Raw Thoughts- Mania Season Means The Biggest Stars Come Out Of Hibernation
Shorter blogs this week. Been a busy week and I want to enjoy my Sunday by doing sweet F.A until it's time to plan my lessons (last lot until I take off for Orlando!)
-Nothing makes a Raw feel big time more than hearing the music and monster pop accompanying the arrival of Brock Lesnar (and his advocate, Paul Heyman). Having finally got the upper hand in his feud last week with an emphatic F5 on Goldberg, Brock is confident, and it allows Heyman to do what he does best- gloat. Side note on last week's F5- I mentioned that it was Goldberg's first bump since Wrestlemania XX, at least on TV, and I don't know if Bill became a fantastic seller in the last 13 years, or taking that one move really fucked up his 50 year old body. Really hope it's the former and I'm being worked, otherwise that's a really bad sign for Wrestlemania.
-Great promo overall from Heyman, although to get my nerd hat on for a moment (sorry Gallows & Anderson)- he refers to Heyman's Theory of Wrestlemania Relativity. His wording of his theory, "Brock goes up, Goldberg goes down" is paraphrasing Newton's third law of motion, "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" or "what goes up must come down", rather than Einstein's theory, which refers to the relationship between mass and energy (E=mc2). E=mc2 does have applications towards the concept of gravity, but in talking about those opposite actions, it would have been more appropriate to reference Newton. Sorry, Paul.
-One of the big hooks for this show was Steph ordering Foley to fire someone by the end of Raw. He does a great job of seeming conflicted, which makes him look like a good guy, but also, he looks horribly indecisive and unable to evaluate talent. For example, why does Jinder Mahal have a job? He can't have a good match to save his life AND he's a walking Wellness Policy violation.
-Dana Brooke turned face and beat up Charlotte. A few scattered cheers and chants but no one seemed to care all that much. She's one of the NXT call ups that could have used another year or so in the developmental system (also, see- Crews, Apollo).
-They continue to build the Jericho-Owens feud in an old school, simplistic yet effective fashion. Owens is getting booed, Jericho is getting cheered, which is a monumental achievement for a heel and face respectively in 2017, where crowds are often contrarian for the sake of it. Samoa Joe and Sami Zayn are being linked to this feud, but I think Wrestlemania is too packed a card for Joe and Zayn to get a singles match there. They will likely be key participants in the Andre Battle Royal.
-Speaking of the Dre, Big Show is the first Raw Superstar to officially enter. Guess they couldn't come to a deal with Shaq. Maybe they can get Shaq to do a battle royal appearance and it'll just be Groundhog Day from last year.
-I wish they had a more creative way to set up the tag team triple threat at Mania. The Club looked like morons for not realising the consequence of attacking both teams. Someone who's been watching wrestling for six months could have seen that coming.
-Shawn Michaels made an appearance! That's how you know things are important, getting HB-Shizzle on Raw. He looks in great shape, he could come back tomorrow and be in the main event instantly, and still deliver at that level, I'm sure of it. He tries to warn Roman about Undertaker, and Reigns blows him off in a heelish manner.
-Strowman comes out and BLASTS Reigns off the stage by literally just running him over. What a beast. Apparently, Strowman doesn't like seeing HBK disrespected. Strowman vs. Reigns, on Raw next week.
-Sasha planting seeds of doubt about Bayley's worthiness as champ. Yeah, I fully expect Sasha to turn on Bayley before Mania, and Bayley has to overcome the odds by beating two heels- maybe even 3 if they throw Nia Jax in there.
-Big time segment to finish Raw. I thought Foley was going to fire himself because he's sick of Steph's shit, but instead tries to fire Steph. Of course, she was like "lol wut" because Foley doesn't have that authority, but Mick rips her a new one anyway. This brings out HHH, and Foley eventually snaps and gives him the Mandible Claw with Mr Socko. Steph stops it with a low blow on Mick. Wait, is this 2000?
-Seth Rollins enters to fast-forward things 17 years. He hobbles on a crutch, but tosses it aside and runs in to attack Triple H! His knee is recovered! He does look a tad cautious and moving a bit gingerly, though. Hunter grabs the crutch, blasts Rollins and puts in the Indian Deathlock to end the show.
-Wow. Looks like HHH vs. Rollins may happen after all. There's morons saying the whole knee injury was fake- which would have been fair enough if we didn't see the video of his surgery! But anyway, great angle and good show. More angle-heavy than anything- most of the matches were squashes or non-finishes. But it all did a great job of building to Wrestlemania.
Until next time, take care,
Mick
