For most people extreme snowstorms are life-threatening ordeals. I imagine WWE management felt differently on Monday night. The severe weather that hit the north-eastern United States caused the governor of Connecticut to announce a travel ban, effectively cancelling RAW. That effectively granted WWE a reprieve, something they were much in need of after the hostile evening they’d experienced at Royal Rumble the night before.

They made the most of the opportunity, doing some expert damage control on the standing of Rumble victor Roman Reigns. The show was constructed around five sit-down interview segments and a couple of announcements for Fast Lane. They were interspersed with links from Michael Cole, JBL and Booker T. It was a smart approach that made the most of what the company had at its disposal. If only that were true of their booking approach in general.

Slightly more questionably the decision was also made to air the two biggest matches from the previous night’s Rumble. That means that people tuning into RAW were treated to the triple threat WWE championship match and the Rumble itself for free. Monday saw WWE finally hit their goal of one million subscribers for the WWE Network so I’m sure they’re pleased with the decision to air those matches. The likelihood is that they convinced a number of people that the Network was worth a look. But it wasn’t the greatest idea with regard to customer satisfaction: everyone else had had to pay $9.99 for the event. Or £9.99 if in Britain. Or a staggering $54.99 to watch on regular pay-per-view. I’m sure refund requests have been sailing WWE’s way since Monday night.

The state of your briefcase, mate.

The first of the interviews was with Seth Rollins. He told Michael Cole that he thought his Rumble performance spoke for itself. He felt he deserved to be in match and that he did everything he could to win and become champion. I agree with him. Rollins did deserve to be in the match and he made the most of the opportunity. He took the pinfall but that didn’t matter. ‘The Future’ left the show looking like he belonged at the top.

I typically don’t write articles about wrestling other than my weekly recaps because I don’t want to fill this site with wrestling overkill, which is what would happen if I hosted too many recaps: the wrestling articles would bury the times I write about pretty much anything else.  However, I decided to make an exception due to the lack of a live, ongoing Monday Night RAW for January 26th (snow storms in the northeast have caused RAW to be postponed until Thursday and Smackdown to be canceled for the week), to discuss last night’s Royal Rumble Pay-Per-View because the events that transpired were so out there that they actually got mainstream media coverage.

Last night, Roman Reigns won the 30-Man Royal Rumble match to put him in the main event at Wrestlemania 31 against WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar, but fans were not pleased with the outcome.  They booed, they raged, they blocked arena exits, they protested, and even canceled their monthly subscriptions to the WWE Network.  One year ago, Batista suffered the same reaction for winning the Royal Rumble, and oddly enough the fans were begging Roman Reigns to eliminate Batista and go on to the Royal Rumble.  At the time Reigns was one of the three members of The Shield, a faction consisting of Reigns, Dean Ambrose, and Seth Rollins.
So why is it that now that the Shield has disbanded people despise Reigns?  He still has the same moves, same entrance, and same ring gear.  He’s essentially the only guy who hasn’t actually moved on.  He looks like a man in denial the Shield is done.  Why is it that a year later, the fans want this guy’s head?  Is Reigns really that awful? Let’s look at then, now, and the future and figure out what’s what.

For the last few years WWE has struggled with its Royal Rumble shows. The titular gimmick match, which is always the central attraction no matter what else is on the show, has seemingly become a problem for them. In theory it’s an easy match to get right. You ascertain who the audience wants to see win and you have them win. Or you pick a hot heel that people really don’t want to see win. WWE’s booking crew seem to have forgotten this, which has led to a string of limp, uninspiring matches.

This year was no different. A man neither the live crowd nor the home audience really wanted to see win was the man that won. Not only that but he did so in the most underwhelming, clichéd manner possible. It was a poor end to a poor pay-per-view.

This was not helped by a generic undercard. The show kicked off with The Ascension versus the New Age Outlaws. It wasn’t a bad match, but that in itself made it a slight disappointment. The Outlaws should have been very quickly squashed by Konor and Viktor in an attempt to erase the memory of the Kliq and the APA, all of whom are well into their forties, easily dispatching The Ascension on RAW. Because it’s The Ascension who are going to be of more benefit to WWE in the future, not the stars form the 90s.

FACEPAINT!!!

But we didn’t get that. Instead we got a competent match that ended with Billy Gunn tagging in to take Total Elimina- sorry, I mean The Fall of Man. It was the right result but the wrong route was taken to get to it.

For the first time in years WWE had crafted an unpredictable beginning to WrestleMania season. The WWE championship match could be won by any of its three participants. The Rumble match has numerous possible winners. And there are three part-timers floating around who'll probably end up playing a part in the WrestleMania card but it's not obvious what.

And it's at the Royal Rumble where it will all start to take shape.

This is an interesting night to be recapping RAW if for nothing else the fact that many of the indy promotions, including ISW and BeyondWrestling, who have had talent appear on our site and show are hosting an event called the #RAWlternative, where Independent Wrestlers are doing a live, free broadcast, with some of their absolute best matches and talent going head-to-head with RAW.  The event is trending on Twitter, people are talking about it and I think it is brilliant – and that’s a good reason for me to recap Monday Night RAW, to do the whole “watching it so you don’t have to” bit that I’ve done for years now.
Oh yeah, I took last week off because fuck you, none of you guys pay me (jasonrivera@gmail.com by the way via PayPal.  I really wasn’t feeling last week’s show but have faith that since this is a go-home show it will be decent… …clearly my optimism is my biggest flaw.

I forgot it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Thanks for reminding me, RAW.  I seriously keep forgetting.  I walked all the way to the mailbox, checked the mail, I go “wait there’s no mail, what the hell?” Then I face-palm remembering “oh wait it’s a holiday.”  Often I wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would think if he saw all the ridiculousness when people get out of hand and assume things are racist which are not.  You know somewhere, somebody is reading this and raging that I “forgot” it was Martin Luther King Jr. day until now.  People are so sensitive. RAW is live from Dallas, Texas tonight.  I wonder if anyone backstage is watching #RAWlternative or if anyone in management is sweating it.  I think that competition is good so I hope it does well.

The reported attendance for the final night of the WWN’s tour of China was 10,500.Even if that was inflated (and this is wrestling so there’s a very good chance it was) that’s a far cry from the average turn out for an EVOLVE, Shine or FIP card. Even on WrestleMania weekends the company comes nowhere close to attracting even half of that number. So in terms of opening up a fresh market and getting a good attendance number the WWN tour’s final offering was a success.

WWN’s third Chinese supershow once again kicked off with Johnny Gargano. Opposite him was Chuck Taylor, who had headlined the previous two shows. Yep, a battle of former Ronin teammates was considered a good way to kick off this show. In fairness it was. Both men are experienced enough to work an exciting opening match and big enough names (in regular wrestling circles, at least) to draw the crowd into the show early on. 

WWN’s second Chinese supershow kicked off with the ring announcer introducing Johnny Gargano to the ring with a series of yips. More wrestling shows should start in this way. For that matter more EVOLVE shows should feature the talents of Jody Kristofferson, Gargano’s opening match opponent on this show. His Stan Hansen tribute act is just the right level of bad to be entertaining.

I don’t think it would be unfair to say that the WWN venture struggled to remain relevant in 2014. Visa issues brought an end to Dragon Gate USA, which had initially been the streaming service’s jewel in the crown, and while EVOLVE never failed to produce a show that was good it was also a promotion that spent much of the year looking noticeably smaller than other companies operating on a similar level (most obviously ROH and CZW). Meanwhile FIP and Shine, the other major new content providers, remained regional promotions running shows once every few months. Things just didn’t come together for them.

This Saturday was the debut episode of Unlocked on Destination America. I first heard Dixie describe the idea of Unlocked being a “Director’s Cut” version of Impact and, I was greatly intrigued. When they announced Tenay would host, I was fully on board. I’m still invested in this concept for TNA’s newest show, but I feel there are some key things that TNA should think about (and I feel they will) to get more people returning to the program weekly.

This was one of the best regular episodes of NXT in some time (which is not to downplay the show’s usual high quality). Bálor versus Kidd and Zayn versus Neville both would have been acceptable main events and the women’s match and Bull versus Baron both would have been logical inclusions on the next special. Basically we were spoilt, and this is an excellent episode for people to start out on the show with.

Tyson Kidd v Finn Bálor

Tweet 1:
November
X-ray
Tango
India
Mike
Echo
SHIELD!!
Tweet 2: Roar of the crowd and so forth.
Tweet 3: Charles Robinson looking confused. Great opening shot.
Tweet 4: Calgary, dramatic pause, Alberta, Canada.
Tweet 5: Bálor versus Kidd as the opener. I'm down with this.
Tweet 6: Bálor is wearing trunks made from Christmas wrapping paper.
Tweet 7: A-Ry's changed his tune on Bálor. It's almost like he's been told off for running down a guy clearly going places.

CATS!

It’s time for RAW and I wish Iha nothing to do tomorrow and a lot of alcohol because it looks like Booker T is doing commentary again tonight while Jerry Lawler is absent due to medical reasons.

If I could be absent from life due to medical reasons I’d play the Booker T Drinking Game since I brought the old article back prior to tonight’s RAW.  Also make sure to buy things from Amazon.com using the links on the front page oe to me via PayPal at the address jasonrivera@gmail.com or there may not BE a site in 2015.  If you like what I’m doing every bit of support helps keep the doors open.

Trippy dreams and the Giant Nose of Mark Harmon end the last few minutes of NCIS.  Mark Harmon is like a really, really, not-as-cool Liam Neeson. 

Third in the "WrestleMania installment", Rob Schamberger paints iconic moments from WrestleMania XIV.

Want to own a piece of WWE art? Visit http://auction.wwe.com/ or http://shop.wwe.com/. Also be sure to check Rob out on YouTube -https://www.youtube.com/user/robscham...
http://auction.wwe.com/iSynApp/showPa...
http://shop.wwe.com/on/demandware.sto...

Second in the "WrestleMania installment", Rob Schamberger paints iconic moments from WrestleMania 24.Want to own a piece of WWE art? Visit http://auction.wwe.com/ or http://shop.wwe.com/. Also be sure to check Rob out on YouTube -https://www.youtube.com/user/robscham...http://auction.wwe.com/iSynApp/showPa...http://shop.wwe.com/on/demandware.sto...

Time is relative. Time is too slow when waiting and time paces too fast for a moment you don’t want to end. Time is the one commodity in life that we can never replenish. I know; heavy stuff for wrestling websites, but its truth. These last 3 weeks has been a mixture. Time has sped by due to spending it with family, which is amazing. However, the time that I have been away from writing has crawled because I’ve been building up opinions for what is going on within Impact Wrestling. Their time away from providing new weekly content has also given me this craving desire to see what will be the next chapter for Impact Wrestling. With the time that we’ve had from the last “normal” episode of Impact, these are a few points that have really kept my interest.