3 Ups & 9 Downs From WWE Raw (Jan 25)
The Hurt Business fails, Alexa Bliss changes costumes, Randy Orton has a sunburn. Dreadful stuff.
Well, so much for the lead-up to the Royal Rumble producing better television for WWE. If anything, WWE has done more damage to the eponymous match than imagined.
The Rumble should be an easy-to-promote match, with decades of footage, and dozens of superstars to plug it. But the company has put more focus into giving Randy Orton a sunburn and having Alexa Bliss change costumes multiple times mid-match than anything else, leaving us with a Rumble build that is just lacklustre.
And as disappointing as that is, it’s not like Raw was any good. Sure, we got flashes of good wrestling from John Morrison and Sheamus, but that should be the rule, not the exception. We’re stuck praising WWE for actually booking a confrontation between Drew McIntyre and Goldberg properly. There was nothing fantastic about it, but it’s just a relief they didn’t royally screw it up.
No, we’re back into the era of using gauntlet matches, DQs, count-outs and other tricks to have matches “end” at commercial breaks so there’s minimal action during the ads. Ric Flair is now just a sad, dirty old man, and they’re saying the quiet part out loud. The Hurt Business is imploding. Matches that could be built up as first-time-ever PPV bouts for a title are being booked as 50-second DQs. And your most consistent performer of 2020 is being booked to be spooked by a pixie performing parlor tricks.
At least Edge is back.
Let’s get to it…