It’s the first RAW on Netflix… a new era in WWE programming.
And it was… a show…
Not sure what you were expecting me to say. Not sure what you were expecting out of this show. It was a big show, sure… but it wasn’t FUCKING BIG SHOW or anything like that. He’s signed with AEW at the moment.
Anyway, some notes on this three-hour show… because RAW is back to three hours again… so one less show for me to watch per week.
I’ll get some technical bits out of the way first. In terms of the live stream, I’ve had no issues with it. No stuttering, no freezes, or anything like that… it went off without a hitch. If I needed to backtrack and catch a thing I missed (or fast forward to a later point to skip the stuff ahead), it worked well enough. I’ve heard about the issues that Netflix had with that Paul/Tyson fight some time ago, but this and Smackdown seemed fine. Will this hold for the PPVs? I guess we’ll have to see.
There’s a few issues with the production aspect of things, which taints what should have been an otherwise very impression showing. The new set with the circular screens around the ring looked pretty sweet, I like the tickers in the corner that would pop up and let you know what’s coming up or what you missed. I dig the drone shots where they would showcase the arena from an aerial view, which makes for some pretty sweet visuals, if I’m being honest. Whatever you want to say about the content, the overall look of the show is top-notch and far above any other wrestling product out there right now… which, if you’re WWE and you’re the most prominent brand in the business, you ought to look better than everyone else.
On the other hand, you have snafus like announcers in the middle of saying something before being silent for about a minute or two, cameras almost never on cue, editing cutting to the wrong celebrity… it’s almost like they hired back Kevin Dunn or something. I’d imagine this is a Netflix deal and some kinks need to be worked out, but I’d expect this out of a low-rent indy promotion, not from WWE, who generally tries to put out a good first impression. Again, these are taints in an otherwise excellent looking show.
RAW has commercials, but if you’re not watching the ad version of the show (and I’m not), in place of the usual commercials, you’d get video packages and exclusive interviews when the folks play to the crowd and tell you nothing of note. Honestly, you’re not missing much with the ad-free version… although the matches play out uninterrupted… supposedly.
As far as the actual show goes… well, as a show, it was… whatever. Like I said, it was a show. Stuff happened. There were matches. Whatever.
Yes, the Rock showed up and was pretty much a babyface here. He even gave Cody a hug… even though Cody did a bad thing to Rock… or maybe this is Dwayne trying to be a nice guy for the Netflix people or something. Actually, the only thing Dwayne did of note was mention that he would show up on NXT… which I did not see. So whatever they’re going to do with Dwayne… fuck if I know. You’d figure if they were going to do anything to build towards Mania, it’d be tonight; the first show of a new era… alas… well, there are lot of alases to be had here.
John Cena came along… and nobody booed him. In fact, people seemed to like him even when he declared for the Royal Rumble this year… well, after he was done giving Netflix the verbal blowjob that everyone else with a mic seemed to be programmed to do on this show. That’s John Cena for you; eternal hype man and pusher of company line. The only difference between then and now is that people actually like him and sing the actual lyrics to his song.
On the flip side of things, you’ve got Hulk Hogan coming out (with Jimmy Hart in tow) to kiss Netflix’s bum-bum before hyping up his own REAL AMERICAN BEER, BRUTHA! The crowd booed. No matter how much Hogan tried to kiss up to the crowd, they simply weren’t going to play ball. Not even Jimmy Hart waving around the American Flag could sway the LA crowd. They simply did not want anything to do with the Huckster, brutha.
There’s a part of me that’s hoping this negative reaction is a one-time thing and maybe when Hogan shows up on the next SNME later this month, you’ll get a more receptive crowd or something… at least, that’s what the Twitter noise wants you to believe. But if there is going to be a consistent negative reaction to Hogan going forward, I’m hoping it’s primarily due to his being a scumbag and not due to him supporting Trump, because if it’s the latter… I hate to remind you folks, but…
Please save your bitching about how Trump taints the HOF because I don’t want to hear it. Besides, Drew Carey beat him to it, so it was tainted long before it got there, but I digress.
Oh yeah, there were also matches on this show. All hyped ahead of time… none leading to anything special.
Roman Reigns defeated that Solo guy to win back the Uma Thurman necklace or whatever it’s called and be the One True Tribal Chief or whatever. They had a billion run-ins and, hey, at least there was a “Fuck You, Solo” chant in the beginning, so at least someone cared about seeing Solo getting his ass kicked. I don’t know. The match was fine once the run-ins came into play, but everything before that was dull as goose piss. After the match, Paul Heyman goes to put the necklace thing on Roman, but Rock stops him, takes the thing, puts it on Roman himself, and they hug… and everyone is like “What the fuck?”
And I agree… what the fuck is this?
Rhea Ripley finally got her win (and her Women’s title) back over Liv Morgan and the crowd went mild… even when Dom tried to hit Rhea from behind and he got his due, the reaction wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. This is what happens when you keep holding things back that should have happened months ago; you get a tepid reaction to what should have been a big moment… but hey, Rhea got her belt back and Liv can go back to being stabbed by Chucky.
Oh yeah, after the match, Undertaker came out on his bike to… get a pop, I guess…. oh, by the way, the crowd popped Taker, who actually openly endorsed Trump during the campaigning. So clearly, that’s not it.
“Main Event” Jey “Yeet” Uso defeated Drew McIntyre in a perfectly acceptable wrestling match that the crowd was largely ambivalent over. There was a bit of a reaction, but not much more than that.
And in the main event, CM Punk defeated Seth Rollins in a fun enough match that the crowd seemed to be into at least. Well, that’s one good thing that they liked at least besides Roman beating some dude for some rocks.
RAW ran three hours… it was a long show and felt like a long show. I would like to stress that AS A SHOW IN A VACUUM, this was a thing that happened. You had some matches, they were fine, you had big stars giving Netflix the business, you had celebrity cameos standing around. And there were old guys a plenty. But as the first show of a new era – a show where you’re likely going to have the most eyeballs on your product – this was really underwhelming. You had a title change, you had some legends on the show, you had cameos… but there was no hook to entice new viewers (or even potential lapsed viewers – which I consider myself to be) to come back next week and see what happens next… unless you’re wondering if John Cena is going to cut the same promo he cut on this show next week.
Coupled with some of the aforementioned production snafus and some truly lackluster content, the opening salvo of the new RAW on Netflix era is less of a bang and more of a wet fart. This was a very long show (in more ways than one) that had nothing on here that I was going to remember in a week’s time, there was nothing here to entice me to keep watching next week, and there was certainly nothing on here that inspired me with confidence that this was going to be a bold new era. Especially given that everyone on this show is paying homage to Netflix. The Rock is licking Netflix’s boots. John Cena is kissing Netflix’s ass, Hulk Hogan gave Netflix a limp dick, there’s quite a bit of promotion of other Netflix productions that I have no interest in seeing. It’s almost like WWE booking for an audience of one as opposed to an audience of many. Except instead of one deprived individual booking mostly for himself, it’s the Netflix executives who no doubt want to dictate how this show will be put out.
When put in the grander scheme of things, that’s when this show starts to sour with me. It leaves me with an uneasy feeling in my bowels, as though we’ve had two years of top-notch, quality WWE sports entertainment product – the best it’s been in a long time – and we’ve reached the point where we’re just about ready to throw that all out the window and go back to the days where something potentially good happens, I initially get excited for it, and then I start to wonder how long before they eventually fuck it up. I’ve had that feeling for decades when it comes to WWE booking and these past couple years was the first time that I was more content to sit back and enjoy the ride, even if I wasn’t on board with everything they were doing.
Maybe I’m worrying too much about all this. Maybe I’m just being paranoid and this show was just an anomaly. Maybe things will continue to move on along as they had these past couple years. I want to believe that this is going to result in a better product in terms of creative. I don’t want to feel like things are regressing… because that’s what this show felt like. A regression to the bad old days. I’ve got the archives on Netflix if I want to revisit the bad old days. I have no desire to do that. I just want to watch the good stuff. I want more of this good WWE that’s been a thing for the past couple years. It’s nice to have a WWE product that isn’t total shit for once. I like to actually LIKE this product.
But I digress…
So yeah, that was the first RAW on Netflix. It was a show… it was a long show… and it did not hook me for next week… I might give it another look somewhere down the line, but for now… I think that I’ll stick with TNA.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. They announced that next year’s Royal Rumble will be taking place from Saudi Arabia… that’s right, kids! It’s the return of the OIL RUMBLE FROM THE BENEVOLENT AND PROGRESSIVE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA.
Fuck.
I’m done.
Later.
dtm666 