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LAIMAN'S LINKS Marissa's Blog Support In Laiman's Terms on Patreon Marissa’s podcast Inciting Incident Facebook Page DaWrestlingGuy.com Twitter - @RisMcCool Email - [email protected] Check out The PC Lie, Marissa’s newest book with the foreword by Chris Kluwe, and contributing essays from Andrew Torrez, Eli Bosnick, and many others! Available on Amazon, CreateSpace, or a personally-signed copy by emailing [email protected] . Support her writing and get early access to her next book False Start: A Novel, not to mention the second edition of Taking Bumps, at Support Marissa’s writing on Patreon GUEST APPEARANCES This week, I was on the Utah Outcasts podcast, which you can find Here LIVE SHOW So, holy shit guys, we’re hosting a live show for Inciting Incident’s 100th episode on July 14th, 2017 in Carlisle, PA. In addition to me, we have a stunning guest list, which includes Callie Wright, Ari Stillman, Thomas Smith, Andrew Torrez, Noah Lugeons, Eli Bosnick, Heath Enwright, and my foreword writer, Chris Kluwe! Tickets are now available IN LAIMAN’S TERMS #266 - Thoughts on RAW - 2-6-17 1. We start off with a fantastic recap of the main segment last week. See? We don’t need a corny voice-over to tell us what it is we’re seeing. Amazing. Damn, when the video-editing department wants to, they can make something awesome seem even awesomelier! 2. We begin the live portion with the two authority figures. Joy. Mick isn’t happy about signing Samoa Joe, which is strange since he advocated for him way back in 2007. Holy shit, Samoa Joe is opening Monday Night RAW. But he’s in a suit, looking like Tazz ate Paul Heyman. Gee, there’s something I never thought I’d see, Stephanie McMahon trying to give one of the greatest talkers of all time a lesson on charisma right before trying unsuccessfully to have the voice of her father again. 3. Foley and Steph start their bickering yet again. Joe then takes the mic, stepping right up to Foley. With a similar story to AJ, he uses his background and time in the business as a platform from which to jump. Good, I’m glad we don’t have to pretend wrestlers didn’t exist before WWE. He turns up the HAM already, and I. am. LOVING IT! I’ve been waiting for years to see this! 4. And since there was far too much personality for an opening of RAW, we had to get the One-Faced Wonder himself to balance it out. Oh look, he’s standing tough and non-chalantly. Joe, on the other hand, is shooting a death glare worthy of the brown noise. Joe has graciously offered to lend Roman part of his chin as consolation. 5. Did he just manage to reference Austin and Taker in the same sentence? That’s my job, Roman! Now, fortunately, Foley steps up without emasculating either character… Take notes, Steph… And he slices some HAM of his own. He books Roman/Joe tonight, so I guess they’re not wasting any time putting Joe in the main event. Hot damn. We need a rhyming version of Rumble in the Jungle or something. Thrilla in Manilla... Samoan in the… Hipster City? I got nothing yet. 6. Crossfit Jesus is injured again, which I was hoping was only an angle, but it doesn’t appear to be so. Meanwhile, each step of the Goldberg/Lesnar rivalry has to be documented, and Bayley makes those silly boys look more fun with Kung Fu Naki cosplay accessories. I kinda like the contrast of Lobsterhead, Cesaro, and Bayley hanging out together. We haven’t had something like that consistently in a while. 7. Apparently WWE got sick of the Family Guy reference because they changed the name of the inflatable tassel people from the Terrain of Testament or something. She’s facing Nia Jax, because after pinning the champion, surely you should be punished. Rematch is next week, and it’s not at a PPV, so Bayley might have a chance to win before she loses it again at Fast Lane. 8. I love when they treat matches like this that like they’ve never happened before. Wait, the commentators acknowledged it, so it’s cool. Bayley’s beaten her twice, but we still have to pretend that Bayley doesn’t know how to wrestle her. Michael Cole thinks we’re so dumb that he has to explain that Nia has a smirk. Thanks for the clarification, MC. I know we had the OFW in the previous segment, but we can determine what emoting is all the same. 8. This has gone awfully long without a commercial for a RAW match. Are you feeling okay, RAW? Oh wait, reversal of momentum, hard-sell question. There it is. 9. We come back and immediately see what we just saw before we left. Thank JBL for that. I’ll be, they came back right before the hope spot. Goll-e! Did Dustin Runnels design Nia’s costume tonight? Because he should’ve. Bayley powders and wonders why she wore a red headband with a blue and black outfit. Nia misses running Bayley into the ring post by doing it herself. 10. Charlotte distracts the ref by getting on the apron during the Tye count. Gee, is this gonna lead to Bayley not getting DQed because she hits the offense, and Nia taking advantage of the distraction? Oh look, Bayley dropkicked Charlotte off the apron and then Nia took advantage of the distraction! These opportunistic rapscallions! 11. Speaking of things that totally haven’t happened repeatedly on RAW recently, two different champions are defending after suffering non-title losses last week. Let’s see if they can make it through the Hour of Death without completely hitting us with a KENTA finisher. 12. I’m so grateful that WWE censors the word “ass” from their Supercard commercials. Wouldn’t want a show that has a storyline with someone regretting not murdering someone via elbow-drop heart attack to get too raunchy or anything. 13. They’re doing Orton/Cena on Smackdown? Hmm, hint that it’s not going to happen at WrestleMania? 14. The massive yeller returns for what’s announced as a handicap match. We then get a picture show of the Rumble, complete again with Roman looking bored during a chokeslam, because we have to have Roman involved in more than one storyline. It’s like the Rumble: we just can’t get enough Roman Reigns. The crowd is actually booing the sound guy for not having his music hit sooner! 15. Four local wrestlers are going to lose. Time for a snack break. One guy was walking away from Strowman when he got hit into the ropes. Interesting decision. “Shut up, Saxton.” Corey Graves for the win, ladies and gentlemen. I’m so glad someone in angles with main event talent is facing jobbers at this point in his storylines. It’s exciting. 16. Personal anecdote: The running powerslam is a ton of fun to take. 17. Just when I was getting happy at the way they were using Strowman and he was growing on me, we have more of this waste of flagship show space. Now he’s going to speak and, what, complain about the lack of competition again to Foley? Yep. He takes his cues from his former Wyatt Family buddies and in a roundabout way tells Foley “we’re here.” 18. Braun yells: I WANT EVERYONE! So Mick has him face Roman Reigns at Fast Lane. Therefore, Roman is everyone? Bring him everyone, Foley. Everyone? EVVVVVEERRRRRY-ONE!!!!!!!! 19. Nexte’ve got another debut from the CWC. Let’s see if that’ll help make more than four people in the arena care about it. Tozawa has some badass entrance music though, so there’s that. Must be a big Spiderman fan. He should team up with TJ at some point. He’s facing a jobber-entranced Gulak, and they appease the ROH fans and piss off fans of knees at the same time. 20. I don’t know what to make of this division. It’s necessary, I want its presence, but something’s missing. I don’t know what’s missing, but it is. To his credit, Tozawa gets the crowd chanting with… That noise he was making, and ends up winning with a German Suplex after the Shining Wizard gets a two-count. The match was fine; most of them are, but maybe the division shouldn’t be on RAW just to promote their other show? I don’t know. 21. Meanwhile, that guy who really thinks the band is going to make it, The Brian Kendrick, comes out to congratulate Tozawa and does that noise at the crowd some more before we cut to the image of another guy who yells things at the crowd. 22. Which takes the main event? The Reigns match or the Goldberg talky? 23. There’s another PPV already. Probably gonna miss this one. 24. That guy dressed as Hogan is back, and he’s holding a mini-Kane. That is a sentence I never thought I’d write. Meanwhile, Jericho looks like he recently smelled a martini fart as always. Speaking of always, KO gives pretty much the same “they said I couldn’t do it, but I did” victory promo. Jericho decides to call out… Tom Brady? Tell me he’s gonna make The List… Tell me he’s gonna make The List… Tom Brady made the list. Instant face turn. 25. Jericho pretty much indicates what we all thought would happen, and uses the momentum from his face turn to challenge KO to a match for the title at WrestleMania. Please. Do. This. That’s why it’s not gonna happen. They found out we’d like that. 26. They’re interrupted by… Goldberg? Okay, credit where it’s due, I was not expecting that. Nice shot of the ref texting while he stands by for his Goldberg entrance cameo. He challenges them to a two-on-one handicap match under the pejorative of “growing a pair.” He has to talk to a sign, and calls it WrestleMania 33 because, like me, he thinks it’s stupid that they stopped acknowledging numbers. Goldberg accepts the Lesnar challenge… Why not? 27. KO calls it a perfect undercard match. Win. Goldberg lays down the challenge for the title against KO at Fast Lane, so at least we’ll get to see Goldberg against someone else before seeing Lesnar again. 28. Jericho tries to begin to put Goldberg on The List again, not remembering that it didn’t go well for him last time. Goldberg, not wanting a repeat of an incident of their one-time backstage interaction, puts his own name on The List and possibly the HAM too. 29. Oh cool, Popeye’s sponsored this PowerPoint slideshow before Enzo and Cass sit at chairs at ringside with no commentary table. They’re intent on challenging the winners of the tag title match… Finally. 30. This is another chronic problem of RAW. The match is fine, yes, but we’ve been watching these four face each other for weeks on end. That double-stomp double-team move was sweet though! We’re not halfway through the show yet. 31. Once we come back, Cesaro’s likely to be at a hope spot soon, if he can keep himself from being distracted by Enzo’s pants. They look like a fratboy’s dorm room under a black light, minus a few inconspicuous stains. I appreciate the hop he does before the hot tag. Shows he cares, ya know? 32. Karl’s got a crimson mustache going on. We’ve got ourselves a DQ finish. Well, since they didn’t get a clean win, are we in for a triple threat tag title match? I bet we are! 33. There’s a Crossfit Jesus injury update, so… Pre-taped stuff. We must have a cruiserweight match on in a few minutes. 34. I’m really glad I’m not paying attention to Twitter right now. I can’t wait to hear more oblivious idiots bitching about there being a Black History Month but not a… Well, you know where I’m going with that. 35. Oh goodie, the exact recap of what we already saw at the top of the show! Filler, filler, FILL-ER! Filler, filler, FILL-ER! 36. Talk about Mood Whiplash… Yay, it’s the New Day! Shit, it’s the Innovators of Silence. They mention them coming out every single week, but honestly I haven’t seen them in months. At least they put it in the Hour of Death. 37. “The New Day take on the Shooting Stars… Next!” That might be the worst hard sell I’ve ever heard. 38. I’d love to talk about this match, but… What am I really going to say about it? This is like a bad episode of WCW Saturday Night at this point. A comically-bad four-on-one obvious-ending handicap match, a glorified enhancement team facing the New Day while they stay away from the titles for a bit (at least it’s not Titus O’Neil again?)... At least we get Corey Graves on commentary, even if he doesn’t know the difference between the Shooting Stars. 39. I might give a bonus HAM for Primo and Epico being referred to as “one of the best tag teams in the WWE for a very long time.” In other news, the Browns were a missed field goal away from being in the Super Bowl. (Factory of Sadness self-joking… mostly) Xavier even makes the pinfall screaming about ice cream, which should’ve been a thing back in 2011 when arenas chanted for CM Punk to bring them back. Again, they found out we liked that, that’s why it won’t happen. 40. Great transition into that shameless Network shill, guys. Almost didn’t realize you were selling me on something. They spend several minutes totally not begging you to sign up so you can see Elimination Chamber for free. Joy. Then we get Jericho being paranoid and having a frowny face. From this angle of Jericho repeatedly nodding, he looks like he’s about to shmooze Rory Gilmore with a coffee cart. 41. “The reason I decided to sign up for eHarmony is that you have to pay for it, and I feel that means they’re serious.” Great spin on that “give us money to meet people” thing, EH. 42. After a package for the Rock and Roll Express, Dancy Ska Man is out for his match against Jericho. KO’s at ringside being a super best friend, and this is where things start breaking down for the BFF Club. Holy shit, that arena looks freaking EMPTY! When there is that much space between the lights, that’s a bad sign. 43. I had to mute it because the people in my house (Sans Mr. Laiman) have never heard Hannibal Buress’s bit about Jaywalking. The presence of Canadians reminded Mr. Laiman of it, and that’s how it works in this house. If you don’t get a reference, we’re more than happy to clarify. That goes for the pop culture references in this column too. 44. How come Jericho listening to the crowd never works for him, but it does for HOAK HOGAN?! What’s the symbol on the back of Zayn’s pants? I never noticed that before. I could watch Jericho and Zayn wrestle for another thirty minutes. This is good stuff, and we saw it last week. That says something, especially these days. Zayn ends up retaining and doing his best Kurt winning the Olympics impression for a few seconds. 45. The Codebreaker looked more vicious this time around. Maybe it was the one knee, GTS-style angle on it? Either way, touches like that are nice. 46. Recap of what we just saw, then recap of what we saw earlier. A recap of Kevin Owens while Kevin Owens is still out there. Joy. 47. Fast Lane this year is brought to you by Speed Racer graphics brought to you by Pink Floyd’s laser show. 48. Red lights and fire outside… Kane’s arena? 49. Holy shit, how is Sasha Banks still allowed to come to work? And Charlotte, honey… Is that just the shadows or do you have bruises? I hope it’s not the latter. 50. Meanwhile, in Purplean Land, we have Austin Aries on the mic. I approve. Neville’s got a new intro on that theme with the Kane-style surprise pyro. He’s selling the hell out of 205 with a Fatal-Five Way match to face the self-proclaimed King. Please have Austin plug all the things from now on. Austin has the habit of asking questions that make people stare for a lengthy period of time. Skinny King Robert Baratheon will make them all bow. In the end, they always bend the knee. 51. Cedric Alexander interrupts, but no wait, Dar cuts it off with his LuLaRoe leggings for a jacket. They’re gonna cram all five in this. Wait, Gallagher’s here, it’s all cool. Please have Aries interview Jack at some point. He gets frustrated with all the interruptions, so he introduces “Tony Nese’s abs.” Looks like I’m not the only one making Game of Thrones references in this segment, eh Austin? 52. I’m sorry, TJ Perkins, but you claiming to have unfinished business is the least intimidating threat I’ve ever heard. Gallagher gets the better of Neville, so I’m really hoping that’s the match we get. Nese does a sick dive, but completely misses his target, then does the best to sell against the person he was supposed to hit anyway. Neville trolls the crowd and denies them the high spot. It’s like Foley refusing to fight hardcore matches back in the day. Great little moment there. 53. So how is Emma not debuting this week, after not not debuting or even having a vignette last week? Supposedly it’s next week. Mmhmm. Darren Young in his present role in the company couldn’t have done better himself. 54. Oh, this is a six-man-tag match? That really came… OUTTA NOWHERE! Wait, does that only work for RKOs? Tony Nese gets the fuckpunch of the week. Neville and Jack are the absolute delights of this division right now. Dar isn’t far behind for pretending that hanging out with Alicia Fox is something to brag about. 55. Neville refuses to tag in after hitting a devastating dropkick on TJ. Neville gives negative zero fucks, and I love every second of it. At least he gets some reactions for this show. The heels take too much time yelling at Neanderthal Chin, and we get to see TJ and Cedric’s finishers back-to-back. That was fun. What happened to Mr. Reverse Shooting Star though? Surprised I haven’t seen much of him since I saw him in person in Cleveland. Or is my memory/apathy that bad? 56. Another segment with KO/Jericho talking about how unbreakable their friendship is. Jericho proclaims a festival is in order. The Festival of Friendship? Is it the new generation’s This is Your Life? Please let it be that. I’m already declaring it the frontrunner for HAM of the Night. Wow. 57. Another recap of Joe HAMming it up, and Reigns sounding bored as usual. Wait, it wasn’t Austin he was referencing, it was Rikishi’s near-inaudible heel entrance theme! He’s a baaaaad man. 58. FUUUUUUUUCK CHRISLEY KNOWS BEST! Can we get Stomppunk Fuckpunches for the people keeping that on the air? Or at least for constantly running ads for that inane bullshit? It’s like Total Divas but with less likability. And given my fondness for that perpetual trainwreck, that’s saying something. 59. Wait, they’re showing a recap of the Rumble with video? Is that allowed? Alert the authorities, it’s not a slideshow! Nobody’s gonna watch the Royal Rumble now! PANIC! 60. Guys, how often does the Elimination Chamber take place? 61. Main event was announced as Up Next at 10:40. It’s 10:50, and the entrances haven’t even started yet. Can we please put this show back to two hours instead of having all this JBLdamn filler?! Or make the first hour the preview show or whatever, but they clearly either can’t or are unwilling to fill this amount of time. 62. Cole recites commercial cliches, but Joe attacks beforehand. I thought they were holding too long on that awkward profile shot. Joe claimed he was going to beat down our heroes, but he’s only beating up Reigns, who is now in, what, three feuds? Joe gets in the ring and is getting heat after massive cheers to open the show. I’ll be damned. Is this what it was going to take? 63. “The Cerebral Assassin’s Personal Assassin.” I love it! That’s perfect for Joe too. Joe is beating the hell out of Reigns on the outside, but now Cole’s cliche kicks in, so we’re gonna have that match when it comes back. Maybe. We have to, they said so! 64. We come back, and that Roman Reigns is gonna compete anyway. How’s he gonna magically come back after this amount of offense from Samoa Joe? Ah, there it is. I’d say he was selling it by sucking wind, but he does that in most matches anyway. Nope, he seems totally cool now. The crowd’s back in Joe’s corner, so I don’t know what Portland’s doing at all. 65. Honestly, most of these people may be seeing Joe wrestle for the first time, and he could be winning them over. It’s entirely possible. Cole and Graves are doing a great job of telling the story here, and I don’t get to say that often. 66. Now Roman’s getting a chant. I give up. You do you, Portland. I cringe every time that they say Roman calls it “his yard.” I’m not the biggest fan of Biker Taker, but come on. Taker earned the right to call it that. To be fair though, I haven’t cared about a Roman match in months, so that’s coming. 67. And… So much for that. Strowman yells to interfere again. It’s the same thing that happened earlier tonight in Bayley’s match, but still… Holy shit, Samoa Joe pinned Roman Reigns on his first night on Monday Night RAW. Even with the circumstances, that is freaking awesome. 68. We’re not done yet, Roman gets a running powerslam too. Man, I knew he could do it to four jobbers, but Roman Reigns, that’s a feat and a half. He is a 12.0 on a 10 point scale of badness! He’s getting a “Thank you Strowman!” chant. Our “face of the company,” everyone! There must be something I don’t know. Does he kill on merch sales? Does he get a positive rating from the non-live attendees? Braun hits Roman with another running powerslam, this time through the barricade, and that’s how we end… With Strowman getting a pop like he took out a bad heel to their delight. I can’t help but dig it. Strowman’s getting himself over, and even with the inconsistencies in how he’s handled, he has grown on me. 69. (Dudes!) This is the usual thing of RAW. The awesome moments were really awesome, the rest were… eh? But with so much crap to deal with in between, the show drags on and on and on… I was looking at the clock before 9. That’s not a good thing. But the good was really good. Joe getting a chance to be featured like that can only lead to better things. They wouldn’t put him over the golden boy, even unclean, if they didn’t have serious plans. HAM OF THE NIGHT An unusual amount of choices tonight. Do we have Jericho? Joe? Goldberg? Austin? Braun? Foley? I think Goldberg signing his own name to The List barely eked it out, but it was close. Really close. 2012 - Daniel Bryan 2013 - Paul Heyman 2016 - Chris Jericho 1-2-17 - Kevin Owens 1-3-17 - Jack Gallagher 1-9-17 - Shawn Michaels 1-10-17 - Dean Ambrose 1-16-17 - Sami Zayn 1-17-17 - John Cena 1-23-17 - Xavier Woods 1-24-17 - James Ellsworth 1-30-17 - Mick Foley 1-31-17 - Daniel Bryan 2-6-17 - Goldberg Al Laiman, In Laiman’s Terms, and Inciting Incident are owned by It’s a Shameful Thing, Lobsterhead, LLC. Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. For media or inquiries, please contact [email protected].
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