BRM Reviews the 8/8/2016 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- fine
Enzo & Cass are out to cut a promo. Cass looks really stupid in that poncho that’s clearly just a big shirt with the sides cut out. Enzo needs to stop bragging about how he was so totally going to get with Sasha Banks if he wasn’t interrupted. It comes off as heelish. Other than that his promo was okay. Lots of cheap pops.
Jericho comes out and cuts a promo bring out Kevin Owens so I guess we’re getting a tag team match. Jericho sets Cass up for a line. Owens then cuts a promo working Sami Zayn into this whole thing. I love the fact that even when they’re not feuding, it’s still ALWAYS on Owens’ mind. They cut promos to set up for their tag team match. Jericho’s new gimmick where he says things without knowing where he is going with them (the “it” stuff, or having to make up a guy with a long and funny last name when asked to name his backup) just isn’t funny at all.

ENZO AMORE (w/Colin Cassady) vs. CHRIS JERICHO (w/Kevin Owens)- 6.25/10
A fine match until the stupid DQ. Why give the heel a DQ win because of an interfering babyface instead of letting the heel just get a good old-fashioned heel win. After the match, Cass challenged them to a tag match at SummerSlam. Owens was tremendous throughout.

FOLEY TALKS TO STEPH ON THE PHONE- bad.
First, he’s got to explain to her why he invited Daniel Bryan to Raw. Shouldn’t they have had this conversation at some point in the previous week when Foley made the announcement? Also, the forced use of “Monday Night Raw” felt very unnatural. It took an otherwise natural conversation and made it feel scripted. Also, they continuing with this “Steph gave Foley a tablet but he doesn’t want to use it” thing that no one could possibly give a sh*t about.

MICK FOLEY & SASHA BANKS BACKSTAGE- stupid
TRIVIA TIME!
Sasha says she is worried about Dana interfering in her title defense at SummerSlam, so she asks Foley to…
a) Make it a cage match
b) Ban Dana from ringside
c) Make it a handicap match so that she can “keep an eye on Dana.”

If you answered a or b, you’re much smarter than WWE Creative. Sasha asks for a handicap match. Foley counters by saying that he’ll book Dana vs. Sasha tonight, with the stips that it will be a handicap match if Sasha loses, but if she wins Dana will banned from ringside. If Dana interfering is such a terrible thing, why not JUST BAN HER FROM RINGSIDE IN THE FIRST PLACE?! You know. Like a babyface authority figure would do?

BRAUN STROWMAN SQUASH- same formula as the past two weeks except that Byron’s interview with the squashee is backstage instead of in the ring and the jobber is too scared to talk. The guy’s name is Jorel Nelson, so maybe he’s Kryptonian and he’ll beat Strowman here. That’d be quite the swerve.
Corey Graves had a great line when Cole said that “at least Jorel Nelson will remember his debut on Monday Night Raw,” to which Graves responded “I wouldn’t bet on that.”

FOLEY & PUFF DADDY BACKSTAGE- A not so stealthy (but also not terribly obtrusive) plug for a concert in a few weeks.

NEW DAY, PUFF DADDY, & FOLEY BACKSTAGE- bad.
New Day is only Kofi and Xavier tonight because (according to WWE.com) Big E. was injured in last week’s attack by The Club… but why should a little thing like their best friend’s injury cause Kofi and Xavier to not be 100% jovial?
They plugged the soundtrack for WWE 2K17. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them try this marketing approach before.

TITUS O’NEIL vs. DARREN YOUNG (w/Bob Backlund)- no rating, very good segment.
They had a short but heated match which ended when Darren returned the favor to Titus, pinning him with a handful of tights. Backlund didn’t see this cheating because his back was turned.

SETH ROLLINS PROMO- PROMO OF THE YEAR!

SCOOBY DOO PLUG!

SHEAMUS vs. CESARO- 7.25/10
WWE booking being what it is, I was certain they were going to go 50/50 and give Sheamus the win here, I popped big for all of the false finishes, each one giving me hope that Cesaro might actually win… and then he did!

ORTON VS. LESNAR VIDEO PACKAGE- great
OVW footage. NCAA footage. JIM CORNETTE’S VOICE. All stuff I never thought I’d see on main roster WWE TV again. Also Leviathan and The Prototype.
Orton was all respectful and “Brock motivated me to fight harder and accomplish more, etc. etc.” Then Brock and Heyman showed up and said what we all have been thinking: there is no story how. No personal history. In Brock’s words, between him and Orton “there is irrelevance.”

THE DUDLEY BOYS vs. NEVILLE & SIN CARA- 4.5/10
Sin Cara and Kalisto still have the same music. That makes me laugh. Neville and Cara win their first match together, although a Dudleys screw-up gave them some (but not much) help.

RUSEV & LANA CELEBRATE THEIR LOVE- GREAT!
A cake in the ring in wrestling means someone’s face must go into it. I call this principle “Chekhov’s Cake.”
Rusev and Lana come out and they’re great as always. We all knew Roman was going to come out and interrupt them and I was afraid he was going to come off like a giant douchebag and they were going to try to get cheat pops by calling Lana a whore and the like… while she’s standing there in her wedding dress celebrating her very legitimate love with her legit husband, and it would come off terrible… but they really didn’t do that.
I thought Roman was GREAT here. He had a ton of charisma, and the only time it seemed to wane was the “Bulgarian sasquatch and his mail-order bride” line, which felt so very “standard WWE” that even with Roman saying it I couldn’t help but hearing it in Ambrose’s voice.
Lana’s wedding cake bump was a thing of beauty. Rusev started a brawl with Roman and Roman made his comeback, with one of his punches sending Rusev into Lana, who managed to make the cake bump look 100% natural while also being very pantomime, so that even without the TitanTron someone in the top row of the arena could have figured out what happened. She also did a fantastic job of getting it all over her face, and between the color of the cake and the color of her hair, you couldn’t see her face at all when she first came up. She looked like Cousin It in a wedding dress. It was AMAZING!

FOLEY, RUSEV, & LANA BACKSTAGE- good
Roman will challenge for the US Title at SummerSlam.

IF SASHA WINS, DANA IS BANNED FROM RINGSIDE AT SUMMERSLAM, IF DANA WINS THE MATCH AT SUMMERSLAM BECOMES A HANDICAP MATCH: Sasha Banks vs. Dana Brooke (w/Charlotte)- 3.5/10
Dana’s shin-guards… SOOOOOO PURPLE.
The match was short, but I will watch that finishing sequence for a long time to come.

VIDEO PACKAGE OF THE KID BEATING RAZOR RAMON- wow. You can’t even tell that that’s Sean Waltman.

FINN BALOR VIDEO PACKAGE- weird
Him sitting on that… very ornate stool, in all black with an all-black background and the mist in the background, talking about the apocalypse of Irish mythology was extremely creepy. I don’t think that’s what they should be doing with their top babyface. If we’re not getting a double-turn involving the formation of the Balor Club, this isn’t a good idea.

DR. ANDERSON & DR. GALLOWS CUT A PROMO- this wasn’t what they should be doing with these guys at all… but Gallows’ delivery made me laugh several times. However, not just being my usual communications professional self but also being the son of a doctor who is himself the son of a doctor and a nursing instructor, I feel compelled to point out that “ringpost-itis” would actually be an infection or inflammation of the ringpost, not of Big E.’s testicles.

LUKE GALLOWS (w/Karl Anderson) vs. KOFI KINGSTON (w/Xavier Woods)- no rating
Cole actually went out of his way to point out that the real record for longest tag team title reign in WWE history still belongs to Demolition. Color me surprised. And while you’re coloring me surprised, color me a different shade as well because I’m quite surprised that Kofi basically got squashed here. The Club try to post his nuts after the match but Xavier makes the save with a chair.

GOLDEN TRUTH MEET SCOOBY DOO- wow. They made me despise a segment involving Scooby Doo. There is nothing that Golden Truth can’t ruin.

Talking Smack had Renee Young, Daniel Bryan, and America Alpha? Now I have to go watch it.

MICK FOLEY & DANIEL BRYAN SEGMENT- interesting.
I figured they were going to use this to set up some sort of consequences for showing up on the other show like Brock and Orton did last week, but instead they used it to push the “Cesaro wants to be on Smackdown” angle and also to set up a…

WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Rusev(c) vs. Cesaro- 6.5/10
Stupid Sheamus costs Rusev the match. They did a lot to protect Cesaro here, which was nice. Still, I’d have preferred a better main event. Roman came out and speared Rusev after the match.

A strong show from WWE despite the rocky start and being pretty weak in the ring.
Also, it just now occurred to me that Sami Zayn wasn’t even on the show. Imagine how much better it would have been if he was.

[Serujuunin]

OPENING SEGMENT- fine
I feel compelled to point out that “ringpost-itis” would actually be an infection or inflammation of the ringpost, not of Big E.’s testicles.

As a science grad with experience with medical terminology, this actually took away from the whole promo for me. It was distracting!

[KILLdozer]

Silly nerds...

[KILLdozer]

Nah though...this Enzo Amore whole schtick really needs a change... that shit was bordering on sexual harassment and it was a GREAT step towards objectifying the women's wrestlers all over again. I don't think he's in anyone's league lookin ' like that... lol

I heard he was pretty botch bad as usual... I almost wanna watch it just to laugh at his crap.

[cero2k]

Nah though...this Enzo Amore whole schtick really needs a change... that shit was bordering on sexual harassment and it was a GREAT step towards objectifying the women's wrestlers all over again. I don't think he's in anyone's league lookin ' like that... lol

I heard he was pretty botch bad as usual... I almost wanna watch it just to laugh at his crap.

i really don't see what was the reason to mix those stories together at all, it's not like we're getting stables out of those people anyway. Also, it was awkward since Sasha got married this last week i think

[KILLdozer]

Nah though...this Enzo Amore whole schtick really needs a change... that shit was bordering on sexual harassment and it was a GREAT step towards objectifying the women's wrestlers all over again. I don't think he's in anyone's league lookin ' like that... lol

I heard he was pretty botch bad as usual... I almost wanna watch it just to laugh at his crap.

i really don't see what was the reason to mix those stories together at all, it's not like we're getting stables out of those people anyway. Also, it was awkward since Sasha got married this last week i think

Exactly entirely on both counts. He's still talkin' obnoxious shit about his repetitive clichés and she's out there livin' her dream. They literally never interacted and those two goofballs just came off as undersexed perverts.

[KILLdozer]

Rusev and Lana sounded really American at certain points lmao.

[KILLdozer]

Ok Cesaro, who puts on an entire suit after a match?

[Big Red Machine]

Ok Cesaro, who puts on an entire suit after a match?

Cesaro. That's who.

[KILLdozer]

Ok Cesaro, who puts on an entire suit after a match?

Cesaro. That's who.

Fuck Cesaro. Enough of the Sharpshooter btw...hasn't it been enough of "paying tribute to his former tag team partner!" By now? I don't even think they were even a team that long. Btw, I'd love to know just exactly how heel Natalya feels about that as well.