BRM Reviews the 10/2/2017 Raw (terrible!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 10/2/2017 Raw (terrible!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 4th, '17, 01:55

SETH ROLLINS vs. BRAUN STROWMAN- 6.75/10
They had a very good match based around Rollins trying to overcome the size difference between them by using physics. He still lost, though. Corey Graves pointed out that Braun has now beaten both tag champs.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Braun gave Rollins and unnecessary powerslam after the match, then went back to get him again but Ambrose ran out to help Rollins. He got the best of Braun for a bit but Braun then made comeback and destroyed him. If this doesn’t lead to Strowman getting a tag title shot then this whole thing did nothing but bury the tag team division. Then Sheamus & Cesaro came out and beat up Rollins & Ambrose, so they’re just right back on the same page and this feud will continue once again rather than WWE taking a break from this feud for a month and trying to tell a story that might actually be interesting by having Sheamus & Cesaro deal with the fallout of one of them accidentally kicking the other (you know… the thing that led directly to the finish of their PPV match) and having to learn to trust each other again, and meanwhile you could give us something that would not only play into the Shield reunion angle but would also be slightly out of the ordinary and have a six-man match between The Shield and the Miz-Tourage with Rollins & Ambrose’s tag titles and Miz’s IC title both on the line. You could even make it a TLC Match to play off of the fact that The Shield’s first match was a TLC Match because this is the TLC PPV, and between it being a TLC match and having two titles on the line, that justifies it being your main event, and this is actually something that could potentially feel big enough to make people forget that your Universal Champion is not around.
(I would have Cesaro & Sheamus’ story culminate earlier in the night with them winning #1 contendership once again and then they would screw The Shield in the TLC match because they think they have a much better shot of beating the Miz-Tourage than they do of beating Rollins & Ambrose, and they would insist that having won a “#1 contendership match means that they get to have their title shot before Rollins & Ambrose get their rematch, which they would obviously win to set up a three-way elimination match for the belts at Survivor Series where either Seth & Dean would win the belts back if they are going to stay together then win a blow-off in December, or Cesaro & Sheamus would win if Rollins & Ambrose are not going to remain a regular team. I would try to get around the screwjob in the main event feeling of the TLC match by giving us a few minutes Roman valiantly trying to fight off the whole Miz-Tourage by himself before Miz finally climbs the ladder and gets the belt. Vince will probably love that bit.)

Oh. Right. It’s October, which is breast cancer awareness month, which means Komen. As always, here is a list of breast cancer charities that will spend your money in a much more responsible way than Susan G. Komen:
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index. ... rtg&cgid=5

MICKIE JAMES BUMPS INTO VARIOUS HEEL WOMEN BACKSTAGE- infuriating
Alicia Fox said something, but I didn’t quite process it because I was shocked she was still employed. Emma made a crack about Mickie’s age but Mickie ignored it. Emma also told Mickie that she has “a secret admirer.” I secretly hope it’s Trish Stratus, just to bring Mickie’s story full-circle. Apparently this week Mickie has her own locker room. That’s the sort of thing I really wish WWE would keep straight.
The gifts from her “secret admirer” are all old people stuff, like Depends and a walker, so I guess said “secret admirer” is actually just Alexa trolling her. The heels laughed at Mickie. She demanded that they tell her where Alexa was, so they pointed her to Alexa’s locker room. Mickie pounded on the door and demanded that Alexa come out, but when the door opened, Nia Jax was standing there, with Alexa standing behind Nia, with her arms crossed smugly across her chest. “You want something?” Nia demanded. I screamed in rage. They called Mickie old, then Alexa suggested a Nia vs. Mickie match tonight and Mickie accepted (so they’re just booking their own matches now?).
If they had just left it at Alexa trolling Mickie this would have been fine, but then we got that second part and I completely lost it. They’re back to Alexa getting Nia to do her dirty work for her. AGAIN. This is about the third time since this angle started (less than six months ago!) that they have gotten back on the same page after what seemed like something that should have clearly led to a break-up. I’d tell them to either take a sh*t or get off the pot, but Nia full-on turned on Alexa just two weeks ago so they’ve already taken the sh*t. What they’re doing now is deciding that they want to take the whole thing back so they’re reaching into the toilet bowl and trying to stuff the turd back up their asses in the hopes of still gaining some remaining nutrients from it. Sorry WWE, the digestive system doesn’t work like that, and neither does storytelling. You already did the turn, so you’re not going to be able to milk anything more out of it by having them suddenly be back together again like nothing ever happened, just so you can break them up later. In fact, it’s going to be worse. And the reason for that is because by doing what you are doing here- by putting them right back together like nothing ever happened- you are telling your audience that they shouldn’t care about the turn when it eventually does happen because you’ll just undo it if the whim strikes you.
Sorry about the gross metaphor, but speaking of waste product and the attempted recycling thereof, next we got a…

BRAY WYATT PROMO- he sat in his rocking chair and mumbled “she’d never lie to me,” and occasionally saying some other dumb sh*t. The announcers tried to claim that this craziness was evidence that Bray was mentally unravelling, but he says crazy, rambling sh*t that makes no sense every week, so why should this be any different?

ELIAS SAMPSON SINGS- I’ve actually started enjoying Sampson’s burials of whatever city they happen to be in. This week they were in Denver so he said “you call yourselves ‘the Mile High City’ because you’re a mile above sea level, but I’d rather drown myself a mile below the ocean than live here.” Excellent!

“THE DRIFTER” ELIAS SAMPSON vs. TITUS O’NEIL (w/Apollo Crews)- DUD!
Is there a reason Tozawa isn’t out here with Titus as well? The match was short and boring, and made even worse by Booker T’s commentary. I don’t think Booker even remembers what he has said from sentence to sentence.

There is an idiot in the crowd with a sign that reads as follows:
“I drove 400 miles Jinder Mahal.”

That’s all it said. I don’t get it. Did he mean to say that he drove 400 miles to see Jinder Mahal and was both too dumb to make sure his poster-board was big enough to fit all of the words he wanted on his sign and too dumb to remember that Jinder is on the other show (you know, where he has been a main eventer for the past six months, so there is no excuse for forgetting it)? Or did he make this sign for specifically inform Jinder that he had driven 400 miles, and just forgot to put the comma between “miles” and “Jinder?” Either way, he’s a f*cking idiot. For these reasons, this sign might well be the single dumbest sign I have ever seen a fan bring.

NIA JAX vs. MICKIE JAMES- 3/10
Alexa Bliss! showed up to watch from ringside. Nia beat on Mickie for a while but Mickie was a good babyface and never gave up. Right when she started to make her comeback, Alexa Bliss! ran in for the DQ. Mickie mad her own comeback and floor Alexa with a Mick Kick… so we’re exactly where we were at the end of last week’s show, except that we’ve devalued the concept of turns and breakups by sticking Alexa and Nia back together.

ENZO AMORE HEEL TURN RECAP- they showed us everything from last week’s main event segment, plus a bunch of stuff that happened after Raw went off the air, including Braun Strowman coming out to destroy Enzo. What purpose did that serve? How does that help anyone at all? The other Cruiserweights got to stand around and watch while a heavyweight beat their antagonist up for them, it was a total mismatch physically, plus Enzo was already injured from Neville’s attack, so it didn’t do anything for Braun, and it didn’t make Enzo look any worse because he was already laid out.
Then all of the Cruiserweights assaulted the already-twice-felled Enzo in a rather vicious gang-beating, so they don’t look tough, either. In fact, they look kind of heelish.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS ENZO AMORE- she basically asked him what it was like to have absolutely everyone in the world hate him. For once, Enzo was speechless.

AN UNRECOGNIZABLE CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS MICKIE JAMES- Mickie cut a good babyface promo and said she’d like to be the champion. Kurt Angle just happened to be walking by and told her that she would get a title shot because of her past and because of her performance tonight, which consisted of getting her ass kicked for most of a match and then winning by DQ, then winning a short fight. Based on that criteria you’d think she would have gotten a million title shots already.

LUKE GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON vs. MATT HARDY & JASON JORDAN- 5/10
This match was made because Gallows & Anderson called Jason Jordan a nerd in a segment streamed on Facebook Live and Matt Hardy walked by to help Jordan stand up for himself. Really. Matt buried Gallows & Anderson for being “grown men who go around calling people ‘nerds.’” Matt is not wrong to do this, but in my book this also buries Jordan for being a grown man who was offended by being called a nerd.

CHARLY INTERVIEWS ROMAN REIGNS ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS TO ROLLINS & AMBROSE EARLIER- he came off kind of douchy even while putting his friends over. He then cut a much better promo to build up his IC Title match later tonight.

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: The Miz(c) (w/The Miz-Tourage) vs. Roman Reigns- 5.75/10
The Miz-Tourage came out through the crowd like The Shield. Roman destroyed Bo and Axel during the introductions. Their match was okay, but ended by DQ just when it got going because Cesaro and Sheamus decided to attack Roman. I assume their reasoning is that they thought Roman would help Rollins & Ambrose in their next match or something like that. Roman got beaten down three-on-one, culminating in a triple powerbomb (and the heels doing the Shield Fist-bump of Unity… and Seth & Dean never showed up to make the save. If the idea is that Sheamus & Cesaro’s earlier beating resulted in them being too injured to make the save, then you need to make sure we know that beforehand. Show us them being loaded into an ambulance. Or at least have the announcers tell us that they’ve been taken to one for some preliminary testing or something. This way is just makes Seth and Dean look like they didn’t care enough to save Roman.

FINN BALOR PROMO- his delivery was fine, but oh my G-d the words they've made him say for this stupid Bray Wyatt feud…
Bray Wyatt really, truly, needs to just go away forever. He is just a disaster every time they try to do anything with him. I feel bad for Windham Rotunda, pouring his heart and soul into this character that was doomed to fail because the idiots that write this show think that if you give a guy some stupid special effects then everyone watching will be so wowed by them that the special effects are all you need. That works for maybe a few months at most, but at some point the character actually has to BE A CHARACTER. Bray Wyatt has been on the main roster for almost four years now. In that time, we have learned the following things about Bray Wyatt
1. He likes the song “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand”
2. He does magic.
That’s it. You can bring up things like Sister Abigail, but we don’t actually know anything about Sister Abigail. Is she a real person? Was she a real person who has now passed on and Bray thinks he is receiving messages from her or being visited by her ghost? If she is/was real, what, if anything, is/was her relationship to Bray Wyatt? Is she the deity of Bray’s religion? Does Bray think his magical powers come from Sister Abigail? We don’t know. We don’t know anything about Sister Abigail other than the fact that she is someone/something that Bray mentions often. And it’s not like the reason we don’t know any of this is because there is some big mystery they’ve been setting up. We don’t have anything even resembling a concrete answer because WWE has never even tried to flesh out any of it in any way. Because in the minds of WWE’s inappropriately named “Creative” department, all Bray needs is his magic and his rambling promos that are designed to sound deep and mystical but don’t really mean sh*t.
In reality, however, these are the character’s biggest weaknesses. How many individual Bray Wyatt promos do you remember off the top of your head? I’ll go ahead and say it’s probably about zero. Compare that to anyone who has gotten even a remotely similar amount of mic-time. I’ll bet you have pretty vivid memories of several promos each for Kevin Owens, New Day, Charlotte, Miz, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Alexa Bliss!, Sasha Banks, Rusev & Lana, Nikki Bella, Titus O’Neil, Neville, Enzo & Cass, etc. And the reason for that is that Bray’s promos never mean anything in the end. The others I mentioned all have clear objectives in their promos. The instructions Bray is given always appear to be to just sound spooky and eat up a few minutes of TV time.
And the magic…
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that even if we accept that Bray has magical powers, their existence still creates numerous logical holes, like, for instance, why he doesn’t instantly win every cage match he is in by teleporting to the floor, or why he doesn’t turn out the lights whenever he or a teammate are about to be pinned. Looking at it purely as viewer of the television show and wrestling promotion, I want you to ask yourself the following question:
Can you recall a single instance in which they tried to do a big angle using Bray’s magical powers, and you wouldn’t have been happier if they had just left the magic out of it and done a straight wrestling match with no magical bullsh*t?
Because I sure can’t.
- Bray’s creepy singing children in sheep masks prevent John Cena from exiting the cage at Extreme Rules
- Holographic Bray ruins the Rollins vs. Ambrose blow-off
- The Ambrose vs. Bray match with a cursed TV monitor that blew up in Dean’s face as the finish
- Bray does Undertaker magic after eating Taker and Kane’s souls
- Bray sends Randy Orton on a creepy scavenger hunt
- All of the bullsh*t with Randy Orton and the “crusyx”
- The maggot projections in the ring at WrestleMania
- The House of Horrors

All of these things SUCKED, with many of them ruining otherwise intriguing matches and/or feuds, all because, in the mind the people who write this show, Bray Wyatt = magic, and that’s all that Bray Wyatt means.

So yeah. Balor cut his promo, and then Bray showed up on the TitanTron in his rocking chair and cutting his promo. He says that “Abigail is alive, and she is dying to meet you.” Then Bray laughed and we heard a woman laughing and they made Bray’s face sort of look like it had been replaced by a woman’s face but you couldn’t tell because his hair was in front of his face. So Sister Abigail is coming… and this is the last chance they have to make this character not a total failure.

SASHA BANKS & BAYLEY vs. EMMA & ALICIA FOX- 4/10
Emma’s music has been changed yet again. It now starts with her saying “It’s all about me.” Emma cut an in-set promo that seems to say that she is heading for a feud with Nia Jax. She also said that she found a tag team partner who is “proud” to team with “the woman who started the Women’s Revolution.” I don’t know why anyone would be proud to team with such a person. That’s like being proud to team with the person who thought it was a good idea to have Goldust put a wig on Goldberg.
Sasha was the babyface in peril. Emma walked out on Fox after Sasha moved out of the way and Fox accidentally bonked into Emma. Bayley got the pin with the Belly-to-Bayley, so that’s two wins in a row for her.

ENZO AMORE PROMO & CLOSING SEGMENT- this was a great heel promo, although it dragged on for a bit too long. Kurt apparently signed something for Enzo that any Cruiserweight who put his hands on Enzo tonight would be fired. Why does Kurt keep giving Enzo these special things? Once Enzo was done talking, the other Cruiserweights all came out (to Neville’s music so we know who the real star is). They all stood on the apron and Enzo buried every last one of them… and he was ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS while still being an excellent heel.
Eventually Kurt came out and exactly what most people thought would happen happened. Because all of the other Cruiserweights are ineligible for a title shot, Kurt had to bring in a new one, and as most people guessed, it was Kalisto. Kurt claimed to have “just signed” him, but he was already on Raw, so it makes you wonder why he wasn’t in the Cruiserweight Division before now. I’m not thrilled about Kalisto getting a title shot almost by default, but the rest of the segment was pretty great.
Then Kalisto charged down to the ring and started to fight with Enzo. Umm… doesn’t this mean that Kalisto should be fired? Kalsito won the brawl, laying Enzo out with his finisher.

ROMAN REIGNS IS SELLING BAKSTAGE IN HIS LOCKER ROOM- Rollins and Ambrose showed up. They came out from opposite sides, which looked completely goofy, and everything about this was drawn out for WAY too long. Then Seth and Dean just left. What the f*ck?!

This was an extremely bad episode of Raw, but as far as bad shows go, it was shockingly easy to sit through.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/2/2017 Raw (terrible!)

Post by KILLdozer » Oct 4th, '17, 10:10

You completely missed the biggest development: Cole wasn't there lol.

It's almost like Booker was a bit different when he didn't have Cole to go off of but Phillips and Graves instead lol.
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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/2/2017 Raw (terrible!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 4th, '17, 10:17

KILLdozer wrote: Oct 4th, '17, 10:10 You completely missed the biggest development: Cole wasn't there lol.

It's almost like Booker was a bit different when he didn't have Cole to go off of but Phillips and Graves instead lol.
I really didn't notice a difference except that the one of the voices was different.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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KILLdozer
Posts: 5930
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 22:54

Re: BRM Reviews the 10/2/2017 Raw (terrible!)

Post by KILLdozer » Oct 4th, '17, 12:11

Phillips isn't the best but he's definitely better than the worst, like Saxton and Cole. My biggest thing with him is his voice is so just ridiculous and over the top comedic at times lol, one of those "who actually talks like that " , styles.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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