We Begin Raw With…The Patented Triple H and Stephanie Return from Vacay, ‘Did You Miss Us?’ Promo: Haitch and Steph are back, Elimination Chamber is coming up. Yada, yada, yada. Sheamus comes out and says some blarney. Ryback comes out and tries to curry favor with the crowd by putting over D-Bry. It kinda works. Match time!
Sheamus vs. Ryback in a King of the Vanilla Gorillas Match: This match boils down to two things – Sheamus has a stupid look and Ryback has stupid tights. This was your typical plodding big dude vs. plodding big dude match. A bunch of punch kick with a focus on Ryback’s busted up riblets. I actually like the pseudo-psychology of this match, although it wasn’t anything to write home about. Sheamus feigns injury (poorly) in order to confuse The Big Guy (excuse me while I hit my head and yell, ‘STUPID’!) and catch the win. Winner: Sheamus via chicanery
Backstage Segment: The Authority celebrates Seth Rollins but Dean Ambrose comes in and drops some TRUTH BOMBS on everyone. Love Dean so much. Hopefully we see him in the main event picture for the next PPV.
Interview Segment: Renee Young, looking finer than fine, talks with ‘The New Sensation’ (hate that name) Neville. Before the segment can go anywhere, BO DALLAS comes out and we’ve got some freakin’ promo gold coming up. Dallas runs down Neville, but Neville reminds everyone that he beat Dallas for the NXT Title to become one of the longest reigning NXT champs of all-time (thank you WWE for having a memory.) Dallas and Neville brawl but soon…
Neville vs. King Barrett in a How Many Times Can JBL Say ‘All Hail King Barrett’ Match: Bo joins commentary and is brilliant, referring to Booker T as ‘Mr. T.’ The match is old school as hell because this focused on Neville’s bum leg and how he couldn’t execute any offense. Barrett scores the win with The Bull Hammer. Winner: Wade Barrett via The Royal Bull Hammer.
Titus O’Neill Wins An Award for Being a Great Dad: Let me refer you to this Batista Tweet.
Rusev Cuts a He-Man Woman Hater Promo: Lana stinks, I don’t need her, restart the match! Lana comes out to a HUGE pop. Lana’s accent totally disappears in this promo. However, the message of her promo was that she cares about Rusev, but she also unwittingly throws him under the bus. It was a really well done promo for both sides. Rusev becomes a stronger heel, Lana totally becomes the sympathetic face. Could this be a ruse? Sure! But, it’s highly doubtful. I fear Lana’s future as a face will be pretty terrible.
Dean Ambrose vs. Bray Wyatt in a This Really Shouldn’t Be a Throwaway Match: I love watching these two go at it. They’re intense and all their matches are hard-hitting. One of my favorite moves was Bray stopping the “Flying Lunatic” with a massive punch and then taking a limp, hanging Dean and suplexing him on the floor. Bray and Dean knocked the crap out of each other in this match, and I love it. The match concludes when J&J come out to screw Ambrose – Noble of them shoves Dean off the top rope and right into Sister Abigail. A great sequence that concluded a really, really good match. Winner: Bray Wyatt via Sister Abigail.
Cesaro & Tyson Kidd with Nattie “I’m Barely Wearing Anything” Neidhart vs. The New Day…In a Let’s Hear For The Day Match: The New Day is really coming into our their own as heels. Big E. can really cut a promo. Kofi still stinks. The match is what you’d expect from these teams – GREAT. The physicality is fantastic, the aerial excellence of Kidd is great. The After Match Brawl: The Lucha Dragons hit the ring and looked like a million bucks, and it makes no sense why they aren’t on TV every week. The Ascension, Los Matadors and the Prime Time Players hit the ring for a big donnybrook. The Prime Time Players looked like the best team here, and I wouldn’t be opposed to these two winning the belts and feuding with The New Day.
John Cena Open Challenge: Cena does his usual spiel here, and man has he elevated the U.S. Title. Seriously, when has this title mattered more? Probably not since the days of the NWA. So, who answers?
KEVIN OWENS…HOLY SHIT. John Cena sold his appearance like a million bucks. He looked scare as hell. Perfect. I got chills up my spine. Owens is one of my favorite wrestlers ever, and to see him in a WWE ring, against John Cena is amazing. Owens does his thing — he calmly and kindly eviscerates Cena and the crowd. It’s so surreal to see and hear him on WWE Television. I’ve been following Steen for over 10 years since I saw him at Jersey All-Pro in Rahway, NJ. He impressed me then, and throughout the years he has blown me away with just how awesome he has become. The verbal spat between the two was fantastic. Owens DRILLS Cena with a pop up power bomb and the crowd loses it. They chant FIGHT OWENS FIGHT…as they should. Owens steps on the U.S. title, and he has made his mark on the company. A star was born tonight. As much as I loved the Sami Zayn debut, this was special. This made an impact on the company. This made an impact on the future of pro wrestling.
Dolph Ziggler vs. Star Dust in a Winner Gets the Goldust’s Wig Match: This is a pretty standard, solid match between the two. Star Dust hits his spots. Dolph hits his. Winner: Dolph via The Zig Zag.
And By Wig We Win…LANA: Yes, in a completely awkward, drawn out sequence, Dolph and Lana lock lips, multiple times. I don’t know if Rusev was taking a poop or someone dropped the ball, but it felt like he should’ve stormed out much earlier. The sequence was very whatever.
Fandango & Zack Ryder vs. Rowan & Harper in a Neither Team Gets a Televised Entrance Match: Whoa! Zack Ryder is on TV? Does this mean he goes for the Bro-ski Boot, misses and gets clobbered and then pinned? We’ll find out. This match had ZERO heat. Fandango hit a nice tornado DDT, and Ryder had some nice moves (and he looks like a million bucks), but the former Wyatts knock the crap out of Long Island Iced Z with the super kick/full nelson chokeslam combo.
The Bellas vs. Stephanie Feud Reignited: WHO CARES. Seriously, who gives a shit about this?
Nikki Bella vs. Naomi w/Tamina in a You Can Look But You Can’t Divas Title Match: I don’t get these ridiculous ‘heel’ mannerisms of Naomi. They’re kinda dopey. That being said, Naomi is a hell of a wrestler…and she was really channeling Ms. Jacqueline in her look tonight. Nikki keeps improving in the ring and hit a wicked tope through the second ropes…although she nearly caught her feet on the ropes and broke her neck. Some other crap happened, then Nikki went for The Rack Attack. Taming throws a super kick for the DQ, which doesn’t make sense. Oh wait, yes it does. This allows Paige to return and make the save. And hey, I can’t complain when I see Paige. Then Paige does the right thing…she kills Nikki with The Ram-Paige.
We Cut to Kevin Owens and Renee Young: Owens announces he’ll be facing Cena at Elimination Chamber. This sold the PPV for me.
Seth Rollins Appreciation Segment: This destined for either Kane to turn face (no one cares btw), or Orton, Reigns or Ambrose to ruin the segment. I’m pulling for Ambrose. They showed a great video package, and then Jamie Noble cuts a wonderfully dopey promo. This leads to Joey Mercury wanting to say ‘something’ but of course he’s cut off by Ambrose’s music. Thank God, it was Ambrose. He can cut the best promos ever. He pulls Rollins’ punk card, the two brawl, and Ambrose puts Rollins head on the chopping block of concrete bricks and threatens to cave Rollins’ skull in unless he gets the shot. He gets the shot, lets Rollins go and then we get a pretty fun brawl which ends in Rollins dropping Ambrose with a Pedigree. I guess the Curb Stomp is gone. In the end a really fun, strong show. It feels like we’ve got the writers from Wrestlemania and the two post-Mania RAWs back in control…and I like it. ===================================================================================================== Bill Bodkin is the Owner, Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Pop-Break. Most importantly, however, he is the proud father of a beautiful daughter, Sophie. He is beyond excited that Pop-Break will be six years old in 2015 as this site has come a long, long way from the day he launched in it in his bachelor pad at the Jersey Shore. He can be read every Monday for the Happy Mondays Interview Series as well as his weekly reviews on Law & Order: SVU, Mad Men and Hannibal. His goal, once again, is to write 500 stories this year (a goal he accomplished in 2014). He is a graduate of Rutgers University with a degree in Journalism & English. Follow him on Twitter: @PopBreakDotCom =====================================================================================================
