BRM Reviews the 2/20/2017 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

KEVIN OWENS PROMO- F*CKING AWESOME!
And holy sh*t did he have some great heat here.

ENZO & CASS PROMO- fine.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Colin Cassady & Enzo Amore vs. Sheamus & Cesaro- 4.5/10

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Enzo was being annoying as hell, so Sheamus Brogue Kicked him in the face. The fans chanted “THANK YOU SHEAMUS!”

FOLEY & OWENS BACKSTAGE- we’re getting Owens vs. Zayn tonight!

FOLEY & ROMAN BACKSTAGE- Roman wants Braun again, but he is booked against Big Show so Roman will have to wait until the PPV. Gallows & Anderson show up and watch to face Roman again. Foley tells Roman to find a partner, but Roman says he doesn’t need a partner, so we’re getting a rematch of last week’s handicap match, which will likely result in the tag champs being buried again.

BRIAN KENDRICK vs. AKIRA TOZAWA- they don’t ring the bell because they didn’t shake hands or something stupid like that. Kendrick clotheslined Tozawa and beat him up. This made Tozawa look really bad.

CHARY CARUSO INTERVIEWS BRIAN KENDRICK- good

HANDICAP MATCH: Roman Reigns vs. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson- 3.5/10
Roman beats up the tag team champions on his own but this time he is the one who gets DQed. Roman once again wins the post-match brawl. Why even have tag champs if you’re going to treat them like this?

NEW DAY WILL BE THE “HOSTS” OF WRESTLEMANIA- So WrestleMania will be filled with annoying backstage New Day segments. Oh goody. Also, we don’t get to see Kofi Kingston wrestle (I can take or leave the other two in term of in-ring ability).

NEW DAY PROMO- general New Day obnoxiousness, but I will admit that I would absolutely love to see them get to play the hyenas in a new Lion King installment. They were talking for so long that I totally forgot that Lana, Rusev, & Jinder were in the ring.
Apparently this stupid ice cream crap is going to continue. It took them entirely too long to get around to their Russian hackers joke. Apparently Lana having their ice cream machine plans is a problem. Why? It’s not like this means that New Day no longer have the plans. And even if the hackers deleted the plans from their computer, they still have photographic memories so they could just reproduce them again like they did his week.
Also… they kept saying that they had the “blueprints” for an “ice cream machine,” but all of the stuff Lana read off of that list sounded like a (disgusting) recipe for ice cream, not blueprints for a machine (hence the lack of, you know… non-organic parts). Hey. If they’re gonna make me watch, I’m gonna pay attention to it.

JINDER MAHAL & RUSEV (w/Lana) vs. THE NEW DAY (w/Xavier Woods)- DUD!
Kofi did a dive and fell on his head. Then Woods stole Lana’s iPad and broke it. They tried to portray this as being justified because Woods was getting the plans back, except that 1) there is no reason Lana’s hacker friends can’t just send her the file again, 2) if this was taking the plans “back” then why did they destroy the iPad instead of steal it, and 3) as I explained above, if New Day have the photographic memories they claim to have, then they don’t need a copy of the plans because they have them in their heads.

CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE CONTRACT SIGNING- GREAT segment
Is this the first Brit-on-Brit title match in WWE history?
Wow. Neville made a fantastic point! Jack Gallagher is basically a British Ariya Daivari. If Gabe were booking this we’d totally be getting Neville & Ali vs. Gallagher & Daivari tomorrow night. I kind of want to see that.
Gallagher was good, too. I actually want to see this match now, which is not how I felt before this segment.

NIA JAX vs. SARAH PEARCE- squash

CHARLY CARUSO ASKS NIA ABOUT THE FINISH TO LAST WEEK’S WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH- Nia makes a good point. How has she not gotten a title shot yet?

WOMEN’S TITLE SEGMENT- bad.
Really? We couldn’t find Bayley’s dad in the crowd before this segment so we could show him on TV?
Bayley was great. Then Steph came out to be really f*cking annoying for no reason. It feels like Charlotte was about to go on and do her thing but Steph snatched the mic away from her right before she came out and decided that she was going to be the star here. Yes, apparently Steph cares about the Women’s Title now, despite not giving a sh*t about it since Hell in a Cell. She feels so shoehorned into this spot that it’s painful.
Now Sasha is out here to be the supportive babyface while Bayley is standing in the middle like a child who is trying to decide which grown-up to listen to. Bayley decides to listen to Sasha and not give up the belt. The problem is that between the way Steph’s promo framed this whole thing and Bayley’s response that “hell no I won’t give this title up,” Bayley really doesn’t feel like a deserving champion.
Charlotte “Fourth Wheel” Flair finally shows up, sucks up to Steph, and then says she’ll have her rematch on PPV and I swear if they change this stupid title back to preserve Charlotte’s PPV streak AGAIN I am going to punch a hole in my wall.
Sasha steps up to Bayley’s defense and wants a match with Charlotte. Charlotte says she’s going to permanently cripple Sasha. Steph books the match for right now.
As I said above, Steph’s involvement in this was TERRIBLE, and really hurt the whole thing. This should have been a big three-way argument between Charlotte, Bayley, and Sasha, with Charlotte claiming Bayley’s win is illegitimate and wanting to kill Sasha for sticking her nose where it didn’t belong, Sasha saying that she is tired of Charlotte (and Dana’s) BS cheating, and Charlotte then creating dissension between the two babyfacs, leading to Sasha wanting Bayley to acknowledge that she helped her and Bayley not wanting people to somehow think her title victory is illegitimate so she offers to put the belt up in an elimination match and saying she’ll beat both of them.

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. SASHA BANKS- 6.75/10
Bayley is on commentary. Despite that long talking segment it is only now that someone brings up the fact that Sasha was just evening up the odds last week. It’s like they completely forget that Dana Brooke exists until they need her for a segment, then she gets erased from history the moment she steps out of frame again.
Speaking of Dana Brooke, she tried to interfere here but Bayley prevented it. This distracted Charlotte, which allowed Sasha to lock in the Banks Statement and make Charlotte tap. This both allows Bayley to replay the favor to Sasha, gives Sasha a reason for why she deserves a title shot as well in order to set up a three-way, and give Charlotte some promo fodder for the PPV build up claiming that the match is unfair to her because the babyfaces are ganging up on her. A great storyline finish.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS SAMI ZAYN- this was like two good promos (one on Owens, the other on Joe) with one inserted right in the middle of the other with a pretty clumsy transition between them.

DDP IS GOING INTO THE HALL OF FAME- good.

SAMI ZAYN vs. KEVIN OWENS- no rating.
Joe jumped Zayn on his way down the ramp. I kind of figured this would happen, based on the time left in the show. Zayn still wanted the match anyway, so the match happened and Owens beat the crap out of him.

FOLEY & STEPH SEGMENT- G-d forbid we let Steph actually show her ass like heel needs to do from time to time (especially a non-wrestler who isn’t taking bumps and thus the babyfaces can’t actually get any revenge on her in the ring). No. Now that she was slightly disrespected earlier, she needs to reassert dominance over someone.
Foley, for his part, had an utterly ridiculous argument. How the hell is it Steph’s fault or Foley’s fault for believing Steph or whatever that Joe attacked Rollins?
Anyway, Foley stand up to Steph, so Steph warns him to be careful or he might suffer an “accident” and be put out of commission. Well… at least that will mean that Foley won’t be on TV.

HEYMAN, BROCK, & COLE “INTERVIEW”- fine.

BRAUN STROWMAN vs. BIG SHOW- 6.25/10
They’re… doing wrist-locks? And Strowman just did a KIP-UP! Braun wins clean. Personally, I would ha preferred it if they didn’t have Big Show kick out of Braun’s finisher.

An okay episode of Raw. There was some really good stuff on this show, but none of it was in the ring, and I will admit that not getting Owens vs. Zayn left me very disappointed. My brother was at the show live, so I should get some more feedback from him later on tonight.

[KILLdozer]

Owens just needs to stop with the facial hair.

He's usually a cross peach fuzz and Amish.

[KILLdozer]

Sasha Banks is literally the hottest thing since sliced bread...Alexa Bliss who?

Maybe I'll stylize it as "Alexa Bliss?"....

Lol, I also love how they won't stop talking about Sasha's involvement but literally everyone seems to have forgotten about Dana. (So far, I just begun watching the match.)

We all know there's this twisting things because heels, but this kind of double standard should stop.

[KILLdozer]

Stephanie botched it when she told Bailey "the hero that they stand up to."

Right.

Then... I'm pretty sure she told Foley "Four on the floor. I wouldn't want you to have an accident."

I get what she was going for...But for real?