RAW Ramblings – January 11th 2016.
Smoothie King Centre: New Orleans, LA.
We’re back to some sort of normalcy after the holiday period and the 2015 Yearbook festivities, so what better way to follow up the tremendous 2015 Yearbook with a review of a completely useless RAW show?! Going up against the College Football Championship game, the white flag was flying high above Titan Towers and WWE did absolutely nothing to even try keep viewers from switching to the game. The third hour saved the show from being a complete disaster, however the first two hours were full of the usual illogical booking and awful scripting that has plagued the show for years.
The main story of the show was the McMahons booking Roman Reigns in a “One vs. All” match, which in fact turned out to be just a singles match with a bunch of interference. Opening segment was everybody’s favourite deal of having 99.9% of the roster stood on the stage like a bunch of plebs while Vince & Stephanie made jokes about how one of the chumps on the stage would be the next WWE champion. Vince singled out Dolph Ziggler & Kevin Owens as guys who could win the Royal Rumble, which was clearly a rib on both guys. The key point was that Vince named dropped Brock Lesnar, who of course was not on the stage with the other jokers. Reigns came out and asked what would happen if he retained the title in the Rumble and Steph booked him in a “One vs. All” match to prove that he had no chance of winning. Apparently, Vince forgot what changes he made to the script only ten minutes before and said Reigns would be facing everybody on the stage then decided it would only be half of the guys, none of which turned out to be the case. Sheamus attacked Ambrose on the stage for no reason and Vince booked them in the opener, which went to a lame double-count out after 14 boring minutes. Ambrose sent Sheamus into the steps and Sheamo got busted open hardway; he was bleeding all over the place and his pale skin made the visual even better. Kevin Owens turned up and attacked Ambrose afterwards.
Paul Heyman met with Vince & Steph in the back and told them that Brock Lesnar, their biggest drawing star, should not have to compete in the Royal Rumble with all the other geeks and said that Brock should go straight to the main event of WrestlleMania. Heyman told the McMahons that Lesnar refused to compete in the Rumble and Stephanie replied that Vince owns Brock’s contract and he is ordering him to be in the Rumble. Paul said he would go talk to his client. So we had the goofy “One vs. All” match. Vince & Steph brought out the Ascension, New Day, the Wyatt Family, Stardust, Alberto Del Rio, Sheamus & Kevin Owens as Reigns‘ opponents. Vince told Owens to get Reigns and we basically got a 15 minute Owens vs. Reigns match It was fine, although Owens did his headlock of doom and killed the crowd. Finally the geeks attacked, Reigns took out the Ascension, Tyler Breeze (who showed up out of nowhere) and Stardust. Vince set the rest of his goons on Reigns and New Day, Del Rio, Sheamus & Owens all beat down Roman. The Wyatts just held back and watched. Brock Lesnar’s music hit and woke the crowd up after being dead all night then the best babyface in the history of the universe annihilated the gang of heel losers. Lesnar took out New Day, suplexed Big E & Owens then traded potatoes with Sheamus. Lesnar sent Del Rio & Sheamus to Suplex City too and cleared house, leaving only himself and the beaten Reigns. Lesnar hoisted Reigns up and gave him an F5 and Cole asked who could stop Lesnar from winning the Rumble. Brock walked out and Reigns started to come round and he smiled like he did during the WrestleMania 31 match when Brock was killing him to death. It was a great angle to close the show, but there were so many things wrong with the way they got to it. First, they didn’t even bother to explain the rules of the main event, “One vs. All” match. Then they trot out Owens & Del Rio as part of Vince’s goon-squad to get killed; at least they protected the Wyatts I suppose. And don’t get me started on why the hell Vince didn’t just make it a WWE title match and order all the heels to jump Reigns at once. As usual, Brock Lesnar & Paul Heyman saved the show.
The only other good thing on the show was Kalisto beating Alberto Del Rio for the US title. Kalisto pinned Del Rio clean on SmackDown and got his title shot here. Del Rio cut a solid promo beforehand and took credit for injuring John Cena and said that Cena would not be at WrestleMania because of him. Match was very good and worth checking out; they told a good story with Alberto trying to use his size and Kalisto going for his movez. Finish saw Kalisto counter a German into a roll-up to become the new champ at 15:14.
Other Stuff that Happened: Titus O’Neil downed Stardust in a poor 3:25 match. Stardust, who had his face painted like Ziggy Stardust, attacked Titus afterwards so this wretched feud must continue even though Titus has beaten Stardust clean three times. Chris Jericho had New Day on the Highlight Reel and they exchanged unfunny lines until the Usos came out and Jericho challenged New Day to a match on their behalf. Usos beat New Day in a 15 minute snorer after, wait for it… A DISTRACTION FINISH! Jericho broke Xavier’s trombone which distracted Kofi and an Uso rolled him up for the pin. Babyfaces winning matches via distraction roll-ups? What the name of Toots Mondt’s ghost?! JBL announced that Sting was going into the WWE Hall of Fame and they showed a video package of Sting’s career. JBL claimed Sting started his career in New Orleans; WWE HIZTORY! THIS ACTUALLY WAS ON TV: The Wyatts faced the Social Outcasts! Imagine such a thing. To make it worse, Ryback showed up after only a minute and tried to attack the Wyatts. For some asinine reason, the Social Outcasts continued to fight with the Wyatts and everyone brawled all over the place. It was a total mess. Charlotte & Ric Flair were mean to Becky Lynch in the back; Flair said “Wooooo.” Charlotte was booked against Brie Bella, but Becky hit the ring before the bell and had a cold brawl with Charlotte. Afterwards, Flair said Charlotte was in no condition to compete and they walked out. Sucked.
Forget this nothing show and check out the awesome Cubed Circle 2015 Yearbook! (Click here!)
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