#i hit a bit of a roadblock w the graphic making earlier this week.. but i think these turned out nicely.. hope everyone likes them..

[roscoehamiltons]

LHFW 2024 graphics: GQ Magazine

[dreamspeardreams]

Raw Recap 09/01/17

The second RAW of the new year saw a marked step down from last week. The start the new year RAW had a great match between Strowman and Zayn, Titus attempting to join the New Day and Goldberg on the Kevin Owens show. Let’s get into this week so we can see what went wrong.

The show opens with Steph and Foley backstage, as Steph is threating Foley’s performance report based on whether the Undertaker will show up. Seth enters to announce his entrance to the Rumble, and then Strowman comes in looking for a fight and brawls with Rollins.

Roman Reigns vs. JeriKO

The first match is supposed to be a handicap match between Roman Reigns and JeriKO, where if KO or Jericho got the pinfall they’d get the title. This made no sense to me to open the show. This is a big match, especially considering the result, and these guys are all in Main Event contention. Quickly, Braun Strowman comes down and starts to beat up Roman, who is saved by Seth. Seth does a neat move, throwing a chair into Strowman before dropkicking him. Seth and Roman then attack Strowman with chairs, and the scheduled match is pushed to the main event.  This was done to set up a match between Seth and Strowman, but to me it felt unecessary. Reigns vs JeriKO should have already been the Main Event, and Strowman and Seth was already set up by the segment prior to this where Seth and Strowman brawl. Braun still looks like a monster, and I like that Rollins and Reigns had to resort to chairs to take him down, but this didn’t need to be here, and felt like padding.

Seth Rollins vs. Braun Strowman

When we come back from commercial the match between Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman is started. Personally I enjoyed this match, it was a faster pace than usual with some interesting spots, particularly Seth’s jump from the top of the ring post. I believe Seth Rollins is the second person ever to cover Braun for a pin attempt which is very interesting and a good rub for Seth, however the match ends in a double countout. To me this seemed like something of a cop out. The count came out of nowhere, and while something was needed to keep both guys looking strong, Seth could have eaten a pin here after a longer match that took the time of the first segment as well, and would have built Braun immensely. After the match Braun grabs a chair, and while he doesn’t have a chance to use it, I don’t think he should be going anywhere near weapons, and should be relying entirely on his own strength. It’s believable that he can decimate somebody with only his hands, and Braun should know that. Also, why is Seth fighting Braun? He wants a fight, but recently he’s been trying to get to Triple H, and for some reason fighting Jericho to do it, fighting Braun to get to Triple H makes even less sense.

Next there is a backstage segment where Bayley and Sasha tease a feud after Bayley takes Charlotte’s title, before Nia Jax comes in to beat everyone up, setting up a tag match between the heels and faces. I really like Bayley’s awkward promo’s, and when Sasha turns heel on her it’ll be a great program.

Gallagher(w) vs. Gulak

Next up is a cruiserweight match, which sees Austin Aries return for commentary (Fantastic), the crowd dead (Boo) and some varied in-ring work. I like Gallagher in the ring, as he’s doing something very different to the rest of the roster with his gimmick, and incorporating it well into his wrestling, but I think he may be close to his ceiling. Drew Gulak is good as well, but is not really the focus here.

Next up is the return of the Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Micheals. This segment was very slow, plodding and nobody looked very interested. Micheals was only really interested in promoting his movie, Rusev and Jinder Mahal came down to deliver a clumsy promo about Lana being in movies, riddled with awkward non-jokes and bad timing, then Enzo and Cass came down to annoy Rusev and Mahal. HBK looked bored through the whole thing and the eventual match between...

Jinder Mahal vs. Big Cass(w)

felt equally like filler. HBK superkicks Rusev on the outside so Cass can ensure a victory, and nobody cares. Rusev very recently made the US Title the top title on RAW, not like it’s being treated with Roman having it, but by making it feel more important that Kevin Owens’ jokey routine with the Universal Title. How has he fallen so far? He should be in the upper-mid card having a great storyline feud with someone, not slumming in bad writing versus Enzo. I also feel as though Enzo being in a wheelchair might be a bit disrespectful. I’m not sure to who exactly, but it feels like a joke that isn’t working at all, or like they’re making fun of people they shouldn’t be.

Between commercials is an Emmalina promo with no new info. Really hope this is a massive swerve akin to Mark Henry’s retirement speech, and leads to something great, however my expectations are low.

Neville(w) vs. Lince Dorado

Another cruiserweight match next, with the best thing about the Cruiserweights, Neville. Lince Dorado continues to surprise me, he got off some great looking strikes in this match and came out putting up a good fight to the King of the Cruiserweights, Neville. Afterwards Neville continues to attack Lince, which leads to Rich Swann coming in to get beat up. Neville vs Rich Swann at the Rumble should be a good match, and there is no way Neville is losing that match.

Luke Gallows vs. Sheamus(w)

Karl Anderson and Cesaro are on commentary for this match, which makes for some fun banter back and forth. Anderson thinks he’s still in Japan, as he keeps referencing his title reigns there, which is hilarious. Sheamus picks up the win here, furthering their feud.

Now it’s time for Foley’s performance review. If he hasn’t found the Undertaker, Steph has intimated that he’s fired, and so Foley comes down to the ring and tries to summon the Undertaker from hell. The lights cut out and Steph’s music hits, leading everyone to groan as she berates Foley, with some legitimate criticisms about Foley being too emotionally involved in matches, before the Undertaker cuts her off (with a special lower third graphic). Let me take this moment to ask, why is the Undertaker not on Smackdown? Yes he was undrafted, but this basically just invalidates his appearance on Smackdown before Survivor Series.  Taker announces his entrance into the Rumble, Braun Strowman is shown watching, which for my money would be a very interesting direction to take the story, and Taker growls after he says “Rest In Peace”, which was both hilarious and awesome. Steph and Foley stay silent through this entire segment, letting Taker delivering his slow deliberate promo, but unlike earlier, this felt well thought-out and delivered with purpose, as opposed to clumsy. Ticks all around from me.

Bayley & Sasha Banks vs Charlotte & Nia Jax(w)

Around this time was when I started to feel the Black Hole of the third hour of RAW. I had a lot of trouble getting excited for anything after this. Sasha told a good story, as her knee was injured from the Roadblock match, which led Nia Jax to pick up the easy win, but there wasn’t a whole lot going on here.

Next we have a backstage segment where Alicia Fox walks up to Noam Dar and instead of slapping him, kisses him aggressively, then says he can’t handle a real woman. This felt weird and out of place, and we didn’t get to hear Noam Dar say Alicia’s name, so I wasn’t particularly interested here.

Next the New Day come out to the ring and bring Titus O’Neil out. I mentioned that I loved this segment last week, and this week was also pretty good, but felt like a retread of last week. Titus apologizes and New Day make fun of him, before goading him into attempting a Keg Race. Titus fails and beats up kofi, leading to a match between...

Titus O’Neil vs. Kofi Kingston(w)

where Kofi picks up the win with Trouble in Paradise. New Day’s promo included an ad for Booty Juice, which I’m already over, and like the HBK segment earlier, everybody seemed like they were a little off their game. Maybe they were told to fill for time, or maybe they’re still full from Christmas somehow. Either way, I’m interested to see where this story goes, but unless Titus beats Big E next week, I doubt I’ll be interested until the Rumble.

There’s a few announcements including that Wrestlemania 34 is going to be in New Orleans and that Brock Lesnar is returning to RAW next week.

Roman Reigns vs. JeriKO(w)

This was a great match, but I have some gripes. Firstly, Roman is Champ going into this match, why does he come out first? Second, Why is the Shark Cage still at the entrance ramp, it’s not like ladders in the lead-up to Money in the bank, it’s not the main event of a pay-per-view gimmick, it doesn’t make any sense to me. Going into this I had no doubt that by some fuckery Roman was going to retain. Rollins would interfere, or Braun would interfere or Roman would even win clean. Boy was I surprised. This was a decent match, that had some fun spots. Jericho delivered multiple codebreakers including one through the ropes that Roman sold fantastically. We’ve seen these guys match up for the past two or three months on RAW, and they’re all good wrestlers, but this match didn’t bring anything new to the table. It was until Jericho got the 3rd count that I believed Roman wasn’t going to kick out, but now that Jericho is US Champion, a Grand-Slam Champion and JeriKO have both Titles on RAW, I’m interested to see where this goes. Obviously this means Roman is winning at the Rumble, but I can see them doing some fun things along the way.

Congratulations Chris Jericho, you deserve it.