BRM Reviews the 10/15/2018 Raw (SOOOOOOO BORING)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 10/15/2018 Raw (SOOOOOOO BORING)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 16th, '18, 01:13

There seems to be two schools of thought for how a WWE announcer is allowed to dress: “professional” and “wacky, yet oddly somehow still slightly professional.” Michael Cole obviously embodies the former, with his crisp suits and ties, while Corey Graves embodies the latter, wearing his oddly-colored get-ups. Renee Young seems to be shooting for a middle ground, with a professional black top and black jacket… and plaid pants.

BRAUN STROWMAN, DREW MCINTYRE, & DOLPH ZIGGLER PROMO- bad
We start off with Dolph claiming they are “the greatest six-man group in WWE history.” Hasn’t this happened, like, every single week for the past two months?
This was one of those painful WWE group promos where they each take turns saying a line. They showed the finish of last week’s main event, plus an interview from right after Raw with Kayla Braxton where Dean said “I don’t get it. I don’t get it. Maybe I just don’t… fit in anywhere anymore.” That’s all he said. I’m sorry, but am I missing something here? Neither Roman nor Seth accidentally touched Dean or said anyone to him or anything like that. Dean just got hit with Drew’s finisher and got pinned and then Dean walked out. Everyone else saw that, too, right? So why has this one loss suddenly so greatly upset Dean in this way?
Drew says that this proves that everything thy have been saying is true and that Dean has finally realized that only Seth and Roman have ever benefited from The Shield’s existence. That last part is obviously completely false, and while that normally would be fine because these guys are heels, isn’t the idea here that all of us and the announcers and Dean himself are supposed to be wondering whether these guys are telling the truth? In that case it’s a big problem because the things they’re saying are clearly not true.
They then transitioned to talking about Crown Jewel. Braun plugged his match with Brock and Roman, then Drew plugged his WWE World Cup qualifier, which led to the predictable bickering between Dolph and Drew because Dolph is also in the tournament. Then Braun started to talk again because I guess he forgot to get his catchphrase in and had to say it or else he wouldn’t get paid tonight.
Then Seth & Roman came out sans Dean. Corey Graves told us this by saying “it looks like the Hounds of Justice are a bit short a lunatic tonight.” I cannot possibly believe that Steph and Vince and Dunn actually think this sh*t sounds good. It’s just not possible that anyone could think so.
Rollins insists that The Shield isn’t broken, and yet offers up no contrary explanation for why Dean isn’t here with them. Seth plugs his WWE World Cup qualifier against Drew. Dolph points out that Dean is missing and says he’ll take a forfeit victory against Ambrose in his WWE World Cup Qualifier against Dean. Seth offers up the pathetically lame explanation that Dean isn’t here because “he runs on Ambrose time” which means “he shows up when he wants.” Okay… well then I can’t help but notice that in the past he has always wanted to be here for these sorts of segment sto present a united front with you guys, but apparently tonight he doesn’t want to hang out with you. But yeah. The Shield definitely isn’t broken.
Can we think about this “Ambrose isn’t here yet” thing for a moment? Acting General Manager Baron Corbin hates Dean Ambrose, right? And Corbin wants to be in the WWE World Cup, right? And Dean, Corbin’s employee, is late to work, right? You’d think Corbin would leap at the opportunity to punish Dean by taking his chance to qualify for the WWE World Cup away from him (and, of course, give it to himself).

Roman says some tough-sounding stuff to the heels about how they’ll never get the babyfaces’ title, then Seth starts to get cheap pops while suggesting that they open the show with his match. Any time I hear a wrestler start talking about the local cuisine, I start to zone out. Cheap pops are nice, but please remember that you have a worldwide TV audience that doesn’t give two sh*ts about you trying to get laughs and cheap pops by talking about cheesesteaks.
Corbin authorizes the match via Cole getting word over the headset, so after the commercial break we got a…

WWE WORLD CUP QUALIFYING MATCH: Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre- 6.25/10
Corey Graves wants to know where Dean Ambrose is. Renee Young says, very calmly, “I have not seen him much in the past couple weeks.” YOU’RE F*CKING MARRIED TO HIM AND EVERYBODY KNOWS IT! This is something WWE NEEDS to deal with in an on-air fashion. I’m sorry, but they do. Just like they need to deal with Brie being a heel while Bryan is a babyface (he’s probably pretty disappointed in her actions, I’d think). You can’t just have something be part of kayfabe when you want it to and then ignore it when it’s inconvenient!
And, quite frankly, having Renee be “just another announcer” here rather than someone who has a special relationship with Dean feels like a missed opportunity to flesh out the story. If Dean has even been distant with his WIFE in over the past week then that’s a sign that he’s got some real stuff going on. Of course, doing this would require the powers that be to actually put some real effort into how they handle Renee’s commentary for Dean’s matches, and that right there is why it will never happen. Because as WWE Creative has shown time and again, they have very little interest in putting in the effort to make the product better when they can just have people shout catchphrases and book clichés instead.
Apparently the others all went to the back during the commercial break. This happened so Dolph could come out before this commercial break for a horrendously convoluted spot that allowed Drew to cut Seth off. It involved Dolph causing a distraction so that Drew could hide under the ring and take advantage of Seth not realizing that Drew was right in front of him- even though the ring skirt was pulled up so that Drew was totally visible- so that Drew could reach through the steel girders to yank Seth’s arm into them. Why didn’t he just attack Seth while Seth was paying attention to Dolph?
They had a back-and-forth match until Dolph low-bridged Seth. Then Ambrose’s music played, and he came out of the crowd and jumped Ziggler from behind. Did he send the music guy a text that said “play my music now?” While just stand thing about three rows back, hoping Dolph wouldn’t turn and spot him? Anyway, Ambrose took out Ziggler, McIntyre took out Ambrose, then Rollins took out McIntyre and just beat the count back into the ring to win by count-out. This felt like a heel win.
Anyway, Dean is back and still on the good guys’ side. There goes all the tension from their big angle.
With all of this talk about the “WWE World Cup (to determine the best in the world)”, they have said Crown Jewel a whole bunch of times, but have not yet once said the name of the country where the event is scheduled to take place. Any details about the location of the show have also been conspicuously absent from their graphics.
Michael Cole said that later tonight we would have another “World Cup qualifier to determine the best in the world.” This has to be deliberate self-parody, right?

While the announcers gave a voice-over, we saw the Bella Twins heading to their locker room backstage. The announcers completely missed the fact that the Bellas kept looking over their shoulders to make sure Ronda was not sneaking up on them. If I were them, I would have taken the “The Bella Twins” sign off of the locker room door, too.

We also got a nice big close-up what may or may not be a new big honkin’ tattoo on Lita’s other arm. It’s not as bad as Jericho’s or Eric Young’s… but it’s not good, either. Lita was talking with Trish when… HEY! HOW’D THAT FAN GET THROUGH SECURITY?!
Oh. Wait. It’s just Bayley. What a mark.

SETH, DEAN, & ROMAN BACKSTAGE- bad
Dean is upset that Seth called him a “lunatic” and storms off after rambling on about only being “good for a few laughs.” If this wasn’t 2018 I would make some comment about it being Dean’s time of the month and explain to you all that he appears to be acting completely unreasonably. Unfortunately it’s 2018 and I can’t put it like that, so I really don’t have anything else to say unless someone can help me out with a funny expression to use to describe Dean’s insanely oversensitive behavior.

KANE & TAKER VIDEO PROMO- Great… in that goofy Undertaker promo kind of way.
This would have been a lot better if they hadn’t occasionally pointlessly cut to random sh*t like a swinging chain or a “high voltage” sign or a scurrying cockroach.

EMBER MOON & NIA JAX vs. DANA BROOKE & TAMINA- 2/10
Also, there will be a battle royale at Evolution for “a future women’s championship match.” I would say that this seems to theoretically let someone jump brands, but seeing as how Tamina has apparently just done that and no one so much as mentioned it, that doesn’t really seem to matter much.
In the battle royale will be: Billie Kay, Peyton Royce, Dana Brooke, Tamina, Ember Moon, Alicia Fox, and Tamina. By my count, the card now is: Charlotte vs. Becky, Ronda vs. Nikki, Alexa & Mickie vs. Trish & Lita, Kairi vs. Baszler, MYC finals, and this Battle Royale. That’s already seven matches with just nineteen women of the supposed fifty that were going to be on this show. Main roster women yet to be booked include: Sasha, Bayley, Asuka, Naomi, Mandy, Sonya, Carmella, Lana, Zelina Vega, the Riott Squad, Brie Bella, and Ronda Rousey’s Friend Natalya. Quite frankly, I’m shocked that Mandy & Sonya weren’t announced for the battle royale.
What? Are you kidding me? I swear to G-d this happened:
No more than NINETY SECONDS after they pulled down the graphic for that battle royale- the first time that those of us who only watch the TV shows and don’t go to their website or Twitter or whatever are even hearing about this match- they then cut into the Dana & Tamina vs. Nia & Ember with one of their beloved picture-in-picture screens to announce that Mandy, Sonya, Lana, Carmella, Asuka, Naomi, and TORRIE WILSON had been added to the match. Could you really not have just had them all in the graphic so that you could give the women in the ring wrestling their match (this is a wrestling show, isn’t is?) the respect they deserve by having people focus on their match and not your stupid graphic?
Also… TORRIE WILSON. I’m sorry. I’m as sex-positive a person as you’ll find, but TORRIE WILSON is the exact opposite of everything their beloved Divas’/Women’s R/Evolution stands for, because the Divas’/Women’s R/Evolution is sex-negative. Or maybe sex-neutral if that’s a thing, but it is not sex-positive, and Torrie Wilson is not now nor has her character ever been anything other than pure sex on heels. And because she’s not returning to the company on a full or even part-time basis, that means that Torrie is being booked on this show solely as a nostalgia pop, and thus, by its very nature, that necessitates having Torrie Wilson, sexual object… which is the exact opposite of what this entire R/Evolution is about.
(Then again, I suppose I should be thankful to WWE because I don’t think they could have possibly given me a more stark embodiment of how phony their feminism is than by interrupting a wrestling match between two larger women a bodybuilder, and the best female pure athlete in their company in order to announce that blonde bombshell bikini model Torrie Wilson is going to appear as a space-filler in a battle royale on their first-ever all women’s PPV.)
Oh. Right. The match.
Ember got tossed around for a while, culminating in Tamina tossing Ember over to Nia because she wanted to fight Nia. They had a very disappointing hoss fight. They traded headbutts. They are both Samoan so I was hoping they would just no-sell them but apparently when one Samoan headbutts another Samoan, it works just the same as when a non-Samoan headbutts a non-Samoan. Renee Young declared “this is what the Women’s Evolution is all about right here.” No, no, Renee. You don’t get to say that anymore. You lost your right to put that stuff over two minutes ago when you were telling me how great it would be to see Torrie Wilson wrestle again.
They traded Samoan Drop attempts until Tamina finally got Nia up and hit her with one. Renee Young exclaimed “WE’VE NEVER SEEN THIS!” but we saw freakin’ Ronda Rousey get Nia up for a (twisting) Samoan Drop, so seeing a woman who is much larger and stronger than Ronda do it is not very impressive. Tamina tagged in Dana Brooke, who immediately got her ass kicked by Nia, then hit with an Eclipse and pinned. With Titus or without, Dana Brooke is still a loser. The match went less than five minutes. Hooray for the Women’s Evolution!

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Nia and Tamina had a face-off. Ember tried to get between them but got shoved down. Tamina then floored Nia with a big superkick and taunted her. At this point I was thinking that what they should do is pull Tamina out of the battle royale and have her face Nia in a singles match at Evolution. Even if they weren’t going to do that (and they aren’t) I would have thought this was a pretty good little post-match segment… if it had ended here. Unfortunately, it kept going.
Tamina and Ember both ran over to Nia, and dumped her over the top rope. You know… because they’re going to be in a battle royale, and they have to show us how you win a battle royale, even though doing so here makes no sense. Tamina taunted Nia some more, so Ember tried to dump Tamina over the top but Tamina blocked it and they wound up off balance in the ropes so Dana Brooke rushed over and dumped them both out of the ring.
I am continually baffled by WWE’s thought processes when it comes to this sort of thing. Conceptually, a battle royale is the single simplest type of match there is. Even a regular singles match has several different win conditions (pinfall, submission, DQ, count-out), but a battle royale only has one, and it’s one that anyone with an understanding of basic prepositions can understand instantly, even if they have never seen a wrestling match before. If ever there were a gimmick match where all you needed to do to hype the match up was have the announcers explain the rules, a battle royale is it. But any time they have one on a PPV (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, this one) WWE insists on treating it with this old school gimmick match mentality where you’ve got to show the people what the gimmick will be. But because the gimmick here is “throw the other competitors over the top rope to win” rather than “the wrestlers will be tied together at the wrists with an ‘Indian Strap,’” you can’t a promos where the wrestlers hold the strap menacingly and whip it against the wall and threaten each other… so what WWE does is to have the wrestlers throw each other over the top rope in these completely forced post-match impromptu battle royales that make no sense, and make the product look dumber as a result.

So Dana Brooke “won” this post-match segment, marking possibly the first time Dana has ever won anything… and after the three seconds it took Michael Cole to say “Dana Brooke standing tall,” he waited a grand total of zero seconds and immediately changed the subject, as if trying to gloss over Dana’s rare moment of quasi glory. What Cole said was the following:
“Meanwhile, switching gears: there has been a story that has been grabbing headlines around the world and it all happened last week” and I nearly had a heart attack of shock because this seemed like the intro to them actually talking about the fact that a government who WWE is currently getting paid A LOT of money to hop into bed with lured a dissident journalist into its Istanbul consulate under false pretenses, where they then MURDERED HIM.

But I really should have known better. Cole was talking about the Bella Twins turning on Ronda Rousey.
Being WWE and thus obsessed with showing us all of the publicity they got, they put the beginning of an article from TMZ up on the screen, which included the line “even though the storylines are scripted.” The full line was a claim that “even though the storylines are scripted, this one feels personal.” Ironically, WWE putting up this blatantly kayfabe-breaking article on my TV screen made it feel less real and less “personal” to me the viewer. On an amusing note, the article was full of the word “bitch,” (a favorite term of feminist heroine Ronda Rousey to describe other women. Whoops), which Renee Young completely ignored, despite it being by far the harshest thing said, and the fact that you need to know of Ronda’s fondness for the term “do-nothing bitch” to understand the “Do Nothing Bella” line that Renee quoted.
The angle here seems to be that the Bellas think Ronda is entitled because Ronda hasn’t been in WWE for very long but they have been in WWE for twelve years. If this was Nattie or even Alicia Fox saying this I could believe it, but the Bella Twins' absence from TV for the majority of the past two and a half years makes this whole thing come off as totally phony. Obviously the Bellas are heels and thus their near-hypocrisy is acceptable, but unless Nicole Garcia and Briana Garcia-Danielson actually believe this (which would make them highly unlikable people, which is not what WWE wants; they want the heat on the Bella Twins the characters), it certainly makes TMZ, the authors of the supposedly expert media article that WWE just displayed so proudly look like total clowns (which they are, of course, but neither WWE nor TMZ should be doing things to actively expose this).

RONDA ROUSEY & BELLA TWINS SEGMENT- a very mixed bag
Ronda comes out to give her response to Nikki and Brie. Those two explained their motives for turning on Ronda to Kayla Braxton after Raw last week, but those of us who just watch the TV shows and don’t hang around WWE’s website or YouTube channel or Twitter haven’t actually heard it yet… and they’re already sending Ronda out to respond to it. Also, they have already announced that Ronda is defending the title against Nikki at Evolution. What, exactly, did Nikki do to earn this title shot? Quite frankly, WWE giving a Nikki a title shot after Nikki claimed that she has paid her dues and Ronda hasn’t kind of makes it feel like the company thinks Nikki has a valid point. Would it really have been so hard to spend a week of TV by having Ronda demand that Corbin give her a match with Nikki but Corbin explains that he can’t actually book Nikki or Brie in matches without their consent because they’re both actually free agents right now, and Nikki (surrounded by millions of security guards) tells Ronda that she’ll only agree to wrestle her if Ronda puts the title on the line and that’s how we get to this being a title match?
Here is big tough Ronda Rousey, an entire week after being attacked from behind… and she’s near tears at the thought of this betrayal and begs the Bella Twins to come out and explain why they betrayed her (so I guess Ronda doesn’t pay attention to WWE’s website, YouTube, channel, or Twitter, either).
The Bellas come out and tell Ronda “You want an explanation? Too bad. We’re not going to give you one.” Then they proceeded to explain to Ronda why they attacked her. Their reasons were that Ronda doesn’t deserve to be champion, and because Ronda has disregarded the Bellas’ contributions to the wrestling business, including the fact that they “made the word ‘Diva’ strong and powerful.” Nikki claimed that their reality shows have led to an increase in female attendance at WWE events. I’d love to see any real statistics on that point that exist.
Nikki went on to make some more claims that are pretty obviously false. Up until those claims (like claiming that the belt Ronda currently holds wouldn’t exist if not for them), it honestly felt like the angle was supposed to be that the Bella Twins are the embodiment of corporate WWE PR branding bullsh*t and Ronda is standing for all of the smart fans, but by the end it was clear that that stuff was just a bunch of generic heel lies that the Bellas were saying for heat. This was disappointing, because I think there is definitely something to the idea of having the Bella Twins- in many ways the ultimate embodiment of the “Divas” era, as the heel “Divas” against the anti-Diva heroine of the Women’s Evolution Ronda Rousey so that super-Ronda can put the “Divas” era to rest once and for all. But in order to do that, WWE would actually have to be willing to admit that the “Divas” era was a mistake, and as I have gone into in depth in recent weeks, they are almost pathetically reluctant to do so, and would rather spin lie after lie after lie that contradicts the entire concept of this “R/Evolution” rather than act like grown-ass adults and said “yeah. We screwed up. We treated our women terribly and completely shortchanged them, but we know better now and we’ve adjusted our booking accordingly.”
Ronda then cut a F*CKING AWESOME promo on the Bellas that came off 100% believable (aside from the WWE buzzwords, obviously. That and the “pretty face with a deadly body” line. That wasn’t good either). While the promo was awesome, I do feel the need to point out that I really don’t think that the “leeched off of and plagiarized your men’s move-sets” comments is a fair thing to say about Nikki. Even the “minimal talent” part applies a lot more to Brie than Nikki, IMO.
I do think their trading of barbs went on a little too long, and Ronda did come off like an asshole for making fun of Nikki’s engagement breaking off, but other than that, I thought this part of the segment was pretty awesome.
It ended with Ronda challenging the Bellas to fight her right now, the Bellas predictably teasing it but backing off, then coming down to the ring with their own security force. The AI security guards charged Ronda one at a time and got beaten up. Didn’t we already see this in the Alexa feud? If you want to do “Ronda beats up security guards” again, you need to do it differently, like Ronda diving off the apron onto all of them to knock them down, then getting up and chasing the Bellas backstage. The Bellas ran away, but apparently beating up five security guard with whom she has no quarrel was enough to sate Ronda’s bloodlust for the moment so she didn’t chase after them. This part of the segment was not so good.

BOBBY ROODE, CHAD, GABLE & KURT ANGLE BACKSTAGE- dumb
Kurtis wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat. You know… because he’s on vacation. Roode and Gable put him over for a while. Gable cuts Roode off to steal his catchphrase. Then No Way Jose randomly showed up backstage. I had forgotten he existed.

KURT ANGLE & BARON CORBIN BACKSTAGE- Corbin is angry at Kurt for last week, so he books Kurt in a Handicap Match against the Authors of Pain. Kurt says he forgot his gear. Isn’t “always bring your gear” pretty much rule #1 of being a professional wrestler?

WWE WORLD CUP QUALIFYING MATCH: Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler- 5/10
They had a meh match. Drew McIntyre tried to interfere but Rollins came out to fight him off. Dean shoved Rollins, possibly on purpose but possibly not. Then he rolled into the ring and immediately got superkicked by Ziggler and pinned.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Ambrose shoved Rollins and walked off. Rollins went after him and more shoving occurred. Roman came out presumably to try to make peace. Corbin then came out and booked Shield vs. Anti-Shield AGAIN. This is the third time in less than ten days we’re getting this match, even though both finishes have been clean.

While hyping up the Kurt Angle match, Cole said “for the first time in twelve years, Kurt Angle’s going to compete in a match on Monday Night Raw. Um… Cole? He just won a battle royale last week.

THE ANTI-SHIELD BACKSTAGE- We just saw Bayley & Balor come out for a match, but of course after the commercial we have to go to a backstage segment. Because that’s not dumb at all, and this definitely couldn’t wait until after the match.
We started off with Dolph pacing back and forth and shouting about how “WE’VE GOT ‘EM GUYS! WE’VE GOT E’M RIGHT WHERE WE WANT ‘EM!” You know how in Disney moves and similar the villain sometimes has this annoying little tag-along, and at one point the tag along is being over confident and running his mouth to the point where it even annoys the villain to the villain just swats the tag-along across the room? That’s exactly what Dolph was here, and I was so badly hoping Braun would grab him by the throat and throw him through those wooden doors behind McIntyre, but it didn’t happen.
Drew gave the pep talk this week, saying “Ambrose is vulnerable” and instructing Braun to beat up Seth and Dean and make Roman watching. Braun told Drew to shut up and stop trying to manipulate him, then threatened to beat Dolph & Drew up if they lost. This segment severed no purpose whatsoever, as Braun attacking Drew and/or Dolph after a loss would already make perfect sense.

FINN BALOR (w/Bayley) vs. JINDER MAHAL (w/Alicia Fox & the Singh Brothers)- DUD!
Yes, “the Singh Brothers” instead of just Sunil. Samir is finally back from his injury after TEN MONTHS on the shelf. And this happened during a f*cking commercial break. Yes, Samir Singh is not any sort of star, but why not at least try to get something out of his return? Like maybe have him make his surprise return by costing Balor this match so that something can actually happen in this endless feud.
Instead, Samir just stood at ringside with Fox and his brother, while Balor squashed Jinder. Why even use Jinder here at all instead of some random jobber? This gets a dud for being a completely pointless squash in what should have theoretically been a competitive match, pointlessly extending a GNDN (“goes nowhere, does nothing”) feud.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Bobby Lashley & Lio Rush showed up and Lashley flexed his muscles. Balor and Bayley left.

BOBBY LASHLEY (w/Lio Rush) vs. TYLER BREEZE- DUD!
Two squashes in a row. Well… I guess they were separated by a commercial and a Lashley posing routine, but still… SOOOOOO boring. I gave this one a dud on principle for being a second squash in a row without any sort of real vicious destruction.

Titus O’Neil got named to Ebony Magazine’s Power 100 list. But it’s still not enough to get him actual TV time. He just got a graphic.

TRISH STRATUS & LITA- terrible
Predictably, they got about six words in before Alexa Bliss! & Mickie James came out and interrupted them. Alexa & Mickie said Trish & Lita were out of practice. The babyfaces mocked the idea that they might have ring rust. It seems like a reasonable concern to me. The last time Lita tried to hit her most famous move, she nearly broke her neck, and I don’t think she’s spent the past nine months practicing her moonsaults.
The babyfaces said the word “practice” approximately six hundred times before daring the heels to come and fight them. The heels predictably teased it but then retreated instead. This was two minutes’ worth of content stretched out into six. It was boring as hell.

BAYLEY & THE RIOTT SQUAD BACKSTAGE- bad
Liv Morgan’s hair is totally pink now. The Riott Squad mocked Bayley in a ridiculous manner. This made Bayley sad because Bayley is a wimp.

HANDICAP MATCH: “Kurt Angle” vs. The Authors of Pain (w/Drake Maverick)- no rating, dull segment
“Kurt Angle” was dressed in the full-body El Conquistador suit from last week. We never saw him get in the suit, and he never even got an entrance. So yeah. You know where this is going.
Corbin came out to watch the AOP squash “Kurt Angle” (so that’s now three straight squashes). Drake Maverick ordered the AOP to unmask “Kurt Angle” revealing it to be someone else. Kurt then came out onto the stage and gave Corbin an Angle Slam on the stage.

THE RIOTT SQUAD VANDALIZE NATTIE’S DOOR- They sprayed ketchup and mustard all over it, then took down the “Natalya” sign. Are they supposed to have a mental age of eight ore something?

RUBY RIOTT (w/the Riott Squad) vs. NATALYA (w/Sasha Banks & Bayley)- 1/10
They pushed this as Nattie trying to get revenge for that time the Riott Squad attacked her when she was trying to answer Ronda’s open challenge last month. Unfortunately for WWE, they seem to have forgotten that Nattie already got her revenge for that when she and the Bellas defeated the Riott Squad in a six-woman tag team match the very next week on Raw. Whoops. You might remember the match in question as the one where Brie knocked Liv out.
“FINALLY! A competitive match!” I shouted with joy when this started. Then, just to spite me, this match ended via DQ at the 2:57 mark. It then turned into a six-woman brawl, though Nattie’s knee was completely taken out so it was really 3-on-2 in favor of the heels, but the babyfaces won anyway. Seeing as how conveniently none of these six woman was announced for the battle royale, this is probably going to me a six-woman tag at Evolution.

THE DRIFTER SINGS- He gets interrupted by Apollo Crews. They did some decent talking back and forth before The Drifter tried to attack Crews but got embarrassed.

THE SHIELD vs. DREW MCINTYRE, DOLPH ZIGGLER, & BRAUN STROWMAN- 6.75/10
Seth and Dean fought after Dolph pushed Seth into Dean to break up a pin, but they started to work together again afterwards. Meanwhile, McIntyre accidentally hit Strowman with a Claymore Kick and Dolph got pinned after a Cerberus, so Braun laid Dolph out with a running powerslam, which led to Drew laying Braun out with a Claymore Kick. Braun’s selling of the Claymore Kick was AWESOME.
This whole Shield storyline has been painfully annoying and I’m glad it’s over. As for the stuff with the heels… I REALLY want to see babyface McIntyre vs. heel Strowman, but I also REALLY don’t want to see Dolph as a babyface.

This was a TERRIBLE episode of Raw. It was just SOOOOOOOOO boring. Watch Ronda’s promo and Drew laying Strowman out, but other than that, stay as far away from this show as possible.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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Serujuunin
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/15/2018 Raw (SOOOOOOO BORING)

Post by Serujuunin » Oct 17th, '18, 11:43

Does anyone else feel like Renee’s commentary contributes nothing? I was so excited at first but so far she hasn’t won me over.

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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/15/2018 Raw (SOOOOOOO BORING)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 17th, '18, 12:01

Serujuunin wrote: Oct 17th, '18, 11:43 Does anyone else feel like Renee’s commentary contributes nothing? I was so excited at first but so far she hasn’t won me over.
I agree, but I think it's less of an indictment on Renee herself than it is on the WWE system and the three-person booth as a whole. I'd say the same about Saxton, Otunga, Booker, JBL, Coach, and pretty much anyone else who has been in that third slot.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/15/2018 Raw (SOOOOOOO BORING)

Post by KILLdozer » Oct 18th, '18, 07:42

Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 17th, '18, 12:01
Serujuunin wrote: Oct 17th, '18, 11:43 Does anyone else feel like Renee’s commentary contributes nothing? I was so excited at first but so far she hasn’t won me over.
I agree, but I think it's less of an indictment on Renee herself than it is on the WWE system and the three-person booth as a whole. I'd say the same about Saxton, Otunga, Booker, JBL, Coach, and pretty much anyone else who has been in that third slot.
All of those guys pretty much are the worst members of each team so...doesn't really say much.
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Serujuunin
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/15/2018 Raw (SOOOOOOO BORING)

Post by Serujuunin » Oct 18th, '18, 23:29

Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 17th, '18, 12:01
Serujuunin wrote: Oct 17th, '18, 11:43 Does anyone else feel like Renee’s commentary contributes nothing? I was so excited at first but so far she hasn’t won me over.
I agree, but I think it's less of an indictment on Renee herself than it is on the WWE system and the three-person booth as a whole. I'd say the same about Saxton, Otunga, Booker, JBL, Coach, and pretty much anyone else who has been in that third slot.
Honesty I just don’t think there’s room for three people. Graves and Cole talk an awful lot and even if Renee had something worthwhile to contribute, she’s hard pressed to find an opening. And if you have the play by play guy and the color commentator, what role is there really left to fill?

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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/15/2018 Raw (SOOOOOOO BORING)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 18th, '18, 23:42

Serujuunin wrote: Oct 18th, '18, 23:29
Big Red Machine wrote: Oct 17th, '18, 12:01
Serujuunin wrote: Oct 17th, '18, 11:43 Does anyone else feel like Renee’s commentary contributes nothing? I was so excited at first but so far she hasn’t won me over.
I agree, but I think it's less of an indictment on Renee herself than it is on the WWE system and the three-person booth as a whole. I'd say the same about Saxton, Otunga, Booker, JBL, Coach, and pretty much anyone else who has been in that third slot.
Honesty I just don’t think there’s room for three people. Graves and Cole talk an awful lot and even if Renee had something worthwhile to contribute, she’s hard pressed to find an opening. And if you have the play by play guy and the color commentator, what role is there really left to fill?
Right. A third person can work if they have some third defined role like being the "stats guy/gal" or like a WCW Mike Tenay "foreign wrestling expert" thing or a guest commentator there for one match to serve a purpose. WWE has three people in the booth just to have three people in the booth (or, if I may be more cynical, they want certain types of people on TV in that role for diversity reasons but they like Graves, Cole, and Phillips too much to take one of them off TV and give the diversity person Cole/Graves/Phillips job).
That being said, I think Percy Watson is fine, but even so he comes off as unnecessary.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 10/15/2018 Raw (SOOOOOOO BORING)

Post by KILLdozer » Oct 19th, '18, 07:54

Saxton is in top 5 worst they've ever had...maybe even top 3 or 2...number one might be that Jeff Harvey guy...Phillips isn't necessarily bad, but his voice style just sounds soooo over the top obnoxious and ridiculous, he'd actually be better suited for a heel manager you want to see someone finally shut up. Rinallo is just too much for me at times. Too much excitement with the shouting, everything being a pop culture reference, but he's still one of the more competent they have, and absolutely not bad at the job.

He's kind of like Bizarro Mike Cole-shouts a lot but does it all so well lol. Mcguiness is Mcguiness. Nothing more needed. Watson is nowhere near bad at all. They absolutely have black dudes on commentary just to have them on camera on commentary. I said it lol.

There's no other reason you had Coach/Booker T, on at the same time as Saxton. Maybe it's also even "to appeal to the demographic"! Lol don't tell me that's not Wwe style thinking right there. I figured Renee would be good, but as seen as MYC, she's not really the most distinct voice.

Beth Phoenix is now becoming a WWE cliche machine it seems lol.

How hard is it to find great announcers? Graves, Rinallo, and Mcguiness-if you want the 3 man properly done. Graves is the heel/color, Rinallo is play by play, face, also perfect counter to Graves no less, while you have Mcguiness for that aforementioned "3rd for a specific reason" , who can be somewhat neutral and times go both ways, while speaking of knowledge of European wrestling.

Tell me a better 3 man commentary in WWE.
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