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RAW Emotions – 12.28.2020

 

What Happened Last Week On Raw: Shayna, Nia, Garza, T-Bar, Hurt Business, Ryker, Asuka, and Charlotte all won matches that don’t mean anything. McIntyre, Lee, and Sheamus continued to make Styles, Miz, and Morrison look like fools. Alexa Bliss got a new swing set and Randy Orton was upset cause it was his turn to go down the slide.

It’s Tuesday, So you know what that Means..

I don’t really know what to say about the passing of Jon Huber. Luke Harper, Brodie Lee, whatever you know him as. To a casual fan of Pro Wrestling he may not have seemed important, but to me he was one of those guys you root for. Incredibly talented at everything in regards to Pro Wrestling.

But the biggest thing I’ve taken away from all the wonderful things said about him was his love for his family. In this business family can often be put on the backburner almost out of necessity. But through all the messages you can tell that as much as he just wrestling, he cared for his family that much more. That in itself deserves the respect and admiration, without even talking about how talented he was.

And with that, here are the RAW Emotions from December 28th

How to crash a Promo Parade

So we start off with Drew McIntyre. I just wanna say that while it’s definitely not fair that Drew’s title reign is going to be looked back upon negatively thanks to THESE TROUBLING TIMES etc. I am starting to kind of sorta in a way get tired of Drew? Is that mean? Possibly, but he’s been WWE Champion since March minus a few weeks Orton held the belt.

I think it’s pretty great they’ve stuck with him, I just think it’s time for him to do something else ya know? Let some other people carry the belt around. Maybe someone with a nice suit and is the face of USA Network. I’m not gonna mention any names or anything just throwing ideas out there.

To the Limit

After some underhandedness by Sheamus to get the advantage over Keith, we are treated to a nice matchup to open the show. Kind of crazy idea this is, putting good wrestling matches on TV to put over the people you want to seem important. Is Vince on vacation still?

I don’t assume Sheamus is just going to go away or anything. I wouldn’t totally be against a schmozz finish next week leading to a Hossy Triple Threat match at The Royal Rumble.

Especially if it left all three men laying and gave a certain someone a certain opportunity to- You know what, nevermind.

Um, Excuse Me, What

WHAT EXACTLY ARE WE DOING HERE. Is this that vaunted GRAN METALIK push we’ve all been waiting for? No seriously that would be kind of cool. But COME ON.

What is the story we are telling? That Miz sucks? We’ve told that story before, who does it help. According to RANKINGZ~! right now Miz just fell below JAXSON RYKER. A guy who’s name I have to google to remember how to spell every time.

I better get some good payoff for this later, and I’m not foreshadowing anything right now.

Could you turn it down, I’m trying to ignore You

Ok first off, AJ Styles called it “moat art” and that is hilarious in and of itself.

Secondly, Ryker trying to be super intimidating and then being all like “oh dang he tall” is the most he’s ever felt like a real human person in his entire WWE career.

Mostly I just enjoy small stories like this. Not everything you tell has to be a saga that stretches from Network Event to the next. Some things can last only a week! Also when heels and faces are allowed to be annoyed by people of the same disposition it makes it feel like an actual living world and not just you throwing different action figures at each other every week.

So more of this, but can this also not include Ryker? Kthanxbye.

I was just talking about This

Like I just said. When you aren’t constantly having the same people fight the same people every week. The shows are much easier to write. You don’t have to 50/50 book 75% of your matches because you can have people take losses. It’s not going to matter really.

Mostly because we all know you don’t actually care about wins and losses. So why do you think we do?

You know what losses do? They allow your characters to GROW. What a novel idea. There are many easy stories you can tell beyond “Jealous” or “He hit me on accident”.

We watched the same matchups all summer and now you’ve basically switched to a new set of matchups for the fall and winter and it’s just, how do you employ so many people and only use like five of them?

THAT RABBIT HAD A FAMILY

And now I’m sad. Also confused.

When did the Fun House become a place people could just “go to”? In canon limbo is what I’ve always known it as. The inside of Bray’s mind possibly etc. But now am I to assume it’s just some set that’s there at every show? Well that’s kind of lame really.

Also can we get Alexa a microphone headset thingy that doesn’t make her look like she has a large horsefly on her face? That’s just nit picking I know.

Orton fixing the painting was a nice touch, but I’m just not sure how to take this segment on it’s own. Hopefully the next one they are in also doesn’t end in any silly or disappointing way!

Just trying to prove the earth to B-Flat

That was a terrible joke, and I apologize.

I think the weird thing about Elias. Is that as a pro wrestler he is obviously acceptable. But I just tend to not really care about his matches.

It’s not that his matches are generally bad. It’s just that he has his gimmick, it’s amazing, and that’s what I want to see him do. I however understand that his gimmick right now is very pointless, and that sucks. So in the mean time I’m just going to allow him to tread water until the day he can finally get that live performance we are all waiting for.

As long as Ryker is gone by then.

[Beleaguered Sigh]

First off, I just, maaaaaan.

Ok no I want to say this at least. Go back and watch the end of this match. All five guys involved are bumping their ASSES off. T-Bar (Don’t Call Him That) is taking Tornado DDTs from the apron to the floor. Ricochet is dropping Shooting Star Presses straight into knees. Everyone involved is giving their VERY BEST.

To something that has no point.

This is the second “Group Beats People Up Until They Join Them” that Ricochet has been involved in THIS YEAR. Cedric at least smartened up and is now a Tag Team Champion on the much better group. At this point someone else is gonna join Retribution and Ricochet is gonna end up getting his ass kicked by Lucha House Party all of next year.

A(dam) Rose by any other Name

I honestly almost skipped this section because,

  1. I forgot about it mostly
  2. It doesn’t matter
  3. All of it makes me kind of sad.

There are SO MANY talented people involved in this basically throwaway segment. I can’t even tell you what Garza’s point is half the time beyond a more attractive version of that “…Hey” scene from Into the Spiderverse.

Then you still have the 24/7 stuff happening which is just at this point, build a statue to R-Truth because I don’t know how he does it. If there was some way we could ever build him back up to that level he was in 2011 when he had his amazing heel run that got everyone to like him which in turn made WWE turn him into an idiot babyface because they don’t understand nuance and never will. I would absolutely be here for WWE Champion R-Truth in that “Lifetime Achievement Award” Mick Foley style victory.

It’s never going to happen, but hey at least we get to watch everyone run around backstage and fight over a worthless belt that no one should actually want to hold.

WWE YouTube doesn’t even care about Charlotte

WWE.com has a video about this match, WWE’s YouTube channel has a video about Nia talking about the Royal Rumble. But not this match. Hm, Weird.

I mean, I don’t care about this match either. This entire division is very muddled to the point of making me wonder not that we should get rid of the Women’s Tag Titles, but maybe just get rid of the RAW Women’s title? Let the Women’s Tag and Singles title float back and forth.

But mostly, just let new people wrestle each other. You keep throwing the same six people at the same other six on both shows and by the time we get to anything of consequence, we’ve already seen it dozens of times.

Just keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming

You get it, because we’re treading water so much? I’m so sorry.

Not Matt and Jeff Hardy I guess are stuck together now, The New Day is still here I guess. And The Hurt Business has two sets of people that have team together before so. There’s your Raw Tag Division everybody! Woohoo!

One actual tag team, a team of two singles guys, two members of a stable, and two other members of the same stable one of which is the US Champion.

Should be a great battle of fresh matchups going into and after Mania season oh my god please someone help me.

Why have we spent all of this calendar year making Bobby Lashley look kind of like a badass if we are never going to actually do anything with it. I just, whatever.

THE MUD DOGS HAVE WON THE BOURBON BOWL

“You look as miserable as the Cleveland Browns did yesterday”

I feel personally attacked. But beyond that.

LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

All the wrongs have been righted, and all the shenanigans can continue. All is right in the world. Now we just need to get a proper cash in and this show can finally become what it’s destined to be.

Awesome.

Who titled this Clip?

Not that it matters. But do the people that work on WWE’s YouTube channel actually watch the show? What “burning question” did Alexa have? She challenged him. She called him a big ole b-word.

Overall the segment was fine up until you know they AW NUTS WE’RE ALL OUT OF TIME’d us to a fade to black as the show ended.

My main issue was the closing shot. Which was for some reason literally from Alexa’s point of view. These kind of shots can really kill a segement. I get how it can work sometimes in horror movies to give the viewer the same sense of dread the character has, but all this picture really did.

Was make me think of this moment.

And that was Raw. If you enjoyed the show, Enjoyed this Column, or just enjoy life in general, give this a share. Leave a comment below with your thoughts about how awesome Raw will be once Miz is WWE Champion. Feel free to stop by the SRP Discord where I probably get most of my jokes during our live discussions subconsciously and say hi. Until next time, I’m HGR and Tango Mike.