|
Posted by Ris Laiman on Tuesday, May 2, 2017 LAIMAN'S LINKS Marissa's Website Marissa's Blog Marissa’s podcast Twitter - @RisMcCool Email - [email protected] My newest novel, Voice in the Dark, with contributions from Dan Arel, Noah Lugeons, Matthew O'Neil, Karen Garst, Melina Barratt, and Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, is available for pre-order and will be released on July 14, 2017. A percentage of the proceeds go to Wolves Den in Flint to help the water protectors there. IN LAIMAN'S TERMS #305 - Thoughts on RAW - 7-17-2017 This past Friday night, I celebrated 100 episodes of the Inciting Incident podcast with a live show in Carlisle, PA. I had some awesome people joining me on stage for the show. Thanks to all who came out! My new cohost Bethany and me under the marquee. Me, Ari Stillman, Callie Wright, Heath Enwright, Andrew Torrez, Noah Lugeons, Bethany, Thomas Smith, and Chris Kluwe. 1. The question surely on everyone's mind is: Will Kurt Angle's big reveal end up trolling us into a Terrance and Phillip episode? 2. I'm really glad that Corey Graves is involved in a storyline somehow, even if his participation seems random and unexplained. 3. No time wasted in getting things a bit crazy with someone, and his name is Dean. We like Dean. 4. So many recaps! 5. Dean introduces his chair as Steely Dan. Most of the audience doesn't get the joke. He throws down the challenge for the fun to continue, but having seen one episode of wrestling ever, we know that's not gonna happen. 6. Instead, Crossfit Jesus comes out, and I want to remind you there is totally NOT going to be a Shield reunion of some kind. Not. Gonna. Happen. He seems to be eager for Dean to harness his inner RVD and just relax, duuuuuuuuuude. 7. The crowd loves the idea of Ambrose being at the side of Crossfit Jesus, so naturally they're gonna tease it out even more. 8. Holy HAM Sandwich, CFJ! Even the sound guy didn't have time to adjust to that quick escalation. CFJ challenges him to hit him in the back with the chair to make up for the Shield breakup. The question I'm wondering right now is, how does Roman end up getting involved in this? 9. Dean throws his chair out of the ring, and then Miz finally comes out with the supporting cast. He's gonna talk some strat game to the modern day opportunist. They both have chairs, and Steely Dan gets picked up by Miz. That suddenly came back as a really stupid idea, didn't it? The crowd actually cheered for Roman to come out. That's why it's not going to happen. They found out: we'd like that. 10. This is the most badass the Miz has ever looked, and it has resurrected the careers of Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel. Fantastic opening segment. 11. The champ is gonna have a singles match on TV, and in our experience, it could be one of the two main ways they know how to get a contender in a title match. 12. Alexa's hair is freaking awesome. I'm amazed when anyone can keep pink dye in longer than a night. 13. But that was a fun two minutes of wrestling, because here comes NIa Jax. How does she summon her power without the Lita eye-close up? Stay tuned! 14. Strange that Nia came out but Sasha didn't, since that's the tag team angle they've been pushing. 15. Did the ref just blow a whistle? Is that a thing now? 16. Little Swiss MIss? Really? 17. Ohai Sasha, she's an RKO because Cole said it was Outta Nowhere. When will something or someone be out of Parts Unknown again? And then Bayley gets a non-title victory over the champion. Damn, who saw that coming? 18. They're giving away Hardyz/Revival already, huh? 19. Agent Corey Graves has been called away for duty again while they're transitioning into showing how important award shows are. 20. Filler, filler, FILL-ER! 21. Why is Subway using the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme now? 22. Now that we've got a random cruiserweight tag match, as those have always gone over so well, we can at least see they finally stopped with the stupid rope changes. But when I can't even remember the last time we saw three of these four in the ring on RAW, why are we supposed to care? The crowd certainly doesn't. 23. The faces win via Justin Gabriel match moment, and at least Jack Gallagher got a television spot again. 24. When did Enzo begin slowly morphing into discount Tom Green? 25. It took Enzo a while to get going on the point, but once it does, it's reminiscent of the buildup for their match, rather than the disappointing match that resulted from it. I'm interested to see where it goes. 26. Enzo's promo is a big fan of Tubthumping mentality, though the math logic is still confusing me a bit. 27. Incoming HAM: YOU BOUNCED A CHECK! YOU BOUNCED A CHECK! AND VINNIE MCMAHON LIKES BIG SWEATY MEN! 28. Enzo tries to use Cass's old line, and like many other times, it got interrupted. 29. Cass blames his troubles on Corey Graves. Thankfully, his massive name remains behind his head to remind us who he is. Enzo then does what he accused Cass of doing and powders. Then he finds some terrified kid in an Enzo wig to watch the match with, and it's the Big Show. The kid leaves as quickly as possible, I'm guessing like the Universal Studios contest winners did. And let's face it, that was the real culprit. 30. Cass goes for the cheap shot, but it works about as well for him as it did last week. Great way to start off his singles push, eh? Booker T says that he's out there fighting a "true" giant. As opposed to what, the other seven footer being a fake giant? Or a San Francisco Giant? What does that even mean? 31. So there's no ref out there for a supposedly scheduled match? Usually when people fight unscheduled, it's broken up in seconds. Consistency much? And how could it be a cheap shot to start the match if there was no match? 32. Cass really got a leg over on Big Show, and looks like a freaking beast. Of course that makes Cole talk about having never seen Big Show in this state. Come on, man, you were there when he got thrown off a coffin being drug away on a car. 33. Enzo runs in the ring and gets kicked right in the fuck. And Dean Ambrose is the one who never has a plan? Kay. 34. Show got himself busted open by the 26-year-old. That won't end well for the 26-year-old Cass, who is 26 by the way. 35. Roman always gets an interview, but at least he seems to be embracing that new douchebag aura. His interview is so low that I can't hear anything but grumbling and a bass line, but I'm assuming yard, the guy, big dog. 36. Did Cole seriously tell the same freaking story again like it was the first time? Also, a little LOL about Graves being able to personally verify that story, given that Samson trained and worked in his home area and for the same company for a bit. Truth in wrestling. 37. Samson busted out the MasterLock? Damn, I can remember that being a big deal for a few months back in the day! 38. Is the whole crowd like that Enzo kid? Excited to be there, but not particularly interested in expressing it, and mildly terrified at the same time? 39. Finn starts getting the upperhand, but Samson summons his inner Nikki from Chrono Cross and Jeff Jarrett's the shit out of Finn's head. Shame, that was a nice guitar too. Someone said a bad word too. Looks like that shot landed a little low too. Shit, he got busted open BAD! I saw that towel pulled away. 40. Oh look, Bray Wyatt's here to do a surprise ramble! Is it just my cable or is the low sound really bad tonight? I can only hear half the words he and Reigns were saying, though the latter I'm not too broken up about. 41. Is he reading this promo off of someone's FetLife or something? 42. Kurt gets yet another phone call interrupted, and this time Bayley and Sasha will face each other to face Bliss. No-finish to make it another triple threat? Might as well use the other overdone cliche in there. 43. Network pitch time, where they have to pretend to be excited about a Punjabi Prison match. Or a Jinder Mahal/Randy Orton match. Or a Jinder Mahal match at all. 44. Now that the Revival aren't the ones who attacked Enzo, are we ever gonna explain why they were suspiciously and conspicuously hanging around. But, once again stealing Bray's FetLife profile, "four good fists and they're ready to use them?" Yeah, that's where I tuned out of the conversation too. 45. We're set for Cruiserweight action, but how will we know that if he doesn't tell us that it's all about hashtag 205Live? 46. Who can blame someone for not wanting to take advice from Titus O'Neill? How well has that gone for anyone he's been involved with? 47. Wait, Titus stood on the ring, and that caused a DQ? What? No, he asked him to stop the match? He's willing to do that there, but he's not willing to do that when Crews is getting manhandled by Braun Strowman? And Tozawa is rightfully pissed. That was awkward as hell... 48. Moment of truth, for the awkward man to be more awkward. They're "What?"ing him. I really hate you, crowd. 49. So if they're all super supportive and everything, what's the big deal? 50. When he mentioned something about Clarion, I thought they were going to go into the allegations that he had to deal with while he was there. But we're going with the unknown child thing? Please don't tell me it's about to be a Hornswoggle debacle. 51. Wait, they're going with it being Jason Jordan? I knew they'd get Alpha involved with Kurt Angle and all, but I didn't see that coming. Does that mean they're breaking up Alpha? I was hoping they'd be the new Team Angle, but this is not the way I expected that to happen. 52. I've already said this at least once tonight, but wow that was awkward... 53. Good, let's watch what we just watched over again, entrance included. Then Corey gets to say the exact same thing that he said in the previous segment. 54. So Alpha was spoken of in the past tense? We're just ending that now? What the actual fuck? I need to stop liking things. 55. I find it a little weird that the Hardyz logo still has a 3 in it, when it was meant to refer to the two of them and Lita. I do miss that era sometimes. 56. The Hardyz attack right away, showing that faces can be intense as well, even when they're not named Roman Reigns. How long will those DELETE chants be shouted before they embrace them? Jeff's even encouraging the Brother Nero chants. Get this resolved soon, dammit! 57. This is just old school tag team wrestling, and I love it. Fantastic use of tag team psychology to build up to the hot tag. 58. Lot of rollup attempts on tonight's RAW. It's like a 2011 Kelly Kelly Diva's Division match set the pace for this show. 59. They got the cheap pin, and despite Jeff clearly changing position, they ignore it. Kay. The Hardyz take another step toward Dudleyz nostalgia run. 60. They move through a bar with a country band playing and then see a guy with a Misfits t-shirt on the outside. That's an interesting combination. This is the third segment involving Titus and Tozawa. Joy. 61. Joe, like some of the commentary tonight, seems to be stuck in a time loop. Tries to get back in the ring, fails. Tries again, fails. At least he didn't throw a chair out right before one of his enemies took it. That would be really silly. 62. "Samoa Joe with a scowl on his face." Really? Cause he's usually so bright and chipper! 63. Even Roman tries to get in on that 2011 Ultimate Divas Finisher Game! 64. What a counter to the drive-by! That looked vicious as hell! 65. How many times can Cole say "ohmyJBL!" before it doesn't mean anything. That pop when he came out though... Damn. 66. The no-contest ending of this match is hardly a surprise. We're probably gonna see a three or four-way match involving these four, and at least that's better than Roman/Bork again. 68. Badass moment from Joe going straight at him, even though it doesn't last. We've got a super spear to set up for. I'll admit, having Joe in the Clutch while he did it was a cool moment. I agree with the crowd, this is pretty awesome. 69. WWE Security must've had the night off tonight. 70. Braun does the "about to leave but nah" but then NOW security decides to do their jobs. That's always worked before. Not like there are consequences for it anyway, so why would he listen? 71. I suppose it's all right. It had some very good moments, but I feel like they're in a holding pattern again. The biggest thing I wish for from this company is some consistency, and they're still relying on the two cliches of ways to make championship matches. There are a lot of things going on right now though that have the potential to make for some great televised wrestling, and that's the direction I hope it goes. HAM OF THE NIGHT Gotta give it to CFJ for that unexpected, "well that escalated quickly" apology. 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 3-28-17 - Mizcena/Mizbryan/John Cena 4-1-17 - Bobby Roode's dueling pianists 4-2-17 - The Undertaker 4-3-17 - Chris Jericho 4-4-17 - Shinsuke Nakamura 4-10-17 - Braun Strowman 4-11-17 - Shinsuke Nakamura 4-17-17 - Samoa Joe 4-18-17 - Nobody 4-24-17 - Alexa Bliss 4-25-17 - Dolph Ziggler 5-8-17 - The Miz 5-9-17 - The Usos 5-15-17 - Titus O'Neill 5-16-17 - Fandango/Tyler Breeze 5-22-17 - Bray Wyatt 5-29-17 - Alexa Bliss/Ohai Bayley 5-30-17 - Fashion Files 6-5-17 - The Miz 6-26-17 - Paul Heyman 6-27-17 - The Ascension 7-3-17 - TROOF 7-10-17 - Paul Heyman 7-17-17 - Crossfit Jesus 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].
|
