Michael Cole insists to us that AJ’s victories last week were “unprecedented.” I guess no one has ever defeated that exact combination of opponents in one night before so this statement is true on a technicality, but “true on a technicality” is a phrase most often used by people trying to defend themselves after they’ve knowingly advertised falsely, so it’s not really a place you want your lead announcer to wind up.
Alexa Bliss! came out to announce the MITB participants from Raw. She has a bedazzled microphone, because branding.
The first male participant was Braun Strowman. When he came out (after Graves and Renee took turns fawning over him and prematurely declaring him to be the winner), Michael Cole said that Braun has been “on a roll as of late.” Has he really? I don’t even remember seeing him on TV since WrestleMania, which was over three weeks ago. Cole then told me to “remember what he accomplished at WrestleMania.” Or you could just do your f*cking job and TELL ME why I should be impressed with Braun instead of dropping hints that are of no help to someone tuning in for the first time.
Thankfully Corey Grave was able to pick up the slack for Cole and remind me that Braun not only won the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royale at WrestleMania, but he also threw EC III through a wall on Raw recently. So they want me to be impressed that Braun beat up a bunch of jobbers? No thanks.
The next man announced was “the man who redefines aerial combat: Ricochet.” I was going to let this stupid nickname go uncommented-on, but then right after Alexa said it, Corey Graves had to not only repeat it but also try to tell me that it was “an apropos nickname.” Sorry, Corey, but it isn’t. Ricochet hasn’t redefined anything. Being able to do more flips than those who came before you does not “redefine” aerial combat (I’ll leave the whole “aerial” thing alone) any more than inventing a new leg lock would “redefine” mat wrestling, and we’ve seen people come up with plenty of new holds over the years and not once have I heard an announcer insist to me that this person was “redefining” anything.
The other two guys were Drew McIntyre and Baron Corbin. So Ricochet is in the match, but the man who beat him cleanly last week, Robert Roode, is not. So why did Roode beat Ricochet last week?
Corbin says he will be a two-time MITB winner, but Ricochet asks “or is that ‘two-time loser’” because Corbin’s cash-in after his first victory did not result in him winning the world title. No, Ricochet, he’d be a one-time loser. He is currently 1-0 in MITB matches. Not winning the title when you cash in doesn’t mean your win becomes a loss.
Corbin starts to make fun of Ricochet for being short, but Drew cuts in and calls Corbin out for losing to AJ last week after stealing Drew’s win in their qualifier. Corbin makes the excuse that AJ had more time to rest than he did… and he does have something of a point there.
Drew cut a great promo claiming that outside forces have prevented him from being Universal Champion, but once he wins MITB, no one will be able to stop him. Ricochet tried to cut in but Drew told him to shut up and Ricochet did exactly that like a little bitch, and let Drew and Corbin continue on with their segment. Not a good look for Ricochet.
Drew and Corbin continued their argument until Braun shushed Corbin and said none of them could stop him from winning. He made a challenge for a tag team match, because Braun Strowman is definitely the kind of person who would insist on having a tag team match rather than just telling Drew and Corbin he’d beat them both up at the same time. Alexa slipped out of the ring and we cut to commercial with Michael Cole wondering if the match will be made official.
I thought this segment stunk. Like usual, the talking felt forced, but this time it was more grating as it was all to set up a match that could have been set up without Braun needing to do anything out of character. Alexa served no purpose other than to be eye-candy, which is not what they should be doing with her, and worst of all, Ricochet was made to look like an idiot and chump.
BARON CORBIN DREW MCINTYRE VS. BRAUN STROWMAN & RICOCHET- 6/10
When the bell rang, all four men were still in the ring. I bring this up because over the past two years or so, WWE has been rather consistent in pushing the idea that the match can only start when everyone is ready. Even if your opponent is in the ring, if you attack him/her before the bell rings, the referee will separate you and send you back to your corners so that he can ring the bell and call for an official start to the match when both competitors are ready. But in this match we had the bell ring when clearly neither team was ready as they had not yet decided on which of them would start as the legal wrestler. BE CONSISTENT.
Someone please tell Cole that if you feel the need to tell us that the “Glasgow Kiss” is a headbutt every time you call it, then you might as well just not give the move a name. We can f*cking SEE that it’s a headbutt. And if you think you’re doing this for the benefit of blind fans, then you should be doing this for every move with a name.
The match was fine for what it was. The finish saw Drew lining Ricochet up for the Claymore but Corbin tagged himself in and tried to hit his own finisher but Ricochet managed to escape and tag Braun in, and Braun hit all of his stuff on Corbin for the win while Drew walked out.
USOS… PROMO?
They came out dancing and singing their entrance song. Isn’t that R-Truth’s gimmick?
We got this odd moment where it seemed like they were going to go to a commercial but then didn’t. Then the Usos music started to play again and they started to sing and dance again… and then Cole pitched us to a commercial and we actually cut to one. Oops.
Graves told us the Usos were going to “share something with us that we’ve never seen before,” which sounds like a video package or a promo. I guess it has to be a video package because I don’t see them holding anything, but “something we’ve never seen before” is an odd way to hype up a mere video package. So maybe they’re hiding something in their trunks? But what could that be that they would feel the need to show us like it’s a big deal?
You don’t think one of them is going to whip his dick out, do you?
THE USOS vs. LUKE GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON- 6/10
Yes, the Superstar Shake-up is STILL going on. They cut an inset promo during which… well… they really didn’t seem to give a sh*t.
The announcers need to stop pretending that there is any difference for the wrestlers between being on Raw and being on Smackdown and that switching shows somehow means they have to deal with “unfamiliar territory” or pretending that this is some sort of “new chapter” for the wrestlers and they are “starting their careers here on *INSERT NEW SHOW HERE*” or whatever. If you want to tell that story, you have to actually make the shows different first. Because the only difference between them right now and for the past few years has been the length, the color of the ropes, and who Corey Graves does commentary with.
The Usos won. Was there some reason we had to use Gallows & Anderson in this spot and have them job in their first match since the jump rather than pick some Raw team that no one cares about or use some jobbers or something? Also, not matching the Usos up with another team that just came over from Smackdown would make things actually feel new and different, which they’re supposed to after the Superstar Shake-up.
USOS PROMO- bad
They tell us to make sure the children are in bed and that grandma is out of the room and ask us not to throw up. Oh my G-d they’re actually going to whip their dicks out, aren’t they?
So it’s a video package… and they’re in a bathroom, so it could still be dicks. And now they’re turning a corner and there are dudes in towels. Oh f*ck. I jinxed it, didn’t I?
The dudes in towels are The Revival and Dash Wilder is shaving Scott Dawson’s back. Corey Graves immediately and correctly notes that this is invasion of privacy. Then The Revival came out and said the same thing.
Dawson points out that he has some back hair that he can’t reach so he asked his buddy for help. Someone needs to give the Usos the HR talk about how we need to be accepting of different body types and also maybe not come off like tweenagers trying to catch two guys doing something that they expect the guys to try to defend themselves to by immediately shouting “no homo!”
MIZ TV WITH SPECIAL GUEST BOBBY LASHLEY- a decent segment to set up a feud between them, although I wasn’t wild about The Miz winning a fight against Bobby Lashley. After a commercial break, we came back in the middle of…
BOBBY LASHLEY vs. THE MIZ- no rating, bad segment
This really should have been held off on until next week. The purpose of an angle is to make us want to see the match, but if you wait a week to do the match you can get more interest in it through people who weren’t watching live getting to see it on social media or hearing about it through word of mouth.
Instead we got a short match where most of it was Shane McMahon coming out and try to cause a distraction but Miz foiling Lashley’s attempts to take advantage multiple times before Shane finally gave some sort of non-verbal signal calling for a picture of Miz’s father to be put up on the TitanTron, which finally distracted Miz enough for Lashley to hit the spear and get the win. Shane then took some shots at Miz but Miz made a comeback until Lashley came in to take Miz out. Shane then took some more shots at Miz and locked him in one of his horrendous leg triangle holds until he passed out. Shane then declared himself to be the best in the world.
In a vacuum, if this had been someone like Baron Corbin rather than MMA fighter Bobby Lashley in this role, this would have been fine. Okay… it would have been passable, and would have been fine if Shane’s BJJ wasn’t embarrassing. But this isn’t a vacuum. It’s two weeks after Superstar Shake-up was supposed to shake things up, but even though Miz moved shows he’s still feuding with Shane, and this is now the second show where we have Shane teaming with a wrestler accomplice to feud with a babyface who is liked a lot more by casual fans than he is by hardcore fans, which just reinforces the feeling of sameness.
VIKING RAIDERS INSET PROMO- They tried their best to be serious, but they feel like total cartoons. Dangerous ones, but one-dimensional cartoons nonetheless.
THE VIKING RAIDERS vs. LUCHA HOUSE PARTY (w/Lincé Dorado)- squash
Lucha House Party attacked the Viking Raiders from behind during their entrance as revenge for last week. This was pretty much the only offense Lucha House Party got. The Viking Raiders attacked Dorado after the match as well and he got some offense in but got laid out in the end. One more week of this with no actual movement in the story and I’m giving it a dud.
“Erik” of the Viking Raiders had “RAPM” (or maybe it was “R cancer ribbon PM”) written on his boots, which I can only assume is some sort of hint as to what their name will be next week.
IICONICS VIDEO PACKAGE, SPONSORED BY SONIC- You can show them powerboming Charlotte and telling me that they are better friends than any of the other teams all you want. If you want me to take them seriously then you have to have them WIN MATCHES CLEANLY.
ALEXA BLISS! REVEALS THE RAW PARTICIPANTS IN THE WOMEN’S MITB MATCH- very bad
When Alexa did this for the men earlier she was in the ring, but now they have her with her full “Moment of Bliss” set… including only one chair, even though there are going to be four guests. The first woman announced was Nattie, who came out and cut a promo. Alexa then shushed Nattie and brought out Dana Brooke. Dana, who is supposed to be a babyface, complains about getting held back. Dana… you’re a muscly blonde with large boobs. Outside of kayfabe, the thing holding you back is your lack of wrestling ability. Inside kayfabe, the only thing holding you back is your own pitiful win-loss record. It’s not management’s fault; it’s yours.
Nattie somehow reads a direct criticism of her into Dana’s statement. I’m not sure how Nattie interpreted it this way, but she did, so she came off as more than a little vain when she got in Dana’s face about this, and their verbal confrontation was painful to watch. Dana’s lack of charisma is kind of funny when she’s a heel. When she’s a babyface she’s just boring.
The third woman announced was Naomi… so after beating both of the tag champs in mere minutes on consecutive weeks… Naomi is going to be in a singles division match at the PPV. So what was the purpose of jobbing the tag champs out to her?
Naomi’s promo was better than the first two, but saying that in her inveitable show-down with the Raw Women’s Champion the champ would “get all of this glow” was a f*cking terrible closing line. All three women kept interrupting and talking over each other, seemingly each saying the word “opportunity” every third word.
Alexa accurately described this segment as being worse than the earlier one with the men. Alexa led everyone on before predictably announcing herself as the final Raw participant. Dana Brooke said the word “opportunity” in what I assume was supposed to be an outraged manner about seven more times. Nattie, too, was unhappy with this and said told Alexa “you don’t deserve any of this!” Really, Nattie? Your only win since the beginning of match was an eight-woman tag in which you didn’t even get the pinfall. Take that match out and you’re on a five-match losing streak, including a tag title match you did nothing to earn and a #1 contenderhsip match you did nothing to earn. In that timespan, Alexa has only wrestled one match… which she won (and cleanly, too, if my memory serves me correctly), so maybe you should think twice before you try telling someone else she doesn’t deserve her spot in this match?
Naomi suggested that they have a match to “give the WWE Universe a little preview” of MITB, which is the same stupid phrase that Braun Strowman used earlier in the men’s version of this segment.
Also, can we talk about what a ridiculous reason this is for a wrestler to make such a challenge? (Yes we can, because it’s my review and that’s what I want to talk about.) Why do Braun Strowman and Naomi care about giving the WWE Universe “a preview” of MITB? Because they want people to buy the PPV/subscribe to the WWE Network so they make more money? Okay… but in that case shouldn’t they want to give the WWE Universe the most accurate preview of the PPV match possible and suggest doing a four-way Ladder Match instead of claiming that a standard tag team match is a good way to show people the action they’ll get in the Ladder Match you want them to buy the PPV for?
Lines like this (or wrestlers talking about how exciting the Superstar Shake-up is or any such similar BS) should be avoided at all costs because they make the wrestlers feel like tools of the company. These are people who are supposed to care about winning and losing or about who isn’t playing fair or who isn’t showing them the proper respect, not about getting matches booked to further the company’s promotional goals. Lines like this remind us that what we are watching is all scripted, when their goal should be to make us forget, because the more we remember that things are scripted, the less real the characters and their emotions feel.
Making matters worse, the “preview” match that Naomi proposes is her against Alexa in a singles match, “right here, right now.” As Alexa points out, this would not be fair because Naomi is in her gear while Alexa is in her fancy talk show hostess outfit. Naomi then goads Alexa into accepting her challenge… and despite the challenge being for a match “right here, right now,” Michael Cole begins to proudly talk about all of the social media attention the Firefly Funhouse got last week, clearly not understanding that the hashtag “#DidIJustSeeThat?” is not necessarily a positive thing. And then- once again, please keep in mind that Naomi’s challenge was for a match “right here, right now” and she is now heading down to the ring with Alexa following her- Cole pitches to the next Firefly Funhouse segment.
FIREFLY FUNHOUSE- still weird
Bray was painting a picture of Abbey the Witch being burned alive in her house. Half way up on the left side there is what appears to me to be a small white figure watching this happen, who is presumably Randy Orton (THAT’S A JOKE, NOT INTENDED TO BE SERIOUS ANALYSIS).
The witch scolds Bray for this. He says he is sorry for everything he did and asks us if we forgive him, and the chorus of children say that they do. The witch leaves and Bray calls her a sociopath. His new rabbit puppet friend asks if this is the “word of the day,” because it’s a Pee Wee Herman spoof, so of course we have to have a word of the day.
I didn’t really say much about this whole thing last week, and a lot of that was because I wanted to see a bit more before weighing in. My thoughts on this whole thing at the moment are as follows: I’m not denying that this whole set up has a lot of potential for character development and intrigue and artistic nuance that is far beyond what we usually see from WWE. But that right there is the problem. WWE’s track record on this sort of stuff is such that I find it impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt… and the most glaring example of why I feel this way is the very character talking to us in these promos. So you will not see me attempting to decipher various clues or doing a deconstruction of the items in Bray’s funhouse and speculating on what they might mean, because I tried to do that with Bray Wyatt before and was still waiting for answers five years later when we last saw Bray Wyatt.
ALEXA BLISS! vs. NAOMI- 0.75/10
When we got back from a commercial break, this match had already started. Alexa was constantly needing to tie her shoes due to not wearing good wrestling shoes because she wasn’t expecting to wrestle. At one point when she went to tie her shoe and put her foot up on the ropes to help her do so, Naomi ran at Alexa- whose back was turned to her- and kicked her in the thigh. What a heel!
Alexa overcame her shoes constantly coming untied and made a comeback but got distracted when her shoes came off after Naomi tried to pull her to the corner and yelled at the referee, allowing Naomi to lay her out with the Rear View, then hit the split-legged moonsault for the win. So Alexa looks for bad losing after distracting herself, while Naomi doesn’t look good because she beat someone at a disadvantage due to wardrobe issues… so what did this match accomplish?
CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS REY MYSTERIO JR.- He’s wrestling Samoa Joe tonight… and “his” son Dominic is suddenly back with him again, so I assume that they’re just going to do whatever was originally planned for WrestleMania tonight. Rey’s promo was good.
CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS BECKY LYNCH- decent segment.
This is taking place in the ring, so… angle alert.
Charly asks Becky why she volunteered to defend both titles on the same night. Becky cut a GREAT promo to build up both of her title defenses and the stuff she said sounded cool, but she didn’t really give any sort of intelligent answer to Charly’s question. I understand not wanting to be seen as dodging anyone or to be seen as “holding a division hostage” by not defending the title, but Becky is acting like titles can only be defended on PPV, which clearly isn’t true. If you want to be a “fighting champion” and not hold the division hostage then why are you waiting until the PPV to make title defenses? You’ve got #1 contenders in place for each of those titles, so why are you waiting the three weeks until the PPV to defend them?
Becky called out Lacey Evans so Lacey came out, cut a promo on Becky, then charged her and they started brawling until the referees and road agents came out to break them up. This was a good angle… but we already got this angle in this feud.
THE REVIVAL vs. CURT HAWKINS & ZACK RYDER- 4/10
The Revival got their entrance cut for a Make-A-Wish video. The fans predictably chanted “SHAVE YOUR BACK!” at Dawson, which is something that did wonders for Albert’s career so of course WWE would want to repeat that. Cole was insistent that what the Usos did was merely “a joke” and people shouldn’t be so upset about it. Renee practically screamed back at him that people shouldn’t be taking a camera into a public shower.
The Revival lost to Hawkins & Ryder yet again… because that’s definitely the right way to set them up for the big match with the Usos that everyone wants to see.
A BLONDE WOMAN INTERVIEWS THE MIZ- He challenges Shane McMahon to a Cage Match. You’d think that he would mention that the cage would serve to keep interlopers like Bobby Lashley from affecting the outcome of the match, but he didn’t. Gimmicks matches are just gimmicks now, that we have because they’re big and cool rather than because there is a reason for them.
SAMI ZAYN PROMO- great for what it was, but I find it astounding that not one babyface has come out and stood up for us fans yet. It’s been a month of this now.
Shane McMahon accepted The Miz’s challenge via Tweet.
SAMOA JOE PROMO- f*cking awesome!
REY MYSTERIO JR. vs. SAMOA JOE- 6.5/10
A decent big vs. little match. Rey won clean, making it two weeks on Raw and two losses for US Champion Samoa Joe. Dominic
WWE UNIVERSAL TITLE CONTRACT SIGNING- GREAT!
I came into this segment tired and really not wanting to sit through another bad, forced WWE confrontation, but these guys actually cut some pretty damn good promos on each other. Then AJ started a fight and that was great, too.
I guess last week’s show was an anomaly, as this week’s was back to the same dull crap we usually get. With MITB coming up, I am now dreading weeks of the wrestlers in the MITB matches facing each other in pointless matches while nothing moves forward in anyway.
