WWE Raw: The WrestleMania Go Home

March 29, 2016 6:44 AM - Season 24, Episode 29

The stage is set. The dominos are in place. The Granddaddy Of Them All is here, and the less said about Raw, the better.

Triple H (champion) vs. Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight Championship -- Reigns is getting booed, to the point that he is no longer coming in through the crowd. Triple H is getting cheered despite heeling the heeliest he can heel. The world is all topsy-turvy on us. With no active Money in the Bank contract, can WWE save itself from the Roman Empire, or will they push it down our throats?

Charlotte (champion) vs. Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch for the Divas *sigh* Championship, triple threat -- The best women's title match in WrestleMania history? Yeah, I feel pretty confident calling it that. (Trivia: The Divas *sigh* belt has never changed hands at WrestleMania, and the last time any women's title changed hands at WM was a decade ago, when Mickie James beat Trish Stratus at XXII.)

Kevin Owens (champion) vs. The Miz vs. Zack Ryder vs. Sin Cara vs. Stardust vs. Sami Zayn vs. Dolph Ziggler for the Intercontinental Championship, ladder match -- So it looks like WrestleMania is going to be big spotfest schmozz ladder matches for the Intercontinental belt forever. Who knows what the hell is going to happen here, other than crazy ladder spots.

Kalisto (champion) vs. Ryback for the United States Championship -- Probably the popcorn match, given the bare minimum of plotting. Ryback is a heel for no reason other than he needed something to do; Kalisto is the U.S. champion for no reason other than... I guess the WWE kinda wants some of that Lucha Underground rub?

Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon, Hell in a Cell -- If Shane wins, he gets Raw and the Undertaker never gets another WrestleMania. Rumors have been swirling about another brand split, and it's rare for a stipulation like this to be put in a match without a payoff. And if anyone would end a 25-year run on his back, it's Taker. This one's as up in the air as any Undertaker WM match of the past decade. (But look for it to be the main event, given the likely crowd reaction to the World title match.)

Brrrock Lllesnarrr vs. Dean Ambrose, street fight -- Through sheer willpower, these two have turned a consolation-prize feud into what may be the best match on the card, and will almost certainly be the most bonkers.

The New Day vs. the League of Nations, 4 on 3 handicap match -- The New Day is stumbling on its own face turn, and the LoN has dropped from the new Horsemen to a non-title handicap match in four short months. Look for the chin-wagging to take as much time as the actual match.

Chris Jericho vs. AJ Styles -- The Phenomenal One's rise has been meteoric, and Chris "Cruel Dad" Jericho has stepped up his game right alongside his erstwhile partner. Here's hoping that Styles capitalizes better on a WM-premier victory over Jericho than Fahndahngo did.

And there's some other stuff on the pre-show, including a 10-woman tag match and the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

posted by Etrigan (36 comments total)

A.V. Club coverage here.
posted by Marky at 7:19 AM on March 29, 2016

When fantasy booking WM, I can't get one image out of my head:
A fallen Undertaker, Shane McMahon laying just as broken in a corner of the cell, Finn Bálor standing over the Dead Man, with Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows flanking him (maybe a couple other NXT guys -- the Revival?). He looks into the camera and says "The Bulletproof Era begins... now." Fade to black.
posted by Etrigan at 11:01 AM on March 29, 2016

and will almost certainly be the most bonkers.

Chekov's Chainsaw seems to be in play, although how you pay that off without making your defacto-top-babyface look like an attempted murderer I don't know.

I'm mostly bummed that this coincides with opening night for the Mets, but I suppose I can not-really-watch an ultimately-meaningless baseball game in favor of seeing Shane and Taker try to top that ridiculous elbow they gave away for free last night.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:51 PM on March 29, 2016

NBD, just Kayfabe 4 Lyfe.
posted by Etrigan at 8:58 AM on March 30, 2016

bonkers
Etrigan outed as David Shoemaker?

Shane's elbow through the table was pretty amazing, especially given the age of the two men. Did Cole fail to call it Vintage because it was too big a moment? Great hype move without taking anything away from Mania, because there won't be an announce table in the cell for them to pull off that move.

I can not even imagine what it must be like in the backroom meetings talking about how to salvage the Roman Reigns situation right now. HHH and Steph were doing everything they could to piss the crowd off. And yet, Roman gets booed out of the building the moment he shows up. As if all the signs weren't already pointing towards a Shane win, I almost think you have to let that match close the night, just so that the HHH/Roman match doesn't. And if it is Taker's last go round, then it should close the night.

The Dudley's vs the Usos are on the preshow somehow as well. Is the WM preshow like 2 hours long? How on earth will they show all the hype packages they prepared, interviews, live panel discussion, and also have a tag match, 10 diva tag match, and battle royale!? Nice, I'm sure they won't dilute the product or the prestige of the Andre The Giant Whatever trophy by short shrifting any of that.

And also, having just read the AV Club piece above, HOLY HELL, HOW IS EVA MARIE GOING TO BE AT WRESTLEMANIA?! So that definitely got cut from the HULU version of RAW, and I am just flabbergasted that someone said "I know she has XPAC heat at Full Sail and her signature chant from the crowd is 'You Cant Wrestle!' but I really think we should introduce her to the main roster on the go-home and then inject her into the WM pre-show" and enough other people agreed that it is happening.

So finally I'll end by saying that I love Etrigan's fantasy ending to WM, but it can't possibly go that way. However, I'm willing to entertain either of two slight twists: the Bullet Club come down and help Shane to win, and the Shane/Bullet Club Own RAW Era begins (and Taker goes out on his back giving the rub to some dudes who could use it, as opposed to just Shane?), or on the following RAW they somehow string us along to a show ending segment that is Vince signing over ownership of RAW during which Bullet Club comes out on the side of Vince/The Authority, because HHH hired them from Japan as a contingency plan and we start some kind of insane SmackDown/NXT/The Authority invasion of RAW IS SHANE.
posted by jermsplan at 9:46 AM on March 30, 2016

HOLY HELL, HOW IS EVA MARIE GOING TO BE AT WRESTLEMANIA?!

I am seriously starting to think that no one on the Raw/PPV level of writing staff is allowed to watch NXT.

So that definitely got cut from the HULU version of RAW

Watch Paige's reaction when Eva Marie goes in for the side-hug. I have never loved Paige more than I did in that moment.
posted by Etrigan at 9:57 AM on March 30, 2016

Paige is great, that reaction is great. Complete aside, Paige triggers some kind of deep anger in me that no one else really does because she was the first NXT callup that I completely hyped to a friend of mine who doesn't watch NXT. She should have been a huge hit with him, awesome heel, solid wrestling, submission specialist...but she kind of flamed out the way so many NXT callups have. Basically ever since then it's been a downward spiral of me saying "X was great on NXT, don't know what to tell you" to the point where I just don't mention NXT to my friend anymore because (as a main roster only guy) he's convinced I'm crazy and that NXT is awful. So the anger Paige triggers is not directed towards her, but towards the assholes who keep taking amazing characters from one show and making them completely terrible on another.

So, based on that clip, we have team Total Divas and everyone hates Eva because they hate her on Total Divas? But now they'll reluctantly team up with her since she's on that show with them? And if relationships from Total Divas transfer directly into Monday Night RAW then that means that TD and RAW exist in the same kayfabe or non-kayfabe universe? So either RAW is totally real, not kayfabe, or TD is totally kayfabe, not a reality tv show? Come on WWE, that horse has left the barn. Don't cross the streams!
posted by jermsplan at 10:47 AM on March 30, 2016

I haven't watched a TD in a while, and even then it was mostly background noise, but how non-kayfabe is it? I don't seem to recall them busting the basic foundation of wrestling -- that the matches aren't predetermined -- so much as just the locker-room stuff about how the people are playing characters.
posted by Etrigan at 10:50 AM on March 30, 2016

I watch TD sometimes, and to the best of my knowledge, they never talk about matches being predetermined. They talk about their characters and their storylines, but never about the outcome of matches. They treat the title with a great deal of respect.

This whole conceit that TD is part of the universe and that relationships there exist in the same form on Raw is really bizarre, especially when they're pretty clear on TD about playing characters on Raw.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:44 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

This whole conceit that TD is part of the universe and that relationships there exist in the same form on Raw is really bizarre, especially when they're pretty clear on TD about playing characters on Raw.

Do they ever talk explicitly about how the best characters are just the real person turned up to 11? That seems like the best way to sort of explain it -- "Well, I don't hate Natalie when she's not being 'Eva Marie', but I don't love her, because there's really only a skoonch of difference..."
posted by Etrigan at 6:03 AM on March 31, 2016

They don't, actually. And really I suppose they talk more about storylines than they do characters. Other than talking about "my character is in a story where ..." it's not really addressed.

TD is like 95% kayfabe, but it's slightly-altered kayfabe. It's really strange. And terribly obvious when scenes are completely canned but played as if they're "real."
posted by uncleozzy at 7:46 AM on March 31, 2016

Triple H is trying super hard to be the biggest heel ever.
posted by Etrigan at 12:12 PM on March 31, 2016

Holy shit. Can we safely talk about NXT here without spoiling? (I know, people shouldn't be on fanfare if they want to avoid spoilers, but still didn't know if someone might idly check in to get pre-Mania gossip and forget that NXT had a show on Friday night)
posted by jermsplan at 11:59 AM on April 3, 2016

Go for it. Because that was the best wrestling show in a damn while, top to bottom.
posted by Etrigan at 3:50 PM on April 4, 2016

I'm not a consistent WWE watcher anymore. But I drop in from time to time, and I'm aware of the whole anti-Reigns situation and so forth. When I saw that 1) Shane O'Mac was coming back to the ring for Mania and 2) I could watch it free by signing up for a free month of WWE Network, I thought "hey, why not, it'll be fun." So I did.

Gotta say I was disappointed in the Shane/Undertaker result. From all I'd read about, it sounded pretty sure that this was a set up for Shane to take over Raw. Which sounds like a good idea to me. And I knew from watching years ago that Shane is capable of some CRAZY shit in extreme matches like this. (Jumping off the lighting rig that hangs over the entrance stage at the end of the arena, for example.) I'm just baffled as to why bring Shane back at all if that wasn't the plan? I'll be tuning in to Raw tonight to see what's up with that - maybe they've got some other angle to make it happen?
posted by dnash at 4:44 PM on April 4, 2016

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. If you are on Recent Activity and want to skip to the bottom of this comment, CTRL-F "pqr3".

Takeover Dallas was the bomb. As I said just right up there, the best wrestling show in a damn while, top to bottom:

(The Wiki says that Apollo Crews beat Elias Sampson in a dark match, so maybe that's the end of the Drifter?)

What a great start to WrestleMania weekend, to have American Alpha and the Revival in a four-star-plus match that featured actual psychology and tactics. When Jordan came out of nowhere with that spear, I jumped out of my seat.

Aries-Corbin was excellent, and Corbin has earned his apparent promotion.

Nakamura-Zayn was good for what it was, but honestly? There wasn't a compelling plot there for me. If they'd even remotely teased it as anything but "Here's one more flippy-fighty-fest for you nerds before Sami goes to the main roster," I might have liked it better.

Asuka-Bayley was tremendous, and the best possible way for Bayley to lose the belt. Not because of the KO finish (which I called more or less as soon as the match was signed), but because the throughline of the match was "She is going to take everything Asuka can dish out and give it back, and it'll be basically a coinflip who wins it."

I'm about 50 percent convinced that Samoa Joe bleeding was intentional, because as soon as it happened and they didn't just end the match, I started thinking "Okay, they're just trying to impress upon me how tough Joe is." If it weren't for the badly done hasty medical treatments over and over and over again, I'd be certain of it.

WrestleMania itself was... long. Way too long. Seven. Fucking. Hours. with the preshow. I watched on Monday (because yay slow work day!), and at the end of the HiaC match, I checked the time, and holy shit, there was another two goddamn hours to go.

The Intercontinental ladder match was a'ight. Not as good as last year's, but Ryder going over was a welcome shakeup. I wonder whether Neville was supposed to win or whether they just said "Fuck it, Zack's a team player, and he didn't complain about being sent down to NXT, so let's reward him."

Jericho-Styles was infuriating. Come to think of it, it set the tone for the whole night: Old guys go over. With the exception of the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and the main event, the older wrestlers won. Even if you don't count LoN/New Day as that, the not-yet-decrepit winners were immediately buried at the hands of three Hall of Famers. Even the 46-year-old Shane McMahon managed to lose to a 51-year-old.

And the Divas Women's Championship match was... well, I'll just let MeFi's own kazmat sum it up.

Ah, but the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, that was a genuine surprise, from start to finish. I present a Slack transcript of a convo I had while watching, in its entirety:
[14:24] etrigan Ooh, Baron Corbin.
[14:37] etrigan Holy crap, he won.
I liked Shaq coming out, I liked the ending, but more or less everything else was blah. Whoever writes Aztec Warfare, WWE needs to pay them like a hundred grand for the Royal Rumble and the Andre each so we can get more than two or three stories out of them.

The Rock segment was so painfully shitty that I couldn't watch it all at once. We get it, he's cooler than everyone else ever, and that's more important than not burying Bray Wyatt again.

Oh, that main event. A solid fifteen-minute match that they managed to squeeze into 27 minutes and firmly establish that Triple H is still so damn good that it's better we see him in the biggest match of the year than, say, anyone else in an entire company of people who actually work on a weekly basis.

If it weren't for NXT, I would be fucking done with this company.

pqr3
posted by Etrigan at 6:50 PM on April 4, 2016

Well, that didn't work. Maybe this will:
pqr3
SPOILERS ARE DONE NOW
posted by Etrigan at 7:01 PM on April 4, 2016

So I peaced out after no one immediately responded, and then took till Tuesday night to finish Mania.

dnash: I played the "oh, I'll catch this PPV free then ditch the network" game a year or so ago, and I just want to warn you to steel yourself for the battle of canceling. Unless they've changed it, they made it a major PITA for me to try and cancel at the end of my free month, had to call and talk to a real human who tried to upsell or continue, etc. Just be warned.

NXT:

The tag match, phenomenal. You know what's crazy? I'm so crazy about American Alpha that I actually didn't care if they won. Like, midway through that match I was thinking "damn, I love them so much, this is one of those times when I wouldn't care if the heels cheat to win for the next 3 months and we just keep seeing this." All good, though.

Man, I don't know what I'm missing, but I don't love Corbin yet. I love some of his moves. I love his schtick and his "I hate the indies" thing. But how in god's name is that going to translate to the main roster? No one who is a "Raw Only" fan knows or gives a shit about the indies. Is Corbin just going to hate on everyone? I don't know. I'm willing to believe I am the odd one out here, but he hasn't done it for me yet.

I knew nothing about Nakamura pre-match, but this really entertained the hell out of me. In a weird way, where I'm not wishing I could see it every week, or even that super excited to see a long NXT run out of Nakamura or anything. But as a one off "dream match", yeah, I'd say it lived up to that.

I actually found myself feeling critical of Bayley at times during the Women's match, I didn't feel like she was convincing when in control. Like, she's such a tremendous underdog but doesn't actually have much practice being in control of a match. It was a short lived criticism, though, because Asuka didn't let her control it for long, and it ended up being good overall.

I have this weird memory from previous WWE forays into Texas that there are state rules surrounding "entertainment" events (as opposed to true fighting sports or whatever) that actually require bleeding to be stopped. Anyone else ever hear of anything like that? That's all I could think of while Joe bled and they constantly disrupted the match. Well, that and "god damn, don't they make an spray can of liquid skin glue that can seal a cut up in like 3 seconds? Why don't they deal with this?" The match was good, maybe it was the constant disruptions that kept it from really keeping me on the edge of my seat.

Wrestlemania:

The US Title defended in front of a packed house of roughly 200 people!
10 Diva's in a completely awful clusterfuck that should have been skipped!
The Usos getting booed tremendously as they put the Dudleys through tables!
What a preshow! Oh wait, they unveiled a new WWE Women's Championship belt! That was cool!

Seeing Funaki on a commentary table cracked me up. #SmackdownNumberOneAnnouncer

Welcome to Wrestlemania 32, or as we're booking it: Wrestlemania "fuck you smarks". To be honest, the remainder of my thoughts may be light on praise of good wrestling and critical of booking decisions. There was plenty of good wrestling. But (as JR might say) Good God Almighty did they try to make you forget everything good that had happened when the ref counted 3.

Ok, I'll admit to being a big fan of Long Island Iced Z, for whatever reason I always thought he was trying his ass off and deserved better. Still, in a ladder match featuring Owens, Zayn and Ziggler, it was Zack Ryder who walked away with the title. I'm happy. Also, it allowed him to be part of a completely adorable snickers ad later.

Y2J over Styles. Y2J over Styles. I can't even

LoN over New Day. Here's the thing: if this was a believable followup to LoN running roughshod over everyone for the last 3 months then this could be a good finish. But LoN have generally been jokes, New Day are hot as shit, and good lord did I feel like I'd seen this match already while I was watching it based on the number of times they have "some of LoN" vs "some of New Day" over the last month. The legends beating up LoN afterwards was cute, except, again, how are we supposed to buy LoN as champions if you keep making them punching bags? And if the talk of Barret leaving are true, that beat down was the meanest "future endeavour"ing I've ever seen.

Brock v Ambrose was a good match, if underwhelming for a No DQ match. Unsurprisingly, neither the chainsaw nor the barbed wire bat really came into play. Wait, did I not talk about the chainsaw earlier? Why in the world did Finn have the chainsaw? That was weird. Anyway, I thought this match was good and that Ambrose stock is still high and rising and Brock doesn't slip an inch in his role as baddest beast on the roster. Nicely done.

The Women's title match was great, right up until Charlotte won. I haven't read kazmat's article yet, so how about I leave off here and go educate myself before I say something and sound stupid.

HIAC: well, it was crazy. BUT WHAT THE SHIT WAS THE POINT?! I genuinely felt bad for Shane's wife. Like, how much genuine concern and fear was wrapped up in that pre-match kiss? I mean...god damn. I will say, when the two refs seemed to be legitimately pinning Shane's shoulders post-match and telling him to stop squirming till the EMCs arrived, I was a little nervous that the WWE had done one Tombstone Piledriver too many. Happy to know he's ok. David Shoemaker has said this on his podcast: sometimes the aging WWE superstars risk their health in ways that makes him uncomfortable. For the first time, I felt what he was talking about.

Andre's Battle Royale: see thoughts on Corbin above. Shaq was fun though.

Impromptu match where The Rock beats The Wyatts so fast he sets a WM record!? Sounds great! (Was this a concession to Daniel Bryan so that he's no longer the answer to a trivia question about shortest WM match?)

Roman v HHH. I don't know what to say. Maybe it'll be better if the WWE just lets Roman have his moment and then we can all move past this? I had a thought in the middle of this match, and maybe I'm crazy, but here it is: I hated LOLCENAWINS as much as anyone, but somehow now seeing LOLROMANWINS it (I can't believe I'm going to say this) makes me miss LOLCENAWINS. Maybe that's complete crap, and it's only that I'm a year removed from really seeing LOLCENAWINS that I'm remembering it through rose colored lenses. I don't know. But watching this match all I could think was "ugh, I've been watching this for the last decade, but the other guy was better at it."

(and no, I don't have to feel bad about this text dump, because for christ's sake, WWE put out like 10 hours of television this weekend)
posted by jermsplan at 9:19 PM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

But watching this match all I could think was "ugh, I've been watching this for the last decade, but the other guy was better at it."

Thank you. This is the perfect encapsulation of why the Roman Experiment didn't work.
posted by Etrigan at 3:20 AM on April 6, 2016

The tag match, phenomenal. You know what's crazy? I'm so crazy about American Alpha that I actually didn't care if they won. Like, midway through that match I was thinking "damn, I love them so much, this is one of those times when I wouldn't care if the heels cheat to win for the next 3 months and we just keep seeing this." All good, though.

I have lots of thoughts about all the shows, most of which have already been expressed by others, but I loved this tag match so, so much that I need to talk about it. It was a classic heel/face tag match, the sort of thing where you don't need to know a single thing about not only the teams but, in fact, about pro wrestling at all, to follow and enjoy the story being told.

It was just a beautifully-executed tag match that had me smiling the whole time. I do think they crammed about 25 minutes of work into a 20 minute match, but it was also the opening match and it needed to get the crowd hyped (and let the guys show off a little for a big audience), so while I'd have liked a slower pace, I'm okay with it.

If bringing up the Realest Guys and the Vaudevillains, a new gimmick for Primo and Epico, and the ongoing Dudley-Uso situation means we get more tag matches like this on the main roster (and at PPVs!) instead of thrown-together teams of midcarders, that's a really great thing.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:46 AM on April 6, 2016

Boo: David "The Masked Man" Shoemaker is leaving Cheap Heat.

Yay: David "The Masked Man" Shoemaker has signed on at Bill Simmons' The Ringer .
posted by Etrigan at 6:00 AM on April 6, 2016

Ok, real talk about Cheap Heat? Aside from a single episode in the last two months when I felt like they really stepped their game up, I've been close to quitting that show. They've literally been phoning it in! I love The Masked Man and will follow him, will be sad if this means Greg goes back to being a lawyer because he was kind of fresh and endearing, but I will not miss a single second of Rosenberg's personal stories or explanations for why he doesn't even watch RAW most weeks.
posted by jermsplan at 8:17 AM on April 6, 2016

I played the "oh, I'll catch this PPV free then ditch the network" game a year or so ago, and I just want to warn you to steel yourself for the battle of canceling. Unless they've changed it, they made it a major PITA for me to try and cancel at the end of my free month, had to call and talk to a real human who tried to upsell or continue, etc. Just be warned.

I'm cool with that. Actually I might go ahead and keep it for one more month for the $10, just to throw them a bone.

Although if they want me to give a reason, I can - their network stream locked up twice on me during WM. I missed Shane's entrance, and the conclusion of the women's title match.

I will say, when the two refs seemed to be legitimately pinning Shane's shoulders post-match and telling him to stop squirming till the EMCs arrived, I was a little nervous that the WWE had done one Tombstone Piledriver too many.

Somehow I wasn't too worried - I guess because I'd seen Shane do crazed things like that before. I suspected the EMT's were partly for drama and partly precaution. He was probably in no condition himself to know how hurt he might actually be, so best to strap him down and carry him out carefully just in case.

But yeah - what was the point? Especially given what then happened on Raw the next night.
posted by dnash at 8:29 AM on April 6, 2016

Ok, real talk about Cheap Heat? Aside from a single episode in the last two months when I felt like they really stepped their game up, I've been close to quitting that show. They've literally been phoning it in!

Amazing how closely it tracks to the WWE, isn't it.

I hear ya, though. It looks like Cheap Heat will go to a Rosenberg-Greg-special-guests format, and I'll keep it on my list but let it slide a lot farther down than whatever Shoemaker's podcast will be.

Do you have any other podcast recommendations? I like Not Your Demographic a lot, but I haven't been able to get any enthusiasm for any of the wrestler-turned-podcaster ones, except for the occasional Colt Cabana.
posted by Etrigan at 8:37 AM on April 6, 2016

I used to live in DC so I listen to Chad Dukes still. It's funny, I find I enjoy the podcast 95% of the time, and then every once in a while he says something that I disagree with so vehemently that it surprises me he could even have said it. Like when an uncle you love says something crazy racist at Thanksgiving.

You know what I actually enjoy is digging through the surprisingly deep archives that Y2J and Stone Cold have, and listening to the episodes where they shoot the shit for an hour with another wrestler I like a lot. Maybe you've given them as much a shot as you care to. But I find that if I pick and choose, they actually have some amusing and candid conversations with old buddies.

I'll check out Not Your Demo, but no sadly, Cheap Heat used to be my goto and I've rapidly been moving towards 1 or fewer wrestling podcasts a week now.
posted by jermsplan at 8:47 AM on April 6, 2016

Wow, RAW just did nothing but make me scratch my head even more trying to figure out what story the WWE thought it was telling at Wrestlemania.

Have two different champions who won the championship as challengers at Wrestlemania lost the belts on the following RAW before? That blew my mind.

Miz beats Ryder: I actually don't mind this one so much, as long as this turns into a decent program between the two of them because honestly they seem like exactly the type of superstars who should get an IC title program as an attempt to elevate their status. Miz has been at the top before, but has been at the bottom for long enough that it feels fair. Ryder has never gotten this high before, so a nice push for a nice guy. I don't really need a lot more of Ryder's dad, but whatever.

New Day beat LoN: why on earth did this trading back and forth of the title happen? Was it because it would have made no sense for 3 hall of famers to come down and beat up the LoN if they'd lost the match? Then, maybe the answer was don't have a WM segment where 3 HOFers beat up a struggling heel stable rather than have a weird handing back and forth of titles on consecutive nights? I just don't get it. #BNBFOREVER

How about this: Cesaro makes his return but doesn't immediately replace King Barret in LoN. I really like heel Cesaro, though I understand him being so popular that it would be tough for him to come back as a heel. I mean, if only there were a stable of international heels who were getting major heat by beating the most over stable of sort-of-heels-sort-of-faces on the roster that the Swiss Superman could have joined with and made tons of sense.

And Shane gets to run RAW for a little bit because he lost but really gave it his all? Wins and Losses never meant anything in the WWE anyway, I guess.

Ugh, you know what frustrates me the most? This sort of booking makes me feel terrible, like I am absolutely one of those people griping on the internet that make me want to say "why do you watch a show you don't enjoy? just stop watching!" But I'm not usually like this! I'd like to think back to RAW and talk about the cool moves. The surprise finishes. Hey, that fatal fourway for number one contender was actually a great match! But all I can focus on is the inexplicable booking for some reason.
posted by jermsplan at 7:52 PM on April 6, 2016

New Day/LoN wasn't a title match at WM. The League never had the belts.
posted by Etrigan at 8:32 PM on April 6, 2016

New Day/LoN wasn't a title match at WM.
Damn, my brain did a serious record scratch spit take on reading that. I had formed a story in my head that the two groups fought for weeks leading up to a WM payoff with the belts on the line that I was so sure of...damn.

For the first time in a long time, I am well and truly excited about WWE. What a turnaround after an at-times-fun-but-mostly-just-meandering Mania.
Yeah, you know what? You're right. Only positive thoughts for a while. No more focusing on the bad. Power of Positivity! IT'S A NEW DAY, YES IT IS!

(agree to disagree on Cesaro)
posted by jermsplan at 6:10 AM on April 7, 2016

Cageside's NXT coverage answers the biggest question I had this week:

If, like me, you always wonder why NXT had these episodes which seem to be encouraging you to watch something you can pull up any time since it also comes with the $9.99 we pay WWE each month, I'm told their are still international markets where this airs on television. These keep those viewers up-to-date and encourage them to join us in forking over our hard-earned cash to the McMahons every four weeks.

jermsplan, you are outvoted on Cesaro. He needs to be the cool foreign face, if only because we have an explicitly foreign heel faction.

If they'd even remotely teased it as anything but "Here's one more flippy-fighty-fest for you nerds before Sami goes to the main roster," I might have liked it better.

ERROR FZZKDKFKKKT MELTDOWN IMMINENT GAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK

I like plotlines. I will not apologize for that. If I'd been there live, I'm sure I would have been just as "FIGHT FOREVER!" as the crowd, but it would have taken so little effort to have something besides "Hey, these are two guys you like, so let's have them go at it for 20 minutes".

Which leads me to my new fantasy-booking idea -- they need to play up the "promotion to the main roster" tension on screen. Have William Regal be his usual awesome commissioner, but have him be just a little bit jealous about his NXT superstars when they become WWE superstars. Like, he's proud of them, but... So the Nakamura-Zayn match could have just this hint of "I'm punishing you for being promoted. Your last match will be brutal." For that matter, they could have had Baron Corbin win some sort of NXT tournament to get into the Andre Battle Royal, which gives him a plotline and lets the announcers talk about how there's this fabulous opportunity for someone to make a big impression. And when he wins it, you have Vince or someone present him the trophy and say "Because you grabbed the brass ring, I'm promoting you to the main roster."

Everyone who watches NXT reads the dirt sheets. We all knew that Enzo and Cass were coming on Raw. We all thought Bayley would show up too. If this is the Reality Era, they should really act like they're letting us behind that curtain a little.
posted by Etrigan at 6:23 AM on April 7, 2016

RIP Blackjack Mulligan, patriarch of the WIndham/Rotunda clan.
posted by Etrigan at 10:28 AM on April 7, 2016

Smackdown felt just bursting with NXT and other new talent.

I thought the Vaudevillains had a great debut match. How nice is it that an NXT callup can get their debut match against an opponent they have history with (that is, a previous callup)? Really a lot better to ensure the two teams know one another and can put on a solid match. I thought Gotch's tag then hang out in the the corner then kick the crap out of Sin Cara going for Suicide Dive bit was really well done. I've wondered how well their gimmick would play in a big arena, and I guess that has yet TBD, but hopefully they can draw the good heat and not the bad heat.

Emma having a feud with Becky is such a better option than having Emma flounder in the 10 woman TotalDiva vs NonDiva nonsense she was stuck in. Very much looking forward to these two going at it.

I still like the Miz/Ryder feud, with real stakes, even after seeing essentially the same match with same Maryse influenced ending twice in a week. I'd appreciate it if they could slow this story down a little without just dropping it. #WWWYKI
posted by jermsplan at 9:10 AM on April 11, 2016

I am stoked for the tag team division right now. Ambrose letting Jericho rant and then following it up with "so, you're not going to tell us about the scarf?" killed me. Wyatt looked like a man on fire in the ring and made me realize I had forgotten how good he can be. Not sure if he had an injury longer than any of us realized, or if the booking kept him from having a good role or being motivated enough to put forth an effort, but on Monday night he sure reminded me why he's such an exciting character.

#RIPWWWYKI
posted by jermsplan at 11:47 AM on April 13, 2016

The New Day won the WrestleMania merch battle (according to Big E).
posted by Etrigan at 8:25 AM on April 18, 2016

Taken as a whole, last week was actually a pretty amazing one for WWE programming. Nearly all the part timers and old timers disappeared for an entire week. Depends a little on how you categorize Y2J (more like seasonal worker, than part timer), Dudleys (old timers on a new run?), and a few other guys. But by and large, there was an unexpected void left by the people who had been filling it for months leading up to WrestleMania, and I thought that it was really refreshing. I know Mark Henry was retiring, but are Big Show and Kane being given some time off to help Corbin establish himself as new bigman on campus? Not that I need more Show or Kane, but I feel like it's a rare week that goes by without one of them on TV somewhere.

Main Event, of all shows, was a pretty good hour of fun wrestling (if you fast forward through all the Raw Replay stuff). #SocialOutcasts come out, and talk some terrible smack, then Heath Slater loses to Kalisto. But #SO refuse to give up the ring, pump themselves up, give an open challenge. Apollo Crews answers, and demolishes Bo. I don't know if #SO are having as much fun as they are acting like they are having, but they are super over for a job squad, and fun to watch put guys over from where I'm sitting. Then Main Event gets a Ziggler v Owens match. Solid match for not SmackdownOrRaw. Owens continues his interactions with commentary which have to be funnier for the millions at home than for the live audience which can't possibly hear him or catch his nuance.
posted by jermsplan at 9:04 AM on April 18, 2016

The is-AJ-good-or-not plotline intrigues me, but if AJ turns heel in service of getting Reigns over... ugh.
posted by Etrigan at 7:59 AM on April 19, 2016

RIP Chyna. WAY too young.
posted by jermsplan at 10:27 AM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]