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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] Order The PC Lie Order False Start: Releasing 4-21-17 Or at http://www.wyrmwoodpublishing.com/books/ IN LAIMAN'S TERMS #278 - Thoughts on RAW - 3-27-17 It's a go-home show before WrestleMania. Hopefully it's more good promos and fewer video packages, but my hopes aren't high. 1. The Undertaker starts off by Wyatting the signature, and... That's it. Pyro in the opening? That's... refreshing. Usually it's Stephanie or someone else about to talk. Of course we're getting a contract signing, but a "hold harmless agreement?" That sounds like one of the holds on Jericho's List back in the 90s. 2. We've got Bayley opening the show, wondering how she's going to lose on the go-home show, and, SHE HAS SUMMONED THE POWER OF THE WARRIOR! They're in Philly, where I was today and probably could've gone. She points out what the sign is, damn... People should refer to that more often. 3. We're starting Monday Night Interruptions early, and I expect at least two more in this segment, possibly a Stephanie interjection of sneer and condescension. Finally, something we haven't seen yet! 4. Charlotte calls her a naive fangirl, and most of the NL East is represented in the front row. 5. Sasha and I have the same hair shade, or at least the entrance lights make it look like. They're teasing a Sasha heel turn hard, which would be weird. Who would be left on Team Face? Dana Brooke? Promotion of Asuka? Sasha HAMs it up more than usual, and Charlotte can't help Stephanieing and interrupting multiple times. 6. Shock, Nia Jax comes out, and we don't even get to find out what her eye shadow looks like up close. How can it be serious? It doesn't count without that! 7. Sasha loses her shit and decks Charlotte, and Bayley's looking like a rag doll against Nia Jax, and... onto a a commercial after a Bayley throw. 8. For a minute, I thought Corey referred to Victoria emerging. Cole asks "how can these teams get along when it's every women for themself?" This might raise some tension if we hadn't already seen some version of this multiple freaking times, but oh, look over here. Jingly keys, jingly keys! 9. Nia tags in to pure silence. That was a great Shining Stars impression. Can you do Christopher Walken? 10. At least we're getting a match... While some fans in the sixth row do impressions of the Tube men on fast forward to get on television. And we go to another commercial after Sasha is downed on the outside. 11. I'm trying really, REALLY hard to care about this match. I want to. I like everyone involved in it. But we've been seeing some combination of these four for so long now that it's not interesting. I'm sure they'll deliver at Mania, but this division needs a shot in the arm and multiple new faces. 12. Michael Cole has some great veteran advice for keeping the title. "Don't get pinned...or submit early on." Dynamite drop-in, Monty! 13. That pop when Bayley tagged in though... Clearly she should keep losing to Nia Jax repeatedly. Wow, I love that modified ropes DDT, and then they're nice enough to cut to random fans in the middle of a move. Full Sail producing the best people in the back, all right! 14. Bayley gets locked in the Figure-8, but Twilight Sparkle saves the day by holding the ropes open for Nia to slowly jump through. Nia catching her was still impressive regardless though, and Bayley wins cleanly in the ring, favoring the knee. Psychology, doing it right! 15. Nia comes in and starts hitting people, and then hits Charlotte for good measure. Graves claims that she's a 2001 faction with X-Pac, Justin Credible, and Albert, but I'm questioning his vision. 16. Another Rollins/HHH recap, and New Day trying really hard to convince us they're happy with the demotion. Recap of Foley's firing, so we can all deal with that again, and Sami Zayn gets an interview. How often before Steph interrupts him to emasculate him again? 17. Speak of the invincible, she sets him up in a match... Against Kevin Owens... again. For his job. Lovely. I wonder how a business manager can function while threatening to fire people constantly. 18. Austin Aries comes out for a match while Neville glares daggers at him. So who is Austin defeating in his warmup match tonight? Neville on commentary though... 19. Noam Dar gets on the show tonight, which unfortunately means we also get to see Alicia Fox. Great. Cole stumbles several times through pretending that anyone watches 205Live, and at least we should get a technically solid match. Aries hits one move... And we're already in commercial again. Good fucking JBL... 20. Neville tells us to expect a quick affair, which brings up all kinds of possibilities. Neville's facing Gallagher later, who had a championship shot and then disappeared from RAW... until now. Bastards. 21. Alicia Fox tries to get involved, but Austin turns around to yell at her about it... after she gets down. Aries wins 30 seconds later with the Spinning Fuckpunch. No wait, he's going for the submission! I like it. The Cruiserweights need some damn intensity for once. Neville then stands on the table to show how much he does NOT look like Joey Mercury from that angle. 22. More Triple H recaps, skip. Undertaker in a graveyard, something something yard. 23. Crossfit Jesus comes out for his exciting Moss-Covered Three Handled Family Credenza contract signing. Point to the sign, lest we forget! CFJ asks to get this done... Oh CFJ, haven't you been around for the last 20 years? There's gotta be a half hour monologue in there first! Nice touch with CFJ's new shirt, taking after Jaime Lannister. Hope he doesn't lose his Pedigreeing hand. 24. Triple H brought the snark, and unleashed it before he even stepped in the ring. Triple H is gonna explain things! Yay! I love Triple H explaining things to me! Triple H tells him to sit down and think about what he's done, or he'll give him a time out... or call off the match. We're really gonna go through with this, aren't we? 25. Make sure you get in that tagline, always hit those fucking call letters, Triple H! 26. This rhetoric evokes memories of Vince McMahon summoning the NWO to destroy what he created. Does that make the crutch the virus? 27. Triple H's heel context references... So subtle. I wonder if there's meaning beyond the people in the arena or something. 28. "Who has time for sleep?" I have no idea. I've worked in seven states this month. Triple H tells CFJ all about how his arms are sweaty, knees weak, vomit on his sweather already, Mom's spaghetti, he's nervous. Drops ultimate thrill ride again, and another shot at the indies. 29. CFJ finally calls out the repetition of things that he once believed. Good continuity. Though CFJ telling Triple H what it's like to go through rehab is somewhat amusing. Point to the sign again, just to be sure. CFJ's going to pull a Lisa and tear Triple H apart, Lisa! 30. CFJ looks like a chump again by being cheap shot. This gets us another moment of Triple H slowly taking off his formalwear, but this time CFJ catches him with an enziguiri. He goes for the Pedigree, and that goes about as well as expected. Triple H's then gets him thrown over the top rope! Damn, that's one helluva fall to take at this point in his career! CFJ finally stands tall, at least on one leg, after months. Effective segment overall, for the most part. 31. We've got an over-the-top-rope challenge. Joy. He's facing... Jinder fucking Mahal? Skip! Bo Dallas, Skip. Shining Stars? ALL THE FUCKING SKIP! Goldust, TROOF, Axel, and Darren Young, and the rest of the "barely on TV" crowd take him out. He then gets back in the rings so Show can punch everyone. Then Strowman comes out, threatening to kick Big Show's ass, because it's Head. What everybody wants. Braun got put in that match?! What a fucking waste. 32. After more recaps to skip, Club Sandwich sees Doc Gallows HAMming it up... Really, really badly. More Taker shaky edit vignette stuff. Gee guys, I bet it's Roman Reigns digging Taker's grave! That'll go over well if it happens! 33. Instead of talking about Roman getting another interview, I'm going to post a pie chart that my friend Ronnie made. 34. After skipping more sad New Day stuff, Cesaro and Lobsterhead celebrate their win. But a brawl breaks out, and the Club Sandwich attack! Cesaro gets pushed into plastic bread carts! Oh no, anything but that! 35. The Network pitch is given during Neville waiting for the returning Jack Gallagher. More of this guy on the show, please! Sell that fucking hashtag, Cole! 36. Gallagher is damn fun to watch and to see promos cut from, but holy shit, that rope throw German suplex was vicious! 37. After yet another commercial, I become increasingly more glad I didn't try to get tickets to this. Gallagher pulls a Mary Poppins, and Cole comes up with a reference that actually works! Makes reference to It's Always Sunny in response to it not raining. Well played, Sir! Neville wins, because of course he was going to, but it was still fun for a few minutes at least. 38. Austin Aries interrupts with the New Day. He drops the word "victorious" and unfortunately, there is no Bobby Roode. Austin did the Val Venis joke thing, so he might have a shot at the HAM again. I might have to hatefuck it to Doc Gallows though. 39. Roman's hair down is now, not giving a shit as he always does. Cena on daytime TV, skip. 40. Roman talks about winning the Rumble in Philly, and he's getting booed worse than the Cowboys in Philly. Roman takes the chance to quote Cena's entrance music, and ohmyJBL he turned up an actual emotion! That already makes this the best promo he's done since I returned to wrestling! 41. Taker does his dramatic appearance after a fun little trip to the graveyard, and no matter how he looks, the crowd still goes nuts. He shows up to deliver the capstone in person, which is a thrill for anyone there in person. He raises his arms, thunder sounds, and the lights slowly go off into commercial. Still cool, no matter how many times it's happened. 42. I'm really glad I was late thanks to an appointment tonight. Skipping three minutes of WrestleMania week previews saves my nerves. Enzo and Edge-in-Stilts come out, and Enzo cuts the first part of his promo to a kid. The cameraman randomly shows the top of the Titan Tron, then two fans from a low angle... Who is on camera duty tonight, jumpin' fuckin' JBL! 43. We then get the first line of Enzo's promo, and cut... to the other cameraman running down the aisle. Edge-on-Stilts then steals Enzo's hat, and... OhmyJBL he's gonna do it. Cass is doing the Allen Iverson joke! HAM over! 44. The Always Sunny reference is a little less cool since they're the second ones to say it tonight, but the crowd doesn't know it. Monday Night Interruptions continues it's streak, and Club Sandwich interrupt them to give us a match we've already seen... or not, because Cesaro and Lobsterhead attack to make them both do an impression of someone going down a water slide forward. It turns into a brawl with Enzo doing what he does best: getting punched out early in any fight. Okay, this is fun. 45. Enzo gets ladder punched off the turnbuckle, and SJK gets to make a Ryan Howard joke. Good stuff. Enzo should become a manager. He's not doing so well at this fighting thing. 46. Kevin Owens gets what is admittedly a really good promo about the match that six months ago had a final match in a rivalry, before they've had... what, three, four since then? Maybe they should've called it Once in a Lifetime or something. Another preview of CFJ/HHH again? More skipping! 47. I caught up to the DVR around 10:40, despite not starting RAW until 9pm. That's really sad. Especially since I can't skip more of the card rundown and Network shills. 48. The Marine 5, starring the Social Outcasts? I'm sold! 49. I'm expecting a Jericho save here, as they'd be stupid to give this much time to someone getting fired two weeks in a row. The match goes into the crowd quickly, and the Philly faithful will enjoy some ECW lite references. This was the place of the debut of the legendary Zombie, after all. A plancha means we're definitely going to another commercial, and fuck I can't skip! 50. These Domino's Ferris Bueller commercials were charming at first, even though I'm not fond of that movie, but I've now heard that chase theme enough times to stab myself in the ears. 51. We come back to a ringside resume of the match, and a DDT on the steps. He follows up with a senton, which is enough to make anyone nervous with his head flying back near those steps. Steel or not, that would not be pleasant. 52. Cole said Vintage! Has Zayn been around long enough to have Vintage anything? Regardless, RAW Bingo cards, out! 53. Zayn kicks out of some close calls. He did it... for da Mick! 54. Samoa Joe runs out to help his rhyming buddy, making sure to keep hold of those cufflinks. Jericho goes chair crazy, but still manages to get punched away from KO. After all, he had a chair in his hand but grabbed with his arm for some reason. Zayn gets the rollup win, KO goes on the attack, and Jericho makes the save again. Looks like the dude in the corner pissed off Joe, or vice versa. 55. Jericho takes the mic, and teases KO finally making the List. And that pop that we've been waiting MONTHS for is absolutely what we thought it would be. Jericho knows how to milk a crowd better than anyone, and that was worth the wait! 56. We're closing with Bork Laser and Goldberg tonight, no surprise. 57. Does having every single promo mention the tag line increase Network buys? Maybe I'm in the damn minority here, maybe that's it. I don't know. Heyman doing his best to troll the Philly crowd is hysterical, but they'll never boo the man. 58. As if wrestling doesn't have enough homo-eroticism, "Lesnar lusts after that title." Kiss him, you fool! 59. Heyman takes the time to put over Goldberg huge. If only someone who actually takes a bump on the show could get a rub like that. But silly me, that'd be stupid. 60. I'd like to see Goldberg get a few suplexes. It'd be nice to see the WWE Universal Champion take more moves than Pacman Jones, but I'm not counting on it. 61. Heyman is so damn smarmy, it never gets old. Goldberg's music hits, so let's see how many people got hired to stand while Goldberg huffs. Any misspelled "you're next" signs to feature on camera this week? 62. Goldberg suggests that people came to see them fight, and what a refreshing change that would be! Goldberg speared him again immediately, for fuck's sake. Somehow Bork Laser just can't get out of the box against this guy. That was a fight, apparently. Wait, the music hits? That's it? That was a fight? That was a bit of WrestleMania? I know they wouldn't do it, but the Jericho one should've ended it. At least that was less than anti-fucking-climactic. 63. I'm really not trying to be negative, I promise, but I cared more about the WrestleMania I missed entirely two years ago. There are things I'm looking forward to, but this reminds me so much of WrestleMania 29's season; going through the motions and phoning it in. I really want to see some of the full-timers steal the show. If it truly is going to be the ultimate thrill ride that they've insisted on 345 times a week, let's see someone who we're going to see past Monday night get the highest peak. 64. It was a WrestleMania go home show. Had a few good moments, but mostly full of filler, and that's to be expected. But holy shit did that ending suck. "Let's fight." One spear. Fight over. It was fun the first time, but now it's just sad. That's the best fight we could get out of those two? I'd rather watch them circle the ring at WrestleMania XX while the crowd shits all over it. At least that trainwreck was longer than either of their entrance themes. HAM OF THE NIGHT 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 2-7-17 - Daniel Bryan 2-13-17 - Chris Jericho 2-14-17 - Alexa Bliss 2-20-17 - Lana 2-21-17 - Maryse 2-27-17 - Mick Foley 2-28-17 - Bray Wyatt 3-13-17 - Paul Heyman 3-14-17 - AJ Styles 3-20-17 - Austin Aries 3-21-17 - Mizcena 3-27-17 - Big Cass Marissa 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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