What is the point of having Seth come out with the title and then showing us still photos from the title match? We already know who won, and you’re not using video so you really can’t highlight any key points in an effective manner.
Seth Rollins came out and verbally masturbated for a while about how tough he proved himself be by fighting through the pain and getting back up. He tries to justify his cheating by saying “I didn’t do anything to Brock that he wouldn’t have done to me,” but we don’t really have any proof of that, as we never saw Brock hit Rollins in the groin, and I don’t remember him doing so to Balor, Dragon, AJ, Strowman, Joe, Reigns, Orton, Goldberg, or anyone else he faced during this big run.
Seth buries Brock some more and everyone cheers. I’m sorry, but this victory lap is really bothering me. I have heard them hammer these same points into the ground ad nauseum for the past fourteen months. I wanted to see Seth win at WrestleMania so that this would all finally be over and I wouldn’t have to hear about it anymore, and now that it’s over and Brock is gone, here Seth is, STILL SAYING THE SAME SH*T.
New Day come out even though they’re Smackdown guys because this isn’t a wrestling show with rules anymore. It’s just a babyface celebratory lovefest.
(EDIT: Okay. That’s too graphic, but I also don’t want to take it out, so it’s going in a spoiler box)
Cole’s reasoning for New Day being here is that “it is the Raw after WrestleMania: Surprises are supposed to happen tonight.” Well by that logic then why not have the referee get up and order the timekeeper to ring the bell after the first time someone gets a two count in the third match on the card and declare that person the winner? Or give Vince Russo control of the show for the night? Or announce a new championship and Velcro it to the TitanTron and announce that whoever gets it down first wins? Those would be f*cking surprises, too, wouldn’t they?
Yes, there are going to be “surprises” tonight, but they need to be within the established rules of the universe. They are call-ups or free agent signings, not New Day being allowed to show up on Raw even though they’re SD guys. And even if we accept Cole’s logic, then this night isn’t any different from 80% of the episodes of WWE TV we’ve seen over the past few weeks where some wrestlers have randomly been allowed to show up on the other show.
It’s not just the usual “BRM wants WWE to follow their own rules” thing that is bothering me here, but the whole framing of it. If Cole had just said that Triple H and Steph (they’re both babyfaces right now, right?) had allowed New Day to be at Raw tonight so we could open the show with this big, fun celebration then I still wouldn’t be happy about it, but I could at least accept it. Instead we have Cole telling us that “it is the Raw after WrestleMania: Surprises are supposed to happen tonight” like there is some unknowable magical force that books the shows instead of the McMahons being kayfabe responsible for booking it. Surprises aren’t “supposed to happen” ever. Such a thing almost goes against the very nature of a surprise. What happens the night after WrestleMania is that the people in charge booking the show set these surprises up and have them in store for us.
I know this seems like a minor point, but it is more evidence of WWE having totally lost sight of the idea that someone is supposed to be kayfabe putting this show together, and that mindset is problematic as it inevitably leads to logic issues any time they want something out of the ordinary to happen that should go against the interests or desires of any of the McMahons.
Anyway, New Day say they are out here because they “couldn’t wait until tomorrow.” That’s not a valid f*cking reason!
They start sucking Seth’s dick (metaphorically, I mean. Not like the above thing) and putting him over, and they’re all being goofs together and all playing around and rehashing the Brock crap AGAIN. Kofi then challenges Rollins to a title vs. title match right here tonight on free TV. Last night Kofi might have proved that he is more than a B+ player, but tonight he is proving that he is only a C+ promoter. Rollins accepts the challenge, so I guess we’re starting the new WWE “year” off with a f*ck finish in a world title match main event. That should definitely be worth staying around for.
For tonight they are advertising that Baron Corbin will get to cut a promo bragging about beating Kurt Angle. Yeah. They’re actually ADVERTISING that as if they think it’s a segment people are going to want to see! They’re even worse promoters than Kofi.
Also advertised for tonight is The Revival getting a rematch against Hawkins & Ryder. Remember four months ago when they declared that automatic rematches are no longer a thing because they are “antiquated” and that all title shots had to be earned? Because they sure don’t seem to.
WWE RAW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins(c) vs. The Revival- 6.75/10
The match was very good. Hawkins & Ryder won with another roll-up.
BARON CORBIN PROMO & SEGMENT WITH KURT ANGLE- bad
Mike Rome is the ring announcer tonight because I guess being preggers makes JoJo unacceptable for TV? You can put the women in the main event of WrestleMania all you want, WWE. That doesn’t give you a pass for any of your other sh*t.
Corbin brags for a while. He gets heckled and does some heckling back. He says he deserves a gold medal for beating Kurt Angle. Kurt comes out and the crowd chants “YOU SUCK!” at him, so Michael Cole has to explain to me that “these are chants of affection.” F*ck you, modern wrestling fans. This is all your fault that I have to listen to Michael Cole say this in the exact same way every single week. ECW fans could be utterly terrible at times, but at least they stopped calling Francine a crack-whore when she turned babyface.
Kurt offers Corbin a handshake, then gives him an Angle Slam and puts him in the Angle Lock. What the hell was that for? Kurt Angle is a sore loser and an asshole. Your hero, ladies and gentlemen. Cole and Renee are predictably gleeful about all of this, because they, too, are assholes.
LARS SULLIVAN DEBUTS- Michael Cole tries to hype Lars Sullivan up by calling him “the most sought-after free agent in WWE.” If he’s a “free agent” then that implies that he gets to pick which show he signs with. Why does Lars get to pick which show he signs with but the other people who were called up at the same time as Lars were specifically mentioned as being tired out on both shows until “the McMahons decide” where they want to put them (a process that is still not finished ALMOST FOUR MONTHS LATER, by the way). When we were shown a replay of this later, Lars was once again described as a “free agent,” and then, in the very next sentence, Cole told us to tune in next week to “see where Lars Sullivan lands in the Superstar Shake-up.” If he’s a “free agent” then how can he be eligible to be “traded” between shows/assigned to whatever show the powers that be decide/whatever stupid and contradictory explanation they come up with for the Superstar Shake-up this year?
Lars has a stare-down with Kurt, then just grabs him and hits him with his finisher, with Kurt Angle, Olympic Gold Medalist in freestyle wrestling, makes no effort to escape. Then Lars gave Kurt a diving headbutt, because someone decided that we still need to be doing that move. I should be excited about Lars’ debut, but they haven’t done jack sh*t with pretty much any call-up they’ve made in the past year, so why should I get excited about Lars?
ALEXA BLISS COMES OUT- When Alexa came out, Renee Young declared that Alexa was “making history as the host of WrestleMania” last night. Yeah. Because a woman being told to just stand there and look pretty instead of being used in accordance with her level of ability is certainly not something that has ever happened before. And especially not in this company.
This type of sh*t really bugs me, because you know that the only reason Renee said something that dumb is because that’s what the branding is. Everything these women do is “making history” because they’re all “trailblazers.” And everything that happened last night is a “WrestleMania moment” (you’ll find a different stupid comment from Cole in the Stupid Announcer Quotes section that was a result of this same sort of problem). It’s all branding, branding, branding. Next week we’ve got a “Superstar Shake-up.” We’re not supposed to think about how it works or what consequences that has on storylines because they themselves haven’t thought of a kayfabe mechanism for it because they’ve put so much effort into coming up with the stupid alliterative name and put so much effort into finding ways to shout at us that “the Superstar Shake-up is coming” and they expect that alone to carry the load of exciting us. It’s SOOOO F*CKING ANNOYING and causes so many logic problems and makes the announcers say so many stupid things that I would slam my fingers in a door five times a day, every day for a month if I had G-d’s word that doing this would get me fifteen minutes of Vince, Steph, Dunn, and whoever else has been big on pushing this bullsh*t’s undivided attention so I could scream at them about exactly how annoying I find it.
ALEXA BLISS! vs. BAYLEY- 3/10
Seeing as how Alexa hasn’t wrestled in months with no explanation, I assumed she was going to cut a promo, but apparently not. After months of not wrestling, Alexa apparently has decided that she wants to wrestle again. And she didn’t even get to cut a promo about it. She sent out a f*cking Tweet, because G-d forbid we actually find out how the wrestlers feel by hearing words out of their own mouths instead of the announcers showing us Alexa’s Tweets or quoting an conversation they had with The Revival earlier in the day.
Alexa made fun of Bayley for losing her title so Bayley slapped her and we got off to a hot start. Alexa soon cut Bayley off with a HUGE punch to the face on the outside. She also paid Bayley back for that slap. The match went less than three minutes, but it was really great for the time it got. This match was just MEAN. These two came off like women with something to prove and they knew full well that only one of them could be validated tonight. This was the first thing I have actually enjoyed on this show, and that’s not just because Alexa won.
Then the Becky Lynch graphic invaded Alexa’s moment and I got angry again.
BECKY LYNCH PROMO- fine
The crowd chants “YOU DESERVE IT!” Corey Graves cuts in on commentary to insist to us that the crowd is chanting this about the women getting the main event spot at Mania. Yeah. Becky Lynch is one of the most over stars in the company regardless of gender, race, religion, favorite sports team, or any of that other irrelevant stuff and she’s standing in the ring with BOTH women’s championships… and they’re still trying to make the Divas’/Women’s R/Evolution the star and push themselves for being so woke as to put the women in the main event rather than letting the wrestler be the star.
Becky cut a promo that all of the fans were really into, but it sounded way too rehearsed to me. It sounded like she wrote out a speech with a bunch of lines she thought were cool and clever rather than speaking in a spontaneous manner.
Becky went to leave, but as she was leaving Lacey Evans’ music played and Lacey did her usual strut down the ramp… and when she got there she punched Becky right in the f*cking face. Becky sold it well but without going down. As she was selling Lacey went to leave, and Becky charged after her, tackled her, and they had what I thought was a very good brawl before being separated by the referees.
I really liked this bit. I thought this was a very good and clever payoff to Lacey’s random once-per-show strutting appearances (although I think it would have worked just as well if she had only been doing it for one month instead of three) and I thought the brawl was great. That being said, I really thought that Lacey needed to outright win the brawl in order to establish her. After all, Becky is Becky f*cking Lynch, while Lacey is… well… Lacey Evans. And not only is she Lacey Evans, but they just had Becky take her finisher without even going down. They needed to really establish Lacey as a threat to Becky here, and I think having her win the brawl (maybe run Becky through the LED screen on the stage?) would have done a much better job at that then having them fight to a draw.
CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS SETH ROLLINS- didn’t like it.
Charly asks Seth why he would “accept such a high-stakes challenge” like a winner take all title vs. title match. Have you not been paying any attention to the show, Charly? Seth has spent months making a big deal about how he will be a fighting champion and show up to Raw and defend the title in front of the WWE Universe… and now someone has come along and challenged him to a title match where he has the chance to win a second title, and you’re surprised he’d accept the match?
Seth says he took it not just for the obvious reasons, but he because he doesn’t want those Smackdown guys The New Day to show him up on his show. Your show? Did you pee on the Raw logo on the LED board or something? Come on! It doesn’t matter what f*cking show you’re on what show the other person is on, so stop pretending it matters. For all you know you’ll be on the other show after next week’s Superstar Shake-up.
CHAD GABLE & BOBBY ROODE vs. ALEISTER BLACK & RICOCHET- 6.75/10
A full month after turning heel, Roode & Gable finally cut a promo about it. It was an in-set promo, but at least that’s something. It’s more than Alexa Bliss! or The Revival got.
Black & Ricochet won a very good match. Roode attacked Ricochet from behind after the match.
THE DRIFTER PROMO- He claims that the McMahons have given him all the time he needs to perform his “rock opera” tonight, and that he will show no mercy to anyone who interrupts him. Let’s think about this for a second. This is a wrestling show, not a rock opera show, so the only way the McMahons would approve of this is if one of them had really wanted to see Elias perform his rock opera. I want to know which McMahon this was, and I demand to see him/her sitting in a chair at ringside and happily bopping along to Elias’ music.
WEIRD PUPPET VIDEO- An evil-looking white bird puppet popped out of a shipping box, laughed evilly, and then started wheezing. I’m pretty sure I saw something like this last night after Mania went off the air, but that might have just been a hallucination due to sleep deprivation. The announcers saw it, too, so I guess it’s part of the show. I will admit to being intrigued by this, but not in an excited way so much as a “what fresh hell is this?” kind of way.
DEAN AMBROSE vs. BOBBY LASHLEY (w/Lio Rush)- no rating
Lashley told Ambrose that “when you’re gone, I’ll take care of your wife for you,” which understandably caused Dean to charge at Lashley and attack before the bell. Renee Young, the aforementioned wife, asked “what does that even mean?” Well, Renee, it means that Lashley thinks that your husband not being on the road with you will allow him ample opportunity to seduce you. I’m kind of shocked that you don’t understand the implication, being a grown adult and all.
The match never got underway because they were brawling on the outside. Lashley eventually put Dean through the announcers’ table and left. The crowd chanted “THANK YOU, AMBROSE!”
SAMI ZAYN IS BACK!- and he’s wrestling next. This seems like the sort of thing that you really should have advertised at some point tonight. For his first appearance on the TitanTron, Zayn got a bigger reaction than anyone other than Kofi, Becky, and Rollins.
MOJO RAWLEY IS STILL YELLING AT HIMSELF IN THE MIRROR- but now the mirror has been artistically broken, and Mojo is standing in just the right spot so that his reflections is distorted in an artistic way. Also, he’s got goofy, jagged blue lines painted on his race, radiating out from around his right eye. I think he’s completed the transformation into a supervillain now. They left the camera on him for way too long.
WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: Finn Balor(c) vs. Sami Zayn- 7/10
This match was randomly made a title match. Balor won clean. Zayn cut a promo after the match where he looked like he was turning himself babyface but then he pulled the rug out from under everyone. The difference is that this time people actually fell for it. He cut a heel promo on the fans that feels like something Vince has been bottling up for a very long time. Zayn was excellent.
DANA BROOKE INTERRUPTS SARAH’S RECAP OF THE BECKY/LACEY BRAWL- fine
Sarah is the new interviewer. Nice of them to finally mention her name after several weeks. Dana’s newly multi-colored hair appears to have given her some confidence on the mic. This promo felt to me like they were setting her up to win MITB and turn heel to cash it in.
THE DRIFTER SINGS- This was just a set-up for Taker to appear. The fans went nuts for him, but unless this is setting up Taker vs. Drifter for a Saudi show it was really just a waste of time.
TITLE VS. TITLE MATCH: Seth Rollins(WWE Universal Title) vs. Kofi Kingston (WWE World Heavyweight Title)- 6.5/10
They gave me just enough time to start getting into the match when the predictable f*ck finish happened. Based on Graves’ reaction, we were apparently supposed to be shocked that Smackdown guys would show up on Raw, even though that sort of thing has been happening for weeks without even so much as an eyelash being batted at it by the commentators.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Said f*ck finish took the form of Sheamus & Cesaro attacking Kofi as he prepared to dive onto Rollins. Seth tried to help Kofi but got beaten up, too. A brawl happened. Big E. & Xavier were nowhere to be found. Seth grabbed a mic and challenged them to a tag team match. The crowd booed because they were getting f*cked out of the monumental main event they were promised. This match is apparently okay even though no one from management has approved it and three of the four participants aren’t even supposed to be here. The fans all chanted “BULLSH*T!” as we started…
KOFI KINGSTON & SETH ROLLINS vs. SHEAMUS & CESARO- 5/10
Sheamus & Cesaro lose yet again. This was a pathetic, bullsh*t bait-and-switch, and likely for no purpose other than to pop a rating, which is a dangerous game to be playing. This was also a terrible way to convince fans that things are finally going to change.
I found this to be an odd show. As much I hated most of what occurred for the first forty-five minutes and honestly didn’t particularly like too much of what came after that, I found myself feeling like it was a solid show in the ring and a much more focused show than usual and thought that while it certainly didn’t feel like that major post-Mania Raw “BIG SURPRISES!” show, it felt like a rather solid post-PPV episode of Raw. While watching the show I did notice that they didn’t waste time with some of the usual crew of jobbers we often see doing nothing of any use (Jinder, Crews, Riott Squad), but it wasn’t until I was typing this paragraph that it occurred to me just how many of the expected big names were not on this show as well. Ronda is injured and I didn’t expect Brock to stick around, but Roman, Drew, Strowman, Sasha, Nattie, and Nia Jax were all absent as well.
And another bright point: We didn’t have to sit through the “non-traditional audience” speech.
STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Michael Cole- “What an incredible moment: A record seven championships changed hands last night.”
In one moment? Was I so zombified from staring at the screen for the previous seven hours that between the IC Title match and the main event I stared right through Liger dropping the J-Crown?