BRM Reviews the 10/12/2015 Raw (terrible)

[Big Red Machine]

KANE IS ON THE PHONE WITH STEPH AND HUNTER- they are going to be late to the show, so they need Kane to run things. They tell him not let his issues with Seth cloud his judgement. Haven’t we already seen this at least once since Night of Champions?
Kane, predictably, books himself against Seth in a Lumberjack match to stop Seth from running away (although they didn’t explain that last part).

OPENING SEGMENT- Ambrose comes out and tells us all what we already know: that the Authority will be late. Then Randy Orton comes out and lets everyone know that he and Dean will be wrestling Harper and Strowman at the PPV. They don’t get along for contrived reasons- particularly because Dean is kind of a jerk to Randy. Some of Randy’s verbiage here was very bad. Why did we even need this segment? Why not just show us a f*cking graphic? Why are we having our supposed heroes whining and bickering over who should get to be the captain of the team. WHO GIVES A SH*T?! If you want to show them not getting along, just book them in a tag team match together and do a miscommunication spot! Or if you must have them bicker over who should “lead” the team, why not book them in a tag match and do a spot where one guy tags himself in against the other’s will and this somehow leads to them losing so that they actually HAVE A REASON to argue before they start arguing?!
Now The New Day are out here and they are SOOOOO annoying. And not like “I want to see those heels get beaten up” annoying. I mean “change the channel so I don’t have to hear them speak” annoying. New Day claim the Shield never took out John Cena, but I am 100% certain that they did.
Then Kane appeared on the screen and made a tag team match. He was the only good part of this. Also, the idea that Kane has a fire-safety poster in his office made me howl with laughter.

RANDY ORTON & DEAN AMBROSE vs. THE NEW DAY (w/Xavier Woods)- 6.5/10
The match was fine, but the finish doesn’t work with the story they want to tell because Ambrose will know that Orton didn’t bump into him on purpose once he sees a replay of the finish.

They’re advertising Reigns vs. Strowman for later tonight. There’s no way that one doesn’t end in a DQ.

TAKER VS. LESNAR VIDEO PACKAGE- First the announcers push that this rivalry is “thirteen years in the making” and then they show us a video package that only contains events from the past eighteen months.

NIKKI BELLA (w/Brie Bella & Alicia Fox) vs. NAOMI (w/Sasha Banks & Tamina)- 0.5/10
WWE tells us what an awesome match Sasha supposedly had at the Takeover show (IMO it was several levels below most of Sasha’s other big matches in NXT)… and then they follow up on it by having Sasha watch a match instead of wrestle. Are they really surprised that the people wouldn’t care about this match and would instead chant “WE WANT SASHA!”?
Apparently they’re not surprised. In fact, they apparently did this on purpose so that Brie could grab the mic and chant “WE WANT SASHA!” to try to make Naomi jealous. Team B.A.D. are heels. Why should Naomi care if the fans want to see Sasha wrestle or not?
The announcers are trying to push this as those devious Bellas “driving a wedge” between Team B.A.D. like they supposedly did to PCB… except I’m pretty sure Paige turned before the Bellas ever said anything, so the Bellas really didn’t do anything to drive a wedge between PCB.
Naomi loses because she is distracted by Brie’s shouting, but it seemed to me that it was just Brie making noise that distracted Naomi rather than the fact that Brie was telling her the fans were cheering for Sasha. If she was supposed to be annoyed by the Sasha part of it, they should have had her look at Sasha questioningly or something like that.

ROMAN REIGNS DOES A SUSAN G. KOMEN COMMERCIAL- So Roman is introducing this woman and is talking about what a great bowler she is and how she won multiple championships in high school… and then they have this woman interrupt Roman and say “don’t forget my national championship in college” and it instantly made me not like this woman. The worst part is that this clearly scripted crap was done to add “comedy” into this ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING CHECK FOR BREAST CANCER! Know what you’re supposed to be writing, and then write that. Don’t try to add comedy into everything.

PAIGE HAS BEEN NAMED “MOST UNCONVENTIONAL SUPERSTAR” BY THE WWE UNIVERSE-
WHO GIVES A SH*T?!
And speaking of things no one could possibly give a sh*t about, Paige is still whining about how no one is giving her credit for starting the Divas Revolution. It’s currently 3AM and I WAS tired until I heard Paige say this because hearing her say this made me fly into such a rage that there is now no way in hell I’m getting to sleep any time soon.
New game: Every time someone mentions that they want credit for starting the Divas Revolution, I am going to find an epic disaster in human history to compare it to. Here’s an example: “Taking credit for the Divas Revolution would be like taking credit for drawing up Napoleon’s plans to invade Russia in the winter.”
This segment also contained blatant and stupid product placement, and also Paige acting obnoxiously passive-aggressive.

WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: John Cena(c) vs. Dolph Ziggler- 8.25/10
To the newly-engaged couple of attention whores: IT’S THE MIDDLE OF A F*CKING MATCH!
Kurt Angle is no longer under contract to TNA, so apparently it’s okay to mention his name on the air again.
Well… at least the match was awesome.

KANE TALKS TO HUNTER ON THE PHONE- so Hunter can call Kane, but can’t use the internet to find out that Kane has disobeyed him and booked himself against Seth in the main event?
Also, in the background, we hear Steph first getting coffee spilled on her because their plane is experiencing turbulence, then browbeating an employee. We are supposed to laugh at this.

THE DUDLEY BOYS vs. THE ASCENSION- 0.5/10
Byron Saxton mentions the Ascension’s dislike for tag teams of the past, which was an angle from nine months ago… but no one mentions the fact that they are currently aligned with Stardust, which happened six weeks ago.

CESARO & NEVILLE vs. WADE BARETT & SHEAMUS- 4.25/10
Perhaps we can do some sort of stip where if Neville and Cesaro win, they get their first names back. This match was WAY too short. These guys could have put on something totally awesome if given the time, but we had to waste ten minutes in the beginning of the show with Orton and Dean bickering, then had to waste time by having the Dudley Boys get a squash, and also with the backstage “comedy” involving Steph screaming at people, so there was no time left for the wrestling on this wrestling show.

ROMAN REIGNS PROMO- a never-ending recap of this never-ending feud. Here’s something else that should have been scrapped to give more time to the previous match. The crowd rightfully chanted “BORING!” during this promo, and Roman had the audacity to lie through his teeth and claim that this promo was not boring, which caused me to start screaming at him through the TV.
Oh G-d dammit now Bray’s going to talk, too?! And now they’re having back-and-forth. MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!



ROMAN REGINS vs. BRAUN STROWMAN (w/the Wyatt Family)- 5/10
Well I’ll be damned. They didn’t do a DQ. They did a count-out instead.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- they tease that the Wyatts will beat Roman down, but Roman outsmarts them by… sliding out of the ring. I laughed my ass off at how goofy this made the Wyatts look. Then Bray and Roman had a stare-down that ended with Bray taking his eyes off of Roman to pose, so Roman, the babyface, hit him with a cheap-shot.

KANE ON THE PHONE WITH THE AUTHORITY- Kane reveals to Hunter what his main event was… but the reception is bad so Hunter can’t here. This was a huge waste of time.

RYBACK vs. RUSEV (w/Summer Rae)- 4/10
Yes, Summer Rae is out here with Rusev, even though they just told us that Rusev and Lana got engaged…although they haven’t bothered to explain that one, either, as the last time we saw them on TV, they hated each other. This was a pointless rematch from a Smackdown match so pointless it wasn’t even mentioned.

SUMMER RAE PROMO ON RUSEV- bad.
1) This was horribly over-scripted.
2) Summer says that Lana and Rusev got engaged a month ago, which would correspond with Lana’s last appearance on television, which makes this whole thing need an explanation even more… and yet we still haven’t gotten one.
3) Summer Rae calls Rusev “whipped.” She clearly doesn’t know what that word means because if ever there was anyone who is the opposite of whipped, it’s Rusev. He had Summer Rae doing his sh*t for him and dressing exactly how he wanted, and when they broke up back in the spring, Lana was complaining that Rusev was too controlling.
4) Summer Rae of all characters using the word “narcissistic” to describe someone else made me laugh.

KEVIN OWENS vs. KALISTO (w/Sin Cara)- 5.5/10
Fun.

BECKY LYNCH & CHARLOTTE (w/Natalya) vs. ALICIA FOX & BRIE BELLA (w/Nikki Bella)- DUD!
Paige is on commentary and says that she, Becky, and Charlotte are still a team. Did I imagine her heel turn?
Paige claims to have started the Divas Revolution. That’s like claiming you were the one who started putting lead in paint.
Paige got up to shove Nattie, claiming Nattie is trying to steal her friends. Then Brie pinned Charlotte cleanly because WWE wants Charlotte to be a superstar and we all know that the best way to make someone look like a big deal is to have them loose clean in two minutes. It’s also a good idea to make your champion look like a big deal by having her lose cleanly in two minutes to someone she isn’t even wrestling at the PPV.

KANE ON THE PHONE WITH THE AUTHORITY- They order him not to wrestle Seth Rollins tonight. The people care about this so much that they chant for CM Punk.

ROLLINS & BIG SHOW BACKSTAGE- Rollins is a whiny little b*tch who has no friends.

LUMBERJACK MATCH: Seth Rollins vs. Kane- 4.25/10
Apparently Kane can get away with still wrestling Seth because this is Demon Kane wrestling and not Corporate Kane. This is SOOOO f*cking dumb. Why is everyone acting like “Corporate Kane” and “Demon Kane” are two different people?!
Kane decided to randomly hit the Big Show. Big Show then knocked Kane out right in front of the referee, which should have been a DQ. Kane kicked out when Seth tried to pin him (so Big Show doesn’t even wrestle tonight but he still gets his finisher kicked out of). We then had a million people run into the ring. Still no DQ. Then all of the lumberjacks in this Lumberjack Match brawled away from ringside and instead of use this as a perfect opportunity for Seth to run away, WWE had Kane pin Seth instead


So we got absolutely no answer on how Rusev and Lana got engaged if they have been feuding on-screen for the past five months. There was no comment from Lana’s supposed boyfriend, Dolph Ziggler, either.

An absolutely terrible Raw aside from the awesome Cena vs. Ziggler match.