Don’t get me wrong–Kallisto is great. I just don’t get the team. Arguably, Kallisto should be up on the main roster, filling the hole left by Rey Mysterio. But if they don’t want to hot shot him (and there’s plenty to be said for dodging that particular trap), I don’t see what it serves to pair him up with a guy who’s barely clinging on to a spot in the bottom of the lower midcard. And not just that, but to use that guy’s music as an entrance theme for the both of them, and to model his ring gear on that guy’s… much less to put the belts on the team.
Of course, we’re all assuming they’re looking to get the belts off The Ascension, because there’s nothing left for those guys to do and we know the tag division on the main roster is pretty dire. But maybe they’re not going to have Ascension job out before moving up–that never made a heck of a lot of sense, and Paige didn’t take that route. Maybe the Ascension go over one last time, announce they’re looking for people actually worthy of their time, and head up to the main roster, dropping the belts on their way out the door. Of course, then we need to get the belts back on somebody again and we’re back where we started. Who knows–I’m really not sure where they’re going w/ this one. It’s the biggest question mark on the card.
Of course, one thing that’s not a question mark: We get KENTA’s debut.
Kenta is supposed to debut at Takeover, but no word on Devitt and Steen. The promos for Charlotte and Ascension will probably start airing on WWE afterwards, so maybe they’ll fill in the roster void after a month or so.
While debuting the three of them together would get crazy pops, debuting them one at a time gets 3 crazy pops. I get the feeling H is a bit more willing to slow-burn things to build up the excitement than Vince/Dunn/Main Roster Creative; see, e.g., the Bryan build to WM this year (though how much of that was by design and how much was forced by the situation as it developed is open to debate). My understanding is that Trips has more control over angles he’s personally involved in, and that one was a great slow build that gave us that amazing blow-off at WM.
That said, it could be as simple as Steen/Devitt needing a little more time to get used to the “WWE style”. I don’t remember who was signed first, etc.–they’ve all been floating around the rumors and news so long now that they kinda blur together. ISTR Devitt was last, though.
Meanwhile, enjoy this picture of Steen and Devitt.
I’ve never seen Devitt in action, but the pics I’ve seen are intriguing. He’s got mad skillz for body paint. Hope his wrestling talent matches.
I’m looking forward to Steen’s debut as well. He can be both a bruiser and high-flyer, like a sane version of Dean Ambrose. He’s going to be riding a lot of ambulances.
I only half watched RAW as I was also watching football and Youtube videos but from what I saw:
The opening cage match was really quite good, and true to form, Jericho put over Bray pretty good. The jump from the top of the cage was pretty cool too, awesome that he can risk that at his age.
I think it was relatively decent matches all around: Zigs got a good win, Miz looks hilarious and super-heel, the non-Bella divas are doing well enough.
I literally watched it on mute, but the Bella/Springer segment looked like serious ridiculousness. Ending in a (gasp!) brawl that saw Jerry being hilariously wheeled out on a stretcher and giving a thumbs up. I also commend Nikki for being able to brawl in that tight of a skirt and NOT have any upskirt shots be seen (not that I was looking).
Anyone wanna fill me in on the main event? I was super tired and ended up turning on the Charger/Cardinals game and fell asleep. I really couldn’t care less about Reigns or RKO at this point so I did’t feel bad skipping it.
Let’s do the highlight of the night: Wasn’t Adrian Nevelle just on another level? He was going nuts and acrobats up the wazoo. Good match for the four of them and I can’t wait til Thurs!
Speaking of that: I was listening to Cheap Heat podcast on Grantland and one of the two guys mentioned and asked “Why doesn’t the WWE advertise the network outside of their own shows?” And ever since they said this it’s bugging the crap out of me. Why not? Why are you shoving it down the throats of people who are ALREADY WATCHING. Play up the nostalgia and advertise during Football!
First, there was that horrible cheeseball 1980s sitcom “Season Premiere” opener. As tired as I am of 20 minute talky promo segments starting what is ostensibly a wrasslin’ show, they managed to find something worse. Please give me back the 20 minute talky promos please.
The cage was meh; they don’t know how to book Bray for these in a way that makes sense for his character. He shouldn’t be trying to escape at all. Nice spot from Jericho, though.
While I guess Ziggy should be happy that they’re now booking him like a top face–which is to say, doing dickface things to the heel, who in any other world than the WWE, would be in the right, I can’t say I was thrilled to see him siding with the hackers in this whole thing. Seriously, WWE, don’t do topical; you suck at it.
Was nice to see the NXT guys–there were some half-hearted Ole chants for Sami, though I thought I heart some BORINGs in there too. Not Adrian’s best Red Arrow, but it got a pop, so good for him.
The rest… well, I skipped the rest and went off to play Second Son.
It sounded like half of the crowd thought the “Ole” chants were saying “boring” and started following along, but it was the best match of the night. It was the best Raw that I’ve seen in several weeks though. I still skipped the main event. I can watch Orton, if he’s got an interesting opponent. Reigns doesn’t do it for me. He might flop worse than Ryback, especially if they really do have him go over Brock at Mania.
So as I’m watching Main Event (that’s right you heard me)…
They are talking about the Cena/Heyman confrontation. I forgot to mention that! What a fantastic bit from both Heyman and Cena.
Even as Cena rants about his…Cena-ness…there is a great power to his voice and he had a great and emphatic speech.
Yeah, that’s what I thought was going on as well. I’m curious if everyone got their entrance–I can understand them not wanting to spend that much time on it*, but I would’ve loved to’ve seen Tyler’s on the Raw titantron.
As to Reigns: I really want to like him. I loved him when he was in the Shield–as it turns out, that’s because the Shield concealed his weaknesses and played to his strengths. Now he’s out on his own, the weaknesses become more obvious.
The thing is–even in the best case scenario, he’s not really set up to be a John Cena style babyface that the company/Vince wants to take Cena’s spot. He’s much more in the mold of the Rock, minus the mic skills (for now, we hope). But yeah, if they hotshot him and he’s not ready, it could definitely backfire.
ETA: Except for on last night’s show, when there were so many filler segments we could’ve axed to make room.
Nothing wrong w/ Main Event. You get a couple (usually) decent matches–with better odds for them to be good now that they’re needing to push the Network–and the filler is, if nothing else, inoffensive Raw recaps. No lengthy promos, no Jerry Springer.
So if everyone is bored and LITERALLY there is nothing else on…
TNA is supposedly debuting an Iraqui war vet who lost his leg, was trained for free, and will wrestle with (I’m assuming) only one leg.
I was bored last week and they showed some clips of him doing some stuff and it looked pretty neat and interesting, so if I have no paint to watch dry, grass to grow, or sub-atomic molecular biology effected international tax form homework to do, I think I’m gonna check it out
An audience member from the last RAW posted on PWTorch what happened after the show went off the air, and mentioned this tidbit:
I’m the same way. Reigns is one-dimensional, but he’s really good at it. The one thing I like about his feud with Orton is that Reigns doesn’t all the sudden become helpless when they fight outside the ring. Orton usually dismantles opponents like Miz and Jericho on the floor and makes Michael Cole all sad. Reigns at least no-sells enough to disrupt the formula.
NXT stars are getting WWE air time, and I’m wondering if they’re just going to move those 6-7 superstars en masse to the main roster and see who has sticking power. They’re not doing the 6-week promo buildups like they did with Rusev, Bo Dallas, et al. The larger audience didn’t seem to be too invested in the NXTers, so savvy internet fans still aren’t going to be WWE’s market base. The audience is used to larger-than-life characters, and Neville’s barely larger than El Torito.
As much as I want to like TNA, I fall asleep after 30 minutes. They rehash old WWE angles too much. Bully Ray breaks into Dixie Carter’s office, bosses the employees around, then gets them drunk. Steve Austin already did that. A short bearded guy wins the world championship title. Daniel Bryan already did that. A conceited manipulative authority figure abuses power and gets involved in matches. All the McMahons and their in-laws already did that. Now they’ve got a one-legged wrestler who no doubt will have that one leg kicked out from under him, and the authority figure heels will abuse him. WWE already did that.
BTW, if you didn’t watch Main Event, you missed the main roster debut of the Ascension, who put on a hell of a match with Los Matadores. Good back and forth, great display of their abilities, the crowd seemed a bit neutral at first but definitely got into it by the time the match was over. Between this match and the NXT tag match on Raw, WWE is doing a better job building Takeover than they are the actual main roster PPV coming up this month.
So they had The Ascension wrestling superstars on a show not called NXT? Cool! Maybe this means they’ll do that more often and you can have the up-and-comers against the established guys without having to relegate someone to NXT and/or call someone up prematurely.
Also if the match was as good as you say it was, good for Los Matadores for helping push guys, I always thought they were an underrated team who has the crowd behind them.
Watched TNA last night and, stupidly enough, they lead the show with the one-legged vet.
He moved pretty well given his disability, and he wrestled with the prosthetic on. He obviously won and was able to effectively lift up the other wrestler and body slam him.
Kerry von Erich wrestled with a prosthetic foot for most of his career, and prosthetics have gotten a lot more sophisticated since then, so it’s not too much of a surprise that a guy like him was able to do well. I fear that TNA might not be around for long enough for him to make a name for himself, though.
Well, Takeover 2 is in the books, and it did not fail to disappoint. Here’s my wrap-up;
Kallisto and Sin Cara (who are now apparently known as the Lucha Dragons) d. the Ascension to become tag champions. Great match and a hell of a way to start the show. Sin Cara took the beating for most of the match, allowing Kallisto to get put over and establish him as a prime candidate for the spot on the roster that used to belong to Rey before he got too injury-prone to wrestle anymore. The Ascension is almost certain to make their jump to the main roster now, and it’s only a matter of time before they take the tag titles off of the Usos (or, depending on how NoC goes, the Rhodeses.)
Baron Corbin, making his TV debut, d. CJ Parker in an 18-second squash. Corbin is a former Arizona Cardinals lineman and golden glove boxer, and he definitely made a strong debut here. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes in the weeks to come.
Enzo Amore d. Sylvester Lefort. This was basically just a comedy match, but it was good comedy. Enzo and Big Cass have a great ability for ring banter, reminiscent of the New Age Outlaws, and while we didn’t get to see Sylvester get shaved, the payoff on Marcus Luis with the bucket of Nair was worth it.
Kenta, err, I mean, Hideo Itami takes down the Ascension in a non-match showdown. It’s not surprising that they forced him to change his name to something WWE could trademark, but I have a feeling people are just going to be calling him Kenta anyway for quite some time. This little confrontation definitely made him look impressive by holding his own against two men who outweighed him, and I look forward to seeing where he goes.
Bull Dempsy d. Mojo Rawley in another squash, just over a minute long. Not much of a match, but I think it was supposed to be longer - Mojo got busted open hard early on and looked hurt, and I think they decided to go to a quick finish. Definitely the low point of the evening.
Charlotte d. Bayley to retain the Women’s title. Not the ending I expected, but these two put on a great match. Judging from the post-match showdown, I gather that they’re setting Sasha up for a feud with Charlotte - in which case, I hope they’re planning on turning Charlotte face, because I don’t want to see a heel vs. heel rivalry between those two, and I sure don’t want to see Sasha as a face.
Adrian Neville d. Sami Zayn, Tyler Breeze, and Tyson Kidd to retain the championship. A fatal 4-way is always a hard match to predict, but a Neville heel turn (if that’s the direction they’re going) was one thing I did not see coming. Looks like Neville and Zayn are going to be feuding for the title next.
Overall, great show - not as good as Arrival, but better than Takeover 1, and definitely better than some recent main roster PPVs.
The one thing I like about his feud with Orton is that Reigns doesn’t all the sudden become helpless when they fight outside the ring. Orton usually dismantles opponents like Miz and Jericho on the floor and makes Michael Cole all sad. Reigns at least no-sells enough to disrupt the formula.