The Raw 5 Takeaways - January 12, 2015

By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

(1) Seth Rollins is really good. Rollins plays such a smarmy heel that it makes you want to pay to see Seth get his comeuppance. The problem is that his opponents at the Royal Rumble are a former big-money heel champion, now playing a secondary tweener called Brock Lesnar, and John Cena, who played the saddest sap babyface last week.

(2) Daniel Bryan is really good. Pat McNeill joked about this on Twitter that Bryan seems to be the most popular babyface on the roster despite being away for eight months ... because he was not subjected to WWE's scattershot booking for eight months. (Actually, they tried to rope him in with the "Bryan cheated on Brie with the personal trainer" business, but they dropped that.)

(3) Bryan and Stephanie McMahon are really good on the mic. Some of the best promos of The Authority Era have come when Bryan and Stephanie are in the ring. WWE presents Bryan a little too much like a "short order cook," to use a Kevin Nashism, with the "Average Joe" label to play him up as the underdog, but Steph's best work on TV are in these one-on-one situations with Bryan.

(4) Titles don't mean much right now. Brock Lesnar and the WWE Title have been reduced to an afterthought, new IC champion Bad News Barrett was an interchangeable lumberjack in the opening match, tag champs The Usos played sad saps, and there's no clear picture of what The Chase is for Nikki Bellas's Divas Title. (Um, Tyson Kidd for champ?) And then there's U.S. champion Rusev, whose top contender for the title was "fired" last week.

(5) The Royal Rumble match is still scheduled. Whew. Based on last week, you would have thought WWE canceled the 30-man Rumble. This week, WWE picked up the pace on Rumble hype, but they sure aren't giving a lot of wrestlers time to talk about what winning the Rumble would mean for their careers. Perhaps next week. Perhaps not.

PWTorch Roundtable Reviews

Greg Parks, columnist (4.5): With the way the heels have been going over the last few weeks, I'm hoping WWE REALLY has something special planned when the babyfaces eventually win the war. That...DOES have to happen...right? Unlike previous weeks, I thought the best part was the end when Seth Rollins, Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar traded verbal barbs. I certainly enjoyed their mic work and verbiage more than WWE's apparent attempts to completely destroy Roman Reigns.

James Caldwell, assistant editor (4.0): Let me take a page from Peyton Manning to note I still need to process this show. Raw has big-picture issues, such as a devalued WWE champ/Guy Who Broke The Streak, weak babyfaces, and undercut heels. But, there were strong individual performances from Daniel Bryan and Seth Rollins to boost this show after last week's depressing events.

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