BRM Reviews the 8/6/2018 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- bad
Kurt Angle and Baron Corbin come out after a recap packages shows Brock giving Kurt an F-5 last week. Coach said the following: “Kurt Angle, I’m sure, has gone through every gamut of the emotional scale to arrive here tonight.” Really Coach? Every one? Kurt Angle was, for example, annoyed to have to come to Raw? Way to bury the show. You know what else is an emotion, Coach? Arousal. Did the thought of having to come to Raw give Kurt a boner at some point this week? Did he feel guilty that he come to Raw? Why would he? Unless you can answer questions like this, Coach, maybe you should just stick to analyzing things that you actually see instead of making ridiculous blanket statements that add nothing to the situation.
Kurt plugs Ronda’s Raw in-ring debut later tonight and pointedly notes that “unlike some other former UFC champions, Ronda has no problem competing on Raw.” She doesn’t? Well she’s been on Raw for almost six months now and has yet to do so, soif the problem isn’t Ronda then apparently the only reason Ronda hasn’t wrestled on Raw yet is that Kurt is too stupid to just book her in a match.
Kurt getting snippy at Brock has apparently annoyed Corbin somehow, and he tells Kurt to “watch it.” Kurt now turns to Corbin and says “you’ve seen what Brock Lesnar has done to the WWE Universe, to the Universal Championship, to me.” This created something of an eye-opening moment for me, but I think it works best at the end of the segment, so I’m going to talk about it there. Consider this a teaser.
Kurt continues on, telling us that “since Paul Heyman was able to get Brock Lesnar down to the ring before the end of the night last week, Paul Heyman’s job is still intact.” Two things here:
1. “Paul Heyman’s job is still intact?” Can we find someone who can actually speak English well for this GM role? Please?
2. Is Kurt stupid? I think even a cursory viewing of last night’s show, never mind just listening to Brock’s own words, made it clear that Paul Heyman did absolutely nothing make Brock come down to the ring. Brock showed up because Brock wanted to, so giving Paul his job back because Brock finally came out makes no sense. Then again, if Brock did manage to come out “before the end of the night last week” then didn’t Kurt jump the gun on firing Heyman when he did?
Kurt plugs that Renee Young will be interviewing Paul Heyman later, then starts to say what he’s going to do about Brock but gets interrupted by Roman Reigns before he can even get started. Roman basically says that Kurt is to blame for Brock’s attack on him, saying “if you kick ‘The Big Dog’ out, whose gonna protect the yard?” Um… the security guards who get paid to do so? Or how about some of the other babyfaces? They really should have come to Kurt’s aid, shouldn’t they, seeing as how Kurt is a legend at all? Hell, you’d think that everyone in the company would know by now that getting in the champ’s face is a great way to set yourself up for a title shot… so where were all of the other babyfaces? Where were Lashley and Balor and Rollins and… whoever else is on this show. If Roman is going to bury Corbin for not helping Kurt, then surely the other babyfaces deserve the same, right?
Roman seems to think that Brock has been suspended and thus his title match will be postponed. Props to them for actually bringing the idea up, because the last former UFC fighter to attack a general manager also got suspended just last month. Kurt assures Roman that he made sure Brock wasn’t suspended. Okay... why couldn’t they suspend Brock until the PPV? That seems fair, right? Yes, it’s a lesser punishment than Ronda’s was, but but Ronda did also assault a bunch of referees and the reason we’re letting Brock work the PPV isn’t for Brock’s benefit but because to not do so would be unfair to both Roman and the fans who bought tickets to see the advertised match, so it seems to work out to me. If you don’t do anything to Brock then you’re just letting him get off scot free in the middle of this angle where Kurt is talking a big game about standing up to him.
Kurt tells Roman that he hopes he kicks Brock’s ass at the PPV, at which point Corbin starts to jump down Kurt’s throat for showing favoritism. This comment felt like it was made simply so that Roman and Kurt had someone to argue with, so that Kurt would have an excuse to book Roman vs. Corbin starting right now.

BARON CORBIN vs. ROMAN REIGNS- 3.5/10
And I do mean right now because Kurt, knowing that there was no referee in the ring because he had just called for one to come down mere seconds earlier, ordered the bell rung. While this was happening, Roman turned to either Kurt or the crowd or someone for some reason, but the real reason he did it was so that he wouldn’t be looking at Corbin, allowing Corbin to cheap-shot him. So yeah, the bell rang for this match with Kurt Angle still in the ring, but no referee, which also means that no one was checked for weapons or anything like that you’d think Kurt would want to have happen in the interests of the safety of the competitors and the integrity of the competition (and doubly so with Corbin in his street clothes, where he probably would just naturally have any number of foreign objects in his pockets). Kurt had better hope Corbin doesn’t start carving Roman’s forehead up with his car keys or something.
They had a boring, repetitive match that felt like it went a very long time. Corbin eventually decided to just get counted out but Balor showed up to scare him and make him go back to the ring, at which point Roman hit him with a Superman Punch off the steps, then rolled him into the ring for a spear and the pin.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Balor attacked Corbin, giving him a shotgun dropkick and then the Coup de Grace. As Corey Graves noted, Balor was attacking a man who just got done wrestling a long match against someone else. Some hero this Finn Balor is.


Okay, the problem with the “Brock doesn’t want to show up” angle:
We all know that the shoot reason for Brock not showing up very often is that his contract has him only working a limited number of dates… but it’s been that way for years. Things were no different during his SummerSlam 2014-WrestleMania XXXI title reign and yet no one took any offense to this. And it has been that way for most of this title reign as well. The idea that Brock didn’t like WWE or the WWE Universe only started to be talked about a few weeks before WrestleMania, and the whole “Brock is killing the title and him not showing up is totally unacceptable and something we should inherently be outraged over” part only popped up within the past five or six weeks.
Meanwhile, this is a company in which people disappear for weeks or even months at a time and no hay is ever made of it. Sometimes it’s a legit injury, sometimes they’re just not used on TV, sometimes it’s some other sort of situation like filming a movie or maternity/paternity leave or sometimes someone goes to rehab or something like that, and no mention is ever made of it. Just as an example, Charlotte’s return on Smackdown last week was the first time we’d seen her in six weeks, with no explanation given for why she disappeared (yes, I understand they’d rather not publicize the fact that one of the top names in either beloved Women’s Evolution has breast implants, but there’s no reason they couldn’t have made up some kayfabe injury for her to have), just like no mention was ever made of Brock’s absences before. Hell, Nikki Bella has been gone without explanation for as long as Brock has been champion and Big Show has been missing for most of that time as well, and yet no one has questioned their dedication to WWE.
“But Nikki, Big Show, and Charlotte aren’t champions,” you say? Well Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt were the Raw Tag Team Champions, and while they did appear on TV, they still went almost three months without defending the belts and no one ever looked sideways at them. So when Kurt said “you’ve seen what Brock Lesnar has done to the WWE Universe, to the Universal Championship,” I really didn’t feel that Brock had done anything different than he had been doing for the past few years. And now that they want to tell a story that requires everyone to have a different opinion of Brock, everyone’s opinion of Brock has changed all of a sudden… and the fact that nothing has happened to precipitate that change draws attention to the fact that this is a story bring written and controlled by authors, making it harder for me to lose myself in the story and pretend it’s real and get sucked in like I’m supposed to.

KURT ANGLE & SETH ROLLINS BACKSTAGE- stupid
Seth tells Kurt that every time he is about to beat McIntyre or Ziggler, the other one runs in and screws him. Seth asks Kurt for a solution. “GREAT!” I shouted. “Finally they’re going to do the logical thing and add a stipulation to the IC Title match at SummerSlam to prevent McIntyre from interfering and screwing Seth out of the title like he did on Raw last month and at Extreme Rules!”
Then, instead of doing that, Kurt told Seth to go find a tag partner and have a tag match against Drew & Dolph tonight and Seth smiled and left. COME THE F*CK ON! Kurt Angle has got to be the single least competent authority figure I have ever seen on a pro wrestling show. Yeah, Mike Adamle was a moron, but at least he understood what his job was and seemed to have at least some sort of grasp on the problems he faced. Kurt comes across like if Drew McIntyre winds up screwing Rollins out of the belt at SummerSlam, Kurt would be completely taken by surprise by it, despite the fact that it has happened in every single title match in this feud.

Coming out of the above segment, Coach put Kurt over for “doing such a good job making matches tonight,” with Cole adding in that “that’s because Corbin isn’t looking over his shoulder.” NO! Just… no. On both counts!
Kurt is not doing a good job of making matches tonight. He went into the show without matches booked for most of his top stars, and he was just too f*cking lazy to think of a second person to book as Seth’s partner, telling Seth to go find his own.
And he hasn’t been doing a good job any other night, either! He squandered a potential big-money Sasha vs. Bayley feud that had been building for years, he let the tag titles be on ice for months despite the champs being healthy and on TV, he had Ronda for almost six months but never thought to book her on TV until Ronda came to him last week and demanded it, he rewarded Ronda for violating her suspension, he announced details about an upcoming Universal Title defense before Brock had signed onto it, resulting in major embarrassment when he then had to un-announce things the next week, he has failed to do anything to stop Ziggler and McIntyre from screwing Seth Rollins out of the IC Title the exact same way several times in a row, he was completely biased against Kevin Owens when Braun Strowman did many terrible things to Owens for NO REASON WHATSOEVER, he allows the Riott Squad to bully his crew and destroy both personal and company property on a weekly basis, he was presented with the opportunity to bring in Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn but didn’t want to (Steph had to overrule him), he gave Asuka a live mic and TV time when it was obvious that she was going to bury his women’s division and put over that of the rival show, has allowed not one but TWO attempts to murder Braun Strowman on his shows go completely unpunished… HE’S COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT!
And he does so all on his own, Cole. Not once has Corbin come in and shot down some great idea that Kuirt had. All he has really done is just yell at Kurt on Steph’s behalf, often seemingly just to be contrarian. And yet Corbin’s entire presence makes no sense because if Steph doesn’t like Kurt then why doesn’t she just fire him? After all, he’s clearly f*cking incompetent!

BOBBY ROODE vs. MOJO RAWLEY- 4/10
Roode wins clean. The fact that we got a clean finish and it went half as long are really the only reasons that this was better than Roman vs. Corbin.

THE DRIFTER SINGS- fine
He’s got a camera crew with him and he’s giving them directions, including instructing them to “use your CGI” on the crowd to “crop out their faces and replace them with a more attractive crowd.” The Drifter is so wonderful.
He insisted that Bobby Lashley wouldn’t interrupted him this week so obviously Lashley did just that. Lashley cut a threatening promo on him. I’m not really sure why Lashley is so angry with Elias because Lashley got the better of him last week. The Drifter feigned like he was going to leave but then attacked Lashley from behind. Lashley made a comeback and laid The Drifter out.

SETH ROLLINS & TYLER BREEZE BACKSTAGE- meh
Tyler Breeze wants to be Rollins tag team partner. He was funny. Roman Reigns shows up to be Seth’s partner instead. Booo! I wanted to see the team of Tyler Breeze & Tyler Black! Anyone remember just last month- in fact, THE LAST TIME THIS EXACT MATCH TOOK PLACE- how it was this big scandal that Roman would have to wrestle twice and Kurt did everything he could to convince Roman not to do so? Well tonight everyone is just going with the idea that Roman is Seth’s partner, without a single person suggesting that the fact that Roman has already wrestled tonight should be an issue.

REZAR (w/Akum) vs. TITUS O’NEIL (w/Titus Worldwide)- 0.5/10
They told us about a nice charity thing that Titus organized this weekend. Good for him. That doesn’t make me care about him as a wrestler. This was another short, dull match. It was almost a squash. Rezar won.

THE KEVIN OWENS SHOW WITH SPECIAL GUEST JINDER MAHAL- stupid
Rather than doing this in the ring, they have constructed a set on the side of the stage, which sets off alarm bells in my head that Braun is probably going to be destroying something. The fans in their general vicinity were WAY too interested in looking at themselves on the big screen and waving instead of watching the segment.
Owens wants Braun to come out and face Jinder but Braun doesn’t. Owens claims this mean Braun is scared. The ground then begins to shake and the side-stage they’re all standing on gets flipped over, because I guess Braun was just standing right back there the whole time? It’d have been darn near impossible to smuggle him there in the middle of this segment just because of the height of this thing and where it was positioned, so he must have just been lying in wait or something. Either way, this was just stupid. Braun doing “strong guy stuff” doesn’t impress me anymore. We established that he’s big and strong when he flipped over an ambulance with his bare hands. I want to see Braun be a badass fighting over badasses. This stupid feud with Owens and Jinder where he has spent most of the time acting like a petty jerk is not doing anything for me.
The set-up for this thing also ruined it because not doing it in the ring like usual (and doubly so with that big black curtain as the background) basically gave away what would happen, and thus made the whole thing feel forced.
To make matters worse, we then had Cole tell us that Braun appears to have “accepted the rematch that Kevin Owens made.” Since when does Kevin Owens have booking power? Even if you say that Owens suggested the match, Jinder pretty clearly wanted nothing to do with it, so the idea that this was a valid challenge on Jinder’s behalf is ridiculous. And yet, when we returned from a commercial break we got…

BRAUN STROWMAN vs. JINDER MAHAL (w/Sunil Singh & Kevin Owens)- DUD!
They immediately teased the finish of last week’s match with Owens trying to steal the briefcase and getting Braun to chase him and get counted out. They then did it a second time, with Jinder then going after Strowman, who hit him with the briefcase to get disqualified, like an idiot. I understand what they’re trying to do here, but like I said last week, I think it’s stupid and pointless. You don’t need to demonstrate to us all of the ways that Braun Strowman can lose a wrestling match. We’re wrestling fans! We understand the rules!
Braun then got angry and beat up Jinder. I feel so bad for Jinder. All he has really wanted to do over the past few weeks is share his philosophy of inner peace with his coworkers, and it’s not even like he’s being pushy about it. He has really only showed when someone has asked him to go talk to someone else, and over the past few weeks that has resulted in poor Jinder (and his little buddy Sunil) getting an ass-kicking for no real reason.

They showed us a clip of Seth & Roman making a mentally handicapped person an honorary member of the Shield at last night’s house show. So basically, house shows only exist when we want them to. If last night’s house show counts in continuity then doesn’t the fact that Seth & Roman beat Drew & Dolph in the main event and yet Seth is still worried about Dolph & Drew attacking him two-on-one just go to prove that Kurt’s proposed solution for tonight won’t actually solve the problem in question?

KURT GETS A PHONECALL FROM STEPH- This conversation was totally useless, as there was no possible way for us to know what Steph was saying or what effect it had on tonight’s show. All we could understand is that Steph was overruling Kurt on something, and based on the evidence I laid above, that actually makes me think that the show is about to improve.

BROCK VS. ROMAN VIDEO PACKAGE- Roman says that there is no shame in saying that he has lost to Brock Lesnar, “but I’ve also whooped his ass.” Have you, though? Because he’s come out on top every time. Yeah, you gave him a good beating in your matches, but I could say the same thing about John Cena, CM Punk, Triple H, The Undertaker, Braun Strowman, and even Kane. And just like them, you still lost. Other than that, no one here said anything new.

KURT, CORBIN, SETH, & ROMAN BACKSTAGE- dumb
It turns out Steph’s decision was that Roman can’t wrestle twice tonight because Steph doesn’t want to “jeopardize the SummerSlam main event.” Roman says he doesn’t care, but Corbin says that if Roman goes out and wrestles a second time tonight, he will lose his match at SummerSlam. At this point Ziggler & McIntyre are already out in the ring. Kurt got this phone call fifteen minutes ago and is just telling Seth & Roman now. Why did he send Dolph & Drew out to the ring if he hadn’t even told Seth that he needed to find a new partner? That one idiotic decision is what now leads to this situation where Seth has zero time to find a new partner. At the very least Kurt should have used the intervening time to find a replacement partner for Rollins but he didn’t do that, either.
Seth goes off to his match. Roman punches Corbin right in the chest. Kurt Angle laughed at this. Okay… we’ve established that attacking an authority figure should get you suspended, right? So shouldn’t Roman get suspended for this?
I really don’t want to make this yet another “Vince’s obsession with Roman Reigns is killing the product” thing, but watching Roman punch Corbin in the gut was another sort of moment for me in that it made me realize the real reason we have this “Constable Corbin” thing going on. It’s a way for Roman to stand up to a heel authority figure- and unlike Steph, Roman can actually hit Corbin. They picked Corbin because there is zero chance of people cheering him over Roman, as I don’t think there are even people out there who cheer for Corbin just to be contrarian or “ironic.”
Corbin, unfortunately, does not have the acting skills required for his role, and his presence encourages WWE’s terrible writers to fall back on their favorite “bickering authority figures” segments, no matter how much the audience hates them. Throw in the fact that Kurt has been written to be completely and totally incompetent who actually at the very least NEEDS someone looking over his shoulder and correcting him all the time (though really it’d be best for WWE to just fire him from this position and replace him with someone competent) and that makes interactions like this between Roman and Corbin even more frustrating because you’ve got Kurt being a smug piece of sh*t whenever someone does something bad to Corbin, even if Corbin is totally in the right (like when Kurt stole Corbin’s phone in the “Ronda breaks her suspension” segment.
Michael Cole says that “you can’t blame Roman because upper management continues to stick it to Roman Reigns, and now, tonight, Seth Rollins.” Yes… upper management is sticking it to Roman. Baron Corbin is not upper management. The background angle that they’ve been trying to push here seems to be that Vince and Steph are trying to screw Roman. Corbin is merely Steph’s representative. What Roman just did was responding to bad news by shooting the messenger.

HANDICAP MATCH: Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre & Dolph Ziggler- 5/10
Apparently none of the babyfaces watch Raw so they don’t know that Seth now needs a partner. The match was good for what it was, but the contrivance of the situation and the fact that what could have been a great match (either with the original Seth & Roman team or some other potential partner like Balor or Gable) was turned into an extremely stupid angle because of it, made this whole situation extremely frustrating.

Cole told us that Balor vs. Corbin has been booked for SummerSlam. Oh goody. The match wasn’t good at the last PPV, so they’re going to run it back with nothing to make us think it will be any different. Because that’s definitely going to get me excited for the show.

ALICIA FOX VIDEO PACKAGE- This woman has been portrayed as a complete and total joke for the large majority of the past six or seven years, and WWE thinks one video package is going to convince us that she’s a threat to RONDA ROUSEY?

REVIVAL SELFIE PROMO- they almost managed to pull off the stupid dialogue they were given without sounding ridiculous.

THE B-TEAM vs. THE REVIVAL- no rating, stupid segment
They wrestled for a bit, then did a double-down… and then Bryan Wyatt used his magic to teleport the guys on the apron into the cornfield and replace them with himself and Matt, who attacked both teams for a double DQ. If he can do this then why doesn’t he just always teleport his opponents away and win by count-out?

RENEE YOUNG’S SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH PAUL HEYMAN- decent
Heyman looked like he hasn’t slept or shaved in several days. They established that Heyman hasn’t spoken to Brock because Brock doesn’t want to talk to him, and Paul is quite broken up about it. Heyman was a little too over the top here for my taste, but I guess I can excuse that as kayfabe delirium. He was sniffling and crying and so forth. Renee asked Heyman if there is anyone he has his eye on as a potential client if Brock leaves… and at this point I will congratulate WWE on having moved the pieces into place on this rather subtly. The idea of Heyman managing Roman as a heel has been kicked around for a long time, but the dual ideas that Heyman’s negotiating skill has gotten Brock special privileges while Roman feels like he has been screwed by management have never really entered into the general speculation of Roman linking up with Heyman and going heel, and yet WWE has now set up a situation where that would be a perfectly logical reason for those two to join forces (and it’s obviously a better reason than just putting them together to put them together), and all without ever calling any attention to the way that those two ideas could intersect.

THE RIOTT SQUAD vs. SASHA BANKS & BAYLEY- 4/10
Michael Cole claimed that aside from last week’s loss, the Riott Squad “have been dominating as of late.” Even if we forget last week’s show, their record in July was 1-3. That’s just about the opposite of “dominating.”
Cole also called Sarah Logan “the self-proclaimed ‘Viking’ of WWE.” They’ve been doing this “Viking” thing for weeks now and not once have we ever heard Sarah Logan say anything about it. For all we know this could just be Cole and Graves making sh*t up on their own just to amuse themselves. Meanwhile, down on NXT, you actually do have some self-proclaimed Vikings in the War Raiders, who incorporate a lot more Viking stuff into their characters than Sarah Logan ever has.
They did stuff. The finish saw Bayley go for a dive onto Liv Morgan but a mysterious person dressed in a full bodysuit to hide his/her face jumped the guardrail and pulled Liv out of the way. The person then revealed herself as Ruby Riott. What was the point of the bodysuit? Why not just come out to ringside with your crew?
This distracted Sasha, allowing Sarah Logan to roll her up.

LONG RONDA ROUSEY VIDEO PACKAGE- this presented no new information whatsoever.

Cole told us that Kurt has signed a three-way tag title match for next week with the B-Team defending against The Revival and Matt & Bray. WHAT? Matt and Bray have lost three straight matches completely cleanly, including one to The Revival and then TWO TITLE MATCHES TO THE CHAMPIONS. How the f*ck do they possibly deserve a title shot? As for The Revival, they just faced the champions in a non-title match this week that ended in a double disqualification. If they hadn’t earned a title shot going into tonight’s show, how the hell did a double disqualification put them over the top and make Kurt decide that they have earned it?

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS ALEXA BLISS! & ALICIA FOX- meh
Alexa cut a good heel promo being mean to Charly and talking up Alicia Fox as a “trailblazer” and “pioneer” of the women’s division, using WWE’s annoying buzzwords to get heat. This made me wonder whether or not they’re letting Alexa come up with her own stuff, because there are really two possibilities here, and neither are good for WWE:
1. Alexa is coming up with her own stuff, in which case Alexa realizes how much WWE’s buzzwords annoy people and used them to get heat, but WWE doesn’t realize how annoying everyone finds these buzzwords, and probably loved Alexa’s promo for using said buzzwords.
2. Creative is writing stuff for Alexa and purposely had her say these things to get heat, meaning WWE does, ni fact, realize how annoying their buzzwords are, but still insists on using them anyway.
Charly then asked Alicia a question, and despite WWE’s attempts to build Alicia up as a serious competitor, they still thought it was a good idea for Fox to act delusional and insist that her being the captain of the Raw women’s Survivor Series team is any sort of accomplishment at all.
Alexa grabbed the mic and shooed Charly away, seemingly to shut Fox up more than to get rid of Charly, and then started to cut another promo. In this she plugged Evolution, which was actually the first time anyone had mentioned it all show, which hopefully bodes well for the future and shows that they’ve learned that the way they have been hyping it up has done nothing but annoy people.
Alexa credited Fox for being a trailblazer who made the PPV possible. Fans didn’t seem to get that Alexa was being facetious this time. Alexa also called this match “the biggest match of [Alicia’s] career,” which buries the Diva’s Title that Fox won, which is not something you want to do when the whole point of this is to build up Ronda Rousey challenging for a championship. Alexa went on to claim that Ronda is the only woman in the locker room who doesn’t appreciate Alicia. She then gave Fox a pep talk. This went on for WAY too long.

RONDA ROUSEY (w/Ronda Rousey’s Friend Natalya) vs. ALICIA FOX (w/Alexa Bliss!)- DUD!
They stalled FOREVER. Alexa tried to distract Ronda so Nattie pulled her off the apron but Alexa pushed Nattie into the ringpost, and Nattie did not hit with anything even resembling believable force. Ronda saw this and was looking at Nattie, so Fox charged at her to take advantage of the distraction, which you’d think was the whole purpose of the spot, but for some inexplicable reason the referee got in her way and held her back.
This allowed Alexa to trip Ronda up without the referee seeing it, then Fox ran over and beat on Ronda in the corner. Fox then started bragging, so Ronda but her mean-face on and charge. Ronda hit some punches then got the arm, gave Fox a hip toss but held onto her arm and… picked her up and then did it again? Huh? She’s Ronda f*cking Rousey! Why isn’t she going for the armbar?
They repeated this a few times until Ronda finally let Fox go to the outside. Ronda followed her out and threw her into the barricade, then dumped her back into the ring but Alexa distracted her. Fox tried a running knee but got caught and suplexed, then went for the armbar… and I’m pretty sure Fox tapped out before Ronda ever even got the move locked in… which is a funny thing for Fox to do, but the commentators were all selling it like Fox tapped due to the pain rather than because she was scared of the armbar.
This whole thing sucked. It was a waste of a main event, which was even more frustrating on a three-hour show where half of the eight minutes went less than four minutes, and only ONE of the eight matches (the opener) went longer than 10:45. It also failed to give me any confidence that Ronda is even close to the point where she can have a match that is anything but smoke and mirrors without months to practice it first.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- very good
Charly Carsuo interviewed Ronda. Alexa tried to attack Ronda from behind but Ronda gave her a judo throw. Alexa was able to escape the armbar and retreat up the ramp, while Ronda Ronda cut a promo on her that, quite frankly, is the sort of promo we need more of in WWE. It was about two sentences long and can be summarized as “at the PPV, I’m going to kick your ass and take your title.”


This was not a fun show to watch at all. It was terrible in the ring and I thought a lot of the stuff they did was rather stupid, but I should at least give them credit for moving the pieces along to get them into place for SummerSlam. I found the way they did it stupid and frustrating, but at least it felt like something was moving along in some of these situations, and often with an end-goal in sight that was logical, even if their methods to get their were far from ideal.

[KILLdozer]

Corbin sucks. To the point it's all I think about every literal time I see him, for the entireity of while I'm seeing him. The look...and everything lol.

[NWK2000]

I disagree with your assessment of Rousey vs Fox. Whether or not it should've been a main event is debatable, but I LOVED LOVED LOVED the match. The beginning reminded me of very early UFC (of which I've been on a kick, and plan to review for the board) where one person just dominated a completely unprepared person, and judo throwed her to death. The outside stuff was a little bit goofy, but the meat of the match ensures I will be buying Ronda gear immediately.

[Bob-O]

I will be buying Ronda gear immediately.

Please do not do that. Do you want Ronda Rousey to get pregnant before Summerslam? Because that is how Ronda Rousey gets pregnant before Summerslam...

[Big Red Machine]

I will be buying Ronda gear immediately.

Please do not do that. Do you want Ronda Rousey to get pregnant before Summerslam? Because that is how Ronda Rousey gets pregnant before Summerslam...

I'm sorry... I'm not seeing any connection between Ronda's merch sales and either Ronda's horniness or Travis Browne's motility.


Either that, or this post is an attempt to trick me into buying a bunch of Ronda gear.

[KILLdozer]

Don't pay him any mind. I don't, and look at me! Lol.

Also...upper management...shooting the messenger...sticking it to a certain guy over and over again..."Vs The Authority" again, duh lmao.

[Bob-O]

I will be buying Ronda gear immediately.

Please do not do that. Do you want Ronda Rousey to get pregnant before Summerslam? Because that is how Ronda Rousey gets pregnant before Summerslam...

I'm sorry... I'm not seeing any connection between Ronda's merch sales and either Ronda's horniness or Travis Browne's motility.


Either that, or this post is an attempt to trick me into buying a bunch of Ronda gear.

Haha, no, it's more warning others against my own bad luck. It's like the Madden Curse, every time I buy a relevant shirt something happens. I bought a Jagr Penguins jersey the same year they traded him. Every single Steelers Jersey I've ever bought said player either retires or is traded. I bought a Pantera shirt two weeks before Dime Bag died and the very last wrestling tee I bought that wasn't retro... was Kharma.

I know how babies are made, I made like a thousand of them, but I'm telling you - that stork is keeping a close eye on Ronda's merch sales...

If anyone has suggestions to my next relevant shirt purchase I'm all ears... except for Roman, unless they release one worth wearing.

[XIV]

Let me disagree on the Paul Heyman interview.

Everything about that interview, makes me want to watch Brock vs Roman at Summerslam. Last week, I couldn’t give a damn. Now I do.

You say he was over the top, (Let’s forget the riding off into the sunset line. I didn’t like that) but he was playing a guy who had been attacked by one of his closest ally’s and friends for many years. He’s lost his job with both WWE and Brock. He was playing a man who lost a lot. BUT, yet he still managed to hype the match.

And I don’t know if you’ve seen the “unseen” ending to that interview with Renee, but it make sure for interesting viewing (find it on YouTube if you have not). He says that Roman doesn’t stand a chance against this Brock Lesnar... and then says “unless...” and leaves the set.

Paul Heyman’s one interview is now the reason I will tune in for the Brock vs Roman match. Because suddenly there’s an interesting dynamic there. Something that’s missing from most Roman matches.

You’ve got an angry Brock.
You’ve got an unpredictable Brock.
You’ve got a delirious Heyman.
You’ve got an unpredictable Heyman.

There are variables now. Does Heyman screw Brock? Does Heyman try and win Brock over? Is it a swerve tactic? Does Roman go heel with Heyman?

Who knows what happens. But what an interview.

[Bob-O]

here are variables now. Does Heyman screw Brock? Does Heyman try and win Brock over? Is it a swerve tactic? Does Roman go heel with Heyman?

Absolutely agree with everything you said, and I'm going to single out this. As of a week ago, Heyman wasn't a factor in the match. Whether Brock is staying or going or whatever, they didn't HAVE TO do this with Heyman. We've seen the match several times, but now it's interesting because we KNOW Heyman will be the deciding factor one way or another, and as subtle as the implications are, we can go into SummerSlam KNOWING that SOMETHING DIFFERENT is going to happen.

Regardless of the outcome, we KNOW Brock will be training for a UFC fight and won't be around afterwards. They could write Heyman off with him, but they aren't. There's plans for Paul.

i'll throw in some more scenarios...
-Heyman is hate-able and punchable, but let's not forget that he's an equally good babyface when he throws on a baseball cap, especially when it comes to "Us vs Them" scenarios... while heel turn is what everyone wants, Paul E could absolutely get Roman universally over as a babyface... which is what Vince wants. Heyman WANTS to manage Ronda, but got shot down because they don't want Ronda running with the heels... everyone gets what they want in the long run here.

-Roman might not trust Heyman after being opposite him all this time, but maybe Braun trusts him...

-Long shot, but maybe they pull a Jinder, and strap the rocket to somebody? People ASSUME Riddle is going to nxt... but with failing ratings and Vince's hard on for UFC, who's to say they don't pair Riddle with Heyman and shoot him right into the thick of it? They get a replacement for Brock and a dream match down the road if/when Brock decides to come back...


Was it a little excessive? Maybe. But Paul was amazing in his role here. I'm with XIV on this, I previously did not care about this match, or SummerSlam for that matter, but I absolutely want to watch it live now. If it delivers I might start watching Raw and Smackdown again.

[Big Red Machine]

Please do not do that. Do you want Ronda Rousey to get pregnant before Summerslam? Because that is how Ronda Rousey gets pregnant before Summerslam...

I'm sorry... I'm not seeing any connection between Ronda's merch sales and either Ronda's horniness or Travis Browne's motility.


Either that, or this post is an attempt to trick me into buying a bunch of Ronda gear.

Haha, no, it's more warning others against my own bad luck. It's like the Madden Curse, every time I buy a relevant shirt something happens. I bought a Jagr Penguins jersey the same year they traded him.

I know your pain, LOL. I'm probably one of the few people in the world with a Rangers Bure jersey, which I bought in June the year they got him... and then he blew his knee out in September and never played again. It made me think about eight times before I bought my Lundqvist jersey his rookie year.

[Big Red Machine]

You guys have kind of convinced me about Brock vs. Roman. It doesn't make me care about what the outcome actually is, but I'm at least looking forward to finding out what it will be.

[XIV]

You guys have kind of convinced me about Brock vs. Roman. It doesn't make me care about what the outcome actually is, but I'm at least looking forward to finding out what it will be.

I’m glad of at least that much!

Again, I don’t want to see Roman with the belt. It’s just not something that interests me. But if he had the belt and Heyman talking for him? Now that could be different.

Personally, I’d have preferred to see an angle where Heyman uses his old relationship with Stephanie McMahon and make a power play for the GMship of Raw (because Angle is awful) BUT...

What we have now is a match where just like Bob-O says... Heyman is most likely going to be deciding factor somehow... this match does feel different from the others they’ve had.

In this situation, I think i’d love Heyman’s “Unless...” to mean that he brings out Braun.

[KILLdozer]

I actually had the original "feed me more!" Shirt years ago. Didn't turn out so well I suppose lol.

[Bob-O]

I actually had the original "feed me more!" Shirt years ago. Didn't turn out so well I suppose lol.

It's why I haven't bought a Villain Club shirt.

[Bob-O]

There's a theory going around that the wild card in Brock/Roman/Heyman could be Ambrose, which is what the unaired ending to that interview could have been hinting at.

-They stressed on Raw that Dean WOULD NOT be returning to be Seth's Tag Team partner. Didn't say he wasn't returning at all, and he's due back any time.

-The look Paul gives Renee (Dean's wife) along with her wedding ring being nicely framed in the shot might have been why the interview was clipped when it was. Subtle as it is, they want Dean to come out of nowhere, they want a "moment".

-Too subtle for WWE these days? Absolutely! But don't sleep on Heyman, one of the greatest storytellers of all time, who's also booking the segments. Vince has final say, but it's been confirmed that Heyman is booking, which would explain why the ending was dropped.

I'll be the first to agree that this is a little TOO creative for WWE Creative, but in a scenario of 'Paul knows the finish involves Ambrose returning - Paul books the end of the interview open ended with a shot of Renee's wedding ring to get people talking - Vince says "WTF is that? We wrote Ambrose off during the Seth segment for the huge payoff! Cut that last bit, dammit! Cut it!" It's not out of the question.

[Big Red Machine]

The wedding ring thing feels like really compelling evidence, but at the same time I highly doubt I would have thought anything of it if I wasn't looking for it.

The biggest strikes against it to me are as follows: not only does it seem like the sort of thing WWE isn't subtle enough to even consider doing, but the more I think about it, the more it doesn't even feel like a Heyman thing. It feels like a Gabe thing or a Quackenbush thing. Heyman's booking and even his shooting were much more of an old-school, in your face kind of deal, and I don't just mean ECW. I mean his Smackdown work and his OVW stuff, too. (Then again, if there is a third person I can see who would do something like this, it'd probably be Triple H, and if there is any single person in the wrestling business who I think has the capacity for learning new tricks, it's Heyman).

The other issue I have with it is kind of a corollary to the "WWE has no subtlety" argument. When WWE tells me that Dean Ambrose won't be ready in time to help Seth at SummerSlam, my first thought is that this means that Dean will show up to help Seth at SummerSlam.

[XIV]

There's a theory going around that the wild card in Brock/Roman/Heyman could be Ambrose, which is what the unaired ending to that interview could have been hinting at.

-They stressed on Raw that Dean WOULD NOT be returning to be Seth's Tag Team partner. Didn't say he wasn't returning at all, and he's due back any time.

-The look Paul gives Renee (Dean's wife) along with her wedding ring being nicely framed in the shot might have been why the interview was clipped when it was. Subtle as it is, they want Dean to come out of nowhere, they want a "moment".

-Too subtle for WWE these days? Absolutely! But don't sleep on Heyman, one of the greatest storytellers of all time, who's also booking the segments. Vince has final say, but it's been confirmed that Heyman is booking, which would explain why the ending was dropped.

I'll be the first to agree that this is a little TOO creative for WWE Creative, but in a scenario of 'Paul knows the finish involves Ambrose returning - Paul books the end of the interview open ended with a shot of Renee's wedding ring to get people talking - Vince says "WTF is that? We wrote Ambrose off during the Seth segment for the huge payoff! Cut that last bit, dammit! Cut it!" It's not out of the question.

I absolutely did not notice this at first. But upon viewing it again. There could be something this. It may be just Ambrose, it may be a possibility of a whole Shield. So there’s is something there. Why not just leave, why take Renee’s hand with the ring and all to say “thank you”?

You might be on to something there.

[KILLdozer]

Maybe Shield stuff...all the shit with Ziegler and McIntyre against Rolllins over and over, then the stuff with Reigns and Stephanie all the time. Take into account the whole entire Broc Lesnar mess...Heyman has something to do with the Shield stuff.

All wrapped into one, "against injustice." After all.

[KILLdozer]

HEY! I JUST SAW ON FB THAT BALOR AND CORBIN WILL BOTH HAVE SEPERATE MATCHES TONIGHT.

You know, so they both can then interfere in each other's matches of course lol.