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.

WWE's Fast Lane main event makes no sense

There's always a danger when you start traversing into critiquing booking decisions of wrestling shows that haven't actually happened yet. No matter how silly something might seem conceptually there's a chance that somewhere in the WWE Connecticut headquarters there's a blackboard covered in brilliant plans (which can be changed) for Fast Lane and Wrestlemania that will blow everyone's mind and make me look like a fool retroactively. 

However, based on track record, what we know about this year's Wrestlemania and what we can safely presume about the plans for it, the main event booked for the upcoming Fast Lane show of Dean Ambrose Vs Brock Lesnar Vs Roman Reigns with the winner challenging Triple H for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania seems like a straight up bad idea.

Let's get this out of the way; Roman Reigns is winning. You can clutch your Ambrose dreams to your chest all you want...or your Lesnar dreams if you seriously want to see Brock Vs Triple H again for some reason, but it's a safe bet Triple H Vs Roman has been the plan for a while. WWE wanted last year's Wrestlemania to be Reigns' breakout moment, that was derailed by the Royal Rumble 2015 trainwreck, they're not going to sideline him this year to pander to the Ambrose crowd. WWE have been teasing Reigns Vs Triple H since last Spring, it could be argued this feud began the day after Wrestlemania 30! The match is happening and it'll probably be more painless to accept that now rather than mentally masturbating about potential alternatives for the next few weeks.

Right now the presumed Wrestlemania card is Roman Reigns Vs Triple H, Brock Lesnar Vs Bray Wyatt and Dean Ambrose Vs The Inevitable Sidelining of Popular Midcard Talent That Part-Timer Main Eventers Force Upon The Wrestlemania Card Every Year. Think about what would happen if that was shuffled around, if you do Ambrose Vs Triple H then who does that leave for Reigns, the guy who's been pushed as a MEGA star all year so needs a big match? Bray? We've seen it a million times this year. Brock? If that's the case then the triple threat at Fast Lane makes even less sense because why wouldn't you just save it? Undertaker? ARE YOU SERIOUS, that puts Reigns in the worst position imaginable! And even if it was a good idea I doubt they would trust him with Sting after the Rollins match. 

Factoring in the fact The Rock is going to be at Wrestlemania and it doesn't seem like he has any intention of wrestling a match...yea, unless something goes horrifically wrong with WWE's plans in the next few weeks Roman Reigns Vs Triple H is happening (although, if Undertaker is indeed retiring this year it might not necessarily be the main event).

So with that in mind, what's wrong with the triple threat they've booked for Fast Lane? Even with Roman starting to get decent reactions from WWE crowds in recent months there's obviously also a large portion of the fanbase who can't stand the guy and have no interest in seeing him win the WWE Championship again from a 46 year old man at Wrestlemania. Those people are going to be in the corner of Ambrose or Brock, and regardless of who wins this match and how a significant portion of the audience is going to be extremely disappointed with the result of the main event of the Pay-Per-View that only exists to get people excited for Wrestlemania.

The worst thing about WWE booking lately is they keep putting themselves in situations where they can only do one thing (even if it's a "swerve") so everyone both predicts and groans at it when it happens. Regardless of your opinion of it, Sheamus pretty much had to cash in at Survivor Series because there was no other option that wouldn't throw a big wrench in WWE's plan, Triple H HAD to win the Royal Rumble because they put themselves in a situation where they needed the title off Reigns and onto someone he could challenge at Wrestlemania. Following last year's horrendously put together Royal Rumble WWE had to book an awkward face vs face match between Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns, which of course meant Reigns had to beat the most popular guy in the company going into Wrestlemania 31 which did him no favours with his detractors.

The frustrating thing about the Fast Lane match is there's absolutely no reason for it, it's three guys different parts of the crowd all love and one of them has to get heat by knocking the other two of the Wrestlemania title match. There's no reason why this match couldn't have been Ambrose Vs Reigns Vs Sheamus Vs Rusev with the other League of Nations members screwing Ambrose and giving Reigns some odds (and some HEELS god forbid) to overcome heading into his big match against Triple H. At least that would also give Ambrose something to work with heading into his own Wrestlemania match. Instead, what we're probably going to get is the Wyatt Family beating down Brock Lesnar, and then creative have to decide if they want Reigns to pin a guy who's been beat down by four other guys or beat his friend clean (again). I can't imagine either scenario getting anything other than a tepid reaction...or boos.

The match itself will probably be a ton of fun, maybe Dean Ambrose will get the Intercontinental title taken off him to try and increase the odds of him winning, maybe I'm completely wrong and WWE has some plans for an unconsidered match that somehow involves Ambrose and Reigns. Maybe Ambrose will turn heel with timing that makes much less sense than it would of at Survivor Series! I strongly doubt it though, WWE will go with their original plans, which I presume they have none as far as Ambrose is concerned right now, and they will hope having a cool match on Fast Lane will get fans pumped for Wrestlemania. 

I would advise against getting your hopes up here, but the problem is the existence of this match at all creates possibilities in your mind that WWE don't want you to consider right now. Basically, they've created a match that's only going to cause you to be disappointed that stuff that you know probably won't happen didn't happen, shooting themselves in the foot in the process. 

But hey! WWE screwed all this stuff up during the build of the last two Wrestlemanias as well and they turned out alright, so who even cares.

 

I CHECKED and I can confirm Words With Friends is a real game

Words With Friends is a Facebook game where the words aren't that important and you don’t have to play it with friends. It’s like Scrabble only with better level design and the option to wait 9 hours to take your next turn without annoying anyone. Some people will try to claim it doesn't count as a real videogame because their mum likes it, a statement that immediately confirms their mum is cooler than they are, because Words With Friends is the real deal.

Most people seem to have a similar experience when they play the game for the first time, usually because they just got their 15^th invitation and playing the game is easier the figuring out how to mute specific notifications on Facebook. They love to go in hard, proving they have read at least a book in their life, busting out a couple of six letter words across mostly blank tiles for a groovy 12 points. After a few games of getting crushed people either get incredibly salty, blaming their failure on the other players luck for being able to make better moves through luck of the draw, or they smarten up and realise the game isn't really about words at all.

I'm not sure you even need to be able to understand English to be good at this game. The benefits of technology and unlimited time to take your turn allows you plug in dozens of random combinations in advantageous situations until you find one that’s allowed. This game is not a perpetual anagram solver for literary nerds, it is a hardcore strategy game where controlling space on the board is absolutely essential. You could play “PAGING” branching off of your opponents “TONGS” for a hot 14 points, but if that “P” stretches into the top row you’re giving them a free shot at hitting a triple word score tile and losing out in the long run.

Not that you’re never awarded for the extra syllables, stretching out of the grid with a longer word to get an unchallenged triple word score tile is a great way to get a surprise advantage, a word’s value is also doubled whenever you use all seven of your letters at once. Eventually the luck of the draw is going to catch up to you though and your tiles will be replaced with letters that you have very limited options for. It creates a really interesting push/pull dynamic where you’re trying to maximise the value of your own words while limiting the options of your opponent. For example, “V” is a strong tile to have as it’s worth 5 points, but it’s also impossible to make any two letter words out of it, so playing it in a row or column that’s one space away from the edge of the board can render that space unusable. Timing this well can score you big points with zero risk of your opponent retaliating by sneaking a word in across one of the triple word score tiles.

There’s a lot of those kinds of mind games going on when you know you’re playing against someone who knows what they’re doing. When you’re left with an idle “D” on the word five spaces away from a double word score tile it taunts you, forcing you to smash every tile combination possible into the board praying that one of them works.

“Sorry! DALATE is not a valid Words With Friends word”

Well when you put it like that I feel bad for even bringing it up, but it did have the basic structure of vowels and consonants that a lot of words have so it was worth a punt. Although now that I've been playing this game for a few weeks I’m starting to appreciate the sheer amount of letter combinations that the English language doesn't acknowledge.

It is kind of bizarre that a game that deals entirely in letters feels completely disjointed from language. In Words With Friends the alphabet does not represent any form of communication, they are instead trading cards with predetermined values based on their ease of use. Pretty much everything in this game comes down to maths. You’re either figuring out the optimal use of your tiles this round, or the probability of your opponent being able to capitalise on a certain situation based on the space and the amount of tiles left in the bag. Most horrifically of all, there’s an incentive to use up all your tiles as fast as possible since the value of any you have left at the end will be deducted from your score and added to your opponents.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Words With Friends is comparable to poker, a game where you can always win regardless of what hand you’re dealt, since there are some luck based elements to it (there’s often not much you can do if you’re given a “Z” right at the end of the game for example), but it is shockingly well balanced. It’s not Scrabble as much as it’s Scrabble Championship Edition, as the design of the board, tile values and the quantities of each tile in the bag have all been adjusted for a much more interesting game where nailing the high scoring words is much more of a contest. This is a Zynga game after all, creators and distributors of the most powerful Microsoft Excel spreadsheets in the world, so it’s not surprising their numbers would be ironclad to keep those Words With Friends moves constantly rolling through your Facebook ticker. If you happen to be reading this and under the age of 18 and you’re one of those kids who constantly complains about having to do maths in school because it won’t ever be useful in real life, well good luck chump but you just bullied yourself out of billions of dollars of lunch money.

Say what you want about Zynga, but there’s some guts in taking the alphabet and attempting to balance it for competitive play. It’s remarkable how much is going on under the hood of Words With Friends, it could be mastered and played in tournaments, but instead it’s presented as something you're not supposed to really pay any attention to. You get a prompt on your phone or at work telling when it’s your turn, you poke at the screen for a couple of minutes deciding your move, and then you proceed to not engage with it for a couple more hours. This is when games are labelled (and usually demonised) as being “casual”, but in this case there’s very little difference in the game design, the deciding factor is in how it’s monetised via its integration with social media.

Not that any of that matters anyway, the “casual vs hardcore” argument is little more than the videogame equivalent of a “No Girlz Allowed” treehouse sign. Here’s all you need to know, Words With Friends takes the building blocks of our language and reimagines them as a finite resource where extorting the maximum value out of them is its core mechanic. Personally, I can’t think of anything more videogamey than that. 

Doctor Who is fucking boring and I don't care any more

My eyes are incredibly sore from rolling too much and spewing tears out from crying of laughter, so that much mean that it's Saturday night and Doctor Who just finished airing! Specifically the second part of the Series 9 opener just finished airing, and there wasn't anything special about it other than it's probably the last episode of Doctor Who I will ever watch on broadcast television. I don't care any more.

I wanted to write this last week to be honest, but it would have seemed rash to declare "YAWN" during the first half of a two part episode so I stuck it out. I tried to have a good time too! After an opening scene where two women talk about how amazing the Doctor is for five minutes, one of the first things that happens is the Doctor uses a Dalek weapon to threaten Davros into giving him his chair under the logic that he knew he could drive into the middle of a pack of Daleks with it as it would have defences against Dalek weaponry.

THAT'S FINE! I like the fact the episode admits incredibly early that "logic" is one of the words Daleks don't have in their vocabulary and wouldn't be making an appearance tonight. I appreciate the honesty! Then the episode kept going, I cringed, I laughed (a lot), I got confused, I started looking out the window and sighing when it was revealed Davros had an incomprehensible plan that incomprehensibly the Doctor foresaw and allowed to happen so the Daleks could drown in their own sewer poo. I don't understand what the Doctor and Davros actually did at all or why, and the show doesn't have much more to say about it than "look you know they're both geniuses DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT".

Doctor Who in general doesn't seem to know how to have fun with the fact its main lead is a genius any more. He just knows stuff whenever he needs to which makes it frustrating when he falls for something obvious (like for example, a Dalek begging for its life and pleading innocence on KILLING SOMETHING), it's like Sherlock Holmes' art of deduction but without the part where he brags and explains how he did it.

That's about as far as I can be bothered to make fun of this episode, I made a joke on Twitter about how the scene with the Doctor and Davros crying was like if Wolfenstein ended with BJ Blazkowicz and Mecha-Hitler having a little cuddle which was so good I felt like typing it out again. Other than that I've pretty much already forgotten most of it, and I'm not even angry about it. 3 years ago I would have wrote 3000 words on how every grain of that story made no sense, I probably would have also been crying a lot and proofread it before putting it on the internet. But times change and so must I, and all I have to say in summary of that episode is it was another boring addition to the mythology of an increasingly bad television show.

It's been a heavy criticism of Doctor Who (and my biggest one for several years now) that Doctor Who is too obsessed with itself and its own lore and mythology. Some people have been ragging on it for being a bit fanfictiony even since the Russell T. Davies days, but it's gone completely overboard now. We're at a point where the show isn't just consumed with its own history, it's relying on it for intrigue. This series opener was entirely reliant on the fact that it's DOCTOR WHO and if you watch DOCTOR WHO then you know what the Daleks, Davros and Sacro are so therefore you're excited to see them again...whatever they happen to be doing. Story? Was there even a story? All I remember was a bunch of established characters having pseudo-intellectual conversations about philosophy and their relations/parallels to each other, kind of like The Dark Knight but performed by the cast of The Wiggles.

It's an inherent frustration I have with what Doctor Who is now. I don't think Doctor Who has ever been consistently an AMAZING show, but it does have an amazing concept. Back in the 60s they lucked into the concept of regeneration and accidentally came up with something that would allow the show to continue theoretically FOREVER. What you have then is a television show with a back catalogue of recognisable characters, with a concept that can do any story, any genre, anywhere, you can make up whoever or whatever you want or even include real historical people! On top of that it has a fantastic device built into it where you replace the main leads with new actors and freshen things up every few years and can re-explore things from a different angle. It could attract our best writers from all kinds of backgrounds to present all kinds of fresh stories with enough continuity and canon to tie things together so people keep coming back and every now and then you have a big EVENT happen comic-book style. Then we export that all over the world. It wouldn't be incredible television all the time, but it would certainly wouldn't ever be boring. 

Or instead, you give the show to an ageing fanboy, and he concentrates all his energy into making all his childhood fantasies for a Doctor Who fairy tale to come to life. The show now feels like it's exclusively aimed at people who just like this show, and are automatically excited by returning familiar faces or anything that can be added to the CANON(!) Some people have love for these characters and will endure any old shit the Doctor goes through as long as he makes quips about liking custard creams or whatever. But it's so goddamn fucking boring. How do you manage to make all of time and space feels so tiny and insular and lacking in possibilities? Answer: you centre it around one old dude who kind of already knows everything, and he's a real fast learner for the stuff he doesn't. Even the refresh from Smith to Capaldi didn't give the show any new energy this time, we all know what this show is now and nothing's going to change until someone new is in the captain's chair.

Even the current boring companion Clara Oswald (I sat around trying to think of words to describe her and all I could come up with were "fantasy girlfriend") is "important" because she fell into the Doctor's timeline or whatever. God even Capaldi's Doctor doesn't seem to have a personality outside of he's a collection of bits and pieces of other Doctors, he's a fantastic actor but I'm really starting to worry that he was only cast because he's a Scottish and has mannerisms slightly reminiscent of Tom Baker. Now the new series starts with an episode that has no point other than pointing out how 1) the Doctor is cool 2) the Doctor killed people HE'S SORT OF LIKE THE DALEKS AND MAYBE HE ALSO KIND OF MADE THEM WOAH which is the fourth or fifth time the new series has done that now and it's starting to feel like a joke at the expense of people who are still watching. 

Basically Doctor Who at this point feels like Batman crossed with a Star Wars prequel. Don't worry you're not missing anything, that wasn't funny or clever or anything, I'm just figuring out a way to end this while simultaneously pretending there was a point to writing it. Let's go with "Doctor Who will continue its transition from Saturday night entertainment to cult show for fans and will still receive tremendous critical and financial success, and maybe it'll accidentally be good once in a while."

Or..."I don't care any more."