Roadblock II

[Eivion]

Thought the tag titles match was solid. Sami/Braun was decent. I like the angle though I thought Braun could have been a bit interesting in trying to destroy Sami. The win is nice though I probably sill would prefer Sami on SDL unless he is winning the rumble.

The cruiserweight title match was ok. Neville coming out to turn heel was nice enough.

First 15 mins. of Charlotte/Sasha moved along well enough, but it didn't feel like there was a solid plan other than to waste time till the real shit began. The last 5 five minutes and then the overtime were fantastic. Good match though I'm definitely glad this feud is over. I just wish it ended a ppv or two ago. Charlotte vs. Bayley should have already been happening by now to help set the stage for a jealous Sasha vs. Bayley at WM.

Owens/Roman was good though I didn't care for the finish. Honestly, Reigns should have either won here or gone into murder/death/kill mode like he did the League of Nations. I'm kind of annoyed as it fets like they were teasing it with his post-match expression and Owen/Jericho wanting to get the fuck out of there.

[MORELOCK]

What the hell was with Booker burying Zayn like that?

Finish was cool, but I'm not a fan of the booking being "Okay we let them break the record now let's have them drop the titles immediately to a team they've beaten several times with very little buildup." New Day deserved better - and I think it should have been Enzo and Cass getting a reign in before they inevitably break them up.

Rest of the PPV outside of Neville was pointless.

[Niners Fan in CT]

38 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

Sasha and Charlotte have had five of the best matches of the year on the main roster.

And in the end none of it meant anything. A half dozen title changes. A PPV winning streak that nobody cares about. Nothing setup for Sasha moving forward.  And Bayley in line as the next challenger and they've done nothing to build her up to that.

[Charlie M.]

It got them to the point where their matches could headline RAW and do well in the ratings.

[DreamBroken]

Really enjoyed Sasha/Charlotte. Great match that felt like the 30 flew by and never felt overly long. Only 'off' thing to me was Charlotte waiting forever to finally bridge in to the figure 8. Feels like Charlotte's next feud is a step down, I'd rather her and Sasha continue the endless title switches. New Day losing seemed like a foregone conclusion so it didn't feel like a real big moment that they finally lost, did like the clever finish though. Have had very little interest in the cruiserweight division so when Neville showed up I thought oh cool, then he started kicking ass on the dudes I can't stand and thought that was absolutely awesome. Didn't expect that at all. Hopefully that gives the division a much needed boost. As others have said, everything else felt like a standard Raw as we'd seen those matches tons of times. Already tired of the forced Shield reunion spots stuff but I did enjoy the main event well enough.

[Lawful Metal]

So did Rollins and Reigns turn heel officially?

[Michael Sweetser]

There's nothing WRONG with the women's title booking, per se, but holy shit, does it make Sasha look weak as fuck.  And they wonder why there's no crowd interest in babyfaces.

[Burgundy LaRue]

20 minutes ago, Lawful Metal said:

So did Rollins and Reigns turn heel officially?

I'll be interested to see how this goes.  Rollins is still transitioning into a face, so I'm guessing they'll continue down that road for him.  But is Reigns covertly using Rollins as a smoke screen?  It wouldn't be surprising if Reigns sees HHH coming and pushes Rollins into the path of destruction.

[Niners Fan in CT]

38 minutes ago, Charlie M. said:

It got them to the point where their matches could headline RAW and do well in the ratings.

For the moment yes but where does Sasha go from here?  If she isn't wrestling on the WM card that is a failure creatively. Charlotte lined up with Bayley is fine but why isn't Bayley a strong challenger right now?

That's what I mean. There's been nothing set in place for the division moving forward. It's all on the fly booking.

[Go2Sleep]

Sasha/Charlotte is one of those feuds that's gonna look a lot better in 10 years even if doesn't seem so great in real time. Just look how WWE has gotten everyone to buy into the Trish/Lita 04 feud as a high point of women's wrestling, and that was built around Trish making fun of Lita getting raped by Kane and her subsequent miscarriage. This feud is just 50/50 booking on steroids and actually has good matches to back it up.

Neville's return was the only inspired angle on this show. Everything else was the usual "decent matches, shit booking" we've come to expect from Raw.

[Peck]

The "10" chants were going on all night. Fairly certain it's going to get annoying very quickly if it hasn't already. 

The Tag Match was the most fun of the night. Was cool when Cesaro climbed over to us to celebrate. Told us all the belts in the world don't matter without fans like us and seemed genuinely moved a little bit.

The crowd shat all over Swann/TJP/Kendrick, especially after that Swann/Kendrick botch right off the bat. Pretty sure Neville wasn't looking for massive "Thank you Neville!" chants during the heel turn. Better than complete silence I guess?

Did anyone see the spot where Sasha got busted open? At ringside, we didn't even realize it happened until we saw her sit up and noticed her face covered with blood. Kudos for not doing one of the lame "doctor stops" there. Felt that added a lot to the finish, although apparently the announcers didn't even mention it?

[Charlie M.]

8 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

For the moment yes but where does Sasha go from here?  If she isn't wrestling on the WM card that is a failure creatively. Charlotte lined up with Bayley is fine but why isn't Bayley a strong challenger right now?

That's what I mean. There's been nothing set in place for the division moving forward. It's all on the fly booking.

I already mentioned that I can see Sasha moving into a feud with the returning Emmalina. Something to keep her busy until Mania season.

The booking of Bayley hasn't been great but they did shoot a decent angle at Survivor Series for her and Charlotte but then decided to extend Charlotte/Sasha for one more PPV. It's an easy feud to heat back up.

WWE likes their narratives and Bayley going from that documentary shot of watching the other 3 Horsewomen from backstage at Mania to taking the gold from Charlotte at this year's Mania is a story they'd probably like to tell.

[Hail Sabin]

Sasha might start feuding with Nia Jax

[Charlie M.]

Who?

[Tim Evans]

Sasha/Charlotte was good I guess but I just don't care about it at all if that makes sense.  The trading of the title that much is like the intercontinental title in 99. Charlotte is a good heel but she's so good I don't want to watch her matches.

Tag title match was the best match. Cesaro/Sheamus make a hell of a team and hopefully this leads to a Big E singles run. Feel bad for Anderson and Gallows though.

Either Kendrick or TJP  need leave Raw. I hope it's Kendrick and he lands on Smackdown where he can be with Bryan. Just be interesting how the crowd reacts when guys like Tozawa and Metalik show up.

[The Man Known as Dan]

No jokes, I'm significantly more excited for Sasha/Emmalina then Bayley/Charlotte.

[Victator]

New Day might as well carry a flag saying "We only broke the record because the real record holder filed a lawsuit."

The more wrestling exposes, the worst the writing gets. 

The gimmick on Zayn/Bruan hurt the match and helped neither guy. Even Zayn's moral victory was hurt by Foley eating up time on the clock and Braun not really trying. 

I look forward to Sasha and Charlotte having a bra and panties cole miners glove in a cage match. 

[Casey]

Yeah, I'm sure the people in the crowd for RAW events know that Demolition is suing the WWE and that's why New Day broke the record. C'mon, give that shit up dude.

[Victator]

12 minutes ago, Casey said:

Yeah, I'm sure the people in the crowd for RAW events know that Demolition is suing the WWE and that's why New Day broke the record. C'mon, give that shit up dude.

Sarcasm is wit for stupid people as you just proved. 

But tell me this, why did New Day lose the belts immediately after breaking the record,l as opposed to May when they still had some momentum? Pretty simple question, though i doubt you can answer it. Or realistically even read it.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Victator
More to say

[EVA]

I feel like I'm kinda over this Victator comeback already.

[HumanChessgame]

Ever have a job with a manager who was obsessed with numbers, metrics, or some other such thing that didn't really accurately measure how well people were doing their jobs but still insisted on making a big deal out of it anyways?  It's the same thing here.  The powers that be have been obsessed with streaks, win/loss records, and other statistics for the past couple years.  It pretty much started with The Undertaker's WM streak in that it wasn't something most people thought about until they started making a big deal about it, then in typical WWE booking fashion handled the payoff in a less than stellar way.  Look at Nikki Bella's women's title reign and how people speculated they were having her hold it for so long as some sort of screw you to AJ.  Now they're trying to make a big deal out of Charlotte's PPV win streak as if it's some big thing that will be important when it's finally broken, even if no one actually cares or of the booking surrounding the actual matches doesn't make sense.  New Day's title run was just another one of these - another record to break that completely flies against whatever actual sensible booking decisions could have been made in the mean time.

[Victator]

14 minutes ago, EVA said:

I feel like I'm kinda over this Victator comeback already.

Me too, I really don't get what backing me in a corner accomplishes. But if that is what they want, it is what they get. 

 

Quote

Look at Nikki Bella's women's title reign and how people speculated they were having her hold it for so long as some sort of screw you to AJ. 

The funny thing was neither AJ or Nikki were close to the actual record. Trish Stratus held the belt longer than either and go back further and Sherri was champion longer and even Moolah's "2nd" reign was longer. 

I say second since I know she lost it a few times in the 70s, but nobody counts those.

[Eivion]

50 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

New Day's title run was just another one of these - another record to break that completely flies against whatever actual sensible booking decisions could have been made in the mean time.

It felt more like a case of not wanting to depush one of their biggest talents in overness and merchandise.

47 minutes ago, Victator said:

The funny thing was neither AJ or Nikki were close to the actual record. Trish Stratus held the belt longer than either and go back further and Sherri was champion longer and even Moolah's "2nd" reign was longer. 

I say second since I know she lost it a few times in the 70s, but nobody counts those.

That was the women's Title. When they speak of AJ's & Nikki's records they are specifically referring to the Diva's Title.

[Go2Sleep]

Vic's right that the length of ND's run was a shameless, transparent dig at Demolition, though. It also had the unfortunate side effect of completely killing the Raw tag team division. Sheamus and Cesaro have still lost to ND way more than they've won, and now they can only beat teams ND has beaten multiple times. The natural flow of the titles should've had Gallows and Anderson winning them over the summer, then Sheamus and Cesaro beating them after their bonding moment. I called this months ago where they would lose the belts at the first opportunity after breaking the record and no one would care. Here's my post from HIAC for posterity:

Quote

Yeah, the obsession with getting New Day the tag title record is bizarre and crippling the Raw tag division. I just don't get it, Demolition is an inoffensive and reasonably well-remembered team. ND aren't booked particularly strong. There isn't an obvious end game with one of them getting a big singles push or any kind of group split. They could be just as relevant without the titles for a little while. Worse yet, everyone knows they're going to break the record, so there's no payoff when they do, and there's no benefit if someone beats them soon after. It's like they have a time limit on magic title-retaining powers.

The Charlotte streak might be worse, though. She already has 13 straight ppv wins, which as best I can tell, is an all-time record. That's cool and good, but the fact she lost in the Bayley debut tag at Battleground is making them do all sorts of linguistic gymnastics to keep some type of streak going. Never mind that a ppv streak/title match streak is irrelevant if you lose regularly on Raw. It's just very disruptive to what should be the natural flow of the booking, and she doesn't look any stronger for it.

Tonight highlighted that these ridiculous inorganic streaks and records are a big problem for me with Raw's direction. It feels like they're trying to re-create a Bruno/Koloff moment (or a Taker/Lesnar moment for our generation) without any understanding of why those moments were special. A streak or record in wrestling is only valuable if people buy the novelty of it. If it's apparent that the company is manufacturing a record for the sole purpose of breaking it, no one is gonna care. The only possible payoff is 20 years down the line when they can start over because the streak is just number without any context for the current audience.

 

[Casey]

1 hour ago, Victator said:

Sarcasm is wit for stupid people as you just proved. 

But tell me this, why did New Day lose the belts immediately after breaking the record,l as opposed to May when they still had some momentum? Pretty simple question, though i doubt you can answer it. Or realistically even read it.

Why didn't they lose the belts in May? Because they hadn't broke the record yet? WWE is all about their current crop of wrestlers "making history" - see: Sasha/Charlotte HIAC main-eventing a PPV, CM Punk being the longest reigning WWE champion "of the modern era", etc. If it's true - who really gives a damn that Demolition aren't the record holders anymore? They have a team that's pretty goddamn popular, so they gave them that kind of reign at the expense of the tag team division. Sounds like your typical WWE to me.