they came out victorious.

- Ambrose vs KO was a pretty good ME, enjoyed it.

Negatives:
- The 8-woman tag and that's about it.

Neutral:
- Corbin vs Fandango and Crews vs Slater. They were exactly what they needed to be, but I just didn't enjoy those segments. Didn't hate 'em either.

 

[Prince Bálor]

-The Bullet Club thing was really interesting! Styles vs Reigns on its own was pretty cold. This is better. Still hope they're gonna swerve us by having a clean match, though!

3 possible scenarios:

1) AJ Styles defeats Reigns via Anderson & Gallows interference.

2) Reigns retains via Anderson & Gallows interference. Doubtful, but hey, anything can happen in the WWE.

3) Styles is screwed out of the title by Gallows and Anderson. Out comes THE true/original leader - Finn Bálor.

Even though I have nothing against option #1, I can see them going with #3 at the end of the day, tbh.

Styles is so over as a babyface and having :balor:debut on the main roster while still holding the NXT title could be special. One thing's for certain, though, the ME at Payback has gotten a lot more exciting now. :yay:

 

[alexb]

As already mentioned in previous posts above, it's a 3rd week in a row that we got an enjoyable RAW so I'm glad to say that WWE are finally doing some things right. It ain't perfect but one should at least give credit for the efforts made.

You know, it ain't rocket science. With all the new blood now aboard in the main roster and the addition of storylines that make sense, giving us matches on RAW that make sense and have meaning, well, there's your winning formula.

On to the show, giving it a 7/10 myself. There were a couple of instances where I got bored (the Divas tag for example) but overall enjoyable.

Loved the Ambrose Asylum segment (laughed a lot with Dean's joke about the monster in the lake and his reference to Strowman) and the outcome of it was the announcement of two more matches at Payback that we all knew were coming. Both Y2J vs Ambrose and KO vs SZ are Wrestlemania caliber matches in my view that we could have easily had then but I guess better late than never.

Enzo and Cass are certainly killing it, Jericho vs Zayn was quite good, the main event was awesome while I also really liked what they did with Corbin. They really made him look good and him against Ziggler should also be good.

On the flipside, I did not like Roman Reigns promo and just to be clear, I am not referring to the end game but him on the mic. Again with the same line about him being THE guy and while I get it, the way he delivers it just sounds so unconvincing and boring.

The Bullet Club tease is definetely intriguing but seeing the backstage segment with AJ before he came out, my immediate reaction was "this is going to go opposite of what we think" meaning I see problems ahead between AJ and Anderson/Gallows.

All in all, the gist here is that finally WWE are doing things right and these past few weeks have been so good that after a very long time they make us look forward to next week...

 

[Snowman1]

As already mentioned in previous posts above, it's a 3rd week in a row that we got an enjoyable RAW so I'm glad to say that WWE are finally doing some things right. It ain't perfect but one should at least give credit for the efforts made.

You know, it ain't rocket science. With all the new blood now aboard in the main roster and the addition of storylines that make sense, giving us matches on RAW that make sense and have meaning, well, there's your winning formula.

On to the show, giving it a 7/10 myself. There were a couple of instances where I got bored (the Divas tag for example) but overall enjoyable.

Loved the Ambrose Asylum segment (laughed a lot with Dean's joke about the monster in the lake and his reference to Strowman) and the outcome of it was the announcement of two more matches at Payback that we all knew were coming. Both Y2J vs Ambrose and KO vs SZ are Wrestlemania caliber matches in my view that we could have easily had then but I guess better late than never.

Enzo and Cass are certainly killing it, Jericho vs Zayn was quite good, the main event was awesome while I also really liked what they did with Corbin. They really made him look good and him against Ziggler should also be good.

On the flipside, I did not like Roman Reigns promo and just to be clear, I am not referring to the end game but him on the mic. Again with the same line about him being THE guy and while I get it, the way he delivers it just sounds so unconvincing and boring.

The Bullet Club tease is definetely intriguing but seeing the backstage segment with AJ before he came out, my immediate reaction was "this is going to go opposite of what we think" meaning I see problems ahead between AJ and Anderson/Gallows.

All in all, the gist here is that finally WWE are doing things right and these past few weeks have been so good that after a very long time they make us look forward to next week...

Totally with you with Roman though. Dude is like the male Kesha, everything that comes out of his mouth sucks.
"AJ Styles is gonna try to outwrestle me, but it doesn't matter because I'm bringing the big fight!" oh my GOD I just wanted to jump the barricade after that line. Don't even know why.
He had that line about "I'd rather be respected with this than liked without it" that was interesting because hey, he's a heel. Anything to pay to see him eat a Phenomenal Forearm for nine ninety nine.

wait a forearm into a superman punch will be giffable forever :blackshock:

Fine reviews, crew. That's now three weeks since the last Lucha Underground plug... oh, wait. :

 

[Aurtle The Turtle]

I'm not sure what's happening backstage right now but this is the third good RAW in a row, something very rarely had these days and something I am so appreciative of. I'm liking where this BC invasion angle is going as I believe we're leading up to heel Balor vs face Styles which will be more than welcome.

Enzo and Cass continue to hit it out the park, got to think that them vs New Day vs Karl and Gallows at Summerslam will be the obvious choice and will be one of the most over matches on the card, really awesome that the entire tag team division is being elevated with every passing week. Jericho and Ambrose will be good. Owens vs Zayn will be great.

Besides the abysmal 8 man women's tag match, this was a solid show from the top to the bottom. Well done to the lads in the back.