WWE had the final Monday Night Raw of 2014 and it was a huge show!
What did the Pulse Wrestling Staff think of the show?
CB
So their big angle to kick off 2015 is the return of The Authority? Ugh.
At least Daniel Bryan will be in the Royal Rumble this year.
PK (@BaddAssPK)
Easily the best show in a very long time. I am hoping no one was fooled by the Bryan announcement from the start, but Bryan’s promo made me think twice for a split second, which was great. Cesaro’s worked shoot had me hanging, and than the return of Bad News had me hooked. While I do not love that Cesaro was used for this, I think it was a great return for BNB, and with him coming back face, it might be a final piece of the Wade Barrett puzzle most of us have been waiting for. The Ascension wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought they would be…but the bad facepaint has to go. I am not at all excited that The Authority is back…HOWEVER, I thought the execution of the angle was great.
Steven Berkman (@Sbfantom)
Daniel Bryan is back. He’s entering the rumble. I should be thrilled, right? Well what does it matter? The Authority is back and that’s the final stamp on the year from wwe.
The Authority’s return has marred any good will this Raw may have produced. Not that there was much. The tag titles were unceremoniously hot potatoed back to the Usos so that Ascension could debut and kill the Miz’s but not affect the title picture. Kratos and Bigger Kratos debuted, did their thing and that was it. Michael Cole sheepishly mentions their NXT accolades but his manner of speech makes it sound like NXT is a dirty thing to be avoided. Meanwhile NXT remains the best hour of wrestling programming readily available in North America.
Rusev basically executed Ziggler in the ropes. It’s great that Rusev is continually built – this is one of very few consistent positives on Raw. Ziggler, on the other hand, doesn’t need to be manhandled like this. It doesn’t add much to the show to have a champion be treated as someone else’s play thing. The eventual Rusev defeat could really elevate someone but it’s likely to go to Cena or Ryback and really, what’s the point?
Edge and Christian didn’t add much to the show, just like every other guest host. They played the classics and served as fodder for Rollins & Co. Every couple of years, a heel has to threaten the well being of a legend to get his way, which pulls everyone out of the moment because this is supposed to be a sport. This proves that with The Authority gone WWE was a Wild West wasteland with no rules and nobody did anything about it. Except for John Cena, who brought back the Authority.
Raw was the night of 1000 promos. Ryback detailed his uneventful career for many minutes only to finally meander to the point – He’s mad at Rusev and the beauty is the promo didn’t even really say why. Cesaro cut a Raven promo in the corner, playing off Vince’s comments that he “doesn’t connect” and of course the answer was to have him say “of course I don’t, I’m a heel.”
Maybe if I held the writers hostage and threatened to stomp their skulls through a briefcase I could get my way, just like the heels? Because I’ll do it. I swear I will.
I’m so mad I even over looked the entirety of the biggest logic gap in modern WWE
where the blue fuck were all the faces when Rollins was staging a public execution of a hall of famer? Where was Reigns, who would love to attack Rollins? Where was Ryback, destroyer of evil Russians?
Justin Czerwonka (@JCWonka)
That was certainly a newsworthy RAW to end 2014. We had the return of the Authority, which I’m surprised at. I didn’t think we would see them until after the Rumble. Daniel Bryan is coming back, which puts the WWE in an interesting predicament. Are they really going to take the chance of putting Bryan in the Rumble and not winning, and risk Roman Reigns getting booed if he does? I don’t know about that. There was also some good wrestling on the show with Ziggler/Rusev, Rollins/Reigns and the Tag Title match. Hell even Ryback’s little trip through time wasn’t terrible. This show didn’t feel like three hours. It had a good flow to it and it didn’t drag. I found it weird that the Ascension debuted as faces. This was definitely a newsworthy show to bring RAW into 2015. I liked it and am going to give the show a 7. The Bryan announcement definitely bumped the score up a point.
Widro (@widro)
Raw was certainly newsworthy as we head into 2015. The Daniel Bryan return was well done and built to for the show instead of blown off in hour 1, which is an improvement. I can’t condone giving away Roman vs. Seth with no build but the match itself was good. However, bringing back the Authority is horrific – HHH and Steph are ratings poison and ruin the show. There was no single worse way to bring in 2015 than to end 2014 with the return of HHH. What a disaster. WWE will have a rough Mania season coming up barring a miracle.
