SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
RAW TALK REPORT
JANUARY 11, 2021
AIRED ON WWE NETWORK
REVIEW BY NICK MORGAN, PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR
Hosts: Sarah Schreiber, R-Truth
– The show was introduced by Sarah Schreiber sitting in for Charly Caruso. Because this is WWE, they had to come up with a silly nickname for the new host duo. Hence we are now graced with TruthSerum. Okay, off to a bad start here.
Morgan’s Analysis: Quick first impression, Sarah is no Charly and Charly is no Kayla Braxton.
– There wasn’t a real reason given for Charly’s absence as they quickly moved into a recap of Raw. They especially spent a lot of time on the ending with Randy Orton, Triple H and the Fiend angle with Alexa Bliss. Even though they were showing the angle on the split screen, Sarah described what we were seeing and was excited about the fireball Alexa shot at Randy. They quickly segued to the COVID-19 announcement by Drew McIntyre and his acceptance of Goldberg’s challenge for a match at Royal Rumble. Without spending too much time on this they moved right into their first guest, Angel Garza.
– Garza immediately went into his shtick and presented Sarah with a rose, while Truth put gummy worms on top of his head and on his shoulders. Sarah pretty much dumped on him for losing the 24/7 title last week by being tricked and terrorized by the Boogeyman. While Truth kept dropping shade on Garza, Garza finally shot back at Truth and told him to leave and that he would take over the show. Sarah tried to ask a serious question about Garza’s goals and he made answered with, winning matches, championship gold, and of course flirting with the ladies. With that, they hustled him off the set. When Truth told him to go sit down (as Garza had been standing next to Sarah during the segment), Garza shot back that there wasn’t a chair to sit in.
Morgan’s Analysis: I’m not sure what happened with Raw and the WWE tonight, but they seemed off kilter all night on both Raw itself and this show.
– Moving on, next up was Nia Jax. Sarah led of by calling Nia’s win tonight with Baszler a “huge” victory. When Sarah tried to bring up the possibility of some dissension between Jax and Baszler, Nia quickly went into insult mode. She called out Sarah for her rather “high” hairdo.
Morgan’s Analysis: Jax was not effective speaking as a heel and she just came off as a condescending jerk, rather than a scary heel. She should be seen and not heard.
From there, Jax downplayed any problems between her and Baszler. In response, Sarah questioned her about the upcoming Royal Rumble where it is every woman for herself in the Rumble match. Jax accused Sarah of trying to start something (again for some reason referencing Sarah’s hair), and noted that it’s all good. She admitted that it is every woman for themselves, but it’s not an issue there between her and Baszler. At the end of the segment, Jax put Baszler over very strong, saying about Baszler, “she is a killer in the ring”, and as for the Rumble “we will see what happens.”
Morgan’s Analysis: I will again heavily advocate for the need of more women writers in the WWE to write for the women. While they did talk about wrestling, they spent a good amount of time on Sarah’s hair of all things. WWE needs to do better in this regard.
– The final segment gave us MVP and Bobby Lashley. MVP started off the segment by showing Truth a spot on his jacket claiming it was Matt Riddle’s blood. While the match and the aftermath against MVP played on the split screen, almost nothing was said. When Lashley did talk he failed to hold his mic high enough so the audience couldn’t hear him well. This was somewhat of a problem throughout the segment. While Lashley was talking, Truth said that Riddle was a thorn in Lashley’s side. Lashley came back quickly with “no, a speed bump”. Rather than following up on this comment and providing content that moved the story, Truth started talking about Bronuts. When Lashley showed was shown on the split screen, he said he didn’t want to discuss Riddle and Bronuts. Truth came back with “it looks like you guys have been eating a good sack of nuts.” In response, MVP got in Truth’s face and demanded an apology. Truth said he was owed an apology for all the hurt locks Lashley had given him. From there, MVP threatened him and said that Lashley wouldn’t punch him (as an apology), Truth caved and apologized for what he said.
– MVP and Lashley were about to storm off the set due to being indignant at Truth’s antics. Sarah spoke to MVP to keep him and Lashley around. She said that given that the Hurt Business has the US Championship and the Tag Team Championships, was he himself looking for gold as well. Before he could answer, Truth said something else about “nuts” and MVP went after him again. This time MVP grabbed his jacket lapels and was about to deliver a beating before Lashley pulled him off. Truth yelled “we are on the air, we are on the air,” hoping this would keep MVP from throwing a punch. All ended well as Lashley escorted MVP off the set and Sarah exasperatedly talked about what a night it had been.Then, they faded to black.
FINAL THOUGHTS: It’s amazing how much bad they could fit into only a little under 20 minutes. The Garza segment was silly and had no point except some 24/7 comedy material. Nia Jax was almost unwatchable and even MVP couldn’t talk his way out of the script that had to resort to “nuts” jokes. Truth was much more a part of this show that he has been for quite a while and I’m sure this is because they felt they needed him to energize things with the much less talented Sarah Schreiber handling the questioning this week. Sarah is developing, but at this point she should not be put in this position. She does not have the chops or a big enough personality to share the stage for an extended period of time with the wrestlers and their outsized characters. When Charly is unavailable, it would probably be better t1/11o have someone like MVP sub in as the co-host or even Mustafa Ali and let the show be a real angle builder. This is a Raw Talk that you can skip this week. The show has been good for the last couple of months, but they totally dropped the ball on this one.
NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S RAW TALK REPORT: 1/4 WWE RAW TALK: Charlotte addresses issues with Ric Flair, Mustafa Ali talks Legends Night, Shayna Baszler adjusts her mission, and more
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