My friend Todd and I attended Old School Raw at the Baltimore Arena Monday night and, all in all, a good time. I've seen a lot of reaction from fans online this morning that they weren't happy with the Baltimore crowd that seemed to sit on its hands for a lot of the show. It's interesting, because the crowd definitely got amped for a lot of things, but it wasn't a lot of the stuff the IWC likes. Here's a quick rundown of the show and my thoughts from being there live.
*First of all, minor spoiler, the main event for this week's WWE Superstars (which I don't think airs in the U.S. anymore) was Ryback versus Dolph Ziggler. Kind of funny, when you think about where this two were right after WrestleMania, and that on the first live taping of the new year, they are relegated to Superstars. Ziggler seemed to suffer an injury in that match. He took an awkward bump where it didn't even look like Ryback touched him, and bailed out of the ring. He finished the match, but WWE.com is reporting he suffered a concussion. He stayed down for quite a while after the finish.
*Opening with Ric Flair was a good choice. The crowd was definitely excited for Flair. They popped big for Randy Orton and John Cena as well, and it was a good opening segment. Baltimore is what I would call a very kayfabe-friendly crowd. Every time I've gone to an event there, there are a lot of kids and parents who definitely root hard for the guys WWE wants them to root for. So they were very excited for these two. Orton and Cena did a dark match after the show that was arguably the hottest the crowd got. They really thought Cena might win the WWE Championship. I don't think a lot of them realized this happened after the show was done taping.
*Initially, fans were excited to see Daniel Bryan with the Wyatt Family, but I think they lost their interest after seeing how ridiculous Bryan looks. Many people were commenting that he looked like a janitor. At one point I yelled to Bryan that I needed an oil change and tire rotation. That got a bigger reaction than most of the match. Fans tried to cheer for Bryan but weren't sure what to make out of this situation. WWE didn't help things by just having him come out and work heel without having some sort of promo or something to better explain what's going on. The finish, where Bryan and Harper tried to tag in at the same time, then Harper tagged in and told Bryan to get out before getting rolled up for the loss, was interesting, but again, I'm not sure what it all means. WWE needs to make a move on this quick, because I think it's going to kill Bryan's momentum if he becomes just another guy in the Wyatt Family.
*Big E Langston squashed Curtis Axel and that was good. Wish I could've heard what Ryback had to say on commentary. Sounds like he did a good job. Some fans seemed confused why Ryback was even out there. Obviously, he's going to end up in a program with Big E for the Intercontinental Championship. I look forward to that hoss fight when it happens. I'd love to see Ryback get an IC title run, but I know that's unlikely to happen while Langston's getting pushed to the moon. By the way, Langston vs. Orton is the main event on Smackdown (we'll see, WWE tends to change their mind with that stuff), so I'm looking forward to that.
*Piper's Pit with the Shield was pretty much as perfect a segment as you could get. Sometimes, I think Roddy Piper is off his game. I wasn't watching wrestling during his heyday, but I think the last time he was on Old School Raw he just seemed like a old guy blabbering. He was on-point and Dean Ambrose needling him made for a compelling segment. The crowd was definitely into Piper and into Reigns too. The New Age Outlaws were an interesting choice to have join CM Punk, especially considering their ties to Triple H in DX and Punk seemingly on a collision course with the Game at some point. We thought for sure this would lead to a six-man tag instead of the promised Reigns vs. Punk main event, but instead, the just ended up in Punk's corner during the match to counteract Ambrose and Seth Rollins.
*Alberto Del Rio beat Sin Cara. This match absolutely killed the crowd coming down from a hot segment with Piper, Punk, the Shield and the Outlaws. It sort of set the tone for the next hour and a half. Del Rio said he'd win the Rumble an eliminate Batista, who earlier was announced as the first official entrant into the Rumble. Yup, that's not happening.
*A backstage segment with Bryan and the Wyatts was likely lost on not only the live crowd but the TV audience that likely flipped over to the BCS Championship during the Del Rio match. Bryan said he's just trying to learn to be a monster and was seemingly trying to drive a wedge between Harper and Rowan by teaming with one of them next week. Instead, Bray Wyatt informed him that Bryan and Bray will team. I still feel like this is a vehicle to get Wyatt over and get Bryan out of the main event picture.
*The Real Americans versus the Brotherhood followed and it was a darn good tag team match. Lots of fans of both teams. Goldust is super over.
*Sgt. Slaugher was definitely the favorite choice as the referee for the Damien Sandow-Khali rematch, which predictably ended with Khali winning after Slaughter missed Sandow's foot on the rope. Rubber match next week I bet, which Sandow should win. Khali was more over than I thought he'd be. At least one guy in front of me commented, "boy, Khali got old quick."
*Believe it or not, Paul Heyman killed the crowd. While Lesnar got a huge pop, when Heyman kept talking and talking, people stopped paying attention and started playing on their smart phones. Lesnar was over, but he didn't garner the reaction he has in the past. Again, I think that's b/c of the kayfabe/younger crowd you're dealing with versus more of a smart-mark crowd elsewhere. They popped for Henry and went nuts for Big Show. I'm sort of torn on another Big Show-Lesnar feud. It's been done before. I would've liked to have seen Lesnar versus Henry instead, alas, after "breaking Henry's arm" with the kimura lock, he seems to have been written on TV for a while.
*Aksana and Alicia Fox beat the Bellas. That was the shocker of the night. The Bellas were also pretty over with the young crowd. People were legitimately stunned when Aksana (who a lot of people didn't know) got the fall.
*Too Cool and Rikishi got solid pops too, but I just wasn't into it. I never cared much for their act back in the Attitude Era. Honestly, they are the equivilant of today's Great Khali and Santino. Rikishi didn't do his signature stinkface, which was a shame, since I think that's all the crowd really wanted to see after the Worm, arguably the worst move in pro wrestling that isn't Santino's Cobra.
*Bad News Barrett's segment was probably the best yet, ripping on the WWE Legends, but I don't see what the long-term plan is for him. Perhaps once he gets over from all this cheap heat, he'll start wrestling again.
*The New Age Outlaws doing their schtick and introducing CM Punk was fun. Not necessary, but a nice rub for Punk, who was definitely the babyface star of this show, being put over by several Legends. The match with Reigns started out slow, and I think that might've hurt the crowd a little bit, but they really picked it up in the end. I thought it was fantastic. I think Reigns can be a star, but I don't want to see him go babyface too soon. He works well as a heel. Essentially, Punk put him over clean, minus a slight assist from Ambrose, which I'm sure the latter will use to say Reigns couldn't have done it if not for him. The cool thing about the way this segment was done? Everyone is going to remember Reigns won, but no one is going to care that much that Punk lost because ...
*Holy cow, that's Jake "The Snake" Roberts! As the Shield got ready to inflict more punishment on Punk, you knew someone would come out to make the save. I don't think anyone suspected it would be Jake "The Snake." That was really cool. Jake was so incredibly over in the 1980s and '90s and is arguably the best wrestler to never get a world championship reign. He looked to be in great shape and I really hope to see him again when I go to the Rumble at the end of the month. He didn't do any moves here, even though he gave the sign for the DDT and fans were chanting for it, but he did unleash Damien 2.0 on Ambrose.
*All in all, a fun show, and while not a lot was officially announced for the Royal Rumble, we've definitely got clear direction. Big Show versus Brock Lesnar will likely be part of the undercard, maybe Big E Langston versus Ryback and, of course, Cena vs. Orton, which doesn't need a lot of build, in my opinion. Neither does the Rumble match, which we know will include former winners Batista and Alberto Del Rio now. Batista definitely has to be the favorite to win that, right?
