The first Monday Night RAW of this new decade has unfolded and already I have a lot to say about it…which is either a good thing, or a bad thing. Either way, here are my thoughts:
Brock Lesnar Royal Rumble entry is not ‘historic’
At the risk of incurring the wrath of one of the greatest mic artists in the wrestling business, Lesnar’s entry into the 30 man Royal Rumble of 2020 is not as ‘historic’ as Paul Heyman suggests…even if Lesnar is entering at Number 1.
Not trying to butter up Roman Reigns in this case, but let’s not forget that Reigns entered the 2016 Royal Rumble as Number 1…as the WWE Champion, all the while having to defend the title in the Rumble itself. Reigns was eventually eliminated by a returning Triple H, who won the Rumble and the WWE Championship, which Reigns then won back at that year’s Wrestlemania.
So while it’s historic in the sense that Lesnar is entering the Rumble the first time as the reigning heavyweight champion, it wasn’t because it’s been done before…and it’s Lesnar’s second Rumble since his return to the WWE.
What should be more focused upon is how Lesnar’s time in the Rumble is booked. Is he really going to be in there the entire time, or does he get beaten down by several guys, escorted to the back, then comes back out again because he was never eliminated?
Kevin and Joe’s ‘Mystery Third Partner’
So brings another one of those ‘mystery partner’ segments during a show when we are wondering who that partner for the baby faces is going to be.
All night people were wondering who Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens would have joining them in a six man tag team match against Seth Rollins (the newly self described ‘Monday Night Messiah’) and the Authors of Pain (yes, I’m going to call them that despite this whitewashing WWE is doing by just calling them AOP).
I thought initially it was going to be Aleister Black, and judging by Joe ‘knocking on the door’ of the third man in order to show Owens who it was indicated they were leaning in that direction. But when Black emerged to have a match later on, I defaulted to Ricochet. So it was a ‘big’ surprise that it was the returning Big Show, who hasn’t had a match on WWE television for around two years.
At age 47, Show still looks like, if not better, than when he was still regularly competing and now, on next week’s RAW, the same six man tag match involving him, KO, Joe, Rollins and the Authors of Pain will occur again, but now as a ‘Fist Fight’ match, whatever that means.
Considering that Show has an upcoming comedy series on Netflix, bringing him back on television may be just a way to promote it.
It was also refreshing to see Show come out and not do an immediate heel turn, which has been a hallmark of his career for several years.
Do I still care what’s underneath Rowan’s cage?
Not really, but they did attempt to spice things up this week.
The only difference was Rowan seems to be more willing to let others ‘peek’ into the cage to see what lies beneath, putting the hapless jobbers’ face against it resulting in some mysterious red liquid being spewed on his face.
This was followed by Mojo Rawley being allowed a peek backstage, which resulted in the former football player absolutely freaking out, which may have somewhat piqued continuing interest in this story line.
Unless it’s a disembodied sheep’s head, playing on Rowan’s original gimmick as a member of the Wyatt Family, I’m not particularly that interested.
Is Rusev/Lana/Lashley/Liv quartet stretching to Wrestlemania?
If that is so, say a quick prayer to the state of booking wrestling in 2020.
Actually, it’s an insult to say booking wrestling, because it’s supposed to be sports entertainment instead and this storyline is supposed to entertain us. But it’s not even doing that.
Once again we will have another Rusev vs. Lashley match, no real stipulations behind it, but this time with Lana in Lashley’s corner (which she already is) but with the added mix of Liv Morgan joining Rusev’s side during the bout.
Given that WWE writers have added the former Riott Squad member into the mix with this lesbian lover storyline with Lana, there is some attempt to keep this going, maybe even up to “The Show of Shows”.
Drew McIntyre gets more personality
While I jokingly refer to him as the ‘3-2-1’ kid because of the line he used this past RAW, McIntyre’s recent personality change may be one of the slight glimmers of hope this past Monday.
The gimmick of ‘monster heel’ has been played over and over again by WWE, and McIntyre was no exception. Since returning to RAW from NXT, the ‘Scottish Psychopath’ hit a bit of a stride before vanishing from television recently, but the monster heel character has been used over before and it was becoming stale.
In one sense, McIntyre hasn’t stopped being the monster heel; he’s still kicking people’s heads off with that Claymore kick, but he’s added some personality, even wittiness, to his appearances. You could say, Drew is being himself on a physical standpoint while injecting himself with some of Dolph Ziggler’s charisma (Ziggler is now on Smackdown).
Next week’s RAW is looking like this week’s RAW
I recently listened to Chris Jericho’s podcast with former WWE writer Vince Russo, and he lamented how wrestlers don’t have their own personalities anymore, a far cry from the days of Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, as the writers seem to have a carbon copy of a wrestler’s personality applied to anyone on the roster.
But I would expand that definition to include the matches booked every week. We saw two title matches and a smattering of others, but next week, we get (once again) Rusev vs. Lashley, AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton, another Aleister Black vs. Buddy Murphy match and, as mentioned, the same six man tag match that closed off this week’s RAW, but now it’s going to be a “Fist Fight” match.
There’s nothing that is standing out that signifies a ‘cliffhanger’ that would want to make me tune in.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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