Pro Wrestling Review: Raw Review 12/30/13: Lesner Returns, Bryan Joins The Wyatt Family

 Whats up everybody, happy new year and welcome back to Pro Wrestling Review. This is going to be my Raw review for the 12/30/13 episode of Raw, I'll be talking about all the major things that happened on the show.

 A lot of people were expecting the New Years episode to be lackluster just like Christmas one had been the week before but it actually turned out to be a great show. 

 CM Punk vs Seth Rollins

The show starts out with CM Punk hitting the ring and calling out the shield, he says that he wants to face the best member, Dean Ambrose quickly steps up and said something like "if you wanna do this again then this I'm not gonna leave without taking a piece of you with me." It was a good promo by Ambrose but Punk says that he's already defeated Ambrose so he doesn't need to face him again. The crowd was chanting for Roman Reigns but Seth Rollins says that he wants to have the match and Reigns ends up letting him. 

 There were some botches in it and CM Punk even said on twitter that it was garbage, I still found it to be very entertaining and I'm hoping that at some point down the road wwe lets these two go at it again because I think they have the potential to have a great match the quality of the one Rollins had with John Cena on smackdown the week before. Speaking of that, if you haven't seen Cena vs Seth Rollins from smackdown, definitely make sure you check it out, on the last episode of smackdown in 2013 these two put on a match of the year candidate. 

 If I'm not mistaken, tonight on raw it will be CM Punk vs Roman Reigns, I'm very exited for this match because one, I'm a big fan of Roman Reigns but mainly because I want to see how he does in a 15 or 20 minute singles match. He's great as part of the shield but we haven't seen very much him on his own. The only match that I can really think of was one he against Daniel Bryan but anyone can have good match against Bryan, that guy could have a good match with a broom stick, like literally he probably could. Now I know that CM Punk is another person that's great in the ring but I still think this is a step in the right direction for Reigns and I'm really looking forward to the match.

IC Title: Big E Langston vs Fandango

 Fandango won the #1 contendership match on pole or whatever it's called against Dolph Ziggler on the Christmas episode of Raw and the thing that I really liked about that match was Dolph Ziggler's selling. The way that he sold it when Fandango pushed him off the top onto the floor was great, he's a very underutilized superstar and I think he's a lot better than just having pre show matches on ppvs. Hopefully in 2014 wwe will handle him better

 But back to topic at hand, Big E vs Fandango, this was actually a really good match. It was much better than I was expecting and I'm starting to see why people are talking about how great Fandango is in the ring, Big E was also very good in it and he ended up winning with the big ending. I also strangely enough have to give props to the announcers as well, at the end of the match Micheal Cole was saying that this is why wwe's future in 2014 is so bright, because of stars like Langston and Fandango.

 One of my main goals for wwe in 2014 is for them to do what they did with the tag team division to the midcard division. Since we're obviously not going to get two world title chamber matches at the Elimination Chamber this year and if they end up doing Brock Lesner vs the winner of the Wwe title match at the Royal Rumble we won't have any world title chamber matches, why not do one the Intercontinental championship. I think this would be a great way for wwe to make the title feel more important and then they might unify the belts at Wrestlemania. Although we ran into somewhat of a problem in the tag team with them kind of needing another title, there's's lot's of teams that aren't really doing anything right now because they're not involved in the title picture. I think the same could happen in the midcard so if I were them I'd keep both belts.

 Either way though what they need to do for Big E is put him in a big feud, it's been great having him in the ring with big names such as John Cena, Mark Henry, CM Punk, and The Shield but now he needs something of his own. I wouldn't have minded if they had continued his feud with Damien Sandow but it looks like that's not going to happen. I'd like to see him continue with Fandango now, their match definitely deserves a rematch and it would give both guys the feud they need.

Damien Sandow vs The Great Kali

 I was really surprised when they said that Kali won the app vote, I mean no disrespect to him but he's just not in a position on card to be facing someone who's supposed to be a world champion. Sandow did pretty good with the match and it was better than I though it would be but Kali just wasn't a good opponent for him. I'm a huge fan of Sandow and I think he has tons of talent, hopefully in 2014 he will be used better and put into a big a big storyline.

The Return of Brock Lesner

 Triple H comes out and announces that Brock Lesner was returning, Brock and Paul Heyman come out and they reluctantly shake hands with Triple H after Heyman said "he's the guys that pays the bills" or something like that. I liked this because it showed that Triple H doesn't care about all the stuff that Heyman and Lesner did to him in 2013 he just wants what's best for business. They had broken his best friends arm and made fun of his wife but in the end if it got him more money he'd still shake their hands. I thought it fit his character well because it showed how much of a greedy business man he is and that all he cares about is money.

 Without mentioning his name, Heyman talks about how Brock is not concerned with CM Punk because he's already beaten him. He then goes onto say that Lesner is now the self proclaimed #1 contender to the Wwe championship. Usually I don't like when they just give people the #1 contenders spot without them winning any match but in case it worked perfectly. I really liked how they said that Brock's just taking it and if anyone has problem with they come out. It fit Lesner's character very well.

 Apparently someone did have a problem with it though because Mark Henry came out and got into an awesome fight with Lesner. I was really exited for this because I'm a huge fan of both guys and they have very similar gimmicks, they're both just these nearly indestructible monsters. At least Henry had more of that when he was a heel, now he still kind of has it as face, which he shouldn't be but I'm gonna stop myself before I go into another 20 minute rant on why he should still be a heel.

 Anyway they have this epic brawl and Henry picks up Brock and throws him over the security barricade but once he climbed over Lesner spears him right through the barricade and then F5s him. This was a really awesome fight and it brought Brock Lesner back with a bang. I'm a big fan of him because like Mark Henry was, he's been built up as an unstoppable heel. 

 After seeing Micheal Cole's interview with Paul Heyman that's probably on the app, wait why am I advertising the app? In that interview though they teased a feud with the returning Batista. What ever they do with Lesner I'm looking forward it and as long as he doesn't miss a lot of weeks like the Rock did, I'm fine if he becomes Wwe champion.

Main Event Gauntlet Match: Daniel Bryan vs Luke Harper, Eric Rowen and Bray Wyatt (Bryan joins the Wyatt Family) 

 Earlier in the night Bryan cut  a pretty good promo on the Authority saying something like he's not leaving until he gets his hands on Bray Wyatt. So they put him in the gauntlet match. 

 The first match with Luke Harper was very very good and the one with Rowen was entertaining while it lasted. Bray Wyatt was as usual really good on the mic but unfortunately we didn't even get to see him and Daniel Bryan wrestle, the other Wyatts just attacked Bryan. Then as Bray was about be finished with Bryan he got on the mic and said that Bray was right all along, that it doesn't matter how much the fans cheer for him the machine will never let him succeed. Then Bray hit him with the sister Abigail as some sort of initiation and then they left the arena with him.

 I really liked the way they did this, they started it off with having Bryan in a great gauntlet match and they gave it plenty of time so you would keep thinking he wasn't actually going to do it but then he did. I wish they would've had the match with Bray Wyatt though because I really wanted to see how he would do in the ring with Bryan. Other than that though the execution was perfect and it makes a ton of sense because Bryan has been screwed over the machine or the authority so many times in 2013 and now he's in a feud with a group that says they also want to take down the machine so why wouldn't he team up with them because of their common enemy. 

 There's a lot of different ways they can go with this, they could have Bryan be a full fledged heel which would make sense because as he said the fans cheering for him did him no good, also if you saw that picture floating around the internet of Bryan at a house show wearing Wyatt family type gear it seems like he's kind of getting brain washed like Rowen and Harper are. They could also have Bryan be somewhat of a tweener and he's just teeming with them to fight a common enemy and this just adds more of an edge to his character. Or of course he could be doing this still with the interest of taking the Wyatts down and he's just trying to get them to put their guard down and he's actually trying to destroy them from the inside. Also Bryan and the Wyatts could be turning face or at least tweener to take down the authority.

 Wherever they end up going with it it's definitely very entertaining and captivating so far and it has me really wanting to see where it goes. 

 This was a great last show of 2013 and it was a great way to move forward and show people what 2014 will hold for wwe will glimpses of a good midcard, Brock Lesner and the road to wrestlemania and most of all Daniel Bryan in Wyatt Family. It was a great way to get people to want to tune in 2014. I'm definitely looking forward to see where it all goes tonight on Raw and I'll be right back here soon to tell you my thoughts on it.

 Be sure to tell me your thoughts on Raw in the comments or on twitter: @ENC98 or @PWReview. Thanks for reading and happy new year.