WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 1/15: Booker T commentary, Strowman antics, Jason Jordan, Rollins-Balor, Nia-Asuka, Revival Interview

RAW HITS

Booker T: I found myself agreeing with Booker T this week more than I should. I don’t know if that’s because he was having a good week, or because the writing was so ass backwards that the guy who normally doesn’t make any sense, made perfect sense (that’s my guess). He was right that Kurt Angle should not have fired Brawn Strowman on air. He was right that Titus O’Neil shouldn’t play to the crowd and how important it is to stay on your opponent. He showed good nuance in saying he predicted Nia Jax would win the women’s Royal Rumble and end Asuka’s undefeated streak, but that Asuka was also great and that her undefeated steak wasn’t an accident. The other announcers acted like he was contradicting himself when he praised Asuka after predicting she would lose, but he can say that they are both great and then pick one to win. When Corey Graves complained that Elias’ song didn’t rhyme, Booker pointed out that “mirage” does rhyme with “Miz-Tourage.” That was funny. I liked his work questioning Matt Hardy’s mental state and wondering what Jeff Hardy things about his Woken brother. And while he was admonished during the main event for saying that they don’t talk about wins and losses a lot, but the wrestlers care, he was right. WWE doesn’t talk about wins and losses enough. They don’t make it seem like wins and losses really matter. So, I was shocked to hear an announcer saying that, even if it was an unscripted moment that he was chastised for right away.

Jax vs. Asuka: This was a good match. WWE put themselves into a bad spot where they wanted to protect Jax, but couldn’t end Asuka’s undefeated streak. It was a mistake to go to this match now, but once that decision was made, they handled the right way. It was well booked and the wrestlers performed well too. Jax looked dominant during parts of the match and Asuka did a nice job of fighting back. They had a few good teases of the finish, once with a leverage pin attempt by Asuka and then after she hurt Jax’s leg with a close call on a potential count out. Going with the injury angle worked in the circumstances and also paralleled Jax’s potential boyfriend Enzo Amore’s own leg injury.

Jason Jordan: I continue to enjoy the work that Jordan is doing in his relationships with both Kurt Angle and Seth Rollins. The writing was good for the way that Jordan got Angle to set up the Rollins vs. Finn Balor match. Angle, whose acting was terrible earlier in the show, did a nice job acting distracted and only partially listening to Jordan’s pitch as he was overwhelmed by what Strowman had done to his office. Jordan and Rollins had a nice scene later on and then he also blatantly cheated to help Rollins defeat Balor in the end. It will be interesting to see how Rollins reacts once he learns that Jordan tripped Balor.

Rollins vs. Balor: This was a good 15 minute main event. The announcers did a nice job of talking about how it was a rematch of the match that determined the first ever Universal Champion. Rollins and Balor are two great workers who put on a good match here. There was a lot of distractions going on at the end when The Bar came out to try to get revenge for Jordan’s distraction in their match earlier in the show. A lot of people are making a lot out of Rollins bringing back the former Curb Stomp, now the Black Out as a finisher. I even saw some people assuming it meant that Kenny Omega is on his way to WWE and that Rollins had to stop doing a high knee as a finisher to make room for Omega’s own version of the move. There was of course talk about the racist and homophobic nature of actual curb stomps in terms of doing away with the move in the first place and giving a new name now. I like the move. It always looked like it hurt way more than the knee. So, I’m happy that it is back and that they renamed it. They really sold it afterwards with how long they lingered on Balor trying to recover from it after the match. That was awkward and went on too long, but it was ok in selling that Balor might be concussed. I’m curious to see where they go from here with that situation.

RAW MISSES

Brawn Strowman: I hated everything that WWE did with Brawn Strowman this week. I absolutely HATED it. Most of it made little sense. It did make sense for Kurt Angle to fire Strowman, but he should have fired him during the week, instead of waiting until Raw. That part made no sense. Why should I cheer for Strowman for beating up security guards who are just doing their job, especially when they are following the orders of the babyface authority figure? This was supposed to be serious and intense, yet WWE decided to throw in a silly comedy gag in the middle of his backstage tirade with Strowman taking a break to eat cake. I do not believe that Strowman would be capable of tipping over the truck. I didn’t believe he could tip over an ambulance. All of this crap kept taking me out of the story. If this were real, the security guards would press charges against him and he would still be arrested despite Angle calling the cops and telling them not to come since Stephanie McMahon told him to rehire Strowman. Ugh. They would sue WWE for putting them in an unsafe working environment. But that’s not going to happen. He was told he was rehired so he had to put Michael Cole down. Instead, he threw him off the stage. Is he going to be punished for that? Or for what he did last week? I could see Brock Lesnar demanding that Strowman be rehired so he could get his hands on him at The Royal Rumble. But, they aren’t going in that direction. I wonder if any of this spectacle made any fan want to see Strowman vs. Lesnar vs. Kane more? I don’t. This dominated the first hour of Raw leaving me not wanting to watch the rest of the show. Then the Smackdown play-by-play announcer happens to hang out at Raw despite the brand split just in case he’s needed? That was too convenient. They could have gone without to sell the idea of how crazy the situation was. Then the announcers talked in hushed tones about how this was criminal and dangerous behavior and how Stephanie as wrong to rehire him, yet they showed replays of it several times afterwards. That capped it off as being some of the worst writing for Raw in a long time.

The Revival Interview: I struggled with this as I liked a lot of what Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder said during their interview. I almost put it as a Hit. The reason that it I’m putting it as a Miss is because in WWE’s world, this was supposed to be a heel promo. However, it came across as a babyface promo to me. I want to hear wrestlers saying the word “wrestling” and how they want to master holds and win matches. But, that’s framed as a heel thing in WWE. I want to hear about not being created by the WWE machine and not caring about being “sports entertainers” but wanting to be “wrestlers” but that was again framed as being a heel thing to say. The performances were good. But, I fear that this was all just a set up for this very talented team to stooge for some of the old school stars who will be on Raw’s 25th Anniversary next week.

For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell’s views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET’s “Hitlist” section here.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com’s WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw and Smackdown each week. Email him at jmezz_torch@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @JonMezzera.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 1/8: Strowman-Lesnar-Kane, Samoa Joe’s interview, Balor Club vs. Jordan & Seth & Roman, Miz’s Return, Hardy-Wyatt laugh-off