Fansided

WWE RAW Report (December 22, 2014): I’m asking Santa for some change

By Ryan Ritter

facebooktwitterreddit

WWE Monday Night RAW continued on its current disappointing course. I know, I know, it feels like the same song, second verse for regular readers of this column.

Truth be told, this episode wasn’t completely awful, even with the first half of the show trying to find a way to earn the title “worst RAW of the year”. Even the good parts of the show though suffered from some of the same issues that have been plaguing the WWE seemingly ever since the launch of the WWE Network. Nothing felt like it mattered. Everything felt like an exercise in treading water–another week of waiting for Monday Night Football to go off the air and for the Road to Wrestlemania to start.

Now, I don’t expect every episode of RAW to feature some kind of PPV-caliber card full of four and five star matches. I don’t expect nor really want an “anything can happen” atmosphere that tries to drag eyeballs to the screen at all costs in some kind of unsustainable escalation like the Monday Night War had. I simply want to feel like this journey is going somewhere.

More from WWE

Take NXT for example. With the live, PPV-like NXT events now in place, no major title changes or even really major events tend happen during the taped weekly episodes. Despite that, NXT still moves forward, additional layers to the overall stories are built and the matches are fun to boot.

Even the upstart Lucha Underground (a must watch, in my opinion, if you have the El Rey Network) manages to take their weekly taped hour show and create entertaining TV and they haven’t even crowned a champion.

But here’s the thing: the main roster of the WWE is superior to NXT or any other promotion out there and that’s even with all the injuries and reliance on part-timer WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Brock Lensar. Guys like Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose manage to salvage the show on a weekly basis. Seth Rollins has gone from liability on the mic to a compelling heel with his own stable of cronies. Damien Mizdow is must-see TV and The Miz has been smart enough to both push the Mizdow gimmick while generating more heat than he’s seen since his own title and Wrestlemania run.

And that’s just scratching the surface. The Divas roster has upped their game. Tyson Kidd is making the most of his air time to continue his career revival. Rusev continues to ascend to “unstoppable monster” heights and Ryback has managed to come back as a decent threat to that crown.

Oh, and despite John Cena never losing, the guy is still putting together good work in the ring.

Simply put, I feel this roster is ridiculously deep and has the potential to create a great show every week. Perhaps there are too many cooks in the kitchen in creative at this point or perhaps Vince McMahon doesn’t want his promotion to stray too far from his current vision, whatever that may be. Whatever the case, something’s gotta give and something needs to change because there is simply too much potential for greatness with this roster and it would be a damned shame to watch it waste away.

Five Takeaways from the Night

1) Dolph Ziggler saved the night.

For me, this episode turned a corner once Dolph took the ring to defend his Intercontinental Title against Luke Harper. He brought the crowd to life and the match they put on had my full attention.

This has Dolph’s calling card all year long. If someone needs to fire up the crowd, call on Dolph. If someone needs to go work a long match, get Dolph in there. If someone needs to make someone else look like a million bucks, get Dolph in to do the job.

I don’t think it is coincidence that the show got a lot better after Dolph hit the ring. He deserves every last bit of this push that he is getting right now. This has been a long-time coming for him and I’m beyond happy that he is one of the few bright spots on RAW practically every week.

2) The RAW announce team failed Tyson Kidd. Fact.

Kidd, continuing last week’s angle of having some sort of infatuation with Nikki Bella, came out to the ring to support his wife while wearing Nikki Bella’s official hat. Just about everyone I follow on Twitter that watches RAW caught this, even an official WWE Twitter account pointed it out:

But the announce team? Not a peep.

I don’t expect them to go on a whole-match, completely distracting diatribe on it, but a simple mention to help build a story that the stars in front of them are doing would be nice.

3) Dean Ambrose putting away a TV was everything.

In the absurd Miracle on 34th Street Fight, Ambrose found a TV in one of the boxes. Scared that this TV, like the one at TLC, would explode in his face and cost him yet another match against Bray Wyatt, he put it away.

Small moments of continuity like this work so well. Like I said at the top, very few things on WWE programming feel like they have consequences or are going anywhere. But here is Dean, remembering that his own bloodlust resulted in a TV exploding in his face that cost him a match, so he thought better of it.

Was an unplugged TV going to explode this time? No, but it doesn’t matter. That moment connects with an audience. If you’re going to have the absurd happen, make the absurd mean something in the future.

4) Nothing says “let’s give Roman Reigns a huge push” like a countout win against the Big Show.

What in the hell was this?!

Look, I understand we are all aboard the Roman Reigns being pushed to the moon train. I am not sure how scraping by with a countout win against the Big Show furthers that cause at all. That’s something a scrappy babyface does to beat an unstoppable force that requires protection (see: Rusev’s elimination at Survivor Series), not a guy being built into the next big Superman punching powerhouse.

5) The peak WWE moment.

I know a lot of people jumped on this on Twitter as well last night, but it is just too ridiculous to not point out here.

During Piper’s Pit, Rowdy Roddy Piper, a Canadian-born man acting like a Scot screamed at a Bulgarian-born Rusev, who is now magically Russia’s hero, and an American-born woman playing a Ravishing Russian in Lana that “THIS IS AMERICA!” in a “debate” that somewhat centered around the American vision of Santa Claus.

Yes, it all makes sense in a kayfabe universe, but when that universe reaches this kind of peak hilarity, it is truly something spectacular.

The only thing that may have topped that moment, was this:

We are through the looking glass.

Home/WWE