WWE RAW: Results & Review (19.01.15)
So here we are, only a week away from the official launch of the Road to WrestleMania, the 2015 Royal Rumble. The Rumble is one of my personal favourite wrestling shows annually, and has been since I started watching professional wrestling 22 years ago. Let’s see if this episode of RAW, being promoted as a “Reunion Edition”, will be able to get some extra interest on that show.
Brock Lesnar, along with Paul Heyman, comes out first and Brock calls out Rollins due to what Seth did to him (curb stomp anyone?) at the close of last week’s show. Instead of Rollins, Triple H comes out and tries to calm Brock down. Lesnar asks Trips if he wants to fight. Heyman amusingly screams “he pays the bills” to Brock during all of this. Stephanie, along with Kane and Big Show comes down, and tries to appeal to Lesnar to calm down too. The Authority stare Lesnar down and Rollins comes onto the Titan-tron (is it still called that?) and taunts Lesnar, calling him a “cave-man” and saying he will win the WWE World Title at the Rumble. Lesnar and Heyman are playing the babyfaces here, and are getting a big pop from the Dallas fans. John Cena interrupts the shenanigans and laughs and jokes, doesn’t take anything seriously, because that’s how John Cena does things. Cena talks about a fire being lit in him, and other random cliché wrestling-speak. Stephanie talks about how Cena is a liar, and a sham, and all that stuff. It’s been done before recently, more than once, and turned a decent segment initially into more of the same, sadly. Rollins calls Cena a failure. Cena asks for a stipulation to get Ziggler, Rowan and Ryback’s jobs back if he wins at the Rumble, but Trips says this will only happen if Cena wins his match on RAW tonight. If Cena loses, however, he will be removed from the main event at the Royal Rumble. Triple H then puts it in the hands of the fans on the WWE App to decide whether or not Cena accepts this. A long-winded opening segment that all went towards booking more Cena stuff, and nothing else.
Match Results:
- Bray Wyatt defeated Daniel Bryan
- Dean Ambrose beat “Bad News” Barrett
- The New Day defeated Cesaro and Kidd
- Paige & Nattie beat Alicia Fox & Summer Rae
- Rusev crushed R-Truth
- Jay Uso beat The Miz
- John Cena defeated Seth Rollins, Big Show and Kane
Daniel Bryan made his RAW comeback in the ring in a match against Bray Wyatt. The way they’ve brought Bryan back has been a little strange, with nowhere near enough hype. The match itself was very good, with Wyatt in control for much of it in order to get the fans on Bryan’s side. The announcers put over Bryan and spoke of the risks involved in his return after a neck injury. The back and forth action was well-received by the Dallas crowd who chanted “this is awesome” during the match. This was Bray’s best outing in months and a solid in-ring RAW return for D-Bry. Kane interfered towards the end to keep their feud involved, and Wyatt hit the Sister Abigail finish to win the match. A screwy finish to a top notch match. Afterwards, Kane attacked Bryan with a chokeslam and a flurry of punches.
Kevin Nash and Scott Hall embraced with Trippers backstage in the first of the “reunion” segments. Shawn Michaels joined them, and hyped the “Legends Panel” for later in the night. Shawn calls Triple H “Vince Jr”. X-Pac joins them, along with Damien Pac-dow (?). The Miz interrupts and then attempts to be a part of “The Clique” but they ignore him. Fair enough.
Byron Saxton introduces the “Legends” for the Royal Rumble panel thing. Out comes Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels. Saxton appears intimidated by his role here, and trips over his words more time than Batista has tripped over the ring steps. Byron asks the “legends” if Cena should place his title shot on the line in order to win back the jobs of Ziggler, Rowan and Ryback. Shawn and Hogan said “yes”, Flair said “no”. Exciting stuff guys. Flair talks about winning the 1992 Royal Rumble to win the WWF Title for the first time. Flair puts over Randy Savage here which was a nice touch. Shawn speaks about winning the Rumble two years in a row (1995, 1996) and how important the match is to this day. Hogan speaks about winning the Rumble twice in a row too (1990, 1991) and what the match means to him. Predicting who will win the Rumble this year, Shawn said “Bray Wyatt”, Hogan said “Daniel Bryan” and Flair said “Dean Ambrose”. The mediocre panel is interrupted by “The World’s Largest Pee Break” The Big Show. Big Show talks about how the three legends are jealous of him. He says he is going to win the Rumble, insults the “legends” and talks about his past in WCW and WWE. Flair chops Big Show, who proceeds to punch him and “knock him out”. Roman Reigns interjects to a mediocre pop, and proceeds to take Show down with punches and a clothesline. Reigns gets cheered and booed here, and this is against Big Show, so it doesn’t point to his babyface run going well at this point. The time for a shock-heel turn is now, in my view. Corporate Reigns would work much better for the time being.
85% of the votes on the WWE App voted for Cena to put his WWE Title shot on the line for a chance to win back the jobs of the three fired superstars.
Ambrose and Barrett has a decent scrap, with Ambrose getting a very nice response from the crowd. It was one of those hard-hitting brawls that works well in making both look good. Ambrose won with his finish. The New Day had a match, their entrance is awful, the “positivity” stuff is cringe-worthy, and should only be done ironically with the group as villains. Their opponents were Tyson Kidd and Cesaro, accompanied by Adam Rose, The Rosebuds and Natalya. Cesaro and Kidd are two super-workers and I hope they are given an actual chance as a team, they could be great. Not a great start though, The New Day won, with Kofi pinning Cesaro. Shame. Natalya and Paige had a tag match against Summer and Alicia Fox, with the Bella’s on commentary. It was a typical main roster Divas match.
The “Reunion” stuff continued with Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman coming out in nWo gear, and to the nWo music. Hall looked to be in decent shape, and he spoke well, which is great when you look back at the appearances he made when he was in a bad way. Thanks DDP. Nash spoke about the Network, about nW0, about how he was the reason the Monday Night Wars happened. Nash patted his own shoulder for a while, laughed about it, and passed the mic to Waltman. Waltman got a decent pop, which is something he didn’t get during his last run in WWE. (Remember X-Pac heat?). The Ascension interrupted the segment, looking like a poor man’s Legion of Doom, which is the point I think. Viktor cut a promo on the nWo, calling them “old dogs” and such. The promo was terrible, but anyone who has followed these guys in NXT know they’re not exactly “top class workers”. Conor does his “welcome to the wasteland” thing, but JBL interrupts the proceedings. The fans chant for JBL. He rips on The Ascension and then brings out Ron Simmons, and the APA have reunited on RAW. Damn. The APA chants are the loudest chants of the night, which is shocking really. The New Age Outlaws then come out to another big pop. The Outlaws and the APA then attack The Ascension. JBL hits his lariat clothesline on them, and Billy Gunn slams them around, ending the segment which the fans in Dallas seemed to eat up.
Seth Rollins, Big Show and Kane are announced at Cena’s opponents for the night. If Rollins wins, Cena is removed from the title match at Royal Rumble, and if Cena wins, he gets chance, at the Rumble, to win the jobs of Ziggler, Ryback and Rowan back.
It’s announced that The New Age Outlaws will face The Ascension at Royal Rumble on Sunday.
John Cena against Big Show, Rollins and Kane in a handicap match ended the show, and the match was what you might expect. Cena got beaten up by the three heels, as they regularly tagged each other in. Cena showed heart, trying to fight back once in a while. We’ve seen this plenty of times before. Triple H was at ringside, and J & J Security interfered from time to time. Towards the end, Rollins and Cena wrestled, and there was a series of near-falls on both guys. This was the best part of the match. Cena kicked out of chokeslams, spears, interference spots and more. Suddenly, as Seth was about to curb stomp Cena, a picture of Sting appeared on the screen, and he made his surprise debut on RAW. He got a big reaction, and pointed at Triple H. Meanwhile, Cena rolled up Rollins in the ring to win, while the other members of the heels were distracted. The show went off the air with Triple H seething, and Cena celebrating his victory, and Brock Lesnar coming to the ring and attacking Rollins, Kane and Big Show. Lesnar stood tall as RAW went off the air.
It was a mediocre RAW that had some moments that the fans loved. The main event was okay, and the Bryan/Wyatt match was very good and Ambrose/Barrett was decent, but most of the rest of the show was either legends segments or crap matches. Still, Royal Rumble is only a few days away, and it should be a good show for wrestling fans.
RAW: Best Match: Daniel Bryan vs. Bray Wyatt
RAW: Best Talker: Paul Heyman
RAW: Worst Match: The Divas Tag Team Match
RAW: Surprise of the Night: Sting makes his RAW debut
