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Jan 6th - "The Netflix Era Begins" RAW REVIEW

I'll cut to the chase; I felt like a complete moron watching this show and was treated as such. It became immediately obvious that I was not the target audience for the Netflix Premier for Monday Night RAW's new platform. They wanted (hoped) that Netflix would bring in a ton of new eyes to the product that found it previously inaccessible despite WWE being available throughout the world broadly speaking.

They might be right - there probably is some people watching wrestling for the first time on the other side of the screen. I doubt it's enough to do a soft-reset of the show's programming.

Showing screenshots of the actual programme will prove difficult as they have utilized Netflix's anti-piracy measures.

Image courtesy of WWE

You can call the opening canvas shot artsy if you would be so inclined but personally, all I found it to be was time-consuming. Triple H cut a generic promo which would be spoken through the mouths of various big-gig wrestling personae throughout the night, including one particular incident which was my own personal main event but we will get to that later.

One that we will get to right now is when The Rock came out and cut his version of this same promo and buried the previous WrestleMania build's storyline deep beneath the Earth. I also believe that this cements The Rock's retraction from any big future build to any Mania, near or far. I could be wrong and people have told me that I am wrong and that there is mischief yet to be afoot. Again, time-consuming. He also took the rub of being the first to swear on Netflix which pissed me off.

Image Courtesy of WWE

The Tribal Combat match was perhaps rightfully slotted into what is essentially a faux-pay-per-view (or 'Premium Live Event' if you were born after 2005) because they didn't do enough to earn anything more. Hopefully, this is the "Tribal Combat"/"Bloodline Rules" stipulation put to to bed now because I'm tired of them pretending that it's anything other than a pantomime hardcore match where you're only waiting for whoever is going to interrupt the action with hijinks and shenanigans.

Roman Reigns vs Solo Sikoa comfortably ended this feud and I don't really know where they go with Solo Sikoa now. On one hand, it makes whatever build he had a complete waste of time but on the other, he never really properly captivated as a heel and has been outshined by Tanga, Tama and Jacob. The highlight of his reign as tribal chief was when everyone found out he hated maths at school. I assume there's going to some Wyatt Sicks business because his faction is probably going to get broken up. The Rock, again, conclusively ended any possible avenue for his supposed money dream match with Roman Reigns by declaring him top boy as the segment petered out without incident.

Image courtesy of JustJared

It took no time at all to get on my tits any time they cut to anyone even remotely noteworthy and I don't want to pick on Richard Gadd here but it felt like they were clawing for the clock on every occasion. I'm a wrestling fan. I don't care about all these actors and rappers and tiktokkers. It was worse than any WrestleMania or SummerSlam. At some points, they showed ACTUAL CHAMPIONS in the crowd. I get they are going for "Mainstream news! Please cover us!" and you're supposed to react to the champions like VIPs as well.

Speaking of VIPs, John Cena came out and proceeded to bore the piss out of me with the most predictable promo of all time. He tickled our fancies and then he fancied a tickle.

Image courtesy of WWE, taken from The Daily Record

He's probably going to win it, isn't he? It would be a huge shock if he didn't and I would actually give them a huge amount of credit.

Something I wanted to talk about which I have no other place for is their elaborate set-up. They had these incredibly annoying spotlights highlighting every seat in the stadium like it was a fucking spaceship or something. I have no idea why they did it but it reminded me of poorly rendered stadiums that you see in gambling adverts. The commentary table also had these incredibly irritating LED lights along the bottom which was distinctly reminiscent of tacky game shows. I think wrestling looks it's best on television when it's cut down to the bare essentials a la NXT in the mid-to-late teens.

I have to smack my forehead with an open palm whenever I write things like that to remind myself that this particular show isn't for me. It's breaking the bank and trying it's utmost for the average true crime enjoyer whom presumably loves O'Shea Jackson, Gabriel Iglesias and Macauley Culkin.

Speaking of mainstream attention:

Image courtesy of WWE

I mean this with complete seriousness that Rhea Ripley is their bridge. She's connected the gays back into wrestling and about time too. You can tell they know this too because they put the belt straight back on her when the world was watching! In retrospect, the idea of Rhea Ripley losing this would've been disastrous. A lot of people know who Rhea Ripley is and seeing her lose once again doesn't bear thinking about it. To put the nail in the coffin, this match in every single definition was a means to an end and thank fuck, frankly. Ripley has outgrown it but they still wheeled Undertaker out to steal her thunder because they can't let us have nice things.

To be honest, I laughed uproariously when he came out just because it was so ridiculous and random. It's not really all that bothersome.

Image courtesy of WWE, NBC

I didn't realize so many people were angry about this but the above image is from an article from Cageside Seats which labels Gunther as an afterthought in the Netflix debut. I was annoyed at the time mainly because Gunther isn't a character that needs explaining through words. You just have to watch a single match with him in it to get what he's about. However, it's obvious if you think about all the champions that they showed in the crowd throughout the night that Gunther just wasn't there and they needed some way to weave him in. Actually, not mentioning him at all would've made him an afterthought.

I also don't want to go through every backstage segment and stage-side interview because they were much of a muchness, truth be told. I liked the heel New Day segment mainly because it's like they were deliberately not trying on purpose.

Image courtesy of WWE

I barely remember anything about this match.

Travis Scott came out and vaped. That's all I remember. Death by roll-up. I could've done without this in my life. I am the same man now as I was before I watched this.

I don't really like the new referee attire if you're that desperate for commentary out of me. It reminds me of old football kits from the Scottish Premiership.

OH! I almost forgot...

Image courtesy of WWE

It wouldn't be unfair of me to say that this might've been the biggest disaster in wrestling in quite a long time. Definitely, the most disastrous cameo from the Hulkster and I include XWF and LiveLeak in that list. Above ALL else, it was the funniest moment in the whole show by far as Terry clocked in an easy 80/20 negative reaction from Los Angeles with about a hundred people popping maybe? In the face of this, Hogan resorted to plugging the beer that I am not quite sure of the name of. I think he forgot to say it. It surely can't be "Real American Beer" because that is irredeemably shit. Searching for a modicum of a cheer, he namedropped Randy Savage and Andre The Giant which is sure to win the Wrestling Observer Disgusting Promotional Tactic award when all is said and done. He posed. He ripped his shirt off and then he fucked off down to Gorilla, clearly fizzing with rage.

Ludicrously, and somewhat predictably, this will be tarred and feathered with the politics of California when actually, it's brazenly obvious to any human being with a pinky's worth of cerebral action that folk are sick and tired of saying their prayers and prefer to eat their breakfast in their own time. He is routinely booed nowadays and if they were looking for trouble, they've found it because this was the most covered moment by "mainstream media".

So that begs the question... Did they engineer this deliberately?!

Image courtesy of WWE

Nope, they are just daft cunts.

On with the main event.

Image courtesy of WWE

This was the most looked-forward-to match of the night by leaps and bounds and I have to say that it was mildly disappointing. It reminded me of a couple of matches in recent memory: Uso Vs. Uso from just last year and Styles Vs. Nakamura from a few Manias ago. It felt like they were just starting up and the finish came from nowhere. Clean as a whistle, CM Punk is just better, I guess. After taking what I would say to be quite an unreasonable amount of moves with barely any offense on Rollins in return, Punk just hit his own finisher and won and that was it. It would be easy of me to reel off some excuse like they were short on time or that something went wrong and they had to improvise but they should know better. This wasn't "doing it on the night", we were sold this as being an extremely important match and it was a let-down.

The let-down is compounded by CM Punk cutting a top guy promo that reminded me of Robbie Williams in the sense that it was unearned and unwarranted tenacity for what was quite a mediocre showing. I like CM Punk by the way, I just thought this wasn't the desired home run. I don't see how this can continue beyond this. I'm waiting for either of them to turn heel and it did not happen here.

Image courtesy of WWE, Netflix

To conclude, like any pilot of any TV series that you like, the first one may be slightly iffy and not indictive of the full package. I'll be tuning in next week to see who the real RAW actually is behind this phony mask. A lot of people may have really loved this but it reeks a little of panic to me. I'm not the only one who was shuddered by the memory of Russo coming back to WCW and resetting everything. It wasn't that bad. They were extremely safe at the end of the day whilst trying to provide the wow factor, visually. I can't help but feel like they didn't have to do all that.

Time will tell. Roll on, Monday.

I won't be doing ratings because ratings are for idiots.