RAW Review- 29th December

Hello! Its my last RAW Review of the year, and with the promise of The Ascension laying the groundwork going into the last RAW of the year you were expecting fresh new gimmicks to enter the New Year in style.

E&C, Brock and Heyman, Cena, Rollins Segment
Theres no point praising the chemistry E&C have when on the mic together, but they did a good job setting up the rest of the night with their match announcements and in turn setting up the rest of the segment. The Heyman Promo was good, and was also a good way to foreshadow the Main Event segment with regard to Edges medical issues- although apparently all of us didn't get the memo King did that said Christian was retired as well. The Cena promo was- well a Cena Promo I did like the fact he suckered Brock in via Heyman as I've always thought that should be done more. Brock retreating was a good way to set up the angle we'll be getting for the first month of 2015 as they'll want to make us believe Cena could in fact win at the Rumble and having the Heel back away is Booking 101.

Dolph Ziggler v Rusev
Firstly, Where was the nudity I was promised?! Its not like WWE ever fail to deliver on their promises though so I'll write it off. They could have made the finish of the match a tiny bit less obvious by not mentioning the word "Pinfall" in relation to Rusev every 5 Seconds- but what we got before that was a really good back and forth match, and probably Rusevs best match to date. Dolph is continuing to deliver on a nightly basis and if he can keep getting good matches out of the "WWE Guys" he won't be allowed to be ignored for much longer for a mega-push much in the way Bryan was around this time last year. Again, Booking 101 with Rusev retreating from Ryback and it was a good way to get Ryback over considering he's more than likely going to either tap or pass out at the Rumble.

Ryback Promo
The Team of Bookers the WWE has must have heard Rybacks Talk is Jericho Podcast and thought "Yeah, We could fill some time with that".

Natalya v Nikki Bella
Tyson Kidd got TV Time, so its alright by me.

The Usos v The Miz's
This match was surprisingly good, I don't agree with the outcome but the means definitely outweighed the ends in this case. I thought these two delivered a really good match where the False-Finishes actually meant something because of the expectations surrounding the match with regard to The Miz's going over. However, as I said I really don't agree with the outcome- The Miz's do have a rematch clause and they'd better have Naomi turning on The Usos when that comes about or this whole angle will have been a waste, and the only thing coming out of it will have been the most stale Tag Team in the WWE getting the Belts back.

Cesaro Promo/Cesaro v Bad News Barrett
I loved the Cesaro Promo, if it hadn't of been for him fluffing his lines at the very end I'd have ranked it as one of the better promos of the whole calendar year. You always hear people are "good" at Promos say every Promo has a kernel of truth- and this was most definitely the case here and I'm just hoping the fluff at the end doesn't detract from what preceded it with regard to "the office".

I'd have held off on Bad News Barrett coming back until the Rumble where he would have gotten a good pop when he entered. But I understand with how thin the current roster is- especially on the babyface front they probably couldn't have done so. The match itself was relatively short- and you have to wonder whether the Promo Cesaro cut, and then the manner in which he was dispatched was a message to the IWC.

Jack Swagger v Luke Harper
Both of these guys are good in-ring workers, but giving them a multiple segment match with absolutely no build to it- especially when the Cesaro-BNB was short was idiotic. It didn't help the finish was completely telegraphed baring in mind who Swagger has lost to recently, making the false finishes not mean anything and that detracted from the match. Another thing that detracted from the match was the crowd seemingly didn't realise it was going on they were so quiet.

Roman Reigns v Seth Rollins
If any further proof was needed with regard to whether Roman was ready for the mega-push he is supposedly in line for, this was it. I don't mind rest-holds when they're used right, and perhaps it was understandable when you reads the story about Roman wrestling a match earlier in the night and then travelling to RAW- but the match simply wasn't good enough. The overly enthusiastic Big Show commentary didn't do much for it either- but it was a pretty mediocre match, and the finish DIDN'T EVEN MAKE ROMAN LOOK STRONG.

Daniel Bryan Promo
You can't help but compare this to the Mark Henry Promo we got in 2013, and in that regard it wasn't as good- it simply wasn't. I didn't get roped into this promo like I did the Henry one, but I think that might have been a direct consequence of the Henry one. Thats not to say the Promo didn't hit its marks, and if they had been the other way around I'm sure I'd be saying the same about the Mark Henry Promo. It was good to hear Bryan is ready to compete again, but the chances of him winning the Rumble are pretty slim- and I can see Roman eliminating Bryan as another "message" to the IWC.

The Ascension v The Miz's
I don't know why, perhaps because the debut was in the penultimate segment so we had the full night to anticipate what would happen- but I was expecting so much more from The Ascensions debut than a throwaway squash match, but what would a WWE Main Roster Debut be if you couldn't bitch about it after?

John Cena in "The Negotiator 2"
So The Authority basically wanted Christmas Off and then they got Rollins to do what he could have done to pretty much every guest host- the laptop aside, and force Cenas hand. This was perhaps the most anti-climactic way to bring The Authority back, but bringing them back for Mania season hopefully means we'll see the final end to the angle at Mania- as I originally suggested and used as the reason as to why Team Cena wouldn't win at Survivor Series. This was the first time in a while they've properly had Cena come off as the Babyface the WWE want him to be, and they did it by putting him in a "Rock and Hard Place" situation- and Rollins came off as the perfect heel from this segment, and it was reinforced by his "You Don't Know me very well, I'll kill him anyway" line.

Overall this RAW finish aside was fresh, exciting and really rather good- especially when you contrast it to some of the RAWs we've had recently that have been completely awful.

Thanks as always for reading, this is my last RAW Review of 2014 so I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who's read and shared since I started this blog in August and I hope you'll continue doing so in 2015. So have a Happy New Year, and bare in mind we can go back to missing the first 20 Minutes of RAWs now!