RAW Review: 20th April

Hello! It's another RAW Review, and it was the go-home show for Extreme Rules- so you had to believe that WWE would somewhat try and ya know- get people mildly involved into the feuds to make the PPV mean something, so let's get straight down to business and get reviewing!

Randy Orton, Seth Rollins Promo
This was a good way to start off- the way things have been going since Mania I am somewhat sold on Orton as a Rollins opponent, even if I wish he wasn't in the Main Event scene he's the right opponent for Rollins at this stage of his Title Run because he's got enough history to look like a legitimate threat- but at the same time Rollins can go over without too much of a debate. I thought the Promos were alright- I don't know if it's because I'll always compare him to his previous heel run as the Legend Killer & then his run where he was killing the McMahons but I don't really like Orton's babyface promos on a consistent basis- that said him wanting to just go crazy and RKO everyone in sight was a good thing, although I would've liked if he'd RKOd babyfaces as well to give a "nobodies safe" mentality to the episode.

Dean Ambrose v Luke Harper
This was all a bit of a cluster, both guys are capable of a lot better than the feud they've wound up in- and the position that feud is in; especially Harper. This all just felt really rushed- and it did feel like they were trying to pack 10 Minutes worth of a brawl into half the time; which is most likely a preview of the match we'll get on Sunday.

Seth Rollins Backstage Promo (1)
This one with the PTP did make me laugh- you can say a lot about Rollins but he does get timing to a T, both in terms of his reaction with Titus and his "I'll kill the next person I see" before looking like a complete mug when he saw Triple H. The "Orton is just 1 Guy" line annoyed me to an extent because wasn't the whole point of the Cage thing so J&J etc. can't get to Orton and Rollins would be left on his own- so surely Rollins should be increasingly worried about that "1 Man".

The New Day v Lucha Dragons
I do like the new New Day- they're proper heels in the sense that the crowd genuinely dislikes them, and in a way it's what I want them to do with Roman. The match was alright, it was nothing special- but given the time constraints on the match and the way in which they had to protect the Luchas given the outcome it wasn't unexpected. I wasn't sure at the time why New Day got the match on Sunday- but when you remember that it's in Chicago and KiddSaro will be massively over- and contrast it to "New... Day Sucks" it does make a lot of sense- and once they've gotten Sunday out of the way I would expect the Lucha's to take up their spot in chasing KiddSaro.

The Orton RKOs after the match annoyed me- in effectively a week Orton has destroyed 4 of the 5 potential participants in the Tag Title match on Sunday, which has basically gotten any potential heat on the match well and truly off of it.

Fandango v Curtis Axel
This was such a short, standard match that there isn't really much to say about it- this was the first of the matches that had be convinced they had gotten their Superstars and Part of the RAW scripts confused after seeing the Superstars results.

Triple H's thing
So the entire Tough Enough thing was Triple H saying stuff we already knew- but of course because it was Triple H he managed to double the amount of time it took to say what needed to be said. The teased Rollins/Kane stuff has been going for a few weeks now- and I do like it to an extent; I'm not sure if they'll be going down the Rollins/Kane route after Extreme Rules which would carry on the Kane v Unplanned Champ tradition- and give us another PPV Main Event involving someone who has no business being in the Main Event at the stage of career he's currently at. The  "Guardian of the Gate" thing is pretty stupid- but it gives Kane a spot on Sunday, and one that'll have some eyes on him.

Quick Point, I've seen some people complaining about the 10 Men and 5 Women thing for the Tough Enough casting and saying it's sexist- to which I say; how many Men are on the Roster- and how many Women? So why would they have equal amounts of both genders; also the fact we get 1 Guy and 1 Woman winning at the end completely puts paid to that theory because in all likelihood if there was a direct comparison and only 1 winner a guy would win.

Seth Rollins Backstage (2)
Triple H firmly putting the WWE Champion in his place- if anyone didn't think Triple H had an ego complex, HELLO.

Naomi v Brie Bella
This was just so Meh. The crowd didn't know who to cheer for- so they just decided to do nothing, and that affected an already average match and made it instantly forgettable. The two things that were worth getting annoyed about were Naomi still having the "Funk" theme- considering she's trying to sell a new "attitude" surely that should have gotten a new theme to come with it; especially considering it's pretty much the most babyfacey theme ever. The other thing that annoyed me was Naomi still using the Rear View- it's arguably the worst finisher of all time- and considering we've seen her do stuff like a Split Legged Moonsault as a Finisher it's even more stupid.

Randy Orton Backstage RKO
I think we can all agree Orton did Cena a favour last night- because Slater was gunning for that US Title, and he would have won it and made the Cena v Rusev match on Sunday mean very little.

Roman Reigns' Thing
If Roman Bolieved he'd be straight back in the Title Picture- I'm also counting this as a Heel Turn; He killed the WWE equivalent of Mother Teresa.

Sheamus v Zack Ryder
This was an epic rematch from the WWE Title match of a few years ago, it was Chapter 2 of an epic battle, and one that I loved (no really)- joking aside I loved this- Heel Sheamus beating the holy hell out of people is entertaining, and whether people want to admit it or not it makes Sheamus look really good. The Dolph run-in was so "Well Bryan isn't here" it annoyed me, but the only thing I'm concerned about with Bryan is that he can live the rest of his life without anything permanently damaged.

John Cena v Kane- US Open  Challenge
Considering we had Zack Ryder being destroyed by someone, followed by Cena v Kane I was surprised we didn't have Eve show up. This match was alright, it was never going to be outstanding given the nature of the beast- I'm hoping the US Open Challenge will give us some really fresh pairings the other side of Extreme Rules and give us some really good matches because the last two weeks we've had matches that we've seen a lot of.

The Miz Backstage Interview
The Promo was neither here nor there, but the one thing I did like was Miz holding the DVD so it covered Summer's face- it's slight things like that, that not everybody notices that make good characters.

The Miz v Mizdow
Considering Miz is apparently getting written off TV for filming purposes I think this well and truly was proof WWE doesn't want Mizdow to be featured prominently- and unfortunately I can see him going the way of so many of Miz's partners before.

Ryback v Adam Rose
Once again, No clue why this match happened- and it's just a desperate attempt to get some semblance of momentum for Ryback after they've repeatedly derailed him. I'm not going to go over my Adam Rose idea I pitched last week- but anything would be better for Rose at the minute, other than not being featured, which isn't even that much of a big thing on this RAW because it was pretty much the Orton/Rollins Show and others last night.

Seth Rollins Backstage Promo (3)
We've gone from Brock who rarely showed up to Rollins who's showing up in pretty much every other segment- they're in a very real danger of overexposing him.

Seth Rollins v Dolph Ziggler
I'm not sure how many different times Rollins took up a place on the screen last night- but once he actually gets into a ring he pretty much always delivers. I'm not sure about the new Rollins finisher with the Powerbomb into the corner headed into the DDT- because it seems like a finisher that needs someone good to sell it, which was alright last night against Dolph but Dolph is almost one of a kind in terms of his selling ability.

We had yet another promo after the match from Rollins- and by this point I'm pretty sure everyone was just sick of hearing his voice- the cage lowering and Orton eventually RKOing him was a nice touch to end the show on, but if it's possible they managed to make a new angle stale in one night last night with the number of RKOs on jobbers.

Thanks for reading as always, if you solely ready my Wrestling Blogs and don't have an interest in the Soccerball part I'll let you know that after the next two weekends I'll be adding Impact Reviews to my portfolio for this summer until the new season starts. So stay tuned for those coming soon- as well as the continuing RAW Reviews, I'll be back with the Predictions for Extreme Rules this weekend so stay tuned for those- and thanks again for reading.