RAW: 18 April 2016 - SPOILERS from London

[Greggulator]

1) Like someone said before -- Sami's the underdog. He's going to lose. And Jericho's a cagey veteran with an absurdly long resume. He SHOULD be hard to beat. The young guys coming up should have a hard time solving his puzzle. Beating Jericho should mean something. AJ just lost to him in a series and he's now in the World Title picture. Also, Jericho's really friggin' good, especially working heel.

2) Nattie isn't great but she's a lot better than she used to be. Her and Charlotte had a good but flawed NXT match that really broke through the division. They'll have a better one at Payback.

3) Charlotte has really come into her own and is one of the best acts going right now. She's nailing her role as the entitled brat and doing a great job of learning from her dad kayfabe wise in being the sneakiest player in the game who has to use sleazy tactics to beat people kayfabe better. I really friggin' loved the heel pairing last night. They had good chemistry together. Really wish Emma was involved to tie in the b-story in the women's division but Summer Rae is really fun to watch. I like how vocal Summer is in the ring with talking trash and screaming and the like.

[Michael Sweetser]

I just think it's fucking hilarious that Jericho now seems to be the type of upper card guy that he couldn't get a fair break against in WCW.  He's become what he despised.

[Craig H]

I knew going in with Sami being called up that there would be growing pains. It's the same issues that Bayley is going to face. They're going to lose. If creative is at all interested in building up either person, then they're going to face their own hardships before they start putting all the pieces together to finally make that run. With Bayley, it's going to be an easier road with fewer roadblocks. She will probably have a run similar to the one she had in NXT. With Sami, it's not going to build to him holding the World title, at least not right away, so you're just going to have to hope that creative doesn't fuck it up with 50/50 booking, which they definitely will.

[Jrag]

11 minutes ago, MonteCarl said:

I don't understand the logic behind building to a Owens/Zayn match by having both those guys lose clean in separate matches in the same night.

I'm not sure how anyone got over back in the day with Ric Flair getting all those clean wins.....

[Charlie M.]

4 minutes ago, Michael Sweetser said:

I just think it's fucking hilarious that Jericho now seems to be the type of upper card guy that he couldn't get a fair break against in WCW.  He's become what he despised.

Except that he's nothing like that because it's just a gimmick and he'll put over anyone they want.

[Cristobal]

He put over Fandango at Mania FFS and because he gets a win in a 50/50 match over a guy who just debuted all of a sudden he's Nash the booker?

I mean I don't think the Mania win over Styles made sense, but this definitely seems like more "Vince does dumb shit" rather than "Jericho is using his STROKE to keep the young guys down".

Also, Zayn's best hope is that he can be the new Daniel Bryan. If he can fill those shoes, the Daniel Bryan career path isn't a terrible one.

[MonteCarl]

20 minutes ago, Jrag said:

I'm not sure how anyone got over back in the day with Ric Flair getting all those clean wins.....

 

But in my example, it would be like building to Ric Flair vs Sting by having Flair drop a clean fall to Lex Lugar and Sting drop a clean fall to Nikita Koloff on TV two weeks before the Clash of Champions.

 

[JohnnyJ]

There are definitely two different camps on Jericho right now. In my eyes, Jerichos stuff doesn't look great and wasn't exactly hard hitting offense in the first place. When people complain when he wins it's only partly because he's going over someone they prefer. The other part is because he doesn't look impressive doing it. This weakens the person taking the fall.

I don't see Jericho as a WCW-era maineventer holding other talents down. I see him as an established name who they are keeping in the mix. To be in the mix he has to trade falls with top talents. 

However, back in the WCW days there was always that bad feeling you had when a performer you liked was going to be facing off against a top older talent. You knew he couldn't keep up and was going to drag down the other wrestler. That's how I feel about Jericho right now. 

 

 

  

[Jrag]

Your entire point is fictional because Sami didn't lose clean.....  

That there are so many people in here who think he did goes a long way to explaining why good heels are damn near extinct.

[JCM]

19 minutes ago, Charlie M. said:

Except that he's nothing like that because it's just a gimmick and he'll put over anyone they want.

Jericho has even been saying he will bury people playing up the smarks opinion he shouldn't be going over young/newer acts. I think he's lost a step or two in the ring, but he's still a great storyteller in and out of the ring.

[RIPPA]

Meltzer and Alvarez arguing over whether Taker was still in the RAW opening is one of my favorite things ever

[ChrisM]

It's pretty amazing how much the addition of Maryse has done to refresh the Miz's character. She is what Lana should have been all along. 

And for people suggesting Finn comes in soon to reform the Bullet/Balor Club, I don't see him going to the main roster until he loses the NXT championship. Let's face it, the NXT roster has become pretty depleted post-Mania, so they need time to build up some names that people are actually gonna care about. 

[RIPPA]

2 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Apparently Lillian got edited because she referred to Big Cass as Colin Cassidy.  

Even better is that apparently she said "Colon" Cassidy

[MonteCarl]

I'm not complaining that it was Sami who lost or Owens who lost. That's not my concern or complaint. It's not WHO lost. I'm saying that it doesn't make good booking sense to have two guys who you are building towards a match both lose on the same night. Have Sami lose that match with Jericho. Fine. But then have Owens win his and the story is that Sami lost and Owens won going in to their match so how will that factor in when they face each other? Or have Owens walk out like he does when it looks like he's going to lose, then Sami comes out and they brawl or Sami forces Owens back in the ring when he then loses. Something to add a little more fire to their match in two weeks instead of both going in with losses on the same night.

[NikoBaltimore]

My favorite thing about Raw.  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

And it led to somebody PSing it into this gem of a picture:

[Greggulator]

36 minutes ago, MonteCarl said:

I'm not complaining that it was Sami who lost or Owens who lost. That's not my concern or complaint. It's not WHO lost. I'm saying that it doesn't make good booking sense to have two guys who you are building towards a match both lose on the same night. Have Sami lose that match with Jericho. Fine. But then have Owens win his and the story is that Sami lost and Owens won going in to their match so how will that factor in when they face each other? Or have Owens walk out like he does when it looks like he's going to lose, then Sami comes out and they brawl or Sami forces Owens back in the ring when he then loses. Something to add a little more fire to their match in two weeks instead of both going in with losses on the same night.

They are also building to Jericho/Dean. Jericho just beat the number one contender. Dean almost won the WWE title and went toe-to-toe with Brock. They are higher status right now. That might change. Sami and KO are right under that level. They just aren't there quite yet.

[MonteCarl]

I understand that as well. Maybe they should've done the typical tag match, then, instead of two singles. Or switched the two matches around so Owens/Ambrose goes on first and Owens loses. He's pissed, so he comes out and costs Sami the match against Jericho later in the show. Or the scenario I mentioned where Owens tries to walk but Sami stops him and then Owens loses. I'm just not happy with the decision that was made to have them both lose in the manner of which they did while they are trying to build them up for their own match at the next show. Not the hugest deal and it will be forgotten by next week, but it's something that stood out to me and that bugged me a bit.

[Technico Support]

1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

Even better is that apparently she said "Colon" Cassidy

That's my porno name

[Curt McGirt]

Quote

 the Daniel Bryan career path isn't a terrible one.

Story-wise, YES YES YES; physical-wise, NO NO NO

[Stevie Ray Von Erich]

Do y'all not get that they put Jericho over on WM to make the result of the Fatal Four Way on Raw the next night a surprise? Internal little logic things like that happen all the time. Like how they program people with The Big Show or Kane to make people look "strong" or program folks with Dolph to make them look "good." The effectiveness is always an issue, but they do the same things over and over again.

It just reminds me of how many people were CONVINCED for weeks that there was going to be a Sami/Owens one on one IC Title match at mania despite the weeks of build to a multi man match.

We love ignoring facts and patterns to serve whatever weird narrative we want to believe about our favorites.

[The Man Known as Dan]

1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

That's my porno name

Mine is Enyo Amore.

[Go2Sleep]

Jericho going over Sami isn't nearly as bad as him going over AJ at Mania. They probably could've used someone different, but guys of Sami's rank are the kind of guys Jericho actually should be beating before putting Ambrose over. Plus they did the eye-poke, so Sami was still protected a little.

I liked the Bullet Club segments. I thought they might be going for the swerve where they help Roman at Payback, but them attacking Roman here doesn't fit that story. They could go any number of ways, but I'm thinking Anderson and Gallows stay on their own until Balor gets brought up.

[J.T.]

Okay, so I thought the whole point of teasing a Reigns heel turn was to actually pull the trigger on it and subvert the legit heat?

Teasing a Bullet Club reunion now style and targeting Reigns as a face will only make Gallows, Anderson, and AJ the most over tweeners in the company.

Reigns needs to turn heel.  Period.  And it needs to be a double swerve at Payback so that Reigns is in the Bullet Club, not AJ.  Then you can sell Styles as the little worker that could and maybe bring up Finn from NXT and tease which side he will choose.

[Jrag]

I'm in the camp that it doesn't matter who turns because the crowd is going to be pro-AJ/anti-Reigns no matter what.  Cool heel faction who gets cheered is sort of what the Bullet Club was already.  So they can go that route if they want to or they can make them a less cool heel faction by making Reigns the leader. Either way works and the crowd responses will be great.

They could also just hold off aligning them with anyone until Balor shows up.  Any of those three options would be just fine and hard to fuck up.  

Which isn't to say they wont fuck it up.  They could just as easily scrap the Bullet Club reboot and put Gallows/Anderson in the authority when Trips comes back.

[J.T.]

But if Roman is a heel, at least the crowd will be booing a guy that should be booed. 

You cannot let this Make A Wish foundation goodwill bullshit prevent you from working the marks in the arena. 

Do a redemption angle after you have ridden out the heat storm.