Wrestling Opinions from a Sleazy Guy 4.26.17

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Wrestling Opinions from a Sleazy Guy 4.25.17
By Sebastian Howard

Jesus, I feel like shit. Got a cold, constantly coughing, hacking and having to blow my nose. Being sick BLOWS, can’t do anything but sleep and eat soup and drink water. Thank God I don’t have a fucking fever though… can’t stand fevers… brain feels so scrambled you can’t concentrate on anything and nothing really helps.

 

Anyway, since I’m sick I figured I’d do another Raw review, don’t have anything better to do at the moment. Haven’t been doing shit as far as my life goes, the most exciting thing I’ve done in the last week was get drunk with friends and go over to the half assed Zoo they have in Jupiter the next day (4/20) and then go over to Darien’s and get so stoned I couldn’t even see straight. Otherwise its just been the same old bullshit, job application after job application and planning to do community service at Fern House answering phones but never actually ending up going. Lets get on with some good old fashioned rasslin’.

 

The opening segment had three talented people in it but still felt extremely lackluster. There just wasn’t much of a point to it beyond setting up the main event and continuing the Ambrose/Miz feud. Jericho saying this was his last ever Highlight Reel on Raw was incredibly fake as we all know he’s jobbing to Owens again at Extreme Ru… err Payback. Also, something that occured to me (and probably a lot of other people honestly) was who the fuck is telling the ring crew to listen to whatever wrestler comes out there and tells them to make up the ring for their talkshow? I understand whats actually happening is that they’re told to do it for the segment but from a Kayfabe perspective why are the ring crew just listening to whoever tells them to set up their talk show? You think after being told to set up the purple ropes every five minutes they’d tell the Miz or Ambrose to fuck off. One more thing about this segment, when Ambrose hit Miz with the Dirty Deeds last week it made sense that he wasn’t expecting it but DUDE YOU’VE HAD A WHOLE WEEK TO PREPARE FOR THAT SHIT AND YOU STILL ARE CAUGHT OFF GUARD BY THAT SHIT!??? Raw from an internal storytelling perspective already came across as lazy and complacent to me at this point.

Matt Hardy vs Sheamus…. IN 2017??? ON RAW!??? What the actual fuck? I felt like I was flashing back to 2009 ECW, fucking terrible. Matt hasn’t improved in the ring what so ever since that time period and without his Broken character he’s completely uninteresting. Basically a whole bunch of who gives a shit, was busy watching David Tennant era Doctor Who on my laptop.

During the crusierweight match… look I liked everyone in the match (yes, as I mentioned last week TJ Perkins is good in his role as douchebag heel and reminds me of a heel 123 Kid) but the match was so unimportant from a storytelling perspective and is just used to service a rematch between Aries and Neville, which seems like a stupid program anyway because if they were going to give Aries the title they should have done it at Mania and if they’re not going to give him the title why are they wasting our time? Anyway, I ended up smoking a joint outside with my Raw Crew (friends I usually watch Raw with) and completely missed the match.

Kalisto vs Braun Strauman in a dumpster match, okay first off since when did the rules to a dumpster match change from having to knock out your opponent and close the dumpster top to just putting your opponent in the dumpster? I guess they just wanted a way to have Kalisto “go over” Strauman, ala the writers were trying to be cute. But what was the point really? Kalisto winning over Strauman is going to end up as a footnote if anyone even remembers it and Strauman’s freakout after the match could have happened regardless if he had lost or not. As for the dumpster dive, god damn that shit was LAME! It took entirely too long for Strauman to do it and when he did do it, it looked incredibly safe. Nothing compared to the Outlaws throwing Cactus and Chainsaw off the ramp. I think a big question for Strauman is what does he do after Payback? Its obvious that he’s going to get buried by Roman at Payback (that’s why they haven’t had Reigns on TV) so he can’t just keep on killing wrestlers. So does he just kind of fade into the midcard of Raw? Does he feud with Rollins or Cass or something? I think its going to be interesting to see if Creative has anything for Braun to do after Payback or if he’s just meant to be a big monster that’s going to be fed to Regins (ala Hogan) and that’s it.

Finn Bálor, Seth Rollins and Big Cass defeated Samoa Joe, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows: This was match of the night by a long shot, Seth going over was probably the right call. If they don’t pull the trigger on Regins/Lesnar by Summerslam (and the rumor right now is that they’re going to extend the feud out till Mania) I’m assuming Seth is going to get a match against Lesnar where he loses but looks really good. Balor doesn’t have anything to do for Payback but at least he doesn’t seem to be getting depushed for the concussion he got. This was another reminder by WWE that Enzo is a joke and that Big Cass is the one they want to push. Joe’s going to lose to Seth at Payback, which doesn’t really hurt him but it definitely doesn’t help him either. Anderson and Gallows are in the same kind of position as they don’t really have any kind of upward or downward momentum right now.

Alexa Bliss talking shit to Bayley on the mic was pretty great even if it didn’t make that much sense, like in real life Bayley’s dating a dude but I get that Bliss was more attacking her character than her in real life so it makes sense. The problem with Sasha coming out to defend Bayley is this, Bayley looks like a champion who can’t defend herself on the mic. This is the second major time Sasha’s had to save Bayley (the other time I remember is when Steph was dressing down Bayley for winning the title in an underhanded way) and it just makes her look weak. Sasha and Bliss taking shit to each other works really well though and definitely seems like something people would be willing to throw down money for. Its kind of bizarre how a couple months ago Sasha seemed like a such a bigger star than Bliss but now Bliss is in a higher position than Sasha and is probably going to win the title on Sunday. As far as the Draft has gone everything seems botched and shitty EXCEPT for the Raw women’s division which has benefited from the addition of Bliss and seems more fresh without Charlotte dominating the title picture.

Sasha went over Bliss via count out: God damn, what a lame, lame ending. Look I get it, WWE didn’t want to give this away on free tv or make the match feel stale but its still fucking lame booking. You could have AT LEAST had Sasha put Bliss in the Bank Statement, Bliss get to the ropes and then walk out. If Bliss’s whole point was to not wrestle than she could’ve just walked out before the match even started. I don’t know, the whole ending just felt out of nowhere and didn’t do a whole lot to sell Bliss as a challenge to Bayley’s title. Though I did like her attacking Bayley when she wasn’t looking.

Jericho/Ambrose segment backstage was cute though face Jericho is SO lame compared to Heel Jericho. I did love the, “YOU JUST UNMADE THE LIST,” bit though.

You know who should be the next Doctor in Doctor Who? Chris Jericho. Tell me people wouldn’t be glued to their tv sets as Peter Capaldi regenerated into him?

Is Rhyno offering Marayse some of his crackers the male equivalent to Debra asking people to try her cookies?

Dean Ambrose and Chris Jericho vs The Miz and a Surprise Friend ended in a No Contest: Okay, going into this you knew that Miz’s partner could only be one of two people, either Braun Strauman or Bray Wyatt. When Miz made his little remark about his partner being about theatrics you KNEW it was Wyatt. So this match was a whole bunch of I don’t give a shit until Bray showed up. Bray showing up and destroying everyone, including the Miz was cool but it doesn’t really matter as he’s going to get buried by Orton Sunday. Overall an extremely underwhelming Raw leading to what looks like an extremely predictable show this Sunday.

I'm generally a pretty crazy guy, and try to have as much fun as possible. My tastes are very peculiar, and I've probably done far too many drugs for how old I am. I've been homeless before, lived in Washington and Florida. I'm generally a pretty peaceful guy, but do have a temper, and some bad depression and OCD, which I have to fight regularly, and am constantly getting new pharmaceutical drugs for these problems. So if I'm a bit edgy, and switch to mellow, its probably because of the drugs.