BRM Reviews the 9/7/2015 Raw (terrible)

[Big Red Machine]

SETH ROLLINS PROMO- long and boring. He talked for EIGHT STRAIGHT MINUTES and said NOTHING INTERESTING.
Then Sting took over the TitanTron, broadcasting live from what I assume is his version of the Bat-Cave (I’ve always envisioned Sting as the type of guy who would have a Bat-Cave. It probably leads to a labyrinth of underground tunnels that lead to secret basement elevators that take him up to the rafters of arenas around the world). This is where he is keeping the statue. They had him dust it off because… um…
Sting dared Rollins to come get the statue. How is Seth supposed to do that if Sting doesn’t tell him where he is? Why didn’t Hunter and Steph just make Sting’s title shot conditional on him returning the statue?
Then Sheamus came out and essentially played the babyface roll, telling Rollins he was an idiot for caring about this statue. Then they made a joke that Sheamus is related to Ronald McDonald. No one laughed. The whole point of this was Sheamus teasing that if Seth’s retain the WWE World Heavyweight Title at Night of Champions, Sheamus will cash in on him.

Michael introduces the Dolph/Lana/Rusev/Summer soap opera thusly: “We want to talk to you about this myriad of love affairs that has really taken the gossip sites around the world by storm.”
1) Two or three does not constitute a “myriad.”
2) I highly doubt that ANY gossip site has been talking about any of these. I HATE it when announcers feel the need to lie in such a blatantly false way. I understand trying to build up a wrestler by saying that “everyone is talking” about how good he is or how he is the next XYZ or whatever… and that’s fine because no one can prove it false. I’m sure somewhere there are some people who think that Will Ferrara is a future ROH World Champion. But to say that the gossip sites are talking about this FAKE WRESTLING ANGLE is utterly ridiculous and just makes you look like a liar.
(And just to double check this, I went to TMZ, who seem to be BY FAR the most WWE-friendly gossip site… and there was no mention of it at all.

ROLLINS TALKS TO STEPH BACKSTAGE- he is worried and afraid and hopes Triple H has a plan to help him deal with all of this. Why do they feel the need to make Seth look like a kid in over his head running to mommy and daddy to bail him out? How about letting your top heel champion LOOK LIKE AN ACTUAL CHAMPION?!
Hunter books Orton vs. Sheamus, as if this will somehow prevent Sheamus from cashing in tonight. Then he tells Seth that he will book him in two matches tonight to help him prepare for Night of Champions. Good in theory, except that Hunter booked Seth against first Ryback, whose style is nothing like either of the men Seth will face at the PPV… and for his second match books him in a SIX MAN TAG TEAM MATCH!
I really shouldn’t complain because they are doing Cena & PTP vs. Seth & New Day and I’ve been calling for them to do things like this (big tag team main events to both give fresh talent a chance to show their stuff in the main event and also elevate other titles by letting their champions look like main events) for YEARS at this point… but they still managed to find a way to do it that pissed me off.

PAIGE (w/Becky Lynch & Charlotte) vs. SASHA BANKS (w/Naomi & Tamina)- 4.75/10
Cole reminds us that this was the match on last week’s Beat The Clock Challenge that went to the time limit so we never got a real finish, so a rematch has been booked for tonight. It’s this sort of thing that is extra frustrating because it shows that WWE DOES know how to do things right… but nine times out of ten they just choose not to some inexplicable reason.

Okay, well, maybe I’m giving them a bit too much credit for being able to things right. If they are trying to build up a jealousy angle that will lead to Paige vs. Charlotte, the right finish here would have been for Paige to beat Sasha in less than the 1:40 time limit she would have had last week, giving her a reason to be jealous because she should be getting the title shot instead of Charlotte.
(If you’re worried about hurt Sasha with such a quick loss, you can have her get rolled up but attack Paige afterwards, leading to a #1 contendership match at Night of Champions (let’s not forget that Sasha made Nikki tap a few weeks ago) which Sasha would win. Charlotte would beat Nikki to win the title at NOC, and at the October PPV you have Charlotte retain against Sasha while Paige defeats Nikki (showing that she could have beaten Nikki if she had gotten the title shot) and then you can do Paige vs. Charlotte at Survivor Series.
The execution on the finish left a bit to be desired as between the angle and referee’s positioning, it looked to me like he was actually counting Sasha down instead of Paige and it really looked to me like both women’s shoulders were down.

THE ASCENSION vs. ROMAN REIGNS & DEAN AMBROSE- 3/10
They showed a replay from Smackdown and talked a lot about Bray Wyatt’s challenge to Roman and Dean. What they didn’t show a replay of form Smackdown was The Ascension joining up with Stardust and destroying Neville. The fact that they joined up with Stardust was mentioned ONCE, and the fact that they took out Neville was not mentioned at all. And of course, seeing as how they just started up a new stable last week, it won’t surprise you to learn that The Ascension got all but squashed here. My rating is more a reflection of how cool I thought it was to see someone hit a Doomsday Device than it is of how exciting this match was.
For those wondering, the name of the Stardust & Ascension stable is “The Cosmic Wasteland.” “Cosmic” because of Stardust, and “Wasteland” because at this point all three men’s future potential in this company looks like a barren wasteland.

WYATT FAMILY PROMO- they take over the TitanTron to tell “anyone who is foolish enough to join your cause: The apocalypse waits for you at Night of Champions.” Here’s an idea: instead of just having Bray cut the same promo from the Tron every week, how about having Dean and Roman make a friend and then having the Wyatts destroy him and THEN have Bray cut his promo, so that it becomes an actual warning instead of another boring Bray Wyatt promo (and also to get some more heat on the Wyatts).

Ummm… did anyone else just see an anti-cigarette commercial with a unicorn that vomited rainbows and quoted Admiral Ackbar?

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS RYBACK- terrible.
Wow… when he was talking about Seth Rollins, it couldn’t possibly have sounded more like he was reciting rehearsed lines. Then he said some stuff that sounded more like stuff Ryback would say, but it was still bad. Then Kevin Owens showed up to eat an apple and make eating puns.

LOVE RECTANGLE SOAP OPERA VIDEO PACKAGE- it referred to Dolph and Lana as “WWE’s resident ‘it couple.’” Now… I could be wrong, having never been in an “it couple” myself, but don’t “it couples” usually have chemistry together? Because Dolph and Lana sure as hell don’t. It also referred to them as a “WWE’s resident power couple.” Wouldn’t that be Hunter & Steph? Also… using the phrase “WWE’s resident ADJECTIVE couple” twice in such a short span was pretty pathetic. Take some pride in your damn writing and find a different phrase for the second time!
I get that they were trying to do with a gossip-show style video package, but I just hated it. It’s too out of tone with the rest of the show, so it just felt so fake.

SETH ROLLINS vs. RYBACK- 7.25/10
The announcers discussed the stolen statue issue, and came off like idiots. JBL wants to know why Seth “didn’t call the Baltimore police and report a felony.” The answer to this would be that the crime took place in Brooklyn and thus the Baltimore police have no jurisdiction.
Not to be outdone, Cole responded thusly: “Well, John, I don’t know if we can really call it ‘stealing.’ Sting has it in his possession, but he did tell Seth ‘I’m here in the arena with your statue. Come get it.” So according to Michael Cole, it’s not stealing if, at some point down the line, you offer to give it back. So I guess Cole would be fine with someone taking his car for a two week long joyride and then returning it.
Trying to win the stupidity contest Byron Saxton piped up to say “I think Sting borrowed it.” BORROWING WITHOUT ASKING IS STEALING, YOU F*CKING IDIOT! THAT’S A LESSON WE TEACH SMALL CHILDREN… AND HERE IS A GROWN MAN WHO IS APPARENTLY UNABLE TO GRAPS THE CONCEPT!
Now I’m getting really angry and flashing back to Lawler’s idiocy that time Sheamus stole Del Rio’s car.

The Twitter crawl on the bottom of the screen showed a Tweet from SCOTTY RIGGS. I had completely forgotten he existed.

Seth Rollins stole Jay Lethal’s spot where he does a bunch of suicide dives in a row because WWE has stolen everything else in this “double champion” story from ROH, so why not just take Lethal’s spots, too?
They had a very good until a terrible finish, which saw Sting take over the TitanTron to taunt Rollins about his statue, allowing Ryback to roll Rollins up, so Ryback should now be in line for a shot at both the WWE World Heavyweight Title and the US Title. I put the odds of this actually being followed up on at slim to none (although Ryback would make a decent challenger for Rollins after he defeats Sting and Cena). Then Sting took one of those cheap Sting masks that WWE sells and put it on the Rollins statue. This made Seth very upset because I guess Seth isn’t strong enough to pull a string a lift a cheap plastic mask so the statue is now defaced forever. That’s the best I can come up with.

NEW DAY BOTHER SETH- amusing. Xavier needs to start using that trombone as a foreign object.
Then Edge and Christian showed up as a clumsy way to insert them into the show because they’re going to be on Austin’s podcast tonight. Edge picks a fight with Rollins about that whole attempted paralyzing back in December. Seth walked away from this fight to go find Sting. I didn’t like this at all. Then Christian and Xavier had a kazoo vs. trombone music-off which I liked even less.
Then the Dudleys showed up. At least that part was kind of clever. Bubba tells The New Day (and us) that The Authority just told them that PTP will get their tag title rematch on Raw, and the winner of that match will defend against the Dudleys at Night of Champions. If this had ended there it would have been fine, but instead we had to have Bubba chant “Get! The Tables!” in the “New! Day Rocks!” meter, while Christian and Devon danced, Edge played the kazoo, and the New Day were offended. I HATED this.

SUMMER RAE APOLOGIZES TO RUSEV- she apologizes a lot. Rusev accepts her apology, claiming it is Dolph fault because he fed her “all these American lies.” I’m not even sure what he means. Rusev claims that Lana’s wrist injury is a work, and the real injuries she is suffering from is a broken heart. I thought that bit was clever. Dolph comes out and claims to have banged Lana last night so… I guess they’re back together and no more suspense. Well… that was dumb. They had crappy dialogue, then Dolph sucker-kicked Rusev like a heel. At least this whole thing was over quickly.

RANDY ORTON vs. SHEAMUS- the match was good, but my DVR cut out so I don’t know what the finish was. It actually split this into to recordings, and, creepily, the second recording started right as the Wyatts’ TV-controlling static happened.
Anyway, the Wyatts attack Randy for no conceivable reason. If they want to beat Dean and Roman up at the PPV and are trying to scare everyone off from teaming with them, why would they randomly go and do something that would encourage a tough, dangerous SOB like Randy Orton to want to team with Dean and Roman? It’s just f*cking lazy booking is what it is, and it bothers me. Instead of creating a story by which Dean and Roman could recruit someone, they just have the Wyatts randomly attacked someone because of their mysterious (read as non-existent bullsh*t we can pull out of our asses whenever we want to) reasons.

THE DUDLEY BOYS vs. LOS MATADORES (w/El Torito)- DUD!
Torito randomly got into an argument with one of the Matadors, who then punched Torito in the face. This distraction let the Dudleys set up the 3-D for the win. Why can’t the Dudleys just win cleanly? I mean… it’s not like this completely out of nowhere Matadores break is important or on some sort of timetable where it MUST happen this week.
After the match, the Matadores bullied Torito so the Dudleys saved him and put one of the Matadores through a table. I appreciated that they at least came up with a way to do this without the Dudleys looking like heels for assaulting someone after a match. What I didn’t appreciate was Byron Saxton’s commentary. “Operation Table is underway.” He actually said that. That was so bad I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if he wasn’t at the commentary table when we came back from commercial.

WE’RE GETTING DOLPH VS. RUSEV AT THE PPV- again.

THE MIZ vs. CESARO- DUD!
They showed us an angle they did on the pre-show to set this up. Of course that was all irrelevant because the match went to a pointless double count-out when Miz beat Cesaro up outside of the ring, then ran away from Big Show. If you’re going to do a finish like this, couldn’t you at least have Cesaro get the win?!
JBL shows that he wasn’t paying attention because he says that Miz lost by count-out, even though Cesaro never got back into the ring. One would assume that feuding with the despised Miz would make Big Show a babyface, but then Big Show randomly punched out Cesaro, too, so I guess he’s not a babyface. This felt like a complete and pointless burial of Cesaro. They could have used ANYONE in this spot to have a double count-out and get beaten up TWICE… but the decided to use Cesaro here. Not Zack Ryder or Heath Slater or Wade Barrett or R-Truth or Stardust or Adam Rose or someone from NXT… but instead they chose Cesaro.

TEAM BELLA PROMO & SEGMENT WITH CHARLOTTE, BECKY, & PAIGE- bad.
Nikki says that next week, when she breaks the record, they will have a “Bella-bration.” Charlotte, Becky, and Paige mercifully interrupt her. Charlotte announces that The Authority has granted her request for her title match to be next week. Charlotte’s promo was pretty good.
Then, for no reason at all, the babyfaces jumped the heels and beat them up like a bunch of heels.

JOHN CENA & THE PRIME TIME PLAYERS vs. SETH ROLLINS & THE NEW DAY (w/Xavier Woods)- 6.5/10
This only went thirteen minutes and no one aside from Big E. was really given the chance to step up and deliver. JBL insists on repeating his “Chief Jay Trombone” joke from last week, because as we all know, in the world of WWE, jokes get funnier the more you repeat them.

STING DESTROYS SETH ROLLINS STATUE IN A GARBAGE TRUCK- yeah… this sort of wanton property destruction might have been okay in the Attitude Era, but Sting is coming off like a real ass here (though his general buffoonery was a big part of that as well). Then Sting rode off in the dignified manner of a garbage collector. Your #1 contender, ladies and gentlemen.

An utterly terrible episode of Raw.

[cero2k]

Michael introduces the Dolph/Lana/Rusev/Summer soap opera thusly: “We want to talk to you about this myriad of love affairs that has really taken the gossip sites around the world by storm.”
1) Two or three does not constitute a “myriad.”
2) I highly doubt that ANY gossip site has been talking about any of these. I HATE it when announcers feel the need to lie in such a blatantly false way. I understand trying to build up a wrestler by saying that “everyone is talking” about how good he is or how he is the next XYZ or whatever… and that’s fine because no one can prove it false. I’m sure somewhere there are some people who think that Will Ferrara is a future ROH World Champion. But to say that the gossip sites are talking about this FAKE WRESTLING ANGLE is utterly ridiculous and just makes you look like a liar.
(And just to double check this, I went to TMZ, who seem to be BY FAR the most WWE-friendly gossip site… and there was no mention of it at all.

isn't the wrestling observer a gossip site?

[Big Red Machine]

Michael introduces the Dolph/Lana/Rusev/Summer soap opera thusly: “We want to talk to you about this myriad of love affairs that has really taken the gossip sites around the world by storm.”
1) Two or three does not constitute a “myriad.”
2) I highly doubt that ANY gossip site has been talking about any of these. I HATE it when announcers feel the need to lie in such a blatantly false way. I understand trying to build up a wrestler by saying that “everyone is talking” about how good he is or how he is the next XYZ or whatever… and that’s fine because no one can prove it false. I’m sure somewhere there are some people who think that Will Ferrara is a future ROH World Champion. But to say that the gossip sites are talking about this FAKE WRESTLING ANGLE is utterly ridiculous and just makes you look like a liar.
(And just to double check this, I went to TMZ, who seem to be BY FAR the most WWE-friendly gossip site… and there was no mention of it at all.

isn't the wrestling observer a gossip site?

How dare you, sir! It is a well-respected news organization. It just happens to deal constantly in rumors and barely-confirmed facts (though at least they are nice enough to note when this is the case).