"Here we, here we, here we fucking go!"
With these words, Glasgow-based independent pro-wrestling promotion ICW declares itself to the world. This is more than a chant.
This is a battle-cry
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Every week I look forward to hearing the following words: "Ohhhhhh…don’t you dare be sour, clap for your world famous two time champs and feel the powerrrrrrrrrr!"
It’s often said and written lately that “The New Day is the best part of RAW”. That sentiment is unshakably accurate. Last night, while watching all of RAW's three hours, I desperately sought a muse. I needed a reason to write this Raw Review. It wasn't until New Day showed up in the final segment that I found it.
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I can’t remember the last time I wanted to boo Triple H.
Although I don’t personally know the man who performs Triple H (Paul Levesque), my maturation as a human being has coincided with his maturation as a performer. When you watch someone evolve over the course of nearly twenty years, you become comfortable with them. You start to notice what they do well, and you start to admire their capacity for reinvention. You appreciate the quality of the performance, not the moral alignment of the character they play.
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The Attitude Era wasn't great because it was raunchy, sleazy, blood-soaked, extreme, and testosterone-fueled. In fact, all those segments, matches, and angles from The Attitude Era that weren't good were the ones that could be easily reduced to a set of trendy adjectives.
The assertion many modern professional wrestling fans make is that The Attitude Era was "so much better" than today's TV-PG Era, without offering a worthwhile explanation as to why. This noisy group of armchair critics likes to cite "Better promos", "getting color", "more interesting characters", "cooler stables", and "better angles" as adequate precedent. Working alongside that lack of an explanation is the unavoidably revisionist history that comes with nostalgia. Moments of time that were distinct, perhaps entirely unrelated, get lumped together and cataloged as the same event; Shawn Michaels chopping his crotch, Triple H sitting on a cannon, Chyna giving low blows, The Rock raising an eyebrow, Steve Austin stunning Vince McMahon, and Mick Foley falling off a cell.
Read MoreLast week I found an enjoyable solution to the problem of writing about RAW; ignore everything that was terrible about the episode and focus entirely on the excellence (Bexcellence) of Becky Lynch.
I could employ the same tactic this week. Charlotte & Becky were certainly the best part of the show, and not just because the rest of the episode was so grating. Even on a great episode, Charlotte & Becky’s exchange would have stood out. Becky’s promo was biting & sincere. It’s not easy to throw insults at Ric Flair (even a blatantly heel Ric Flair) and not have the crowd turn on you. Becky managed to walk that tightrope with poise and conviction, continuing to flesh out her character as a fearless competitor quick to speak the truth.
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Since the summer of 2014, I have been watching a particular class of professional wrestlers ascend through the ranks of the WWE; Adrian Neville, Tyler Breeze, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Ms. Charlotte, Bayley, and Sasha Banks. It has been the most rewarding pro-wrestling viewing-experience of my life to “come up” with this group, to chronicle their exploits in The Raw Review, the former NXT Report, The Work of Wrestling podcast, and the occasional editorial dedicated to their excellence.
As I’ve staked my claim on developing a new form of pro-wrestling journalism, a form that aims to prove that professional wrestling is an art worthy of more than dirt-sheets, rumors, and top ten lists, so too have these pro-wrestlers staked their claim on the WWE, fostering incremental change.
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Following the 2014 Hell in a Cell pay-per-view where a “Ghost” interfered in the main event (bringing Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose’s career-defining feud to an unceremonious close) the WWE’s flagship series gradually devolved into a predictable variety show that served rote promos, frayed story-lines, a disjointed tone, incoherent “comedic” segments, unimportant matches, and inconsistent characterization. These issues led to increased viewer-discontent, the stunted growth of a variety of talents, and stalled Superstar-ascents that were, during the Spring & Summer of 2014, nothing short of meteoric.
These issues persisted all the way through to the final episode of 2015.
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Last week, I thought it was too big a logical leap when, after screaming at Roman Reigns to leave the ring, Stephanie McMahon suddenly wanted Roman Reigns to get back into the ring simply because he’d turned his back on her (despite the fact that he was actually doing what she’d initially wanted). Roman’s “Act of Defiance” was so milquetoast and childish (made all the more ineffective by how amused & pleased with himself he was) that the scene quickly sapped him of the gravitas and the momentum he’d established the previous week.
Read MoreIt is very hard to watch a television show that mocks itself. It’s even harder to watch a television show that mocks the viewer for watching it. This week (and for far too many weeks in 2015) the WWE committed both of those sins at the same time. While I doubt Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn sit in an underground lair twiddling mustaches and ominously petting white cats while thinking, “How can we insult everyone watching our show” it’s very difficult to not feel that way for many WWE viewers. It’s far likelier the reason a great episode of RAW (like last week’s) is consistently followed by an abysmal episode of RAW (like this week’s) is due to a self-fulfilling prophecy many storytellers & television producers fall prey to; we can’t top that, so let’s try something different, or just accept this won’t be as good.
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