BRM Reviews te 9/21/2015 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT-
Bray cuts a promo. Then Roman Reigns’ music plays and Roman shows up. It feels like this has been going on FOREVER. Dean Ambrose is conspicuously absent. Roman challenges Bray to a fight. Bray sends his monsters to the outside so that they can fight. They fight. I just don’t give a f*ck about these two fighting each other anymore. The big scary monsters interfere and beat up Roman. Dean comes out to make the save but eventually gets taken down by Strowman.
The Wyatts beat Dean and Roman up three-on-two until Orton comes out to make the save. They are doing a good job making Strowman look like the biggest, toughest, strongest monster ever. It’s just a shame he’s so bad in the ring.

KANE & ROLLINS BACKSTAGE- apparently Hunter & Steph aren’t here yet, even though the show has already started. Seth is nervous around Kane. Kane is acting nonchalant. Kane has decided to sign Seth’s rematch for the US Title for tonight.

COSMIC WASTELAND vs. NEVILLE & THE LUCHA DRAGONS- 4.75/10
The sooner WWE gets this “comic book come to life” concept out of their head, the better. The heels won at the PPV so the babyfaces win tonight on TV. Neither match had any consequences, so we’re back at square one. Hooray for wasting time!


According to the announcers, it seems like the idea is that “Corporate Kane” and “Demon Kane” are separate entities and each one doesn’t know what the other is up to.

SETH FINDS STEPH & HUNTER- Seth has to run to mommy and daddy to fix things for him. Because apparently that’s how you book a champion correctly.

RYBACK vs. BO DALLAS- 1/10
Owens is on commentary. Bo cuts a pre-match promo congratulating him for winning the title. He also said things that made Ryback angry. What should have happened here was that Ryback squashed Bo like an ant under the tires of an SUV, but instead they felt the needs to give Bo some offense.
Cole is talking about Owens having disrespected legendary IC champions of the past. I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about.

OWENS JUMPS RYBACK FROM BEHIND- Ryback manages to get the better of Owens and goes for the Shellshock, but Owens avoids it and bails. I didn’t like this. It felt like the two of them getting physical just for the sake of getting physical. It would have been better to keep them apart and have the story be Ryback’s anger, not Owens jumping Ryback from behind.

CHARLOTTE’S CELEBRATION-
First Ric Flair comes out and cuts an absolutely awesome promo. Then Charlotte cut fantastic promos praising her father and her two friends… and then Paige just randomly turned heel and buried Charlotte’s title win and every single woman in the division aside from Rosa Mendes.
Then the Bellas came out and Nikki cut a promo about how being the champ means everyone is going to be jealous of you.
This was bad. Paige’s heel turn was just clumsy. Complete and total out of nowhere bullsh*t, which is made even more frustrating by the fact that the way they did the Beat The Clock Challenge seemed to indicate that there actually was a plan to do this in a way that made sense (for an outline of what that might have looked like, so see my comments on the Paige vs. Sasha match from the 9/7 Raw). But this is WWE, and you’d think I would have learned by now that they never plan that far in advance (or if they do, they never stick to it).
Nikki’s promo probably should have come next week (or at least on Smackdown).

BRIE BELLA (w/Nikki Bella & Charlotte) vs. CHARLOTTE (w/Becky Lynch)- 4/10
I guess Ric Flair went to the back before Charlotte’s match because… um…
Brie worked the leg. This match should not have taken place. All it did was take away from the punch of Paige’s turn by having Charlotte win a business as usual match.

MARK HENRY vs. SHEAMUS- DUD!
Way too short for Henry to lose.

HUNTER, STEPH, & KANE BACKSTAGE- this is f*cking terrible. This over-happy Kane bullsh*t needs to stop immediately. Kane claims to have no knowledge of attacking Seth last night. You’d think that, as Director of Operations, he would have watched the PPV, right?

PAIGE & NATTIE BACKSTAGE- Nattie gives Paige a lecture. Apparently Nattie is booked against Naomi tonight.
So Nattie returns to TV for the first time since her husband broke his neck in a WWE ring… and they didn’t hype it up in any way at all.

NEW DAY PROMO- would have been good if this whole “save the tables” thing wasn’t so stupid.
Xavier is still selling last night’s table bump.

DOLPH ZIGGLER & THE DUDLEY BOYS vs. RUSEV & THE NEW DAY (w/Xavier Woods & Summer Rae)- 7/10
Whazzup right in front of the referee, but there was no DQ. Other than that, they had, a good, fun, six man tag. Rusev pinned Dolph after a superkick when Dolph was distracted by Xavier.
While I did enjoy the match, I think it would have been a lot better to just book Dudleys & Dolph vs. The New Day and let Rusev and Summer deal with their issues in their own segment. Keeping Dolph and Rusev away from each other for a show would be a very nice change of pace, as would seeing Xavier actually get to wrestle.

NATALYA vs. NAOMI (w/Sasha Banks & Tamina)- 5.25/10
They had a solid match that ended when Nattie got distracted and wound up eating a Rear View. So basically the same finish as the last match.

HUNTER, STEPH, & ROLLINS BACKSTAGE- bad.
More making Rollins look like a dork compared to Hunter and Steph.

BIG SHOW vs. CESARO- 4.25/10
Big Show has to win because they are building him up to face Brock on the Network special on 10/3. You know what would be a MUCH better (and fresher) match than Brock vs. Big Show? Brock vs. Cesaro.

BIG SHOW PROMO- fine

WYATT FAMILY PROMO- Harper was good. Then Braun Strowman spoke his first words on WWE TV. For the eternal record, those words were: “I caught a snake once. I skinned it and drank its blood.”
Well… I wasn’t expecting him to say that.
This was successfully creepy.

WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: John Cena(c) vs. Seth Rollins- 7.75/10
I loved the match. The problem now is that US Champion John Cena has cleanly pinned the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, which should earn him a shot at the WWE World Heavyweight Title… putting us right back at where we started.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- corny and dumb and lame.
Corporate Kane showed up on the Tron and warned Seth that scary people would be coming after his title. Then Demon Kane came out through the canvas and dragged Seth down under the ring to do whatever unspecified but surely terrible thing he does to people down there. And just to make it dumber they had smoke come up from under the ring. When will they ever f*cking learn that sh*t like this sucks?

An okay Raw.

[cero2k]

CHARLOTTE’S CELEBRATION-
First Ric Flair comes out and cuts an absolutely awesome promo. Then Charlotte cut fantastic promos praising her father and her two friends… and then Paige just randomly turned heel and buried Charlotte’s title win and every single woman in the division aside from Rosa Mendes.

not remembering Rosa had to be the worst bury of them all

[Big Red Machine]

CHARLOTTE’S CELEBRATION-
First Ric Flair comes out and cuts an absolutely awesome promo. Then Charlotte cut fantastic promos praising her father and her two friends… and then Paige just randomly turned heel and buried Charlotte’s title win and every single woman in the division aside from Rosa Mendes.

not remembering Rosa had to be the worst bury of them all

LOL.

[NWK2000]

1. I love the comic book Stardust stuff. I love Stardust as a character, and The Ascension look like something out of X-Force, and the Lucha Dragons look like superheroes but being luchadores in general. The only person who doesn't fit this is Neville, who's just a normal dude with a cape.
2. As far as the ending segment with Kane and Seth Rollins, I think we're at the point now where the elements of fantasy horror get a pass because it's Kane and/or Taker.

[Big Red Machine]

1. I love the comic book Stardust stuff. I love Stardust as a character, and The Ascension look like something out of X-Force, and the Lucha Dragons look like superheroes but being luchadores in general. The only person who doesn't fit this is Neville, who's just a normal dude with a cape.
2. As far as the ending segment with Kane and Seth Rollins, I think we're at the point now where the elements of fantasy horror get a pass because it's Kane and/or Taker.

1. My issues are
A: That it is so clearly handicapping Neville because they clearly see Stardust as nothing more than a jobber and they decided that these two "comic book" guys should be attached at the hip
B. It sounds SOOOOOO F*CKING STUPID when they say it out loud.

2. Magic appearing and disappearing I tend to give passes to Taker, Sting, and occasionally Kane.
The dragging down under the ring stuff, though... IT'S JUST SOOOO DUMB. Kane opened up a portal under the ring and dragged Seth Rollins down into the depths of hell to torture him? COME ON!
It's 2015. Their audience is already shrinking. How about we not do things that make people roll their eyes.

It's like people forget that when Taker did it to Diesel (which I believe was the first time it happened in- at least in WWF), he wasn't "dragging him down into the depths of hell." He was pulling him down so that Bret could escape the cage and thus Diesel would lose a world title match.

[cero2k]

2. Magic appearing and disappearing I tend to give passes to Taker, Sting, and occasionally Kane.
The dragging down under the ring stuff, though... IT'S JUST SOOOO DUMB. Kane opened up a portal under the ring and dragged Seth Rollins down into the depths of hell to torture him? COME ON!
It's 2015. Their audience is already shrinking. How about we not do things that make people roll their eyes.

maybe they'll open Smackdown announcing that Kane raped Rollins under the ring and bring reality back