From Brussels, Belgium, this Raw continues the international tour. I read that this show had around 8k people and the crowd was hot. Unlike other shows in the past, in having Netflix, the WWE is able to broadcast their event real time around the world, which meant this show was on earlier than usual. However, for me at least, it was as dull as ever and the one thing I really wanted to see felt like it was a flop despite the crowd.
John Cena in Ring Segment
Cena gets a huge reaction when his entrance music plays but that reaction quickly turns into a chorus of boos. The crowd is running through the classics such as “Let’s Go Cena,” “Cena sucks” and even “Fuck you Cena!” By the time Cena was ready to speak, at least 5-6 minutes had passed and I’m getting antsy with impatience. I skipped out on writing a review last week just because of how arduous of a process it’s becoming to watch these shows. But there’s too much dead air time for me where you have nothing really important going on. That said, it was both amazing to see the crowd reaction here and boring too because the crowd response no longer feels dynamic but rather people amusing themselves who are fans of everything they’ve seen and want to be part of that show.
Anyway, I’m going to cut through the interview to highlight the main point of Cena’s speech. It effectively is his version of the Hogan post-Bash at the Beach 1996 heel turn speech. He even mentioned babyface and heel which was really cringe to me. While Cena’s delivery was good and the material probably was true on some level (namely his frustrations being “himself”), it just felt fake in the end. Again, when I think back to Hogan’s turn (and I had to re-watch it after seeing the Cena turn), I kept thinking that the motivation here was completely wrong. Hogan’s speech definitely was his frustrations coming out and it changed the industry because of what the NWO would become.
In the case of Cena, my main question was, “If you didn’t like how you felt and already had gone to Hollywood, why come back at all?” The problem is that his promo went on and on and on. There wasn’t a real coherent manner nor organization of what his point was outside of feeling abused. And again, I have to ask if you didn’t like what you did, why stay with it? Why come back under the Rock to go after a championship when you’re going to retire? From a logical point of view, his reasoning made no sense to me. He’s got more than enough money, it’s clear he’s more interested in becoming a major (or minor) Hollywood star and at his age with his balding head, why stick around if he’s “unhappy?”
Of course, with Cena going off on his rant, Cody had to respond. Cody receives a huge reaction but considering he got kicked in the baggies by this guy, he’s all smiles. And it’s clear that he’s happy to receive the reception in that part of the world. When he does his part of the act, Cena merely stands around and listens, despite supposedly being angry at everything and everyone. Besides that, as I mentioned, Cody’s “character” makes no sense to me because in his mind he wants to be this fighting champion but his presentation is off. Here, he calls Cena a whiny bitch and wants the OG Cena. Wait, did Cody even listen to an actual word of what Cena was saying? Cena basically said that he’d been tired for a long time and that everything was a show to mask the dead soul inside of him. So how is Cody going to get a fighting Cena when that guy didn’t really exist in the first place?
There’s too many contradictions in the way they want to sell this story. The way these people are speaking sounds good, they get the right crowd response but the actual meaning behind the words are twisted and convoluted in a manner that makes no sense. The only reason this is even happening is that Cody is only a halfway decent baby face when he has an opponent he can sink his teeth into that actually has a heel personality. Everything John Cena is saying half works because it came out of nowhere for no good reason except to at the last minute try to sell Wrestlemania.
I read how people are over the moon for this segment but when you really deconstruct what’s going on, it’s not good story telling. It’s forced story telling which is worse.
Penta vs. Ludwig Kaiser
This is a no holds bar match without really having any rational why it’s happening. But it sounds like this micro feud is done which is good because they need to get out of each others’ hair. I wasn’t feeling the match and the only important thing coming out was Penta declaring to want the IC title held by Bron. Match-wise, it was just dull to me.
Judgment Day Backstage Segment
Finn comes in smiling but his mood changes when Dominick suggest that they get Penta for their group. Finn is upset because he already believes that he has won the IC title and calls Dominick a snake. For a brief second, I almost liked Finn because he showed some character progress but fell back into this boring, one dimensional person.
Dakota Kai vs. Ivy Nile
Another dull, bad match that have the same people wrestling each other. Kai won this time around with that god awful finisher where she missed and hit Ivy’s side rather than Ivy’s face. Kai was hot because the crowd was hot. That doesn’t excuse the fact that this match was rotten.
Iyo Sky and Bianca Belair WM Contract Signing
Another bad in ring segment. Listening to Iyo try to mangle the English language is akin to using a butcher knife to clean out your wax. The crowd mildly liked Iyo and disliked Bianca here. But the real star of the women’s division showed up to make this segment bearable with Rhea Ripley calling the two out, Iyo getting shoved in the face again then Rhea powerbombing Iyo on top of Bianca through the table. Then Rhea took the contract and seemed to sign her own name onto it while Adam chased her down to try and have her give it back.
Side note: what the hell is on those “contracts” anyway? I mean, if the match wasn’t supposed to have Rhea involved, why not just null the contract, re-print it and send it to Bianca and Iyo via something like DocuSign? Shit like this is so stupid. But the pay off was the power bomb. Either way, for whatever reason it’s clear that they’re setting up Rhea vs Iyo vs Bianca for WM for this title and I’m hating it unless there’s an angle for the finish to create a new story line.
Jey Uso vs. Austin Theory
Short 30 second match with Jey winning in a squash. Poor Austin Theory. Of course, Gunther attacks Jey post match. I saw Jey screw up a top rope flip which someone mentioned was Jey’s tribute to Flop Dolla. Other than that, I wish more of Raw’s matches were this short.
Brutus and Julius Creed vs. Rey Mysterio and Dragon Lee
This match was setup earlier when Rey/Dragon stopped by American Made to accuse them of attacking them via Chad Gable. One of the Creed Brothers asked who the guy in the mask was where Ivy’s eyes rolled and neither answered him. So it’s just another “who pushed Jade Cargill?” type of lame mystery with a red herring thrown in. That said, the match itself I didn’t pay attention outside of the masked USA guy come in and attack Mysterio/Dragon.
Seth Rollins in Ring Promo
Long ass segment that effectively said and did nothing except announce Seth for an upcoming show. Again, more dull and boring non stop talk and at this point I’ve more interested in playing Arcomage on my web browser than watching this show.
AJ Styles and Karrion Kross Backstage
Karrion accuses AJ of being jealous of Logan because of the short amount of time Logan achieved success within the WWE compared to AJ. Why point this out? Another stupid segment that said and did nothing.
Bron Breakker vs Finn Balor
IC Title match. I’m super burnt out by now. Finn talked and said nothing before the match started to kill time. The match was whatever except that Carlito and Dominick tried to interfere. Bron retained with Penta helping to drive off Carlito and Dominick and the two having a stare down.
Final Thoughts
The magic is dead. The best thing that happened to the WWE besides the return of CM Punk was the Bloodline story. That effectively is dead and there’s no real focus on these shows. These shows feel really lifeless with too many mega long entrances, slow, plodding matches that barely resemble wrestling, verbose talking segments where no one says anything of value. It’s just one giant, boring infomercial. I’m sure part of the structure is to get certain people over whom upper management want to see at the next level while the really crucial people at the top are rarely given matches as the company builds towards its most important event of the year and try to have that talent avoid injury. But this is ridiculous.
One other comment is that Corey Graves was on commentary rather than Pat McAfee. My belief is that Pat shot himself in the foot for being a big mouth idiot and they had Corey replace him. Corey is dull and boring but he doesn’t say anything horribly offensive nor stupid compared to Pat. But the commentary overall does nothing for me. Honestly, I really miss Bobby Heenan with Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura. Even if those squash match Saturdays were mostly dull, these three always managed to make them watchable.
Either way, holy cow. Besides the Cena segment, the rest of the show was completely skippable. And with the Cena segment they could’ve cut that down by 25 minutes (the whole thing lasted 30). But this show was absolutely painful and I started to doze off in the middle of the day trying to make it through.