Last Night's Raw Was One Of The Best Of The Year - It Was Fun, It Was Unpredictable, And Vince McMahon Was On It For The First Time In Forever
When done correctly, wrestling is as entertaining as a TV show as they come. When the stories are well written, when the characters make sense and have paths that take logical steps, Monday Night Raw can be very good television. Recently, it’s been the opposite. It’s been robotic, formulaic, at times boring, and overall just not very good. Week after week nothing much happens, the stories are nonsensical, and nothing really matters too much. Last night was the opposite. Last night showed that when written correctly, Raw and wrestling can still be fun to watch, engaging, and surprising.
Last night for the first time in over a year, Vince McMahon was on television. Now while Vince may have lost a step or 12 when it comes to connecting with the audience from a creative/behind the scenes perspective, he still brings his 98 mile per hour fastball when he’s on TV.
While that strut wasn’t from last night, he took a nice Superman Punch during the main event
Pretty much everything Vince does is electric.
The ECW match was awesome, much, much better than the match the night before at TLC. And that was shocking- they had a long match with big spots, didn’t mail it in, and it was right on the edge of looking like an Attitude Era (no headshots, of course).
Ambrose vs Ziggler with Owens interfering was good, having Neville back on TV made me happy even if the match vs Tyler Breeze was just so-so. And the Miz should be booked better, he’s still great on the mic as a heel, they need to find a way to utilize him.
The thing that made the least sense about last night was The New Day putting over the Usos and Luchas, only for the latter to attack the former for seemingly no reason. Was it a double turn? Was it just a poorly written segment? Impossible to tell, but man did that fall flat.
And of course the main event, with Roman Reigns finally winning the WWE Title, and on Raw no less! I’ve been saying for yearsssss now how something cool HAS to start happening on Raw for people to watch. The belt hasn’t changed hands on Raw since 2011. The main event is usually some bullshit 8 person tag team match. Last night the most important belt in the company changed hands on an episode of Raw. Can’t complain about that.
Hopefully 2 things happen: 1) Vince stays on TV until Mania is over, because everything Vince does turns to gold. And 2) Reigns stays off the mic and doesn’t cut 20 minute promos. I’m fine with him saying a few words here and there, but there’s no need for him to blabber on and on and on. Let his asskicking do the talking, every time he talks he makes himself sound weak.
Lots can happen between now and the Rumble….which I still think is a gimme for Cena, setting up Reigns vs Cena main eventing Mania. I know the popular rumor now is Cena vs Taker at Mania, which I can buy, but I still think it’ll be Reigns vs Cena.