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List of Raw matches ***+ or higher this year

For reference reasons only, I was wondering how many "good matches" have been on Raw this year and I made a list of all matches you gave *** stars or higher. I also made a list of how many good matches each wrestler involved in these matches have had this year on Raw.

1/07: John Cena vs. Dolph Ziggler ***1/2
1/07: CM Punk vs. Ryback [TLC Match] ***
1/14: John Cena vs. Dolph Ziggler [Cage match] ***3/4
1/21: Randy Orton vs. Antonio Cesaro ***1/2
1/21: Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz ***1/4
1/21: Wade Barrett vs. Sheamus ***
1/28: Randy Orton vs. Antonio Cesaro ***
2/04: CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho ***3/4
2/11: Daniel Bryan vs. Chris Jericho ***1/2
2/25: CM Punk vs. John Cena ****3/4
3/04: Sheamus vs. CM Punk vs. Randy Orton vs. Big Show ***
3/11: Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler ***1/2
3/18: Wade Barrett vs. The Miz vs. Chris Jericho ***1/4
4/08: The Miz vs. Wade Barrett ***
4/15: Kofi Kingston vs. Antonio Cesaro ***1/4
4/22: The Shield vs. Undertaker, Kane, & Daniel Bryan ****
4/29: Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston ***1/4
5/06: Dolph Ziggler vs. Alberto Del Rio ***1/2
5/20: The Shield vs. Daniel Bryan, Kofi Kingston, & Kane ****
5/20: Randy Orton vs. Jack Swagger ***
5/27: The Shield vs. Kane & Daniel Bryan ***1/2
6/03: The Shield vs. Randy Orton, Kane, & Daniel Bryan ***1/2
6/03: Daniel Bryan vs. Ryback ***1/4
6/10: Daniel Bryan vs. Seth Rollins ***3/4
6/17: Randy Orton vs. Daniel Bryan ***1/4
6/24: Alberto Del Rio vs. Chris Jericho ***1/2
6/24: Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton [Streetfight] ***1/2
7/01: John Cena vs. Alberto Del Rio ***
7/08: Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus ***3/4
7/08: Chris Jericho vs. Curtis Axel ***
7/15: Alberto Del Rio vs. Dolph Ziggler ***
7/15: Rob Van Dam vs. Chris Jericho ****1/4
7/22: Daniel Bryan vs. Antonio Cesaro ****1/4
7/22: Daniel Bryan vs. Ryback ***1/4

Daniel Bryan: 13
Dolph Ziggler: 7
Randy Orton: 7
Chris Jericho: 6
Seth Rollins: 5
John Cena: 4
CM Punk: 4
Antonio Cesaro: 4
Roman Reigns: 4
Kane: 4
Alberto Del Rio: 4
Dean Ambrose: 3
Ryback: 3
The Miz: 3
Wade Barrett: 3
Kofi Kingston: 3
Sheamus: 3
Big Show: 1
Undertaker: 1
Jack Swagger: 1
Curtis Axel: 1
Rob Van Dam: 1

Would you agree that the in ring product of Raw is as good as it has ever been right now?

No, because there's so MUCH of it that it unfortunately averages out a lot.  With so many hours of TV to fill, a few *** matches often aren't enough to stand out against so many hours of talking and commercials and crappy 3MB matches.  That's why the 3 hour era has been such a drudge in a lot of ways.  Even the GOOD shows are burning out the crowds.  


Comments

  1. Why didn't Punk/Cena get the full monty? That was an easy 5 stars in my book. I was marking out like a 12 year old for that one.

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  2. Probably because everyone already knew the finish? It'd like getting the ending of a movie spoiled for you.

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  3. It would be interesting to see what a list of ***+ star mathces of the last six month of 2-hour Raws would be? I'm pretty sure they would be giving 40 minutes to Daniel Bryan to wrestle in a 2-hour show.

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  4. My current wrestling fandom boils down to reading the live thread on monday, then waiting until Saturday to cross-reference the Universal HD replay with the highlights, and doing other things inebtween.

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  5. Oh, c'mon Scott. You have to know that the 4-5 hour parade of squash match tapings from the 80's had to burn out the crowds MUCH more than a RAW show.

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  6. point Zanadude!

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  7. I don't think anybody was claiming that was the Golden Age of Great Wrestling.

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  8. I just wanted to say that the WWF has subjected its crowds have been subjected to much, much worse. Anybody that complains about having to sit through four hours of Superstars/RAW tapings has been really spoiled.


    And, in this day and age of real-time recording/playback, I don't think that even WWE expects its viewing audience to sit through the entire three hours. I bet thatt they are please as long as fans are finding something to enjoy.

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  9. There are a lot of great TV matches on Raw. The issue is the sense of urgency and rowdiness that used to make Raw fun, seems to be mostly gone. Someone mentioned in one of the threads how Raw use to go off the air with a wild brawl (I can hear Jim Ross flipping out), that kind of fun and excitement is more an exception than a rule anymore. A lot of it I blame on the rigid script which prevents a lot of the improv that made pro wrestling so fun over the years. In any event that match list is hard to argue with and Cena - Punk is my match of the year pick so far.

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  10. Even a good old fashioned brawl in the parking lot. Just something, anything, to mix up the formula a little.

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  11. I remember, shockingly, actually being excited for last week based on the cliffhanger of the week at the end of each episode of Raw and SD. They did a great job of really sucking you in to next week during the end of the 'tude era. Now every episode is virtually interchangeable.

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  12. I don't know how people did that back in the day but I will say that the 3 hour era has convinced me to never go to a Raw taping again. I used to go every time they rolled through town but a couple years ago they started to get really boring. And then they made it 3 hours. It's just too long to sit through when I can watch it in 60-75 minutes the next day.

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  13. I sat through a bunch of those, and after 2 hours of squashes you were fucking STOKED when Ronnie Garvin wrestled Ron Bass (3/1989) or Hacksaw Duggan went to a double dq with the Barbarian (9/90).

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  14. In one of the observers from 25 years ago,Meltzer details his experiene at one of the tapings and it sounded like torture.

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  15. For him, it probably *WAS* torture. For a 12-year old fan, it was priceless.

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  16. Everything is so overexposed now..They can't really do too many cliffhangers because now they have the app and twitter and wwe.com and all this stuff that follows the show. I remember having to wait for a week or more to find out what happened to Ricky Steamboat after having his larynx crushed or to find out if Dusty had his leg broken... now you read about it the same night or next day. Takes away some of the suspense.

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  17. Pitiful. That's five years worth of profitable PPV main and semi-main events listed right there. Instead they all happened inside of eight months and even a guy like Scott Keith, who watches and reviews them, can't remember a match like Shield vs. Kofi/Hell No, so what does the average fan remember? Where does the average mind of a child place all of these matches? Instead of wrestling killing the house show business to make their televised events seem more special, they have basically started airing house show quality matches every goddamn week. I see absolutely no reason to order a WWE PPV because whatever match is on last either occurred a dozen times in the past or will be replayed a dozen times in the future, starting the next night on RAW.

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  18. Even when rasslin' is good. The show is BAD. Welcome to Rasslin' journalists and fan perception in 2013.

    I for one love a good long match and am amused/entertained on some level by all rasslers, commentators, and authority figures to varying degrees in both WWE and TNA.

    Everyone except Chavo. I hate that guy! I might enjoy him if Pepe is every resurrected.

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  19. Did anybody think Savage was going to beat Steamboat?

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  20. You have absolutely no need to buy a PPV because Internet.

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  21. I have no idea. I was -1 month old.

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  22. Cena's selling in that match was awful. He made a miraculous or superhero comeback after almost every big move. One would expect to see it two or three times a match, but this went overboard. Punk's offense didn't seem to matter in the last half of the match. Maybe whoever called the match inside the ring gave Cena too much time and offense. I don't know. I just couldn't get over that no matter how good the moves were, the logic/psychology was lacking... and then, of course, Cena powerbombed himself on that attempted frankensteiner.

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  23. You can't combine compressed booking with more TV and expect much. Decompress the booking, more matches to just show off new characters and more in-ring promos. Bray Wyatt should be wiping out third-tier guys right now.

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  24. Also, every pro wrestling show should have one 'what in the Sam Hill is going on here?'

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  25. I truly envy you

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  26. He ran down the card and it was pretty bad and he said that the crowd was burned out.

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  27. "With so many hours of TV to fill, a few *** matches often aren't enough to stand out against so many hours of talking and commercials and crappy 3MB matches."


    That kinda wasn't the question though...

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  28. Thread jack
    Raw spoilers are out. Theres something that continues to go on in the mid card that I really want to talk about. Maybe I'll email cw and see if he'll post a thread to discuss it.

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  29. I think what he was getting at is, there's so much TV right now it's unfair to compare it to other eras. More time equals a higher potential for better matches, especially when throwing Daniel Bryan out there for forty minutes every other week.

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  30. Wasn't that the point, though?

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  31. 87 hours of RAW.. Only 3 matches above ****.. You get more than that on a NJPW ppv.. Just saying..

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  32. Man, kids are spoiled these days. They wouldn't have survived back in the day when Raw was nothing more than an hour-long squash match fest with a bunch of no-named jobbers.

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  33. No fucking excuse.

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  34. A fetus could still see that finish coming a mile away.

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  35. But I mean I think the match lost a little something because we knew Cena was facing The Rock at Wrestlemania, so the outcome was a forgone conclusion. Still absolutely my favorite match of the year, but I wish the outcome was a bit more in doubt.

    also botched Cena-can-ranna.

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  36. I agree there. But I if you knew Punk was going to win....would you have cared as much?

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  37. I'm glad to see that the WWE is making good use of it's 3 hour format to give us some excellent wrestling every week, the show is still mostly a pain to sit through without a fast forward button, but I'd like to think they'll find a way to improve and cut the fat as time goes by.

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  38. Another question: How many of those matches will be included in the Best of Raw/Smackdown 2013" DVD?

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  39. So how many *** or greater matches has Impact Wrestling had this year?

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  40. While someone else may have said it as well, I was the one who mentioned the brawl endings. I LOVED that. I used to think in my head "damn, I wish I was in the arena to see what's happening." Today, the show quietly ends where back then it was absolutely chaos and you got the feeling that the WWF had to end the show because they couldn't show what was going on on live TV. I really miss those days.

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  41. Yeah. I hate that they use WWE.com like a news gathering site. Wouldn't it be smarter to further storylines on TV rather than a website?

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  42. I would have preferred to not know who would win at all. Can you imagine if Punk went over there? how INSANE the crowd would have been?

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