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Raw is NXT - 2/18/2019


Dolfan in NYC

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1 hour ago, Eivion said:

She is an ok talker, but her worth seems more in the ring. I'm not sure why she isn't already on SDL being built as an opponent for Asuka.

According to Meltzer, that actually might be the plan.

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Yeah - he said that was the original plan for Mania. The exact quote was "it was on the books"

However he noted that was being reconsidered and he would say now its more likely not to happen than happen

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5 hours ago, Cristobal said:

I don't care how "smart" (or not so) a crowd may be, if you can't get into Ricochet and Lio Rush going full speed with each other then you're not even trying to have fun. 


It's almost like the portion of the audience that is into indy flippy shit isn't the entire audience.

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35 minutes ago, MORELOCK said:


It's almost like the portion of the audience that is into indy flippy shit isn't the entire audience.

By that notion, then it's almost like the portion of the audience that likes to throw their money away by buying a ticket to this show and then sitting on their hands for everything is the entire audience.

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By all accounts, Lafayette is a super-casual town that's only interested in the top stars. That explains why they responded to Braun, Rollins, and Ronda pretty well but no one else. I doubt 20% of the crowd had any clue who the NXT stars were. I understand trying to build on the Halftime Heat moment, but it wasn't ever going to work with cold intros in a town like Lafayette.

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Ronda vs. Ruby was a nice snug match and a step in the right direction on the mission to get Ronda over as a face before WM while setting up Ruby as a serious competitor. 

This is pretty much the match that should've happened last night at EC and the taint of last night's squash still stunk up this match a little as the bookers totally dissed Ruby's finisher by letting Ronda kick out of it twice.

This tells me that either:

1. Ruby needs to debut a new and ridiculously hurty finisher and relegate the Riott Kick to Arn Anderson Spinebuster near-finisher / flash finish / hope spot status 

or what would really make me happy....

2. Ruby needs to watch some Bad News Allen matches and then kill people after delivering the Riott Kick with a loaded boot.  She has not one, but two stable mates that can provide a referee distraction spot, right?  So why isn't this victory by chicanery angle a thing?

Ruby losing two nights in a row and the subsequent botched post match beatdown just tells me that the book is out to bury these three ladies all at the same time.

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10 hours ago, sydneybrown said:

Cole's shitty commentary didn't help either.  I enjoyed the DIY/Revival match and then...oh it was non-title?  RAW can go fuck itself. 

Oh and they make Ricochet CUT A PROMO?  "I'm from Kentucky. I'm just some dude."  FUCK YOU Vince.

 

Cole's "OH YEAH" during Black's entrance was maybe one of his more cringe inducing commentary moments ever, and I don't dislike Cole.

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8 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I think the booking prevents that from happening. When someone gets over organically, their legs are cut out from underneath them. Vince wanted Roman and only Roman to get over, everyone else be damned. Promos are scripted and sound completely unnatural, and as we see from the youtube exclusives, most of the roster have personalities and would get over being themselves. 

Baron Corbin is one of the best examples of this. He got over on Talking Smack by showing charisma and talking, but he’s been a total bomb on Raw with the scripted GM bits.

28 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Cole's "OH YEAH" during Black's entrance was maybe one of his more cringe inducing commentary moments ever, and I don't dislike Cole.

Yeah, I really like Cole, but when he was talking about the new callups, it sounded like someone readying a press release full of empty buzzwords.

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Not debuting these guys in Florida or the Northeast was a big misstep. I think all of them can recover but they stumbled on that first hurdle and that can really hurt. The rosters feeling mighty bloated too. I thought maybe they’d like to make a go of things with EC3 before bringing up more guys, at least through to Mania.

What else can be said? This show was a mistake.

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I fucking hated the lack of any continuity with Gargano and Ciampa. I mean, I'm not surprised, but I hated it.

Aleister Black has the potential to be an Undertaker level character for this company and they fucked him right out of the gate. Stuck him in a boring ass match with Elias of all people when if they were going to stick him against Elias, it should have been asai moonsault into sitting criss-cross applesauce and then quickly followed by the Black Mass.

Better yet, why not promote any of these people debuting so it meant something more than just dropping them in cold with no story, or do they not think they're capable of doing that considering how badly they've fucked over EC3 and others?

Aside from the NXT people, they have Corbin in the opening match and this fucking guy is ratings death. Programming him against Braun isn't going to help either. You know what else won't help? Having the most boring tables match in history. By the way, what kind of bullshit is this where last night Lashley and Drew help Corbin, but tonight they're nowhere to be found? I fucking hate this shit where it looks like they're setting up stables or factions and then forget about the shit the next night or the next week.

Main event was awesome, but it meant Ruby Riott losing two times in a row.

This company is hopeless. Fire all of the creative staff and start over.

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11 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

#DIY/Revival was the match of the night in my book. There was nothing vanilla about it to me. It's unfortunate tag team wrestling is an afterthought on Raw and Smackdown unless Shane McMahon is tag champion.

This was the wrong crowd to use #DIY/Ricochet/Black. I feel like it's better to do debuts in front of "smart" crowds. The young kids see those crowds going crazy for them, and think, "They must be good. These people love them. I want to do that."

Anytime someone uses the term "vanilla midget", Kevin Nash's quads should tear.

The night after Wrestlemania was made for things like debuting these 4, if full-time additions.

I suspect that this was HHH using some Raw time to cross-promote NXT using 4 of its best talents. While I appreciate the ambition to grow NXT, it's time that could likely be better spent using the roster RAW already has (although given the way the booking/writing seems to go, maybe not?)

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21 minutes ago, Craig H said:

I fucking hated the lack of any continuity with Gargano and Ciampa. I mean, I'm not surprised, but I hated it.

I'm not a fan of Creative, but frankly, this is not a 'lack of any continuity'.  Gargano is extremely reluctantly* on the same page as Ciampa. Ciampa has been sweet talking his former partner, telling him how fucking awesome it is to be a heel and how that's how they can finally rule over NXT like they'd always talked about.  After crushing Ricochet's head and finally claiming his first NXT singles title, Gargano is clearly thinking, "oh shit, maybe he's right."  

Gargano is nowhere near ready to accept Ciampa back as a friend, and with good reason.  They were working together on Raw because:  a) they were forced to, b) because they are both trying to make it in the big leagues, and c)"fuck the Revival" (with whom they have a *very* extensive history).   Gargano and Ciampa worked as a team because, ultimately, that's what they were great at and it's like riding a bike after an accident.  Even if it's uncomfortable, you used to it again.   

After the match Gargano looked miserable, and actively shrugs off Ciampa's pats on the back.  Showing he still does not like Ciampa, but may be resigned to the realization that this is his way to his first main roster gold.  

There are times when, yeah, they expect you to have the memory of a parakeet.  This isn't one of them.

* -

Spoiler

 

 

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3 minutes ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

I'm a couple weeks behind on the TV, but this seems like exactly what they were doing at TakeOver and Halftime heat.

Eh, Halftime Heat was at least setup by what happened after the last Takeover whenever everyone in that match clashed backstage. The story is still Gargano being on the fence as to whether or not he's going to team back up with Ciampa, Ciampa pulling him more over to the dark side, Candice throwing herself in between the two and pointing out all the hell that Ciampa brought them, but Johnny still wavering on actually joining back up with Ciampa.

Last night they were both faces, referred to as DIY, and it complicates what the story is for those actually watching NXT.

Honestly, I should take my own advice and not get too worked up because I'm guessing that this was just a one off thing.

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This makes me giggle because Gargano starts and he is basically doing the "This is the boyhood dream!" speech and Ciampa then starts cutting his promo in character (being the only one to make sense of anything) and you can kinda see Gargano thinking "Shit - I fucked that up"

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14 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Last night they were both faces, referred to as DIY, and it complicates what the story is for those actually watching NXT.

Honestly, I should take my own advice and not get too worked up because I'm guessing that this was just a one off thing.

There wasn’t any real face/heel dynamic in the match, Cole talked about the huge reaction when the Revival won the titles, they were not referred to as DIY, they only said they’d been called that in the past and they had separate entrances and themes. As an NXT watcher, this complicated nothing.

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9 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Speaking of having fun, somebody FINALLY brought it up. Cole said either Ricochet or Finn just love to have fun and Graves asked, "Who doesn't love to have fun?". That's the best line Graves has uttered in a while.

The correct answer is Ole Anderson does not like to have fun.

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2 hours ago, Craig H said:

I fucking hated the lack of any continuity with Gargano and Ciampa. I mean, I'm not surprised, but I hated it.

Not having kept up with NXT but definitely having seen their MOTYC last year, when they showed up together I said "I thought those guys hated each other?" Also, that Batman and Joker reference from Cole was really, really stupid. 

The only reason I got to see any of this last night was because President's Day put one of the banks I clean on hard lock. After catching it I would have rather had my hours. 

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