BRM Reviews the 11/2/2015 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- Roman is out to cut a promo and it is AMAZING how quickly I get into and out of his promos based on how clearly and terribly scripted the particular sentence his is saying is. Some of the things he said had me more into a Roman Reigns promo than I’ve ever been before and some just had me rolling my eyes.
Then Seth came out and cut a decent promo, but he needs to stop laughing in his promos. His evil laughing comes off as so fake. They tease giving us a match. Then Steph and Hunter come out to troll the crowd into thinking that they’ll get the big title match tonight on Raw.
Steph announces the match for Survivor Series. She also said that this year is the “29th Anniversary of Survivor Series,” which shows that they haven’t learned anything in the past six and a half years since they made this same mistake regarding the “25th Anniversary of WrestleMania.” Hunter announces that Seth and Roman will each captain teams in a five on five elimination match tonight.
Byron Saxton was tasked with hyping up a Bray Wyatt promo for later tonight. He said the following: “Now Bray Wyatt owns the souls of the Brothers of Destruction. The question is: are his claims true? We’ll find out tonight.”
I don’t know if it was Byron himself on the WWE “writers” or a combination of the two, but someone actually thought that saying THAT would get us excited to see this promo.

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. KEVIN OWENS- 5.25/10
JBL claimed that Dolph put on a “career-defining performance” at last year’s Survivor Series. Then why is he in the exact same place now one year later that he was before that match? Actually, now that I think about it “no matter how much the fans like you, no matter what we might temporarily give you, we’ll never let you become a top guy” has pretty much been the sad story of Dolph’s career in recent years, so I guess JBL was right.
They go for a few minutes before Tyler Breeze’s music starts playing… and the camera cuts to the stage to shoot Tyler FROM THE KNEES DOWN as he walks out. WHY?! Even if we ignore the fact that THERE IS A WRESTLING MATCH GOING ON IN THE RING RIGHT NOW… why would you shoot him from the knees down?! It’s not like he’s some mystery person or something. We KNOW it’s Tyler Breeze BECAUSE HIS MUSIC IS PLAYING! Oh… and right after Tyler shows up, they go to a commercial. When we got back from commercial, Summer and Tyler were sitting in their big fancy set-up with the velvet rope and the snack table and comfy chairs at ringside. Did they actually have people come out to set this up DURING A MATCH? Or was it just sitting out here the whole time in case Summer and Tyler decided to come out and watch the match?
Why does Tyler even get all of this stuff? It makes sense if you’ve been watching him for years in NXT, but I’m almost certain that they’ve never mentioned the supermodel part of Tyler gimmick on the main roster. To people who don’t watch NXT, he’s just dude who dresses goofy.
Michael Cole then told us that Summer Rae is streaming this all live on her Facebook. WHY WOULD YOU TELL US THIS?! Are you actually trying to get people to STOP WATCHING THE MATCH so that they will go watch Summer Rae sitting a chair on her Facebook?! It’s either that or is she illegally streaming the match.
The finish saw Tyler get up and decide to take a selfie near the ring (he wasn’t even on the apron). This offended Dolph, who went after Tyler, causing himself to get distracted and eat a pop-up powerbomb like an idiot. After the match, Tyler tried to take a selfie of himself and the downed Ziggler. Ziggler kicked him, so Tyler gave him a supermodel kick. The only good part of this was Summer Rae’s gleeful clapping and cackling when Tyler gave Dolph the supermodel kick.


25 YEARS AGO SURVIVOR SERIES VIDEO PACKAGE- so they showed a bunch of clips from the Team Honkytonk Man vs. Team Savage match… which ended with HTM walking off to get counted out, and all I could think was “well that’s an unsatisfying finish. Now I’m not excited for Survivor Series at all.”

SETH ROLLINS & KEVIN OWENS BACKSTAGE- Rollins promises Owens a WreslteMania main event title shot against him if he joins his team tonight. If this doesn’t actually go somewhere with Owens being pissed at Rollins, I will be very unhappy. Owens already looks like a f*cking idiot for believing Seth (doesn’t he know that the WrestleMania title shot goes to the winner of the Royal Rumble?), but if he then doesn’t pursue Seth for this trickery, it will be VERY out of character. (On a related note, Byron Saxton is, in fact, dumb enough to believe that as of this moment, Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens for the WWE Title is the official main event of WrestleMania XXXII.

Michael Cole tells us that Paige wants credit for starting the Divas Revolution, which is like demanding credit for coming up with the idea for New Coke.

First they showed us a clip of Nikki Bella pinning Becky Lynch clean in the middle of the ring last week. Then they showed us a graphic about a #1 contendership match which Becky, the loser, gets to be a part of, but Nikki, who pinned her cleanly, does not.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BECKY LYNCH- Renee introduced Becky as “the B in the team formally known as PCB.” Despite the fact that Becky has used this nickname herself many times, she got extremely upset when Renee used it because “there are children in the audience.” This is because Becky apparently didn’t have enough of a “character” on NXT where she was SUPER OVER, so the writing team has decided to give her the “character” of “she’s the wacky one.” Becky Lynch as we knew and loved her on NXT is dead.
Becky called Paige’s actions last week an “eye-opener” because apparently some time before last week’s Raw, she has forgotten everything that had happened for the previous month.
They pushed the idea that Becky might have to face her best friend Charlotte. Brie showed up and they had a terrible back and forth. In case you didn’t believe me that the writers are pushing this “she’s the wacky one” character on Becky, Brie showed up and actually called her “Charlotte’s wacky sidekick” and Becky said she considered it a compliment. Then Brie went away and Renee decided to start giggling for some reason and Becky was over the top and wacky.

CESARO vs. THE MIZ- 4/10
Michael Cole tries to plug the Raw pre-show by telling us that on tonight’s pre-show, he learned what an infinity scarf is.
Stardust and The Ascension are sitting in their own “Stardust Section.” Michael Cole tells us that apparently “we have seen this in recent weeks.” NO WE HAVEN’T! Based on recent weeks of TV, I didn’t even think Stardust and the Ascension were even a group anymore.

BRAY WYATT PROVES THAT HE OWNS THE SOULS OF KANE AND UNDERTAKER- he does this magically summoning purplish cartoon lighting which, or course, only hits the ringposts where all of the non-magical pyro comes out of as well. This looked a million, zillion times faker than when Kane did this same thing in 1998 (here’s the link):

phpBB [video]

This was f*cking atrocious.

We got a random video package for the Lucha Dragons before their match, which was…
LUCHA DRAGONS vs. WADE BARRETT & SHEAMUS- 5.75/10
I had completely forgotten that Sheamus had the Money in the Bank briefcase until Cole mentioned it. And in my mind, that’s a good thing. I hate it when they constantly ring up and tease MITB cash-ins. When it happens, I want to be a complete and total surprise.
The announcers talk about how Sheamus is being a “bully” to Kalisto, as if it were somehow Sheamus’ fault that he’s been booked against a guy who he has about a foot in height and a hundred pounds in weight over.
That fans are chanting “LET’S GO LUCHA!” which is hilarious when you realize that Kalisto tries to get them to chant something else “LU-CHA!” during EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS MATCHES.
The guys who got a video package about them played before the match were the guys who won. What a coincidence.

JACK SWAGGER SHOW UP TO TALK TO ZEB COULTER- more fuel for Botched Spot’s theory that Zeb has been kidnapped and beaten until he has submitted to Del Rio’s will.
http://botchedspot.com/blog/comic/the-f ... examerica/


R-TRUTH vs. ALBERTO DEL RIO (w/Zeb Coulter)- 4.25/10
Del Rio won, once again using the tree of woe double stomp. Crazy theory time: they’re not letting anyone use the cross armbreaker/armbar because they’re saving it for Ronda.
The Tweets they were scrolling across the bottom of the screen about the Bray Wyatt segment made me absolutely furious at dumb these stupid marks are.

THE NEW DAY WANT TO BE ON SETH’S TEAM- he says okay. Seth’s reaction to the unicorn sh*t was exactly the same as mine.

JOJO SIGHTING!
She interviews Sasha Banks. Sasha is awesome. Apparently there was a Charlotte vs. Nattie match on Smackdown. I’m gonna have to go watch that at some point.

FATAL FOUR WAY #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Brie Bella vs. Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch vs. Paige- 6.75/10
Byron Saxton says that “every team can claim to have started the Divas Revolution.” I’m not sure why they’d do that, though. That’s like claiming credit for convincing Neville Chamberlain that Hitler was trustworthy.
Paige cut a decent heel promo after the match.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS CHARLOTTE- decent promo by Charlotte.

DUMB, TIME-WASTING NEW DAY PROMO- a dumb waste of time.

TEN MAN ELIMINATION TAG TEAM MATCH: Team Rollins (Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, & the New Day) vs. Team Reigns (Roman Reigns, Ryback, Dean Ambrose, & The Usos)- 7/10
The Usos are back! Michael Cole immediately screwed up which one of them had been injured.
Michael Cole told us that there was “breaking news:” Randy Orton is going to be out with a shoulder injury. It’s funny how all of the dirtsheets knew about this “breaking news” last week, but WWE is only finding out about it right now.

Xavier got beat in about ten seconds. That sucks. Why not try to make him into someone who actually seems like a threat instead of a complete and total goofball?
Kofi is out next, also eliminated by the Usos, so the babyfaces are up 5-3. Within a minute after that, both Usos were eliminated. Way to make them look important there, WWE. We’ve now had four eliminations in the first ten minutes. Big E. was eliminated by Ryback, who has absolutely nothing going on right now so why is he pinning one of the tag champs (or anyone for that matter)?
Things dwindled down until it was just Seth against Dean and Roman, at which point Seth got himself DQed by attacking Dean and Roman with a chair, but Roman made his own comeback, meaning that Seth didn’t even get any heat out of it.
The booking in this match absolutely baffled me. In addition to the above comments about making Kofi and Xavier look like chumps and taking attention away from the Usos return, I also have to ask why Kevin Owens was even in this match? He’s already wrestled tonight, and he’s the Intercontinental Champion! Why would you stick him in a match where you’ll have to beat him? Why not put Big Show (who didn’t appear on this show at all) in the match instead?
Most frustrating, though, was the finish. It’s not just doing the DQ finish but then having it not matter because Roman makes his own comeback and stands tall at the end of the show, sending Seth running like a scalded dog. It’s even doing a DQ finish in the first place.
Over the past few months, Seth Rollins has lost to just about everyone he has faced, and often in situations where Seth losing either makes no sense or doesn’t lead to anything- and usually both at the same time. And yet here, when it makes PERFECT SENSE for Roman to pin Seth to build up their world title match at Survivor Series in less than three weeks… they decide they have to protect Seth. WHY?!

If I were booking this match, here’s what I would have done. The teams would be the same except Owes would be replaced by Big Show. The first man out would be Ryback, eliminated after a triple-teaming by the New Day. Xavier would be out next, eating the Usos double-splash finisher, then Big Show would be eliminated by Roman. Seth would use some sort of dirty tactics to eliminate Dean and even things up, but Big E. and Kofi would both be eliminated by the Usos, leaving Seth alone against the three Samoan babyfaces. Seth would then eat a double superkick from the Usos and stumble into a spear by Roman for the pin. This way you have Roman the challenger pinning Seth the champion and both put over the Usos’ return as important and set them up as challenger for the tag titles. Seth gets to claim that Roman only beat him because he was being triple teamed (and by establishing the relationship/friendship/loyalty between Roman and the Usos, you set yourself up for what should be a really fun TV main event at some point in the next three weeks with New Day vs. Roman & The Usos).

In addition to the already known no Cena and no Orton, this week we also got no Dudleys, no Big Show, and no Neville. No Nikki Bella, either. Strange.

An okay Raw.

[cero2k]

Nikki is reportedly injured too

[Big Red Machine]

Nikki is reportedly injured too

Oh. Well that explains her absence then.

[KILLdozer]

Bray Wyatt lol.

[cero2k]

Bray Wyatt lol.

it was one of those segments that i wish my friends never catch me watching

[Big Red Machine]

Bray Wyatt lol.

it was one of those segments that i wish my friends never catch me watching

Exactly.