Raw Recap 29th February 2016 - Welcome to the Ambrose Show

Welcome to the Raw recap where I write up a bunch of notes about the show as it goes on to show mercy on my Twitter followers.

After last week's collage of swearing, blood, nostalgia and incomprehensible writing can the WWE keep up their incredibly noisy attempts to build momentum for Wrestlemania? 

Segment #1 - Triple H and Dean Ambrose Promo

If I'm going to keep writing about this Raw every week I need to stop watching Smackdown so I have something to write about these segments other than "pretty much what he did on Smackdown but longer". Triple H drones on about everyone having an authority figure in their life, the crowd actually chants for Roman, Dean Ambrose interrupts him, the crowd chant "Ambrose" much louder. Ambrose mentions Shane O'Mac, they chant for him even louder. I sometimes worry wrestling has passed me by. 

A bizarrely awkward segment considering who's involved, a lot of weird pauses and forced in jokes. Basically, Ambrose wants a WWE title match, Triple H says he'll think about it and makes a match between Ambrose and Del Rio.

Segment #2 - Becky Lynch Vs Sasha Banks No 1 Contendership Match

You think with the DIVAS REVOLUTION™ and the fact this is a rematch of one of the more fondly remembered NXT Divas matches this would get higher billing than the second segment on a Raw five weeks before Wrestlemania. I wonder if there's going to be non-finish.

The crowd starts off with duelling chants of "Sasha" and "Becky" but then completely fails to react to an exchange of finisher attempts, loses interest in the match and starts randomly Wooing for Charlotte and Ric who are ringside. It's a decent enough match until the inevitable double pinfall off a sunset powerbomb, how Sasha managed to pin herself off flipping from the second rope to the mat I don't know but the match is declared a draw.

The show is interrupted by Bray Wyatt who, as ever, is cryptic to the point where it's not even worth trying to find meaning in what he's saying so it just comes off as boring. 

Segment #3 - Dolph Ziggler Vs The Miz

I feel bad about it but I laughed out loud when the Raw came back and Michael Cole announced this match, these poor guys can't catch a break. Dolph does what he does best and loses in under 2 minutes on Raw, putting Miz up at 1284-1137 in their endless rivalry. Apparently Miz said something about being Intercontinental Champion on the preshow so it's looking like they're going to do another ladder match with a bunch of guys again.

They play a packaged recapping the Shane McMahon angle, still doesn't make any more sense than it did a week ago.

Segment #4 - Stephanie McMahon Promo

Stephanie comes out to finish her acceptance speech from last week, she get annoyed at the crowd chanting for Shane and goes off on a long tangent about how he abandoned the WWE. The problem with this segment is this storyline is so thrown together and pulled out of nowhere all of Stephanie's points about him leaving and being a man coming back to take the company from her are all seemingly legitimate with no obvious counterargument. Still, Stephanie is a good heel and she got over the point that Shane winning would be the worst thing for her.

Segment #5 - The Lucha Dragons Vs Sheamus and Rusev

Michael Cole plugs tickets for Smackdown in Altanta tomorrow night which isn't sold out yet, claiming "the League of Nations will be there!" so move fast because more and more tickets are becoming available!

It's a basic match with Rusev pinning Kalisto after some outside interference. After the match Del Rio double stomps Kalisto to get some heat for his match against Ambrose later.

Backstage Renee Young and Natalya plug a sandwich. 

Segment #6 - Ryback Vs Adam Rose

You know Ryback's a heel because he didn't growl MOOOOORRRRRRREEEEE along with his music when he came out. He also seems to have dropped the idiosyncrasies in his promo and talks slowly like everyone else now. Ryback punches the fudge out of Rose, the ref tries to get him off, but since it's WWE he can't call for the bell until someone hits a finisher so Ryback hits Shellshock, gets the pin and immediately leaves.

This seems like a good time to mention this show has been painfully shoving in references to the Oscars all night. Nothing makes you look more out of touch than desperately trying to be relevant, it's like your dad bragging about how he just "drank some mee-mees."

Segment #7 - New Day Vs Chris Jericho and AJ Styles

As is now apparently mandatory for all New Day matches they cut a promo before the match, pop the crowd with it then the babyfaces interrupt before they're done and get booed for it.

It's a fun match filled with New Day antics and AJ spots, I hope Kofi and AJ have a one on one match in the coming weeks because they worked great together. Y2AJ get the win off the Walls of Jericho, then challenge New Day to a tag team title match next week.

Segment #8 - The Undertaker and Vince McMahon promo

One of the issues with the build for Wrestlemania and especially this feud is it's all so random and tryhardy I'm not so much intrigued as I am morbidly curious. So here we have this completely confusing storyline that the Undertaker has been dropped into, and now he has to make his first appearance in months to somehow address this in a way that makes sense. 

WWE made two good calls here by 1) putting Vince out there with Taker and 2) not dwelling on the ridiculously clumsy way they got into this and instead focusing on the stipulations as they are. Hey, it's not "good" storytelling but at least it allows them to run full speed with what they have. It's short and sweet, Undertaker spends more time walking to the ring than he does talking, he grabs Vince by the throat and tells him his son's blood will be on his hands.

Vince starts off this promo saying he loves his son and loves him enough to teach him a lesson, then at the end says he'll write Shane out of his inheritance and disown him after Wrestlemania if he loses. Not sure where that part came from, but it's definitely looking like Shane is winning at Wrestlemania, I'm just terrified about how they're going to get there.

Segment #9 - Jey Uso Vs Bubba Ray Dudley

You know you're in for a meaningful segment when an Uso twin is in a singles match. When you have two tag teams feuding and it's not about titles or anything, and they have no match scheduled there's really no reason in storyline why they can't have a tag match, so these singles matches just come off as filler. D-Von and Jimmy had a match on Smackdown with almost the exact same finish as this one with the other Dudley pulling out a table as a distraction for the win, only Jey didn't screw this up as hard.

Backstage R-Truth is a meaniehead to Goldust so he sulks away.

Segment #10 - Big Show Vs Kevin Owens

I believe this is the fourth segment that was on last week's Smackdown that they're repeating? There is literally no point of Smackdown other than to watch a prototype of the next Raw with all the big segments stripped and better commentary. Big Show wins via countout the exact same way Kevin Owens won on Smackdown by nutting him on the top rope. For some reason Show is happy about this when you'd think he'd want to kill Owens but whatever.

Brie Bella is interviewed backstage, lies and says she had a great match with Charlotte, Lana comes over and makes fun of Daniel Bryan to set up a MONEY MATCH between Brie and Lana, Brie makes the 114th crap Oscars joke of the night and walks away.

Segment #11 - Brie Bella Vs Naomi

I don't wanna, you can't make me. 

The Freebirds are announced for the Hall of Fame, they don't get a video package either, I guess they can't be bothered any more.

Backstage Charlotte tells Becky and Sasha they're having a rematch on Smackdown, GASP, now Raw segments are getting repeated on Smackdown! If we're no careful the entire company will be one endless loop of the exact same show.

Segment #12 - Dean Ambrose Vs Alberto Del Rio

The League of Nations should be eternally grateful that the show's complete lack of any top heels right now lets them main event a show almost every week. At least after two months of being together they've decided to pretend they're a real group and have a team trademark...which is whirling their fingers the same way Cesaro does before he goes for the giant swing...

Also, I don't want to knock these guys as individuals because this isn't their fault, but for the love of god Del Rio needs to drop this double stomp finisher. The fact he's starting doing an even sillier version of it on the guard rail and taking even longer to pander to the crowd makes me feel like he's deliberately making fun of me. 

Anyway, the story of the match is Dean is still badly hurt from his Brock beatdown last week so Del Rio stays in control most of the time with Ambrose refusing to stay down. Ambrose hits all four of the League members with a diving elbow on the floor, Triple H's music hits to distract Ambrose and the League members beat him down causing a DQ. 

Triple H gets in the face of a destroyed Ambrose and starts cutting a promo in his face, Dean fires up and slugs him in the face which popped the crowd and was so awesome I'll forgive the fact it's almost identical to a Daniel Bryan segment from two years ago. HHH puts him down with a Pedigree and says he's got a WWE title match. 

As Triple H is walking up the ramp Ambrose taunts him again causing him to lose it and come back down and beat him down on the announce table. It's slightly irritating how much better these segments work when it's Dean Ambrose instead of Roman Reigns, for one Triple H didn't get cheered this week, even though he threw Byron Saxton across the floor like a huge hero. Great end to an otherwise subpar show. 

Closing Thoughts

This was the first Raw I've watched live with commercial breaks in a while and it was a slog to get through. I didn't hate much of it but looking back over the entire show it was pretty much a waste of time apart from the Ambrose segment at the time. So, look that on Youtube if you missed it, maybe the New Day/Taker bits if you're a huge fan of those guys, otherwise this was pretty much forgettable filler.

WWE weren't clear on when the Ambrose Vs Triple H title match is taking place, I can only assume it's next week? Raw's in Chicago and I imagine the place would go nuts for Ambrose and destroy Roman so it seems like a good plan. As much as I didn't really like this show, it ended strong which is really important since the last thing you see is what you remember and I'm looking forward to next week so...eh...I'll be charitable.

THUMBS IN THE MIDDLE, POINTING SLIGHTLY DOWNWARDS, AROUND 4:15PM

Raw Recap February 22nd - Shane McMahon Sucks Don't @ Me

Welcome to my Raw recap thing where I write down stuff about this television show as I watch it to show mercy upon my Twitter followers.

Opening Thoughts 

So Fast Lane was a BAD show, and it's that frustrating kind of bad where smart people (like ME) were saying four weeks before the show aired why it wasn't going to work. The main event didn't work for the exact reasons everyone was saying it wasn't going to work, and the fact there was no creative spark added to the match to even remotely justify its existence makes it borderline insulting.

So here we are, the first of six Monday Night Raws heading into Wrestlemania. Roman Reigns is main eventing it and he's coming off getting booed AGAIN because for no reason he was put in a situation where he had to beat two guys everyone likes to get there. Let's see where they go from here.

Segment #1 - Vince McMahon Senior's Legacy of Excellence Award

The show gets out of the blocks strong by immediately plugging the Wrestlemania main event like its a big deal, and also recapping the Brock/Ambrose parking lot brawl that was posted on the Facebook page. I like it when they do stuff like this, if you're going to constantly brag about how many social media followers you have you may as well use it to your advantage!

Vince comes out to present this award that was announced last week. This is another thing where I don't understand why they don't do it more often, leaving people to speculate about these things lets them get themselves riled up and excited. Some people seriously thought it was going to be CM Punk for god's sake. 

Regardless of the rumours on the internet the recipient wasn't CM Punk or Kurt Angle or the entire alumni section on WWE.com but Stephanie McMahon. After a short promo Shane McMahon's music hits since appealing to nostalgia when creative dries up is another annual tradition around this time of year. Shane gets a huge pop for god knows what reason, I don't think people were this excited to see The Rock when he returned in 2011. 

Shane has aged about 100 years and comes off a little bit Alan Partridge, he says Stephanie doesn't deserve the award because ratings and stock have plummeted and talent injuries are out of control under her watch. Real life authority figures doing worked shoots about real life company problems within the context of a wrestling show, somewhere Vince Russo is polishing a boner. Also something about Vince screwing up years ago and Shane bailing him out...*checks video timer* THIS SHOW IS 25 MINUTES IN I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT

Shane finally gets to the point and says he wants to run Monday Night Raw. Vince agrees...on the condition that Shane wrestles one match one night and wins...and if Shane loses Vince gets his lockbox of...stuff he holds over his head?? I feel like I've missed a year of television watching this. The crowd chants "You Still Got It!" at Shane and I usually hate those chants but I have to agree on this one, Shane probably still can punch people in the face for real or do this: 

Vince announces the match Shane will have, it'll be at Wrestlemania...against the Undertaker...in Hell in a Cell. What the FUCK is going on, I know they don't have an actually good opponent for Taker this year but have I fallen into some 14 year old's fantasy booking league? 

This entire segment reminded me of TNA Impact in 2010.

FUN FACT: I stopped watching TNA Impact in 2010.

Segment #2 - The Lucha Dragons and Neville Vs The New Day

The last segment made me feel like I've fallen back in time, but now I see the Lucha Dragons and Neville are randomly teaming again and New Day is still doing nothing so time hasn't gone backwards but it's also not going forward either. The guys do what they can but it's a throwaway five minute match until New Day pick up the win.

The announcers hype up Shane McMahon Vs Undertaker...*sigh* Even if you're actually excited about that match can you at least stop and think about how sad it is that the current roster is so thin right now they had to get SHANE McMAHON for the Undertaker match this year.

Segment #3 - Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar promo

I needed this so bad after the opening segment. After 25 minutes of a bunch of millionaires reading each other's fanfiction and sprinkling some SHOOTING into it (RATINGS are down you guys, RATINGS, that's REAL) here's Paul Heyman who immediately establishes why you should care about Brock Lesnar, why he's angry, what he's done and why and what he's going to do. 

After a passionate yet to the point Heyman promo, an ambulance shows up at the arena driven by Dean Ambrose (he did this exact thing with a police car to Rollins last year but we'll let that go). Ambrose crawls his way down to the ring, Lesnar steps on his head and Heyman drops a mic by his head, Ambrose challenges him to a street fight at Wrestlemania. Lesnar responds by F5ing him on the floor. This crowd that went wild for Shane McMahon confirms themselves as trash by chanting "one more time". Other than that this was pretty much perfect, WWE seem to be making a statement by announcing all the Wrestlemania matches earlier than usual this year.

Segment #4 - The Usos Vs The Ascension

I had completely forgotten about the angle where the Dudleys turned on the Usos two weeks ago, but then again I also forgot the Ascension were on the roster at all. The Dudleys cut a promo on Usos before this match saying what they did was nothing personal, then make fun of their dad. The Ascension attack the Usos from behind but the match is still basically a squash in favour of Jimmy and Jey. 

(Note: Just like last week we're halfway through the show now and I have no idea what the main event segment/match is)

Segment #5 - AJ Styles and Chris Jericho Vs Curtis Axel and Heath Slater

Jericho cuts a promo about his matches with AJ Styles before the match. He says he had three matches with AJ with each one better than the last...nah mate, the Smackdown one was the best of the 3. He goes on to say the match at Fast Lane was one of the best he's had in years...okay, THAT one is probably true. Jericho calls AJ down to the ring, telling him that it's a good thing that AJ beat him because if he hadn't it probably would have derailed his WWE career, presumably backstage all the Wyatt Family members break everything in their locker room.

After AJ and Jericho shake hands the Social Outcasts come out and make fun of them for making up. Jericho declares himself and AJ a team, I'm not sure if he means just for tonight or not, I have no idea what either guy is going to do at Wrestlemania so anything's possible. Jericho taps out Axel with the Walls while AJ takes out the rest of the Outcasts with a huge springboard dive.

Backstage Stephanie tells Roman he has a match with Sheamus tonight, because we gotta get those RATINGS and STOCKS up, and she implies that Sheamus is going to try and injure him so he forfeits his match at Wrestlemania, OOOHHHHH, another INJURY, IS THIS A SHOOT? AM I WATCHING A REAL RUSTLE RIGHT NOW?

Oh wait after this Goldust gives R-Truth a cake that looks like a tyre covered in shit, sorry I forgot this is a pantomime for babies. 

"Snickers" Shane McMahon Vs The Undertaker

Segment #6 - The Wyatt Family Vs Ryback, Kane and Big Show

I would snark about WWE treating us to this match again but I'm too distracted by Michael Cole announcing Wrestlemania's partnership with Snicker during the Wyatts entrance. Did Bray accidentally rub his beard across Vince's arm? What have they done to get treated like this on television. 

This crowd has been vocal all night but they were dead silent for this outside of stuff like "Goldberg" chants, there were two hot tags in this match and neither got so much as a whisper. What I don't understand about American crowds is y'all will crap all over a guy and jeer at him, but you still chant along with him when he does his "Feed Me More" stuff? It's like you really enjoy chanting stuff but you're also not very creative. 

Bray was in this match instead of Strowman so he picks up the win for the team by pinning Kane. But they only won because Ryback abandoned his teammates for some reason. So I guess that's why the Wyatts lost last night, the babyface team needed to be put over to hype up the Wrestlemania main event of Ryback Vs Kane.

Ryback is interviewed backstage and says it was nothing personal he just has to stand on his own now and break the glass ceiling. JBL says "then why go out with them?" Oh god, now the colour commentator is pointing it out when things don't make sense, this show really is becoming TNA Impact in 2010,

Segment #7 - Sasha Banks Vs Naomi

Sasha makes short work of Naomi with a little bit of help from Becky Lynch. Charlotte comes out and says there will be a match between Sasha and Becky to determine who will face her for the Divas Championship at Wrestlemania. Right now in NXT there's a storyline where Samoa Joe and Sami Zayn keep failing to determine a winner in No 1 Contendership matches, and I expect something like that will happen here so we get a triple threat at Wrestlemania. LET'S WAIT AND SEE WHICH SHOW HANDLES THIS BETTER.

The Godfather is announced for the Hall of Fame Class of 2016, doesn't even get a proper video for it.

Segment #8 - Sheamus Vs Roman Reigns

So I'm guessing a bunch of people got excited during the opening segment because Shane McMahon mentioned DROPPING RATINGS and CHANGE, and then on the same show they put the rivalry that caused some of the lowest Raw ratings ever back in the main event. Five minutes into the match the League of Nation members are ejected from ringside by the referee despite the fact this entire match is supposed to be an Authority plot.

Roman spears Sheamus on the outside and Triple H's music hits as he comes out in his leather jacket. A brawl kicks off and Roman gets booed on every shot he gets. Triple H hits Roman with a chair and pounds on him causing Roman to get severely bloody. It's weird how when Triple H beat down Daniel Bryan two years ago he had to handcuff him first, now in 2016 with the 265 pound Roman Reigns he pretty much beats him up in a straight fight. Triple H mocks Roman's Superman punch, does the DX crotch chop and holds up the WWE title to the crowd, and is loved for it.

Closing Thoughts

Uh, I think I hated the opening segment so much it kind of tainted what I said about everything else. But god DAMN did I hate that opening segment and I know I'm probably the only chump in the world who did so I'm probably the only person who didn't love this show. I hate "worked shoot" stuff (especially when it doesn't make any sense), I hate WWE's reliance on authority figures so introducing another one isn't going to excite me and I have zero interest in Shane McMahon as a personality or a performer. Watching him hulk out and beat up three guys (one of which was the WWE Champion) in 2009 was embarrassing and if he does anything like that to the Undertaker at Wrestlemania it will be sacrilegious. 

On the whole though, I have to say WWE went all in on this show. A lot of Wrestlemania matches pushed, also a weird amount of swearing and even a fairly graphic blood spot in a "older dudes PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO US Wrestlemania will be cool WE SWEAR" sort of way.

I'm sure the developments on this show got a ton of people talking and distracted them from how disappointed they were at the end of Fast Lane, so I will begrudgingly admit this show was a success. 

THUMBS IN THE MIDDLE

Raw Recap 15th February 2016 - Hype Slain for Fast Lane

Welcome to the first of what will probably be an infrequent series of recaps on Monday Night Raw. Each edition will be an unedited stream of consciousness written as the show goes on as a blog to protect the sanctity of my Twitter account.

First up, it's the go home show before WWE Fast Lane, and we'll see if the writes can come up with anything to justify this baffling main event they have.

Segment #1 - Dean Ambrose and Stephanie McMahon promo

It was so refreshing to see Raw open with someone who actually comes off as lively and animated, then my heart sank when he called out Brock Lesnar and got Stephanie McMahon. No offense to her, but every single one of these opening promos are completely interchangeable and they wonder why the ratings drop after the first hour every week. 

Stephanie says Dean Ambrose will be getting an F5 tonight...with "F5" meaning "Fatal Five Way" for the Intercontinental Championship, because WWE only hires genius writers and that. It says a lot about modern wrestling when the heel authority puts the popular babyface champion in a random five way title match to screw him over and the crowd cheers because that means they'll get to see a bunch of moves.

Segment #2 - INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP: Dean Ambrose Vs Dolph Ziggler Vs Tyler Breeze Vs Stardust Vs Kevin Owens

Michael Cole declares that "fatal five way matches are extremely rare", and there is a reason for that, but that "F5" pun was simply too good to drop and totally worth putting the talent in a harder position. 

There wasn't that much to the match, the first half of the match was the blandest version of "one man in one man out" WWE multiple man match where two guys wrestle in the ring for a bit and everyone else sells on the outside for minutes at a time even though the match just started. It heated up a bit near the end when everyone started doing a bunch of moves with JBL pointing out on multiple occasions that noone seemed to be actually trying to win.

Anyway, Kevin Owens pinned Tyler Breeze to win back the Intercontinental Championship, which isn't a big deal other than the fact that I called they would do that before Fast Lane to make it look like Ambrose has more of a chance at Fast Lane.

After the commercial Deano is interviewed by Renee and says that the title's gone and he has to live with that (rematch?) and says this will motivate him for Fast Lane. The show cuts back to ringside, then cuts back to Renee where Kevin Owens starts demanding recognition for his title win. Dolph Ziggler walks in and demands a title match at Fast Lane, Owens says nah but I'm guessing that's happening anyway. See doubters, Owens and Ziggler weren't having random matches on television as filler, they were feuding over the Intercontinental title this entire time they just didn't realise it yet!

Segment #3 - Mark Henry Vs Big E

The New Day cut a promo about the fact they're going to be on the Cutting Edge with Edge & Christian at WWE Fast Lane and Big E does a jerk off motion for a bit, because let's face it there aren't any teams for them to face. It's seriously time to get these guys out of the tag division, they're heels with zero heat who pop the crowd every night so noone else gets over working with them and the fact they're in a cold division makes what they do less interesting.

Anyway this match is happening because Henry walked out on New Day in the 8 man tag match last week which I don't remember. I have no idea what happened in the first, Big E picked up Mark Henry for the Big Ending, held him for a while, then Mark slid out of the move, fell over and Big E pinned him. I don't know if Henry was genuinely hurt from something earlier and didn't want to take the move or if Big E didn't feel confident doing it but it looked HORRIBLE.

Segment #4 - Brie Bella Interview

Brie is interviewed by Byron Saxton about Daniel Bryan's retirement, but it's just a ploy to get heat for Charlotte who interrupts her almost immediately. This is one of those promos where both gals are talking in that weird disjointed "sorry I'm obviously scripted please don't believe anything I say" sort of way, I think there were points where Brie starting saying her lines before Charlotte finished hers. I don't even want to blame the talent here because this IS SO BADLY WRITTEN no two lines of this gelled at all.

Brie gets mad and kicks Charlotte to set up their probably terrible match at Fast Lane. Hopefully WWE are only doing this to give Charlotte momentum for a match against Sasha at Wrestlemania. 

Segment #5 - AJ Styles Vs The Miz

MY GOD, AJ STYLES BEEN IN WWE FOR LESS THAN A MONTH AND HE'S ALREADY BEATEN TWO FORMER WORLD CHAMPIONS (lol)

Chris Jericho was on commentary for this match, and despite taking up the role of WWE's resident embarrassing dad in recent years he reminded me that he's actually really smart about this pro wrestling gig. Jericho does a better job of colour commentary here than JBL or Jerry Lawler have done in past two years, putting over both guys without burying the match or his rivalry with Styles.

It was a solid match and surprisingly competitive considering Miz has been about as much of a third wheel in this feud as he was for Rock Vs Cena (he's been great for it though), he even hits the Skull Crushing Finale with AJ kicking out then winning via submission with the calf crusher. 

Jericho and Styles have a promo after the match, the crowd "What?"s AJ and then cheers him when he says he beats Jericho because 2016. Styles asks for a rubber match between the two at Fast Lane, Jericho says he'll think about it and give his answer on Smackdown. With Brock and Jericho on Thursday's show maybe WWE are trying to push Smackdown again? Hey, with Mauro Ranallo on commentary I'll watch it every week if they have Dean Ambrose destroy the fake crowd noise machine.

Segment #6 - The Dudley Boyz promo

The Dudleys come out and give the exact same promo they did on Smackdown last week for people who didn't watch it (which is why noone watches Smackdown). Basically, the Dudleys are heels now and they're never going to use tables again.

Segment #7 - Summer Rae Vs Paige

There are TWO Divas matches booked for Fast Lane and neither of these gals have anything to do with either of them so no idea why this match is happening. The fact Paige is three months younger than me and is a ten year pro in the wrestling business freaks me out, and she carried Summer to a decent enough match here. 

Summer wins off a horrible looking roll up and this is supposedly a big deal, Michael Cole says she might be in line for a Divas Championship match! They can't seriously be lining her up for a title match out of nowhere this close to Wrestlemania. My guess is the Wrestlemania Divas match will be a huge cluster with a whole bunch of them and they're trying to make more of them look strong.

Segment #8 - Paul Heyman and Roman Reigns promo

The thing I find fascinating about Paul Heyman promos is you KNOW that he thinks this show is garbage, and you see the gears turning in his head as he attacks everything he's given head on from the most interesting angle he possibly can. Heyman calls out Reigns to tell him straight to his face that he can't beat Brock Lesnar to go to Wrestlemania, and claims that his only option to win is to beat Dean Ambrose, therefore for him Fast Lane is a choice between his best friend and his daughter and either way he has to make a sacrifice. One five minutes speech is infinitely better than four weeks of WWE creative and announce work could come up with, which was basically "can Dean and Roman GET ALONG WITH THE TITLE ON THE LINE???????"

Roman responds, gets instantly booed, but then he makes no jokes and says he's never beaten Brock but he's beaten his ass before, and gets cheered! Funny how that works! 

After that Paul leaves the ring and gets attacked from behind by the Dudleys and saved by Ambrose. Then Ambrose goes for Dirty Deeds on Reigns and the everyone pops while Roman pushes him off and they stare at each other. Then they laugh and fist bump and everyone boos. I don't know if WWE have ever understood their audience less than they do right now.

Segment #9 - Zack Ryder Vs Heath Slater 

The internet of 2011 is going wild for this match right now, Zack Ryder made such a long running joke of him never appearing on Raw it's hard to take him seriously whenever he actually does. Ryder beats up on Heath for a bit, does a dive on the entire Social Outcasts with Adam Rose ending up on top of him somehow then Heath makes a comeback and wins off a DDT. Crowd was completely dead for all of this.

A skit is shown of Goldust ruining a date for R-Truth while making gay jokes about being his "partner" and the only comical thing about is how its almost identical to one of the Goldust and Booker T segments. Nothing screams "Monday Night Raw" louder than two of the oldest guys on the roster ripping off skits from 15 years ago.

Ziggler Vs Owens is confirmed for Fast Lane.

Segment #10 - Lucha Dragons and Neville Vs Alberto Del Rio, Sheamus and Rusev

The mandatory weekly six man tag match with some high flyer guys versus the least over heel stable since Team Plasma. Neville debuted on the main roster last year but it feels like he's been on the roster for a decade because he never does anything of substance. It's a typical Raw match with Del Rio pinning Kalisto before their United States title match at Fast Lane. Now that Sin Cara's back, if Kalisto loses the title to Del Rio and goes straight back to starving in the tag division his title wins were officially pointless and WWE deserve no credit for doing them.

Del Rio is interviewed after the match and challenges Kalisto to make their Fast Lane match 2 out of 3 falls. 

Segment #11 - Becky Lynch Vs Naomi

WWE haven't got around to taking Sasha's name out of the Team BAD graphic on the lower tron yet so Naomi's current brand is GYRATING PURPLE. Naomi's incredibly athletic but I can't say she's a great worker, although maybe I just really hate her ridiculous looking move where she hops on the spot doing dozens of kicks as the other person just stands there and takes it. Not being able to counter that or move out of the way in a real match would be like losing to someone who only mashes heavy in Street Fighter.

Becky gets the win with the Disarmer after a short match and Sasha Banks makes a light hearted save. There wasn't a lot of direction here, the storyline is Sasha and Becky are team mates at Fast Lane but don't trust each other, so Sasha comes out for the save but doesn't really save her...but then Naomi and Tamina run away anyway as Becky and Sasha stand together in the ring smack talking them. The crowd were completely confused and after the initial pop for Sasha stayed silent through all of this.

Segment #12 - Braun Strowman Vs Big Show

This match was announced earlier in the show but it didn't even occur to me that it would be the main event until I realised how far into it I was. Reminder; this is the go home show for Fast Lane and NOONE IN THIS SEGMENT IS CURRENTLY ON THE CARD.

Before the match Bray cuts another one of his excellently delivered but completely interchangeable promos where you don't know what he's talking about and he's been doing this crap for years so you're just bored...but he said something about Twitter though so maybe he's mad about #SJGate too.

The match itself obviously wasn't much, Big Show gets beaten up for a while then hits a suplex causing all the Wyatts to run in to cause the DQ. Ryback runs down and completely screws up a move nearly dropping Luke Harper on his head, causing Luke Harper to do a sunset flip on the outside which looked ridiculous. Ryback gets beaten up too, the turnbuckle explode into fire and Kane bursts through the ring and everyone seems to have forgotten he did that to Seth Rollins a few months ago. 

I guess this is supposed to set up a six man tag at Fast Lane, but 1) this is the go home show and they didn't announce that 2) that match sounds like ass 3) it's 2016 one month away from Wrestlemania and Raw just closed on Kane making the save for the Big Show. 

Closing Thoughts 

Not a complete trainwreck or anything but definitely not a good Raw, you can tell the creative is really struggling to fill up three hours with the thinness of the roster right now. It feels like one of those episode where absolutely nothing was planned until about 3pm the day of the show. Ambrose Vs Lesnar Vs Reigns is going to be a fun main event but nothing on this show convinced me that doing that match at all is anything but a bad idea despite Heyman's efforts to inject some genuine intrigue into it. 

AJ Styles Vs Chris Jericho is going to be a fun undercard match but the Fast Lane card is a collection of heatless title matches, rematches, promo segments and random tag matches and once again the February PPV has so much filler on it you wonder why they bother having a PPV before Wrestlemania at all. 

THUMBS DOWN 

Daniel Bryan's 10 Best WWE Matches (after thinking about it for 5 minutes)

Few people predicted great things for Bryan Danielson when he signed with WWE in 2009, he was a 190 pound normal looking dude whose main quality was his technical wrestling ability, the complete opposite of the cosmetic-driven thinking that leads WWE to their next big stars. Despite that since debuting as Daniel Bryan on the first ever episode of NXT the man has had an incredibly eventful career in WWE. The promotion might not have ever envisioned him as the guy but the times that Daniel Bryan wasn't a significant feature on WWE television between 2010-2014 are few and far apart.

So with the sad news of his retirement due to medical reasons it's a good time to celebrate some of his best moments. So here's are 10 great Daniel Bryan matches I can remember without having to think about it for more than 5 minutes, so I'm probably forgetting every match he ever had on Smackdown, and I'm sure most of them are on the WWE Network too.

1) Daniel Bryan Vs Chris Jericho - NXT Episode 1, February 2010

To this day I suspect the "Daniel Bryan" ring name was a deliberate troll on the internet fanbase. Michael Cole was getting his claws into his heel gimmick around this time and his first major target was Daniel Bryan for being a nerd. I figured after months of abuse and Daniel Bryan failing at the horrible "reality TV" version of NXT eventually he would break out and announce himself as Bryan Danielson shedding his WWE given name. I don't know if that ever was intended and it just got screwed up by Daniel Bryan being fired for the tie-choking incident or if they were serious about "Daniel Bryan" as a ring name. Well he did main event Wrestlemania under that name so what do I know.

Regardless, there was some trolling going on of some kind. Despite being buried by Michael Cole and The Miz constantly he wrestled the then World Heavyweight Champion Chris Jericho in a very competitive match as part of his first appearance. Someone somewhere in WWE saw something in him. Worth watching for historical purposes and for the horrific bump he took on the announce table.

2) Daniel Bryan Vs Dolph Ziggler - Bragging Rights 2010

(I love the title match with Miz from a month earlier too but that moment was completely eclipsed by Wrestlemania 30, plus this match is better)

Always good to remind people of this match because I doubt many people even remember the death squeal of the brand split that was the Bragging Rights Pay-Per-View event. In a champion vs champion match (Bryan was the US Champion on Raw, Ziggler the Intercontinental Champion on Smackdown) these guys had a fantastic 20 minute opener which was so good I forgot this show also had an Undertaker Vs Kane casket match on it. Wait...OH GOD...

Would still be my favourite Ziggler match to this day if it wasn't for Del Rio Vs Ziggler at Payback 2013.

3) Royal Rumble Match 2011

Okay a slight cheat but the first half of this match really is great and CM Punk and Daniel Bryan being the first two entrants is a huge part of the reason why. Best part is when Punk, Bryan and Regal get into an exchange together trading off stiff shots. The only other Regal Vs Bryan match I can recall from WWE television was a five minute match on Raw which I think may have also involved Divas so I'll take this thanks.

4) Daniel Bryan Vs Sheamus - Extreme Rules 2012

The "Yes!" thing started with a heel turn when Daniel Bryan cashed in Money in the Bank on Big Show seconds after he finally won the World title from Mark Henry, but it would go to serve as the one thing Bryan needed in WWE for the fans to really latch onto him properly. Sheamus was getting a big push in 2012, there were genuine plans at one point to make him the number one babyface to replace John Cena (lol), and they hilariously backfired when some clown thought it would be a good idea to have him beat Daniel Bryan in 18 seconds at Wrestlemania 28. The following matches on that show were plagued with "Daniel Bryan" chants that completely exploded the next night on Raw.

This leads us to a fantastic 2 out of 3 falls rematch a month later at Extreme Rules, and this is definitely my favourite Sheamus match. A red hot Chicago crowd absolutely adored Bryan, but he did such a great job as the heel in this match working down Sheamus' shoulder and completely incapacitating him after the second fall that the crowd exploded into duelling "Yes!" and "No!" chants while Bryan taunted and doctors tended to Sheamus. This is arguably the performance that cemented Bryan as an upper tier guy for the rest of his WWE career.

Also Extreme Rules 2012 in its entirety is a great show so this one gets a massive recommendation for Network subscribers.

5) Daniel Bryan Vs CM Punk - Over The Limit 2012

The Money in the Bank match two months after this is great too but this one might hold up better because it doesn't have all the gimmicky stuff that comes with having AJ Lee as the special guest referee. A simply great wrestling match with a lot of holds and an old school pro-wrestling finish. Words cannot describe how surreal it was in 2012 that CM Punk and Daniel Bryan were wrestling for the WWE Championship on Pay-Per-View, even if the match didn't main event the show due to John Cena Vs John Laurinatis. Says a lot about WWE that they favoured the match that was basically an elaborate backstage rib over this.

6) Team Hell No and Ryback Vs The Shield TLC Match - Tables, Ladders and Chairs 2012

The best part about this match is how it took everyone by surprise at the time. The Shield had only recently debuted and this was their first Pay-Per-View so people weren't familiar with them yet, Team Hell No were a comedy act and the internet hates Ryback because he is a muscle guy and therefore GARBAGE.  Also the match was an initially unplanned replacement match for Ryback Vs CM Punk for the WWE Championship since Punk needed time off for a surgery. As you can imagine, the fact this match turned out to be a ton of fun blew everyone's minds. This match and the job Team Hell No did of making the new guys look unstoppable did a heck of a lot for The Shield in their early days. 

Also see: Team Hell No and Undertaker Vs The Shield on Raw

7) Daniel Bryan Vs Jack Swagger, Cesaro and Ryback Gauntlet Match - Raw, July 2013

Another match that felt completely surreal when it happened. After years of people predicting doom for Daniel Bryan in WWE, he's revealed as the No 1 Contender for the WWE Championship match at Summerslam, and then here he is in the main event of Raw putting on a wrestling clinic for approximately 35 minutes. The segment with Cesaro is by far the highlight, but watching him tap out Swagger in mere minutes and still managing a comeback on Ryback despite all this abuse at the end is infectious too. If you haven't seen this it might sound like the kind of gimmicked angle-based match that wouldn't hold up when seen out of context, but you're wrong and its not.

8) Daniel Bryan Vs John Cena - Summerslam 2013

I ADORE this match, and it's weirdly underrated too. I don't know if this is because people refuse to give Cena credit when he has good matches, or if people just remember the Punk/Brock match better, or whether people only remember the angle that followed this match with Triple H screwing Bryan out of the title. It's a fantastic match, one of Cena's best who does a great job of breaking out of his usual shtick and making Bryan come off as a serious threat. The match has a intense atmosphere and different psychology to it as Cena shows rare frustration when he has to face someone who might have even more heart than he does. Crowd reaction or no crowd reaction, this match cemented Bryan's legitimacy inside the ring and now there was no question of whether he should be hanging with the main eventers or not. 

9) Daniel Bryan Vs Randy Orton - Raw, December 2013

These guys wrestled each other throughout 2013 and it was great every time but I think this one is my favourite. Randy Orton is a good wrestler who becomes great when he's given something he can sink his teeth into, that's why his matches with Bryan were always spectacular and his matches with Sheamus are...what they are. 

Rewatching this match makes me appreciate how great a worker Daniel Bryan was, consciously I know this is just a television non-title match with a non-finish but I still get into it every single time. Bryan's not the only good wrestler who's come through the WWE locker room but his ability to connect with the crowd through his in-ring performance is unmatched by the current roster.

10) The Usos Vs Daniel Bryan and Bray Wyatt Steel Cage Match - Raw, January 2014

Okay if you've forgotten what the storyline was here...good, it sucked and it's better off watching this without thinking about it. All you need to know is Daniel Bryan joined the Wyatt Family and people didn't want to see him in the Wyatt Family.

The match is nothing special but there's no way to not mention this segment when reflecting on the career of Daniel Bryan. After the Usos escape the cage leaving Bryan and an angry Bray Wyatt in the ring together, Bryan breaks away from his "leader" and proceeds to beat the crap out of him inside the crap while the other family members are stuck outside. The pop for this moment and this 100% controlled by Bryan "Yes!" chants following it is without question the best wrestling moment of this generation. There's been a lot of good stuff over the past 15 years, but this is the only moment that can be seriously compared to the mega pops of Steve Austin and The Rock.

And if you think this is a cheat then...whatever, the Bray Vs Bryan match at the Royal Rumble following this is great (and again...Bray's best match) so just pretend it's that.

BONUS) Both Wrestlemania 30 matches, because how can you not mention them

The main thing that's worth pointing out about Daniel Bryan's big title win at Wrestlemania was that was the same show the WWE broke the Undertaker's streak. They knew the fans would hate it and it would be a sour moment on the show that would turn the crowd. They followed it with Bryan Vs Orton Vs Batista, and Bryan's win was such a big deal that a crowd that had been stunned into silence erupted into a joyous Yes! chant less than an hour later.

I can't think of a better way than that to contextualise how popular Daniel Bryan is, and when you look back at his body of work over the past 16 years its more than deserved.