BRM Reviews the 10/17/2016 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- GREAT!
Owens and Jericho are out to hype up Hell in a Cell and to claim that Foley has a vendetta against Owens. They’re doing a good job of it, but the moment Jericho referred to Hell in a Cell as “barbaric” I felt my attention slipping away, simply because of how often we’ve heard WWE describe it as such. One of the big issues with WWE/Vince/Dunn/whoever’s obsession with trying to get things over by pushing the same phrases over and over again is that they start to feel forced and phony even in cases (like this one) when we know they’re not.
The crowd loves Jericho but is booing Owens. If I’m WWE, no matter what my plans are, I’m changing them right now and making Owens(c) vs. Jericho the Universal Title match at Survivor Series. Seth Rollins came out and the crowd loved him even more. This was a great segment, although I would have preferred if they let the potential Owens/Jericho split be more subtle rather than have Rollins actively trying to stir sh*t up between them.

CHRIS JERICHO vs. SETH ROLLINS- 7/10
Great match, but I really don’t like the booking here. I just don’t see what a clean Rollins win does for anyone. Cole tried to say that Owens somehow cost Jericho the match, but I didn’t see that at all. At no point did Jericho appear to have the match won but then didn’t win because of Owens. If I were booking this I would have had Jericho get the win due to interference from Owens. A vicious post-match beat-down would ensue, with Rollins being taken to the hospital due to his ribs being reinjured.
The next week Rollins would be supposedly out of action and Owens and Jericho would brag, claiming that Rollins is so injured he wouldn’t be able to wrestle at the PPV. Jericho would say that he should wrestle Owens because when he beat Rollins last week it was a rematch of a match where if Jericho won he would get a title shot. Owens suddenly gets very unhappy with Jericho, so Jericho quickly assures Owens that he was joking. Both know that this isn’t the case, but feel that they have to pretend it was for the sake of appearances. Of course Rollins would show up at the swinging a chair the heels, making contact with Jericho while Owens runs away (Rollins would give Jericho a final Pedigree onto a chair so Cole can put over the violence level of HIAC). At the PPV, Owens would win by focusing on Rollins’ injured ribs. After the PPV Jericho would get sick of taking the beating for Owens and say that Owens would be champion if not for him, saying that he helped him beat Rollins at both Night of Champions and he beat Rollins while Rollins was the #1 contender. Owens says that Jericho wouldn’t have beaten Rollins without his interference, but Jericho retorts that Owens wouldn’t have beaten Rollins at HIAC if not for the damage he did to Rollins’ ribs in that match. The next week Jericho would a #1 contendership match and Owens would attack him so Jericho can go full babyface for Survivor Series where he would obviously put Owens over clean.

GOLDBERG VIDEO PACKAGE- Ah yes. Bill Goldberg winning with his famous Vertical Suplex Combination Slam.

LITA’S SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLOTTE- very bad.
Lita was terrible. I know that most of it was the script they gave her, but her delivery didn’t help matters at all. The two that annoyed me the most were asking Charlotte if she feels she “took advantage” of Sasha at SummerSlam by exploiting her injuries in their match (HOW F*CKING STUPID CAN YOU GET?!) and cordially telling Charlotte that “you are entitled to your own set of rules” (NO! No she’s not! Everyone has to play by the rules set forth by the promotion. Breaking the rules of the match is the very definition of cheating!) Charlotte was fine, but between her answers and many of Lita’s question, this felt like generic WWE hype.
On the bright side, though, they started referring to Charlotte as “Charlotte Flair.” I find it SOOOOOO annoying when there is a character whose last name we can easily deduce (she’s Ric Flair’s daughter!) but WWE refuses to use it for no discernable reason.

IF THE SHINING STARS AND TITUS WIN, MARK HENRY & GOLDEN TRUTH MUST BUY ALL OF THEIR WATCHES: Titus O’Neil & the Shining Stars vs. Mark Henry & Golden Truth- 1/10
No, you did not read that stipulation wrong, nor did I make an error of either a comprehensive or typographical nature. They set this up with a wacky backstage skit on the pre-show. You’ve got to give it to Titus and the Shining Stars: this was a stipulation I have never seen before, and is indeed an interesting and new way for them to supplement their income.
Titus loses again. Why even waste time giving him a new gimmick if you’re just going to job him out all of the time?

OWENS & JERICHO BACKSTAGE- very good, until Stephanie was randomly shoe-horned in to kill their tension and instead talk about the Raw vs. Smackdown Survivor Series matches that no one other than the four people in charge of the brands cares about. Because no one cares about it, her talking about this using the same tone of voice she would use for an actual, real, imminent problem is laughter-inducing, and her having to see that inflection going for the entire mouthful of WWE-speak made it even more ridiculous.
Anyway, Mother Stephanie gave her children the pep talk they needed to set themselves straight and get along once again because of three matches that are a whole month away. Whatever.

NEW DAY PROMO- good

BIG E. (w/the New Day) vs. SHEAMUS (w/Cesaro)- 5/10
Sheamus and Cesaro’s need to engage in buffoonery costs Sheamus this match. If they want to do this angle in a way that will make people care they should have Sheamus and Cesaro come REALLY close at the PPV but lose cleanly and then resolve to work together and work their way back up the ranks of the division until finally taking the belts at the Royal Rumble. But I doubt they’re going to do that. I will be shocked if they don’t win the belts at Survivor Series.

GOLDBERG BEATS HOGAN FOR THE WCW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE- I believe this is Hogan’s first “appearance” on WWE TV since the transcript came out.

SMACKDOWN COMMERCIAL- they’re really building up AJ vs. the Jobber as if it’s something someone other than the jobber’s immediate family could ever care about.

BO & AXEL BACKSTAGE- yeah… sorry. It’s completely impossible to take these guys seriously anymore no matter what they do. That’s what you get when you kill someone dead with stupid comedy for absolutely no reason.

NEVILLE vs. BO DALLAS (w/Curtis Axel)- 4/10
Holy sh*t they actually had Bo beat Neville clean. Really. This company.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Axel celebrates Bo’s victory, so Bo assaults him. I popped because this means that there will be no reunion of the Dork Foundation.

DANA BROOKE vs. BAYLEY- -1/10
Yes. This match sucked and deserved the negative rating... but the finish was the exact opposite of the booking failure we got in Rollins vs. Jericho. Dana badly needed this (mostly) clean win for her credibility and Bayley needed this loss to not only stretch out her quest back to the top to make it feel like a longer, tougher journey, but also to give her something to do (trying to get the win back from Dana) so that she isn’t just doing nothing until the champ is ready for her (like Sasha was for most of the spring).

PAUL HEYMAN PROMO- awesome!


HANDICAP MATCH: Braun Strowman vs. The Mile High Trio- REALLY fun squash. Make sure you watch this one.
These guys actually cut a fine promo before the match. I liked them bringing up the effects of the altitude in Denver. I loved Corey Graves referring to Braun as “the Abominable Strowman.” Continuing his streak of awesome, Corey Graves described one member of the Mile High Trio as looking like “No Way Jose’s less threatening cousin: Perhaps Not Jorge.” I laughed my ass off.
Well… that guy just landed on that other guy’s head. That didn’t look fun at all.

SAMI ZAYN CONFRONTS BRAUN STROWMAN- bad. Nothing really happened other than Sami looked lame. Strowman walking away after just one shove seems very out of character, which is an astounding feat when you realize how little character Braun has, but dammit WWE managed to find a way.

CHARLY INTERVIEWS SAMI ZAYN- meh.

MEET THE RUSEVS- five minutes of pure, unadulterated Rusev AWESOMENESS!
Then Roman Reigns showed up and ruined it. Thankfully his ass got what was coming to him.

THE EMMALINA ANGLE HAS NOT MOVED FORWARD YET- I’m getting annoyed.

COLIN CASSADY (w/Enzo Amore) vs. KARL ANDERSON (w/Luke Gallows)- 0.25/10
Fine pre-match promo by Enzo & Cass. The match was WAY too short. Why would you beat Anderson that quickly?

HEEL CRUISERWEIGHTS BACKSTAGE- I guess Gulak and Neese are heels now. TJP just happened to walk in on them. After some surprisingly not-lame verbal exchanges, TJP’s partners (Swann & Cedric) also happened to walk in.

LITA INTERVIEWS SASHA- decent.

BRIAN KENDRICK, TONY NESE, & DREW GULAK vs. TJ PERKINS, RICH SWANN, & CEDRIC ALEXANDER- 4.5/10
They’re already completely failing at making the Cruiserweights feel different or making the matches mean anything. It’s like all of TNA’s undercard divisions have been for most of the past five years where the only person who matters is the champ and whoever the champ is feuding with, and there is nothing that even resembles an attempt to do something on the undercard.

FOLEY & STEPH BACKSTAGE- insufferable. Segments like these where they plug upcoming matches/PPVs by having the authority figures pat themselves/each other on the back need to stop immediately. It’s two assholes bragging about having done a mediocre job. It would take up less time, be more sports-oriented and minimize segments that require suspension of disbelief (all laudable goals) if they would instead throw graphics up on the screen and have Michael Cole run down the card for the upcoming show.
Also, we’re getting Jericho vs. Owens vs. Rollins next week, and Steph is apparently very happy with this, which goes against what she said in the earlier segment. Also next week we’re getting New Day vs. Cesaro & Sheamus non-title just six days before the PPV match. The only way this makes sense is if Cesaro and Sheamus win and then the New Day member who takes the pin is the guy who doesn’t wrestle at the PPV.

THE RETURN OF GOLDBERG- this was one of those infectiously exciting nostalgia moments (and this is coming from someone who isn’t that much of a Goldberg fan), and Bill seemed genuinely touched at the reception he got. His promo was pretty darn good.

A mediocre episode of Raw.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. For reasons of saving space, I won’t go rant about Michael Cole’s comment about how Hell in a Cell is different from a “traditional cage match because there is a roof over the structure so there are no escapes,” but there is a lot wrong with this statement on a lot of different levels. It would have been so much better if Cole had just told us “the two participants will be locked inside the cell and the only ways to win are by pinfall or submission.”