Wrestlers confirmed for Raw 25 so far

[KaiserGlider]

The Undertaker
John Cena
Stone Cold
Chris Jericho
MVP
Shawn Michaels
Scott Hall
New Age Outlaws
X-Pac
Dudleys Boyz
Hardys
JBL and Ron Simmons
Ric Flair
Christian
Eric Bischoff
Trish Stratus
Torrie Wilson
Kelly Kelly
Michelle Mccool
Teddy Long
Brother Love
Ted Dibiase
The Godfather
William Regal
Howard Finkel
John Laurinaitis
The Boogeyman
Entire Smackdown roster

Looks like I'll try to catch all of Raw for the first time in a while. You have the group of legends that shows up every now and then for a pop, along with the higher tier like Austin. Gonna be great seeing MVP again, and it should be interesting to see what kind of reaction Jericho gets after his NJPW run. Also looking forward to what they do with Taker. Names like Rock, Hogan, and Batista have been rumored but unconfirmed so I won't get into that.

[DBSoT]

This show has clusterfuck written all over it. Attempting to present that many "special attractions" within the 3 hour time frame is nuts. I expect to see around 2-3 matches tops, with the rest being backstage segments and in-ring promos. That doesn't mean it can't be cool. Just that it may feel very forced.

[Messiah]

I am as big of an MVP fan as the next person. Should have been a World Champion and he probably ranks as one of the most misused talents in WWE history.

However, on a show that is supposed to celebrate the 25 years of Raw... why MVP? I guess the Boogeyman has the comedic factor. I hardly even remember MVP's run on Raw.

[The Legend]

I am as big of an MVP fan as the next person. Should have been a World Champion and he probably ranks as one of the most misused talents in WWE history.

However, on a show that is supposed to celebrate the 25 years of Raw... why MVP? I guess the Boogeyman has the comedic factor. I hardly even remember MVP's run on Raw.

Boogeyman, MVP, Teddy Long, Michelle McCool, Torrie Wilson, even the Dudley Boyz, a bunch of those performers made much bigger impact on SD than on RAW.

This show has clusterfuck written all over it. Attempting to present that many "special attractions" within the 3 hour time frame is nuts. I expect to see around 2-3 matches tops, with the rest being backstage segments and in-ring promos. That doesn't mean it can't be cool. Just that it may feel very forced.

Oh, it is going to be a nostalgic cluster, no doubt about it. That doesn't mean it can't be entertaining and fun, but there will be very little development (which makes the timing the week before Rumble odd). There won't be much wrestling on the show, but I'm hoping to get a few cool moments, a couple developments for the Rumble matches (particularly a hint at some of the returning women in the match).

[KaiserGlider]

This show sucked. All the legends did was just show up. Taker cut a promo that made no sense. No angle for him, no mention of Roman, no mention of his career status, fucking nothing to indicate any sort of continuity. 50% of the "legends" stood on a stage for 5 seconds and then left. Nothing to see here.

[Everlong]

The fact that this show sucked is like the least surprising turn of events ever. Wwe can't even do nostalgia any more.

[The Legend]

The Manhattan Center thing was just odd and in reality shouldn't have been used as a second venue. Second venues don't work. The show would have had better continuity in just Barclays. As for Taker, I'm actually glad he didn't do anything of note, which would have likely been booking a feud for Mania that I don't want to see. The nostalgia was about right, that's the high point of what they got right though. This show sucked as the go home show before the Rumble, it should have been held two weeks ago. Getting the women involved in something for the Rumble would have been nice, allowing the active roster to do more to build the men's Rumble would have been good. Overall it was a decent;y entertaining show I thought, but could have definitely been better.

[Hanley!]

From the results, it really looks like a shit show. I'm seeing a bunch of people say the opening segment was the highlight of the show and it was all downhill from there, but I can't say the opening segment looks that appealing from the outside. We've seen Austin randomly stunning McMahons a million times, including on half of these landmark shows. The only difference is everyone looks older now and the angle is more depressing.

Like Kaiser said, it really does seem like most of the legends just showed up and didn't do anything. So we're supposed to believe that most of them just came to Raw to play cards, or to play guitar backstage? That's kinda dumb. And did the online results deceive me, or did the women they brought back literally do nothing? Just came out on stage and stood there? That's pretty shit.

Undertaker's return sounds like a bad segment but potentially good news. Maybe he's staying retired. His words did make it seem that way, but it was all wrapped up in zombie speak to give them an out. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he was in the Rumble on Sunday.

There seemed to be an extreme lack of angles, build for the Royal Rumble, or just stuff happening in general. Which at least would make the anniversary show a good representation of WWE in 2018.

[The Legend]

I would argue, there were more highlights, AJ's interview with Mean Gene was very cool to see how excited AJ was to be doing it. DX and the Bullet Club interacting was kinda fun for the same reason. The Stone Cold stuff was done well and seeing a bit of the old McMahon character of its all about me was a good way to introduce it. Reigns vs Miz was a great IC title match and hidden gem on the show. And I would argue that the poker segments were some of the best done nostalgia they've done, that's because they were simple, short and sweet, they let some people be seen and have some fun without being overbearing.

The downsides were Titus Worldwide vs Rhyno/Slater being on the show, the show having two locations and JR/King sounding totally out of touch with the product and Undertaker's promo.

[KaiserGlider]

There was some good stuff on the show. Jericho had the best promo out of all the returning legends, and I liked the Elias/Cena segment. Basically I dug everything Elias was involved with - haven't seen too much of this guy before but he's got a good gimmick and laying out Cena was a good way to make a statement. Miz vs Roman was good match with a hot crowd and a hot finish. That being said, it felt like a convenient way to get the midcard belt off Roman before the Wrestlemania build starts, and I'm not blown away by Miz winning the IC title for the 1,456th time.

But this show should have been a hell of an opportunity to bring in lots of casual viewers and hook them in for the Rumble and Wrestlemania. And as someone who last made an effort to watch an episode of Raw the night after Wrestlemania last year, I consider myself a casual viewer. And this show did nothing to make me want to watch Raw again. I wasn't the only one expecting something like Raw 1000. That was a pretty damn good episode of Raw - yes, it had the nostalgia moments and the returns and the legends, but it also had a big angle that hooked people in for the future: CM Punk turning heel on The Rock.

The biggest disappointment for me was the Undertaker's return, and after that point it was gonna take some work to turn the show around for me. How do you do a huge angle at the end of Wrestlemania to make everyone question whether or not Taker is done, have Roman spend 6+ months talking about how he took over Taker's yard, and then follow it up with THAT? So... is Taker retired? Is he not? Is he gonna get even with Roman? Nothing. No answers. Just some random shit about taking souls on Raw and paying respect to his victims or whatever the fuck. If they want it to be all cryptic and not reveal anything, why bring him back like this at all? Why not save his return until he's actually gonna be in a segment that matters? Missed opportunity right there.

The hordes of returning stars was basically one big missed opportunity too. Here's the thing: WWE knows the fans want to see these stars again, but they don't understand WHY we want to see them. We want to see them interact with past and present superstars, say their catchphrases, hit their finisher, etc. We want to see them actually DO something, at least. If I wanted to know what Eric Bischoff looks like in 2018, I'd just type his name into fucking Google. I don't care about him standing on the stage for 5 seconds and then going home. That is not why I tuned in.

I thought the APA segments were fun throughout the night, but MVP randomly being there after a commercial break and saying maybe one word the entire time was stupid. Total waste of a guy who was one of the best heels created by Smackdown in the original brand split, and had a great run as an authority figure in TNA a few years back. You can have some of the lower-tier legends have these kinds of appearances, but when over half the roster is just doing cameos, it's like... would it have been any different if they didn't show up at all?

The current roster stuff was underwhelming too. I don't know why Woken Matt Hardy lost to Bray Wyatt in a 5 minute match. The main event segment was treated like a huge deal to the point where Angle brought almost all the legends back out to... do nothing, once again. Braun is the best thing to come out of wrestling in 2017 and it never gets old seeing him demolish shit, but does anyone think Brock isn't retaining on Sunday? He dispatched Braun easily when they had their one-on-one match, and Kane has been in too many silly storylines to be taken seriously anymore. Overall, this whole show felt like a retread of stuff I've seen already.

[Messiah]

I just checked out the Austin segment. They literally ran the exact same segment (except this time around, it wasn't nearly as good) 13 years ago when Raw returned to the USA Network, minus Austin stunning Steph and Linda.