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.
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
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