BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 7th, '17, 23:51

OPENING SEGMENT- The ring is set up for MizTV. Miz angrily calls out Jason Jordan rather than him being scheduled to be a guest on MizTV, so why go through the trouble of setting up the ring for MizTV when it would make just as much sense to have Miz come out and cut a promo?
Instead of Jason Jodran, Jason Jordan’s daddy showed up and told Miz that Jordan wasn’t going to come out for this. That’s not a good look for Jordan. Kurt told Miz that Jordan would be facing Curtis Axel tonight. Seems to me like it would have been more polite to tell Axel this. Speaking of not telling people things, Kurt says he will supply a guest for MizTV… and out comes Brock Lesnar.
So let me get this straight: Miz was sent out to do MizTV without being told who his guest was, and Curtis Axel wasn’t told that he had a match against Jason Jordan tonight? This seems to me like Kurt was basically setting Miz up to look bad. Even if Miz hadn’t called Jason Jordan out, Kurt should still have let Miz know who his guest would be so he could come up with questions. Doesn’t Kurt want to put on the best show possible?

MIZ TV WITH SPECIAL GUESTS BROCK LESNAR & PAUL HEYMAN- Miz cut a promo in which he antagonized Heyman and Lesnar for no reason. Miz should be too smart for this. Brock obliterated Miz, Axel, and Bo. I didn’t like this. It was nothing but an extremely clumsy set-up to get some cheap pops from Brock beating up heels.

SETH ROLLINS vs. SHEAMUS (w/Cesaro)- 5.75/10
Shouldn’t Rollins be facing Cesaro here? Not only would that avoid giving us the exact same match two weeks in a row, but getting singles wins over both tag champs is a better justification for giving Rollins a title shot with the partner of his choice (i.e. Ambrose) than beating Sheamus twice would be.
So you know how WWE has been on this big kick lately where they have the heel jump the babyface before the match and the referee gets between them and makes the heel back up and won’t even ring the bell if the babyface recovers and they start brawling or if the babyface was facing the heel and saw him/her coming the whole way? Well this f*cking referee rang the bell not just with Cesaro up on the apron, while Sheamus was facing away from Rollins because he was handing Cesaro his tag title belt. Yes. The referee rang the bell WHILE ONE OF THE COMPETITORS HAD A FOREIGN OBJECT IN HIS HAND. But if two guys were to run right towards each other and start fighting before the bell, then we can’t just ring the bell and start the match. What a dumbf*ck.
Speaking of dumbf*cks, Rollins, who is supposed to be the babyface, took full advantage of this and attacked a man whose back was practically turned to him. Even more frustratingly, after Rollins knocked Sheamus out of the ring with that blindsided attack, he went for a dive… and Sheamus just caught him, so there was no reason they couldn’t have gotten to the outside in a way that didn’t suck.
Booker T managed to flub the “hardest part of the ring” line, saying that Shamus dumped Rollins on “the hardest part of the apron” (in case you’re wondering, it’s on the side facing the aisle, about a quarter of the way down from the ring steps).
Rollins got rolled up by Sheamus after a distraction by Cesaro. The announcers pushed the idea that this wouldn’t have happened if Ambrose was at ringside, but I disagree. Dean would have had to be psychic to stop Cesaro from distracting Rollins, and that little distraction was all Sheamus needed to get the pin. Where Ambrose would have made a difference is in the post-match attack, which Seth looks like an idiot for getting himself into. You could say that Seth was trying to manipulate Dean into helping him… but that would make Dean right and Seth is still untrustworthy, and that’s clearly not where WWE wants the story to end up. Once again, I think this whole scenario would have worked a lot better with Rollins beating Cesaro rather than losing to Sheamus via roll-up off of a distraction.

POST-MATCH BEAT-DOWN- as I mentioned above, Seth attacked Sheamus and Cesaro so he got beaten up two-on-one. Just like he said last week, Dean did not come out to help Seth… but there was no reason that anyone else couldn’t come out to help Seth. All of these babyfaces look like dicks. We’ve only got a week left for them to trust each other and earn a title shot, so why not have Roman Reigns come out and make the save for Seth here, and have Roman’s trust in Seth be the vote of confidence that Dean needs to give him a chance?

ROLLINS & AMBROSE BACKSTAGE- Dean is angry because Seth got himself into trouble again and made him look like a jerk by not helping… which is basically where we were last week. Seth says that Dean is a jerk and demands to know what he has to do to get Dean to trust him again. Dean says he won’t ever. Also, Dean is facing Cesaro tonight, so we know how that will go.

JASON JORDAN vs. CURTIS AXEL- doesn’t happen.
AFTER Jordan has gone out to the ring, Kurt goes over to the trainer’s table to check on Curtis Axel. Yes, I did say “trainer’s table” and not “trainer’s room” because they don’t even have an actual room this time- just a table in the middle of a hallway. Either that or the actual trainer’s room with the amenities is for the stars but a jobber like Axel just gets dumped on the first table they find.
Anyway, it turns out that he is injured from Brock’s attack, so Kurt finds the first jobber he sees and sends that guy out to face Jason Jordan.

JASON JORDAN vs. A JOBBER- no rating, backfiring squash.
The fans are chanting “LET’S GO JOBBER” because no one remembered to give Jordan some gear without the American flag on it for this show in Canada. The fans booed everything Jordan did and cheered his one bit of offense. Jordan has a never finisher which is one of those terrible Erick Young neckbreakers that he used to do in the late 2000s.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS BAYLEY IN THE RING- Yup. Nia f*cked up Bayley’s shoulder and now Bayley can’t wrestle at SummerSlam. Charly asks Bayley for comment. Bayley says that she can’t even watch the footage because it will just make her angry. I’ll bet that’s a shoot. Bayley is getting booed now. She tried to compensate for it, but it didn’t do so well. She might want to watch some late 2007 Nigel McGuinness promos. We’re going to have some matches to determine who gets Bayley’s title shot. This is the first we’re hearing of it, which is that there will be two Triple Threat matches. So is it now going to be a three-way at the PPV or will the winners face off (and if the latter, when)? Charly asked Bayley who she thought would earn the title shot. Seems kind of hard to answer that question when we don’t know who is in these matches. Would it really have been that hard for them to put up a graphic of this at some point earlier in the show? In the world’s most predictable comment, Bayley says she thinks Sasha will get it.

TRIPLE THREAT QUALIFYING MATCH (that’s what Michael Cole called it): Sasha Banks vs. Alicia Fox vs. Emma- 3.75/10
Cole says that Emma has been complaining that Kurt Angle won’t give her a chance… and she’s 100% right. Every week the only women we see are Sasha, Bayley, Alexa, and Nia, but that’s not even half of the roster.
We finally learn that the winners of these three-ways will face off next week. Alexa Bliss! comes out to do commentary because that’s how WWE does things. If I were booking I would have had her do nothing on this show but cut a promo saying that Bayley is weak, and she doesn’t care who she faces at SummerSlam because no one is on her level.
They keep cutting to show us Alexa on commentary while the wrestlers in the ring and actually doing important spots. We just saw her walk out thirty f*cking seconds ago! We know she’s there! You don’t have to remind us. And even if we didn’t remember that she had come out, WE CAN HEAR HER!
Sasha gets taken out with a wheelbarrow suplex onto the apron. Fortunately for Sasha, she missed the hardest part of the apron by a few feet, or else she would surely have had to be stretchered off. Emma took charge until Sasha came back and took over. Emma then took Sasha out again until she came back. The crowd wanted Emma to win and got teased with it before Sasha turned Emma’s roll up into the Banks Statement and Emma was the one who tapped.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BRAUN STROWMAN- Braun is excellent, even with WWE Creative writing his lines.

ENZO & BIG SHOW SEGMENT- they cut a promo on Cass but get interrupted by Gallows & Anderson, who want to wrestle them, so we get…

LUKE GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON vs. ENZO AMORE & BIG SHOW- 0.75/10
Cass showed up so Big Show got distracted, allowing Gallows to knock him off the apron. Then Enzo got beaten.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Cass attacked Big Show but Enzo dove onto Cass to try to make the save, so Cass beat Enzo up instead. Enzo ran away until Big Show recovered and Cass walked right into a really slow-looking WMD. This did nothing to advance any sort of story, got no heat, and made Cass look like a complete idiot.

The announcers keep pushing that Balor is playing “mind games” with Bray the way that Bray usually does with others, but all Finn did here was magically teleport, and each time they said it, it just felt more and more like “mind games” is the WWE-Speak term for “magical powers.”

FINN BALOR PROMO & SEGMENT WITH BRAY WYATT- terrible.
Finn cuts a decent babyface promo. Then Bray magically appears, but when Bray has appeared, Finn has magically moved to sitting on the rope. And by “magically” I mean he obviously f*cking walked there. Bray tried to attack Balor but Finn ducked all of Bray’s stuff made him look like an idiot. Then Bray magically disappeared reappeared on the TitanTron, and cut a promo. I eagerly await the day when Creative finally realizes that there is not one single person watching who is scared, impressed, or enraptured by their magical teleportation bullsh*t.

DEAN AMBROSE vs. CESARO (w/Sheamus)- 8/10
Booker T was so atrocious in this match Graves and Cole both completely gave up trying to include him in things.
These guys had an awesome match that got almost twenty minutes. Ambrose overcame a distraction attempt and rolled Cesaro up for the win. The heels attacked him after the match but Rollins came out to make the save. Dean finally offered Seth the Shield Fist of Brotherhood… and then Seth left Dean hanging.

TITUS WORLDWIDE BACKSTAGE- they were being goofy. Then Neville showed up saying he was here to “scout” Tozawa. Sorry, pal. “Scouting” is watching him in the ring. Following him into his locker room is more like stalking.

AKIRA TOZAWA vs. ARIYA DAIVARI- 4.5/10
Why are these guys having another match? Didn’t they just have a blow-off last week on 205 Live when they had a #1 contendership match?
Titus was on commentary. Tozawa won clean in match that was good for the time it got.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS ROMAN REIGNS- the stuff about Brock and SummerSlam was bad. The stuff about Braun and the Last Man Standing match was fine.

TRIPLE THREAT QUALIFYING MATCH: Mickie James vs. Nia Jax vs. Dana Brooke- 2/10 (and Nia deserves credit for none of it)
Why aren’t we just calling these “women’s title #1 contenership tournament first-round matches?”
Alexa is back on commentary so as not to make this match look unimportant compared to the other math (read as: “Sasha’s match”). That’s another reason why I would have just had her cut a promo rather than do commentary: it avoids repetition.
Apparently Dana Brooke has been trying to get into Titus Worldwide. I don’t think we have ever seen or been told about this on Raw before. Speaking of Dana, she and Mickie have apparently been watching some G1.
A week of injuring Bayley’s shoulder, Nia caught Dana right in the head with a clothesline, hard enough that the referee immediately ran over to check on Dana. Nia won, so we’re getting Nia vs. Sasha for #1 contendership. Again. Can we really not throw someone else a bone? If one of them is going to lose next week then why not let someone else make it to the second round to do the job?

GOLDUST PROMO- basically, he’s going to pick a protégé and be a manager soon but he said it in a very Goldust way. I like this idea.

KURT & CASS BACKSTAGE- Cass wants a match with Big Show at SummerSlam with Enzo suspended above the ring in a shark cage. Kurt says okay.

LAST MAN STANDING MATCH: Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman- 8.5/10
Roman had the match won- and, in reality, should have been declared the winner- when Joe ran in and choked him out. The count on Braun was already at eight or so, and- as Cole reminded us- there are no DQs in this match, so the referee should have kept counting instead of concerning himself with what Joe was doing to Roman. Braun was given the win when the ref started to count once Joe was done and Braun got up at eight while Roman didn’t get up at all.

This was a two-match show, but both of those matches delivered big-time, and everything else, while not good, was pretty easy to sit through.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 8th, '17, 11:29

Sasha over everybody. She's the best bar none so the most logical option. Though at least Emma would be much better than Nia Jax at this point. Dana was actually looking so well I had no idea who it was when I saw a clip on FB lol.
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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 8th, '17, 12:38

KILLdozer wrote: Aug 8th, '17, 11:29 Sasha over everybody. She's the best bar none so the most logical option. Though at least Emma would be much better than Nia Jax at this point. Dana was actually looking so well I had no idea who it was when I saw a clip on FB lol.
Sasha works best due to their atrocious booking. It's kind of sad when a legit injury is the thing that forces them to book the natural follow-up on the sh*tty finish they did on their last PPV.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 8th, '17, 12:50

It's all ridiculous. What is the point and lead-to of this big show and Amore and Cassidy stuff?

Guy has a big heel turn that should be all about monster stuff on his own, then the high show is dropping him out twice in two weeks.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by Serujuunin » Aug 8th, '17, 14:14

No Hardys? I guess that's because the Revival are sidelined with an injury again and there's no one else for them to work with, apparently...

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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 8th, '17, 15:01

Serujuunin wrote: Aug 8th, '17, 14:14 No Hardys? I guess that's because the Revival are sidelined with an injury again and there's no one else for them to work with, apparently...
They haven't been on any of the Canada shows. My guess is that Jeff would get stopped at the border (Canadian border police are notorious for not letting you in unless you're record is, like 100% spotless. Guys have gotten turned away for misdemeanors from over a decade earlier), and they didn't want to bring Matt without Jeff and they were too dumb and/or lazy to run an injury angle.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by Serujuunin » Aug 8th, '17, 18:34

Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 8th, '17, 15:01
Serujuunin wrote: Aug 8th, '17, 14:14 No Hardys? I guess that's because the Revival are sidelined with an injury again and there's no one else for them to work with, apparently...
They haven't been on any of the Canada shows. My guess is that Jeff would get stopped at the border (Canadian border police are notorious for not letting you in unless you're record is, like 100% spotless. Guys have gotten turned away for misdemeanors from over a decade earlier), and they didn't want to bring Matt without Jeff and they were too dumb and/or lazy to run an injury angle.
I've seen them up here before though. Admittedly it was before Jeff got the drug charges and Matt wrapped his car around a tree... but R-Truth was just up here and I know he has a criminal record from some time ago.

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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 8th, '17, 18:51

Serujuunin wrote: Aug 8th, '17, 18:34
Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 8th, '17, 15:01
Serujuunin wrote: Aug 8th, '17, 14:14 No Hardys? I guess that's because the Revival are sidelined with an injury again and there's no one else for them to work with, apparently...
They haven't been on any of the Canada shows. My guess is that Jeff would get stopped at the border (Canadian border police are notorious for not letting you in unless you're record is, like 100% spotless. Guys have gotten turned away for misdemeanors from over a decade earlier), and they didn't want to bring Matt without Jeff and they were too dumb and/or lazy to run an injury angle.
I've seen them up here before though. Admittedly it was before Jeff got the drug charges and Matt wrapped his car around a tree... but R-Truth was just up here and I know he has a criminal record from some time ago.
Good point.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 15th, '17, 10:32

I just thought about it- I don't really like the Kingslayer name thing. I feel like it's just a one time thing. There's no kings around here so who cares?
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 15th, '17, 10:42

Well, if any kings show up... they're in trouble...Jerry Lawler. Booker T was once a king for a while...
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/7/2017 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 15th, '17, 15:48

KILLdozer wrote: Aug 15th, '17, 10:32 I just thought about it- I don't really like the Kingslayer name thing. I feel like it's just a one time thing. There's no kings around here so who cares?
Agreed. It might work a bit better if he had caused Hunter to lose power or something, but that's not what happened.
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