Monday Night Raw Live

[Ludo*1]

It's over the past few years that I've come to accept, I'm not a wrestling fan. In fact, I'd go as far as saying, I find wrestling incredibly boring. If you gave me the choice between a Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit in their prime hour long, iron man, submission match or Mick Foley vs Triple H street fight (Royal Rumble 2000, I'm looking at you), then I'd pick the latter every time.

I've barely watched Raw, or indeed WWE for the best part of 5-6 year now. I tune in for the major scenes such as Rumble's and Wrestlemania's, but, as I commented on last years Mania thread, Undertaker might be shite these days, but he's still the hook for me. I'm an absolute sucker for a great character - A Kane, a Mankind, an Undertaker - Hell, give me an Abyss! There just doesn't seem to be a great deal of that sort of shtick these days. I watched wrestling to suspend my belief, not for the in ring quality. These days, I'm just hanging on for the nostalgia!

[Stelling]

38 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

It's over the past few years that I've come to accept, I'm not a wrestling fan. In fact, I'd go as far as saying, I find wrestling incredibly boring. If you gave me the choice between a Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit in their prime hour long, iron man, submission match or Mick Foley vs Triple H street fight (Royal Rumble 2000, I'm looking at you), then I'd pick the latter every time.

I've barely watched Raw, or indeed WWE for the best part of 5-6 year now. I tune in for the major scenes such as Rumble's and Wrestlemania's, but, as I commented on last years Mania thread, Undertaker might be shite these days, but he's still the hook for me. I'm an absolute sucker for a great character - A Kane, a Mankind, an Undertaker - Hell, give me an Abyss! There just doesn't seem to be a great deal of that sort of shtick these days. I watched wrestling to suspend my belief, not for the in ring quality. These days, I'm just hanging on for the nostalgia!

I have the Network and watch the odd PPV live, but none of the telly shows (Raw etc). If something big happens I’ll chase it down on YouTube the next day. Rumble and WM are a must, because they put effort into those shows and the hype is fun, but the rest I have little interest in. I look up news out of habit, but really nothing about the current product interests me.

Id gladly watch that Rumble 2000 street fight 100 times over though. First PPV I ever saw live thanks to Channel 4.

[Cardinal Richelieu]

On 06/01/2019 at 00:54, Ludo*1 said:

It's over the past few years that I've come to accept, I'm not a wrestling fan. In fact, I'd go as far as saying, I find wrestling incredibly boring. If you gave me the choice between a Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit in their prime hour long, iron man, submission match or Mick Foley vs Triple H street fight (Royal Rumble 2000, I'm looking at you), then I'd pick the latter every time.

I've barely watched Raw, or indeed WWE for the best part of 5-6 year now. I tune in for the major scenes such as Rumble's and Wrestlemania's, but, as I commented on last years Mania thread, Undertaker might be shite these days, but he's still the hook for me. I'm an absolute sucker for a great character - A Kane, a Mankind, an Undertaker - Hell, give me an Abyss! There just doesn't seem to be a great deal of that sort of shtick these days. I watched wrestling to suspend my belief, not for the in ring quality. These days, I'm just hanging on for the nostalgia!

I'm exactly the same. Same reason why we (well most of us) support diddy teams rather than following Barcelona or Man City.

On 06/01/2019 at 01:44, Stelling said:

I have the Network and watch the odd PPV live, but none of the telly shows (Raw etc). If something big happens I’ll chase it down on YouTube the next day. Rumble and WM are a must, because they put effort into those shows and the hype is fun, but the rest I have little interest in. I look up news out of habit, but really nothing about the current product interests me.

Id gladly watch that Rumble 2000 street fight 100 times over though. First PPV I ever saw live thanks to Channel 4.

Exactly the same with me. As someone who hadn't watched a WWF match since the Hulk Hogan / Cartoony era in the late eighties, it was quite a shock to turn on my telly to find a brutal looking street fight (even though the barbed wire bit was gimmicked), not to mention Mae Young's fake puppies. 

[Ira Gaines]

If I seen WWE as the be all and end all, I'd probably have jacked in wrestling years ago.

[FifeArab]

I started watching WWF as a kid in 1999/2000 when PPV’s were live on Channel 4 and Sky Sports. I’d always wake up at 3:45 am and watch the last 10/15 minutes till It went off air and bad booking/heel’s winning the title never mattered It was all enjoyable. Then In the morning I’d put the video player on hoping It taped or I’d watch the sky sports repeat at 9pm that night.

I had the hardy boyz t shirt, the IC title and the tag title. It was amazing. I always remember watching WM 17 the next morning on a fuzzy videotape and It was awesome. I didn’t quite get Vince and Austin alliance but the TLC tag titles match was just unbelievable.

Me and my mates would watch Raw on a Friday night at 9.30pm sky sports and Smackdown on sky 1 at 11am where they wouldn’t show you people going through the tables[emoji23]

I stopped watching round about 2005 and started back 2007. It was really good back then as well. We had some legends like: Cena, Edge, Punk, Mysterio, HHH, Taker, Kane, Jericho, Orton.... we didn’t realise how good that era was until the shit now.

If you stopped watching wrestling In 2013 you’d of missed nothing apart from the shield. That’s It.

[DA Baracus]

15 minutes ago, FifeArab said:

I started watching WWF as a kid in 1999/2000 when PPV’s were live on Channel 4 and Sky Sports. I’d always wake up at 3:45 am and watch the last 10/15 minutes till It went off air and bad booking/heel’s winning the title never mattered It was all enjoyable. Then In the morning I’d put the video player on hoping It taped or I’d watch the sky sports repeat at 9pm that night.

I had the hardy boyz t shirt, the IC title and the tag title. It was amazing. I always remember watching WM 17 the next morning on a fuzzy videotape and It was awesome. I didn’t quite get Vince and Austin alliance but the TLC tag titles match was just unbelievable.

Me and my mates would watch Raw on a Friday night at 9.30pm sky sports and Smackdown on sky 1 at 11am where they wouldn’t show you people going through the tables

I stopped watching round about 2005 and started back 2007. It was really good back then as well. We had some legends like: Cena, Edge, Punk, Mysterio, HHH, Taker, Kane, Jericho, Orton.... we didn’t realise how good that era was until the shit now.

If you stopped watching wrestling In 2013 you’d of missed nothing apart from the shield. That’s It.

Most of those guys are still around, albeit in a much more limited capacity (only Orton and Mysterio are full time in WWE just now)!

Whilst the storylines and how they present wrestlers in WWE is currently abysmal, they have a madly talented roster. So many great performers are just being held back by the usual pish of crappy, stupid booking and glass ceiling bullshit (how dare you get injured!). Vince needs to f**k off and take his stupid, awful children with him. We won't see an improved product until that happens unfortunately.

[FifeArab]

Most of those guys are still around, albeit in a much more limited capacity (only Orton and Mysterio are full time in WWE just now)!
Whilst the storylines and how they present wrestlers in WWE is currently abysmal, they have a madly talented roster. So many great performers are just being held back by the usual pish of crappy, stupid booking and glass ceiling bullshit (how dare you get injured!). Vince needs to f**k off and take his stupid, awful children with him. We won't see an improved product until that happens unfortunately.

Rollins. Styles. Reigns. Ambrose. Balor. Bryan. Miz. Owens. Nakamura. Jeff Hardy. Mcintyre. Charlotte. Becky. Asuka. Ruby Riott. Ronda. Sasha. Ember. Alexa.

^ If there was only 1 brand and show Imagine how good that would be. Unlimited amount of stars.

Apparently Vince Is gonna spend less time at booking and more time at his XFL American Football project. Hopefully It’s true at HHH gets creative control. If WWE was half as good as NXT then boom.

[Ira Gaines]

205 Live has been magnificent since he took the reigns as well. RAW and Smackdown are an entirely different audience though, so they're probably not relevant.

[JamieStevenson]

Rollins and Lashley scrapping to kick off Raw for no reason. Cool.

[TheGoon]

Drew cuts promos like someone pretending to be a wrestler.

[JamieStevenson]

Got my hopes up there thinking we'd get Drew vs Cena. But nope, looks like a typical 6 man tag.

[JamieStevenson]

Seth was on fire for the last 5 mins of that match and gets his IC rematch vs Dean later in a Falls Count Anywhere. 

[JamieStevenson]

Very positive reaction to Hogan. Only made out a couple of boos in amongst it.

[JamieStevenson]

Standing ovation for the Hogan promo. Roaring success, he'll be back for sure.

[forameus]

17 hours ago, FifeArab said:

If WWE was half as good as NXT then boom.

I think NXT gets a lot of credit that it wouldn't necessarily get if it was a show that had to book week-to-week.  The way it is now, they can run two tapings and get a few months of TV out of it, all booking towards one of 5 shows a year.  I don't doubt that if they, say, doubled that, the quality would reduce.  

That said, would be nice to give it a try.

[Ira Gaines]

8 minutes ago, forameus said:

I think NXT gets a lot of credit that it wouldn't necessarily get if it was a show that had to book week-to-week.  The way it is now, they can run two tapings and get a few months of TV out of it, all booking towards one of 5 shows a year.  I don't doubt that if they, say, doubled that, the quality would reduce.  

That said, would be nice to give it a try.

Plus, it's going for a completely different audience. Triple H can book a good wrestling orientated product. However, can he book a good product for a casual audience, with a whole host of writers and others in tow as well? It's a different beast and there's nothing to suggest he'd do any better at it than anyone else.

[DA Baracus]

Been watching quite a lot of late 97 Raw recently (in fact halfway through the last one of 97 and will finish it tonight).

 

Anyway, DX are all over these shows, and are absolutely dreadful. They’re just annoying. They aren’t entertaining and bury absolutely everyone with appallingly unfunny stuff and never get their come-uppance. They’re terrible, like ‘skip their segments’ terrible.

 

I never saw any of the stuff at the time, and have only ever seen the (endlessly repeated) ‘highlights’. I never realised just how pish they were. The ‘humour’ is abysmal and obnoxious, and not in a good heel way.

[TheScarf]

On 10/01/2019 at 14:32, DA Baracus said:

Been watching quite a lot of late 97 Raw recently (in fact halfway through the last one of 97 and will finish it tonight).

 

Anyway, DX are all over these shows, and are absolutely dreadful. They’re just annoying. They aren’t entertaining and bury absolutely everyone with appallingly unfunny stuff and never get their come-uppance. They’re terrible, like ‘skip their segments’ terrible.

 

I never saw any of the stuff at the time, and have only ever seen the (endlessly repeated) ‘highlights’. I never realised just how pish they were. The ‘humour’ is abysmal and obnoxious, and not in a good heel way.

I've watched a couple of Jim Cornette shoots and he basically said all the skits around this time (including all the DX stuff) was down to the two Vince's just not caring about the talent actually working and getting over, and were more interesting in beating WCW with daft shite and drama outside the ring.

[DA Baracus]

14 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

I've watched a couple of Jim Cornette shoots and he basically said all the skits around this time (including all the DX stuff) was down to the two Vince's just not caring about the talent actually working and getting over, and were more interesting in beating WCW with daft shite and drama outside the ring.

There's some really horrible shit from this time. The stuff is Goldust is dreadful for example, especially the 'gay heat' he gets. Pretty grim viewing.

[JamieStevenson]

Strowman should be in the bloody jail.