The best Raw in the last ten years? That and more...it's Casual Friday!

 

Good Morning!

It’s a busy sports weekend, with the next round of the NCAA tournament already running and baseball’s first weekend of the regular season. We’ve also got WrestleMania week coming up, with all the go-home madness that comes with that, plus AEW’s continuing build to its Dynasty PPV. 

But what I wanna talk about today is expectations. They’re related to all of those things, really. Whether it’s your March Madness brackets or your hopes for the Cubbies, people put a lot of stake in the things they love – or the things they’ve decided to identify with. And wrestling is no different. The problem comes when someone’s expectations are unrealistic, or they put too much stake in an opinion or a hope that may be less than plausible. Take the latest trend in Twitter takes – the stopwatch guys. These are people who time things on wrestling shows – stuff like match length, or the amount of actual wrestling on a show, or the amount of time women’s matches are allotted. They are rarely unbiased or presented in good faith – more often than not, it’s fans of “the other side” pointing out their perceived shortcomings with the product they’re analyzing. 

But why do that at all? If you don’t enjoy WWE’s focus on storytelling, or presentation, what good are you doing by timing the amount of time matches are taking up on their programming? Preaching to the choir? Upping your follower count? Yelling at another fanbase who values different parts of pro wrestling? I just find it exhausting. 

There is SO MUCH wrestling out there, there’s literally no reason to get mad at others for liking what they like. I mainly watch Raw, NXT, SmackDown, Dynamite, and Collision. I enjoy them for very different reasons. WWE for its larger than life image, storytelling, presentation, and stars. AEW for its incredible matches and smaller feel. And NXT because it’s just kinda silly, and I like seeing younger talent find their abilities. I’m fully aware of a bunch of other stuff, and when I’m in the mood I’ll watch some New Japan, or TNA, or just find matches on YouTube that folks recommend. And I feel like I’m on the low end of wrestling consumption – you go on BlueSky or Twitter and there are people live-tweeting shows at all hours. 

My point is, maybe we need to enjoy what we enjoy. I like liking things – and yeah, I’ll complain a little when the thing I like doesn’t go how I’d hope, because I’m invested. But I’m not going on social media to argue about that because a) nobody has ever won an internet argument and b) I simply don’t want to. Everything in life seems so polarizing – I don’t need my entertainment to fall into that as well. 

“It’s A Soap Opera With More Suplexes and Less Violence”

…in which I discuss the storylines that keep us watching week to week

It’s the week before WrestleMania and all eyes were on Raw this week, emanating from my beloved hometown WWE arena of the Allstate Arena (or the Rosemont Horizon for the real ones – the real old ones, that is). For a show that had minimal wrestling – a thing that we accept in WWE programming, especially this close to ‘Mania – this might have been one of the best booked Raws in years! The Cody speech that opened the show was great. The little teases that nodded towards the chaos that would ensue during the main event were so good. And that post-main event beatdown of Rhodes by The Rock, outside, in the rain, with the ghosts of Stone Cold and Cena looking on from a semi trailer? Cinematic feels like it’s too strong a word, but I got nothing else. Rock versus Cody has to be coming if Rocky’s schedule allows for it, but we’re also expecting Rock to take on Roman Reigns at some point. We’re spoiled, is what it comes down to. 

AEW has been putting on shows that are basically the opposite of WWE, keeping the focus in the ring and signing some of the best talent in the world. Hopefully the attendance starts to reflect the in-ring product, because I feel like it really puts a damper on the shows when they take place in these mostly empty arenas. I see people saying it’s a bad crowd, but even a good crowd can only make so much noise in a barn. Khan has said that they book the larger arenas because of their ability to market the shows better, but we’re not seeing that marketing pay off in full stadiums. I’d like more small venues, personally. Sell out! Get people mad that they can’t get in, and next time around maybe you book that larger option.

Dynamite gave us some amazing matches in the opener and main, with Shibata fighting Will Ospreay and Takeshita taking on Swerve Strickland. Both were great matches, if not the best they could pull off, and they just made me look forward to more battles between these four. 

NXT, also building to a big WrestleMania weekend show with their always-good Stand and Deliver on next Saturday afternoon, had some great stuff too! A fantastic main event featuring main-roster guys Otis and Tozawa of Alpha Academy taking on the NXT tag champs, the Wolf Dogs, stood out as the best thing on the show. But we also got Dijak beating Shawn Spears with a little help from former foe Joe Gacy, and Natalya showed up to answer an open challenge from well-regarded new-ish wrestler Lola Vice…and beat her, because we need to keep Nattie strong for, um, reasons. 

I just…I don’t like Natalya. I don’t like that she’s always around, I don’t think she’s as good as WWE seems to think she is, and I think she’s kinda turning into Chris Jericho in a way, just always around the younger talent. No thank you. 

We Watched Some Wrestling!

…in which I recommend some of the best matches I saw last week

AEW gave us Swerve Strickland versus Konosuke Takeshita, and as a fan of both, that’s an easy recommendation:

And, as I mentioned a little while ago, that NXT main event between Alpha Academy and the Wolf Dogs was a lot of fun!

But rather than a match, the WWE offering is going to be the last bit of Raw. The CM Punk/Seth Rollins/Drew McIntyre segment was crazy in an unhinged, unscripted, almost reactionary kind of way, though, and since I already linked the Rock’s assault on Cody, I’ll link that promo here:

Closing Up Shop

…in which I say goodbye for now

And that’s it! Thanks for coming with me on that journey. No pay-per-views or premium live events this weekend, so it’s “just” the five hours of WWE SmackDown, AEW Rampage, and AEW Collision to keep up with. Next week is the biggest week of the wrestling year, and I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about after this weekend, so I’m looking forward to catching up with you on Monday, dear reader.

I’ll see you next week for the usual Casual Friday and Untitled Monday blog posts. If you have questions, concerns, or comments, drop 'em in the comments section below! And follow me on Twitter (X), Facebook, BlueSky and/or Instagram using the links on the right.

Thank you so much for reading. If you liked what you saw, consider telling your friends, mentioning Let’s Watch Some Wrestling on social media, or even buying me a hot cup of coffee using the Ko-Fi button. Have a great week, and I’ll see you back here next time, dear reader. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!