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”The Doc” Chad Matthews has been a featured writer for LOP since 2004. Initially offering detailed recaps and reviews for WWE's top programs, he transitioned to writing columns in 2010. In addition to his discussion-provoking current event pieces, he has written many acclaimed series about WrestleMania, as well as a popular short story chronicle. The Doc has also penned a book, The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment, published in 2013. It has been called “the best wrestling book I have ever read” and holds a 5-star rating on Amazon, where it peaked at #3 on the wrestling charts. Follow @TheDocLOP Go-Home Smackdown Review Go-Home Raw Review Go-Home Smackdown Review QUESTION OF THE DAY: Who do you think is going to win the Royal Rumble Match? And who will he face at WrestleMania? The Road to The Royal Rumble has been a microcosm of the dichotomy that has emerged between Raw and Smackdown since brand split 2.0 began last July. Though WWE generally has done well this January to cultivate an unpredictable environment surrounding the Royal Rumble Match, for the most part Smackdown has been deserving of the lion’s share of praise for the season to date being so compelling. Its top rivalry has been the best thing on WWE TV and the rest of the roster has, week in and week out, stepped up near that level too. Smackdown’s go-home show ahead of the Rumble continued that trend. As we prepare our travels for Orlando in April, it is uncertain which brand will earn the top-billed match on the grandest stage, but it certainly feels like it should be Smackdown. It is important to remember that WWE will, in all likelihood, want the Royal Rumble winner to maintain its status as the other half of the WrestleMania main-event, something it had lost during the latter days of the original brand split and regained from 2013-2016; and the blue team’s AJ Styles and John Cena, no matter who emerges as WWE Champion after Sunday, have proven unequivocally in recent weeks how much they deserve to face the Rumble winner at Mania in the main-event. The WWE and Universal Title feuds on Smackdown and Raw, respectively, have been a study in contrasts. While Kevin Owens built his early reputation on being a hard-charging bad ass heel unafraid of even the biggest veteran stars, he has often been reduced by shoddy Raw booking to a chicken-you-know-what afraid of a No-DQ stipulation and seemingly of Roman Reigns as well; he heads into the Rumble to defend his title with the final thought that he shared being laced with inferiority. Meanwhile, AJ Styles – in many ways the stereotypical independent darling who just so happened to overshoot expectations in just about every conceivable fashion this past year – heads into his match at the Rumble full of confidence, you-know-what and vinegar and motivated by both real and perceived slights from John Cena. Reigns, on Raw, has absolutely nothing interesting to say; Cena, on Smackdown, cannot seem to open his mouth these days without cutting an engaging promo. Unquestionably, the unpredictability of the Royal Rumble Match is one of the best things about this year's January Classic, but the best thing about it feels to me like it is going to be the Cena vs. Styles match for the WWE Championship. Their segment on Smackdown, yet again a fantastic back-and-forth interview, was what pro wrestling on television is all about; it is not about the wrestling, but the things that the characters do and say to invest us in the wrestling that takes place on PPV. The situation involving The Wyatt Family also continues to be intriguing. How seamlessly Randy Orton transitioned into a new role afforded the creative team the time to allow the character dynamics to develop among the members and the commitment to slowly progressing the angle is paying off. Orton and Luke Harper had a good match to open Smackdown this week, with Bray watching at ringside. The definitive victory for The Viper and the subsequent actions of The Eater of Worlds against Harper adds another layer to the scenario; we have been teased before about the original members going their separate ways, so we probably know better than to assume that Harper has been ousted. JBL called it a potential case of “tough love.” All three are in the Royal Rumble Match on Sunday and both Orton and Wyatt are considered by some to be dark-horse candidates to win it; how Harper reacts to what happened on Tuesday night could very well be the determining factor in their potential destinies and, most likely, will serve to pen the next chapter of this developing saga. It seems probable that Orton and Wyatt will continue to be driven toward whatever end WWE has in mind for them at “The Show of Shows.” The elements are there for theirs to become one of those WrestleMania-enhancing mid-card feuds, which could be really good for Wyatt’s career at this point. Do not underrate Orton's place in the current WWE landscape. He was in the main-event at WrestleMania XXX, but has spent the rest of the decade mostly featured in one of the top mid-card bouts, elevating both by association and match quality the opponent he has worked with. If Wyatt joins the list of beneficiaries that includes CM Punk and Seth Rollins, then it will be hard not to reflect back on the time spent since last August building this story as a success. Success has abounded for the women of WWE this week. Smackdown bolstered the strong Monday night from the Raw women's division and, even though their reward for continually stepping up on Tuesday nights is just a six-woman tag at the Rumble, hopefully when the lights are on brightest in a couple of months, the Smackdown Women's Championship will be featured on the main card in a title defense. Mickie James would probably factor into that scene; her return promo was spot on in its angry annoyance at being so often left out of the conversation about women who paved the way for the revolutionaries and it has the potential to be a real joy to watch her in an environment where she can thrive in WWE. The interaction between Alexa Bliss and Naomi was the surprise hit of the night, strengthening the growing body of work that the SD Women's Champion has been putting together over the last five months; the best of the best elevate those who they work with and, if the promos exchanged between her and Naomi are any indication, Bliss may have added that attribute to her arsenal too. Nattie and Nikki has picked up where Bella and Carmella left off in December and have been that solid, second women's feud that had eluded the division for so long before the split. Hopefully, their collective place on the Rumble card will mirror the kind of time afforded them at Summerslam last year, only with the division having matured so much since then, perhaps the crowd reaction will be far greater. Heading into Royal Rumble Weekend, Smackdown did exactly what it needed to do, bolstering the Raw go-home show with a typically strong effort that hyped a few realistic long-shot candidates beyond Wyatt and Orton to win the Rumble (see Miz, Ambrose, and Ziggler particularly), reminded why its women’s division is absolutely as good or better than Raw’s, and fanned the flames for the final time on WWE’s overall top feud, Cena vs. Styles. Now, it’s go-time… Go-Home Raw Review Allow me this opportunity, if you will, to do my best Paul Heyman impersonation in written form. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is “The Doc” Chad Matthews and I am an advocate for a gripping Road to WrestleMania 33 beginning with a compelling Royal Rumble event this Sunday… However, allow me to recap for you the end of the closing segment from Raw that threatens that for which I advocate: Checking in at a total combined age of 140 years old, I remind you, “The Beast” Brock Lesnar, “Da Man” Goldberg, and “The Deadman” The Undertaker. End impersonation. Forgive me if I read as a bit down on how the go-home Raw faded to black last night. For what it was worth, it was engaging to see Lesnar show up unexpectedly to stare down Goldberg in the center of the ring and it was nostalgic to see Undertaker make a surprise appearance to join them. My engagement and nostalgia quickly worse off, though, when the HD cameras captured for my HD TV viewing a relatively still moment that made it painfully obvious that Undertaker and Goldberg are old men. To quote The Wedding Singer (Adam Sandler movie), “Nobody wants to see an old guy hitting on chicks,” referencing why TV shows eventually run their course and get cancelled. I have reached the point where I no longer care to see old guys wrestling and I sure wish WWE would move on from them. WWE is an interesting beast. The opening montage it plays at the beginning of every broadcast reads, “Then. Now. Forever.” It is a company that is cognizant and very celebratory about its history; and, for that, I am appreciative. That said, there is a fine line between celebrating history and living in the past and, somewhere along the line, WWE decided to cross over to the latter side. Part of what makes that interesting is that seeing Undertaker or Goldberg for many of us, it cannot be denied, tugs on the strings of our youth and draws our collective attention as wrestling fans in a manner that stars still establishing themselves cannot. In many ways, these legendary performers coming back during WrestleMania Season have replaced the tendency from WWE’s past to lure in big celebrities for huge roles that drew casual fan interest; it is a reflection of the place that WWE has reached in pop culture that the legends are the draw for casual fan interest. WrestleMania 33 is poised to become the second “Showcase of the Immortals” in three years to prominently feature more than one wrestler over the age of 50 in marquee matches. Therein lies the problem; this time of the year has just gotten to be too much about the past and, as much as I am personally committed to judging WWE shows based on what they are rather than what I would like them to be and as much as I absolutely do not want this to come across with a jaded tone, I have gotten to a point where, as a fan, I simply no longer feel that nostalgic reverence for old men putting their gear back on to step back in the ring for “one more match.” There is a roster of hungry stars in their primes chomping at the bit for the opportunity to be Mania headliners; they have earned the right to have the legends compliment them instead of them being forced to compliment the legends. As such, I was not particularly moved by the closing segment from Raw. On “The Doc Says” this week during my Royal Rumble Weekend Preview, I will discuss the balance that WWE desperately needs to strike this Sunday between past and present, but seeing Oldberg and The Walking Deadman standing tall as the last image we saw from the flagship before the Rumble left me feeling like a shroud was falling over yet another Mania Season. Luckily, the Royal Rumble Match is still highly unpredictable, which is a great thing. And luckily, Raw is a variety show, so there were plenty of things that went down Monday night that I did enjoy and that I did feel had a tremendously positive impact on the aura of the Royal Rumble. The Charlotte and Bayley sit-down interviews with Corey Graves, for instance, were outstanding. Live segments in recent weeks between the pair have struggled to connect in the way that their taped segments did last night; that is an on-going problem for many stars of the current generation and you wonder why Vince and Co. do not play to the strengths of such roster members by doing a great deal more taped interviews, which allow a hit or miss live talker like Charlotte to succinctly get across her character’s motivations without belaboring her points with long periods of uncomfortable silence and which allow a talent with limited charisma like Bayley to be herself without forcing out poorly scripted dialogue. If the object of a go-home TV show ahead of a PPV is to enhance anticipation, then Bayley and Charlotte’s segments did very well to up the ante for their Raw Women’s Title bout. The match on the Royal Rumble card that probably needed the biggest boost this week was Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens. Monotonous and horrible should not be confused, but the monotony of the Reigns-Owens/Jericho storyline these past two months has been pronounced. On the surface, this week was more of the same, but the fact that it was beginning to feel like a foregone conclusion that we were about to embark on a third straight Road to Mania with Reigns as “The Guy” was badly in need of being addressed and, to their credit, they did indeed address it. Roman got the upper-hand on Jeri-KO, plus a No-DQ stipulation was added to the shark cage element for Sunday’s Universal Championship match; Booking 101 would suggest that the last guy to get the upper-hand will lose and that No-DQ generally favors the heel. What 24 hours ago was very predictable now may not be. In hindsight, the last three weeks have offered decent balance in momentum, so there is some doubt as to the outcome and, especially in the case of a mundane feud like this one has been, unpredictability will be an essential element to the match’s success. Speaking of needing a boost, perhaps the best thing to happen all night on Raw was Seth Rollins and Triple H finally advancing their saga beyond its starting point from last August. After five months, all that was really needed was SOMETHING. Though I am of the opinion that The Architect will concoct a way to get back into the Rumble, having The Game’s music hit to distract Rollins from winning what had been a great TV match with Sami Zayn may possibly prove to be the spark that was needed to get Seth back on track after a ho-hum few months. The babyface transition has not been particularly smooth for Rollins, with a faulty foundation for the HHH feud (bad guy betrayed by badder guy equals reason to become good guy) and a stagnant creative process thereafter stunting his character’s growth. He has been at his best when channeling his inner-anarchist, making declarations about burning the establishment to the ground and – as he did last night – venting his frustrations regarding the reclamation project he had started during his knee rehabilitation being sabotaged by people he once trusted. I don’t believe the Seth Rollins that slaps hands with the other protagonists, but I believe the Seth Rollins that we saw last night. The modern day heroic persona has to have obstacles to overcome that fans can perceive as legitimate enough to suspend their disbelief. Rollins still has a chance to become a great hero and Monday night was a step in the right direction toward that end; part of the intrigue for the Rumble now rests in what he will do next. Overall, my excitement for the Royal Rumble was pretty high to begin with. Raw did well to augment that enthusiasm thanks to Rollins, Bayley, Charlotte, the booking of the Reigns-KO-Jericho segment, and (admittedly) a little bit of nostalgia during the over-run. WWE will hopefully prove mindful of how to utilize the legends, though, and to mix and match them with stars from this “new era” they have been so heavily promoting since last April.
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