WWE Raw from Dallas TX on January 20:
Show starts with Joey Uso coming in from the crowd. I’m figuring people are now prioritizing ordering seats near the aisle on the far right side of the ring from hard cam. Folks even had YEET in big letters at the top of the stairs, but fucked up their chance to get on camera. By the way; SIGNS ARE BACK BABY (also if you go to a show, understand that the folks behind you probably blew as much money as you did so the signs can come down when you’re obviously not on camera or the attention is on the ring). Jey starts his promo, and I can’t tell if he’s winded from his whole entrance or if that’s just his excited cadence when speaking. Few minutes in, Gunther comes out ready to choke and slap some bitches. Crowd shifted from YEET chants to WHAT chants, but Gunther kills that in less than a minute (I wouldn’t want him to slap me). At some point, Jey mentioned how he main-evented Wrestlemania and Gunther hasn’t; that statement confused me for a moment. Finally they fight, and somehow Jey slips Gunther and kicks him out of the ring. Jey has a busted lip though. I caught myself getting caught by the words Gunther spoke until I remembered Trump was assuming office today, and that ruined his gimmick.
Backstage segment with the New Day, who run into JBL who is going to guest commentate Kori’s match with Rey Mysterio. Now my previous worries about Corey Graves. Seems like a shoehorned way to have JBL on the show, but match comes up next. Before the entrances, they show some bull rider dudes with the standard cowboy hats in a major metropolitan area. Steers and… nevermind. For whatever reason, the New Day still have their old theme, but I guess this is the lazy way to let them get on the mic for additional heat. Match goes on; there was a strangely smooth botch when Kori goes to put Rey in the powerbomb position near the announcers table, and he flips him on the floor instead. Yeah just pretend that was the spot. Match had an out-of-nowhere roll-up pin, then the New Day beating up Rey only for the LWO to take their sweet-ass time to wait until the end of the match to maybe be out to assist their partner.
Maybe the LWO was made to look like flunkies so that the Penta segment looked way bigger and better, and to troll Tony Khan a bit more or sucker any other AEW wrestlers into thinking that they too will get a monster push like this (followed by a run with the Speed Championship). Then Chad Gable and the other white people did a promo that spoke to the reality that this group should maybe have a manager or only allow Gable to speak.
Sami Zayn continues the speaking portion of the pro wrestling show by announcing for the royal rumble. All of a sudden, the guy from Smackdown that is in possession of company property and has assaulted the champion several times has been allowed in the building and they provide him with a microphone to speak. They finally remind me in this segment that Zayn and Owens beat the Usos on night 1 of the main event of Wrestlemania 39, which sucks even more because I was fucking there…
Anyway, Owens manipulates Sami into considering entering a pact where they help each other out at the rumble, and then they could main event Wrestlemania again. After that, Sheamus does a backstage segment about winning the IC title, then Bron Breakker interrupts and talks shit. This infuriated the angry and passionate Irishman to get mad enough to… sort of shove Bron. About at this time, the show was bumping up against the legal limit for required wrestling on a wrestling show, so women’s match up next.
Bayley earlier announced that she was moving to Raw. Nia Jax (who they haven’t officially mentioned that she also moved to Raw and I guess is content with Tiffany Stratton screwing her out of her championship) also attacked Rhea Ripley when she arrived at the building. Nia and Bayley have a match, but I’m preoccupied thinking of a threesome I had with some amateur pornstars who looked like Nia Jax and Rhea Ripley (If both were about Nia’s size). Some girl who isn’t Nikita Lyons from NXT is in the audience and I guess her and Bayley are going at it. Thankfully Bayley has the wherewithal to just bounce off Nia Jax and sell like she’s being beaten to death rather than actually get beaten by Nia. Bayley hits Nia with all sorts of offense; Nia sells none of it of course. They go out of the ring in front of Roxanne Perez so her and Bayley can start to argue. Roxanne goes to slap a wrestler across the barricade, but Bayley hits her and causes “security” to finally restrain the spectator who is attempting to physically contact a performer. In tragic irony while doing this, an actual wrestler then hits an actual crowd member and knocks her to the floor. [insert Stephen P. New plug]. This terrible match since Nia continues, including Nia actually hitting a senton splash on Bailey’s arm since she couldn’t roll out of the way fast enough. Very slow offensive push by Bayley, but out of nowhere Nia hits her with 3 or 4 moves in succession and wins. Then Rhea comes out for revenge, and I’m reminded of my BBW sex adventures.
Some football head coach did a press conference where he plugged being a wrestling fan and going to see the Road Warriors live as a kid. Got awkward when they mentioned one of their linebackers was the son of Road Warrior Hawk, and they mentioned the late Joe Laurinairis by name and hoped that was all the discussion we would have around that last name on this show…
Penta is now wrestling Pete Dunne. They added more pyro to his entrance and now he’s smart to wait until he gets to the ring to struggle to take his jacket off. They mention that these two previously wrestled in RevPro wrestling just to dunk on the indie fans some more with his booking. They’re again fucking around with normalizing the Canadian destroyer by having Dunne roll out of the ring after getting one. They do some more shit, then Penta hits him with his moves and wins quickly. They keep mentioning his merch sales are through the roof and stop short of mentioning how they have no Maxwells or Rickeys on their roster…
Logan Paul video. Hoping they stick him with Rollins again to occupy the two of them.
They do a really cool old-school babyface promo with CM Punk getting interviewed by Jackie Redmond in the crowd. Punk plugs why he’s going to win the rumble, and gets a chance to shit on Hulk Hogan some more. Texas crowd cheers. SEE IT ISN’T POLITICAL ASSHOLES! They even put the sign of the night segment on TV; they’re really trying to sell this as wrasslin’ again.
The Alternative Lifestyle Collective against CTRL-ALT-DELETE. Zoey Stark hit a fucking vicious missile drop kick, and now I’m concerned she remembers I was in the luxury box at Wrestlemania 40 when they did the wrestler meet and greet and I had to admit to another guy there I had no clue who she was. Regardless, they lose for fuck if I know why.
Drew McIntyre vs. Seth Rollins for the main event, and I’m cheering for DM Hunk. Good match, but for some reason I heard what sounded like loud profane language coming from the direction of Louisville Kentucky when they did the superplex-counter move. More shit and again a surprise roll-up for Seth to win, but Drew beats him up. Before he’s about to kick him, in comes Sami to save Seth, even though the two of them argued earlier. Sami goes to hit Drew, but FUCK HE HITS SETH! *dramatic music*
Raw is starting to get a bit better; probably since they’re trying to start building up for Wrestlemania. Glad I’ve also started to watch the replay the day after so I don’t have to see those weird Netflix commercials. 6/10 (Corey Graves rated it -100/10; commentary team sucked).
