BRM Reviews the 7/15/2019 Raw (bad, but not as bad as last week)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- fine
Brock and Heyman came out and Brock did the boombox thing with the belt for about three seconds before realizing it looked stupid, but Michael still had to say “it looks like we’re going to have a Brock party!” as if this was something people would find exciting or cool.

After much bragging, Heyman announces that Brock’s SummerSlam challenger will be determined later tonight in a “Cross-Branded All-Star Top Ten Battle Royale.” Oh, those poor, poor announcers, having to say this horrible world salad every single time.
Heyman ran down and put over each other ten potential challengers. Those challengers are:
Seth Rollins- This makes perfect sense. If we’re not doing automatic rematches anymore then the champion at least deserves to be in something like this.
Randy Orton- A fine entrant based solely on his resumé, plus he is coming off of a win over Triple H in his last televised match.
Big E.- I don’t like this one. Maybe I could buy it if he wasn’t currently a tag champ, but he doesn’t seem like someone who has any sort of shot, and he hasn’t won a singles match since Halloween.
Cesaro- As much I would LOVE to see this match, Cesaro hasn’t won a singles match in almost two months, and his singles record this year is pretty shoddy when up against anyone who is midcard or above.
Braun Strowman- Makes sense, given that he is coming off a big win over Lashley and is usually pretty heavily protected
Rey Mysterio Jr.- Like Randy, Rey is a good “legacy” entrant, and did also recently have to relinquish a title due to injury. I won say the Lashley squash loss should totally disqualify Rey from this (assuming Lashley is in here as well), but this is one more reason why that match was a terrible booking mistake.
Baron Corbin- No. F*CK OFF. NO! How many f*cking title shots does this asshole have to lose cleanly before he stops getting put in #1 contendership matches?
Sami Zayn- Absolutely not. The man has ONE singles victory since MARCH 6TH OF LAST YEAR, which he needed multiple people to interfere on his behalf to help him achieve… and in this span he has lost THREE world title matches as well as an IC Title match, and this year alone (and he’s only been back for three months) he has lost several non-title matches to world champions as well.
Bobby Lashley- I’m fine with this one. Yes, he’s coming off of a loss to Braun last night, but they’ve protected him well enough for him to seem credible here.
Roman Reigns- Grr… if we must

Drew McIntyre feels buried by not being included here. US Champion AJ Styles and US Champion Nakamura really should have been in here, too.

Also announced is a four-way #1 contendership match for a shot at the Raw Women’s Title at SummerSlam featuring Nattie, Naomi, and Carmella, none of whom have done a damn thing to earn this spot, and Alexa Bliss!, who just lost a title match last night, and while Alexa didn’t get pinned in that match, the whole storyline is that she didn’t do anything to earn the shot, either, so not only is there no need to try to give her a make-good like this, but it makes including her here ridiculous because you’ve spent the past month telling us that she doesn’t deserve a title shot.

But if you’re looking for something actually exciting on tonight’s card… JOE VS. BALOR!

2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH: The Usos & Ricochet vs. Bobby Rode & The Revival- 5.75/10
Yet again we got one babyface entering before the commercial, then the whole heel team coming out during the commercial, and then the rest of the babyface team coming out after the commercial. The things that Vince McMahon thinks people care about and don’t care about never cease to astonish me. Even at this point, I’m still just dumbfounded. How does a mind wind up getting this backwards?
The Usos cut a promo saying that they had “unfinished business” with The Revival after last night’s match. No you don’t! You lost clean. Just accept that fact like adults and move on.
I didn’t even realize this was a 2 out of 3 falls match until Michael Cole said that the babyfaces had won “the first fall.” He said this just over twenty seconds into the match, with Scott Dawson- one half of the Raw Tag Team Champions- getting pinned after three f*cking moves. Dawson pinned Jimmy Uso several minutes later after a f*cking flapjack.
The third fall started after the commercial break. Ricochet pinned Roode to win. The whole thing about eleven minutes total. This was yet another match that was hurt by this dumb “no wrestling during commercials” rule and more wrestlers hurt by taking unnecessary falls because WWE sees doing a 2 out of 3 falls match as an artificial way to create a stoppage in a match.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
The Club showed up. Ricochet dove onto them but they got up and beat him up. The Usos came over to make the save. If it had ended here, this would have been perfectly fine (and if it had set up a six-man tag for next week I’d have even called it good). Instead someone decided that Roode and The Revival had to get involved and lay the Usos out but then get taken out by Ricochet themselves before the Club beat Ricochet up again, giving us no real change to the status quo. They got the win on him and left him laying last night, and now they have done the same thing here tonight, with no new wrinkles added, so what was gained from this?

THE VIKING RAIDERS BACKSTAGE- They’ve got the Bludgeon Brothers’ old red mood lighting. They’ve just replaced the ridiculous promos with heavy breathing.

THE VIKING RAIDERS vs. TWO JOBBERS- DUD on principle
These guys got called up THREE MONTHS AGO. Why are they still doing squashes instead of being involved in actual storylines?

DREW MCINTYRE CONFRONTS A GROUP OF GOOFS BACKSTAGE- very bad
This started with Drew hearing sounds of laughter and thus barging the locker room angrily. I guess Drew thought they were laughing at him for something. Cole set-up certainly made it seem like they were laughing at Drew for Cedric Alexander dressing as a janitor and briefly getting offense on him last week before Drew kicked his ass and beat him clean, which would 100% make them goofs.
And who is this group of goofs, you ask? Cedric Alexander- who WWE apparently thinks they are giving a push to by having him get beaten in two minutes. No Way Jose, who is an irreparable goof already. New call-ups the Street Profits, and f*cking Finn Balor.
Drew confronted them, which led to Cedric reciting some absolutely terrible dialogue at Drew, while Drew came back with equally bad lines of his own. A challenge was laid out for a match on tonight’s show (this happened earlier today).

DREW MCINTYRE vs. CEDRIC ALEXANDER- 3/10
How does WWE not realize how completely f*cking idiotic this whole “Cedric Alexander embarrassed Drew McIntyre” narrative is? It’s like saying a batter was “embarrassed” by the pitcher in their last game because he stuck out his first time up, even though he went 3-4 with two homers against that pitcher on the day overall.
Between this stupid angle and this “now wrestling during commercials” rule WWE has managed to completely kill my interest in a first time ever match between two fantastic workers.
These guys had just about the best match they could have possibly had in THREE MINUTES AND TWENTY SECONDS they were given. Cedric won with a roll-up. Michael Cole called this “perhaps the biggest win of his career,” totally burying the Cruiserweight Title.

FINN BALOR PROMO- GREAT!
He lost his title last night, but h’s determined to win it back, and his path back to the title starts by beating Samoa Joe tonight.

SAMOA JOE PROMO- AWESOME!

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS ROMAN REIGNS- meh
First they showed us Joe in the ring waiting for his match to start. Then they cut to a recap of the opponent segment, followed by this interview, making Joe look like a chump. Roman’s promo wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good, either.

SAMOA JOE vs. FINN BALOR- DUD!
Joe won by roll-up in eight-two seconds. I don’t care that the point of this was to lead to the post-match angle. I’m sick and tired of them putting matches in front of me that I’m supposed to stay tuned for and eagerly anticipate because I think they’re going to be great and then them giving those matches nowhere near enough time. I just sat through a f*cking PPV where matches like Joe vs. Kofi, Balor vs. Nakamura, Black vs. Cesaro, and Gulak vs. Nese got less than ten minutes, and Owens vs. Ziggler got less than twenty. Now tonight I’ve seen Joe vs. Nakamura and Drew vs. Cedric get a combined total of less than five. F*CK THIS SH*T!

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Joe beat Balor up after the match, too. But Balor made a comeback and beat Joe up, just to make sure that neither man benefitted from this segment.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT #2- HATED IT!
Dumb effects happened with the music cutting off slowly like the power was being drained. Then the lights cut off in sequence. Then, when it was dark, we heard a bunch of sounds. A f*cking spotlight would occasionally come on and we’d catch glimpses of Bray Wyatt in his new nightmare-fuel mask holding Balor in position for Sister Abigail. He eventually hit it. Then we got a long zoom in on the creepy mask with lights going on and off.
I know a lot of people are going to be excited about this and think it’s all cool and artsy. DON’T BE FOOLED! That light show and zoom in on the mask and all of that crap isn’t art. It’s not the sign of a deep character that WWE has put a lot of thought into and have an intelligent plan for. That’s the sh*t that WWE relies on to distract you from the fact that this really isn’t any of those things. And I know this because I sat through FIVE STRAIGHT YEARS OF THEM DOING THIS EXACT SAME THING WITH THIS EXACT SAME GUY.

R-TRUTH IS STALKING DRAKE MAVERICK AND HIS WIFE ON HIS HONEYMOON- Maverick is a good. R-Truth is an idiot. And also does slight of hand. Then we saw the Street Profits watching this. They made fun of Drake Maverick for allegedly being a virgin. Then they attempted to hype up the two #1 contendership matches in a way that made me regret not fast-forwarding through this. Why are they doing this to this to the Street Profits?

MARIA KANELLIS BERATES INSULTS HER HUSBAND BACKSTAGE- Then she insisted that she was going to wrestle this match even though she’s pregnant.

MIKE KANELLIS vs. ZACK RYDER- DUD!
I don’t like or care about this story at all. I don’t want to see Mike Kanellis get squashed and then berated by his pregnant wife. What is the possible positive endgame here that I’m supposed to be looking forward do? What is the outcome of this story that we as fans are supposed to desire?

LUCHA HOUSE PARTY vs. THE CLUB-6/10
Renee Young immediately buries Lucha House Party, insisting to us that they have absolutely no chance of winning.
Ricochet came out and attacked AJ on the outside. The referee did a TREMENDOUS job of being out of position to plausibly not see any of thing, but if you’re sending a bunch of other referees out to pull Ricochet off of AJ, it looks really silly for this to not be a DQ. Ricochet’s attack led to “order needing to be restored,” which was their pretext for stopping the action during a commercial break.
That allowed this match to go trough a break, and thus actually eclipse the ten-minute mark. This was easily the best thing we’ve seen in the ring all night. The Club won when AJ made Kalisto tap to the Calf Crusher. Then the Club beat Lucha House Party up some more because they’re heels and that’s what they do.

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS SETH ROLLINS- hated it
Yup. We’re back to square one, with Seth whining about Brock being Universal Champion even though he “doesn’t deserve” it. Also, apparently taking ONE WRESTLING MOVE from Baron Corbin has injured Becky Lynch to the point where they’re teasing that she can’t even show up tonight. All of this Women’s Evolution stuff and all of these big bumps into these weapons matches with Charlotte that we saw her get up from last night… but one move from Baron Corbin puts her down because… you know… boys are a lot stronger than girls. Duh. This company sucks.

FOUR-WAY ELIMINATION #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Naomi vs. Natalya vs. Carmella vs. Alexa Bliss! (w/Nikki Cross)- 6.5/10
Renee Young tells us that she thinks that Carmella of all people “deserves” to be the champion. Her reasoning for this was the extremely specious claim that “Smackdown was its best” when she was champion. This would be the same Carmella whose title reign’s story was that was a completely undeserving champion. Renee also told us that “Nattie thrives on being the underdog. She thrives on these situations” without ever explaining to us why Nattie was the underdog here.
Before the match started, Becky Lynch came out. This was about two minutes after her boyfriend told us he didn’t know if she’d be able to make it to the show tonight.

This actually got a lot of time. They got around the “no wrestling during a commercial” rule with an inexplicable break after the second elimination that we have never seen before and they called no attention to this being out of the ordinary. The match wound up going about twenty minutes, which has to be BY FAR the longest we’ve seen on Raw since this dumb new rule started (and maybe even before that). The match was one that I would call “good,” although it was certainly well below what I’d like to see from a match that goes this long. It told a good story with Alexa being a sneaky heel until it was just her and Nattie, at which point she wasn’t able to hide and thus Nattie made her tap out. It wasn’t great, but it certainly didn’t deserve the dead-heat “Let’s go Cena!/Cena sucks!” chant that the crowd engaged in.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Charly tried to interview Nattie, who was out of breath and overwhelmed. Becky interrupted her and was a total dochebag. Nattie responded by cutting a great promo about how she was going to kick Becky’s ass that just makes you wonder why they never let her say this sort of stuff before.

RANDY ORTON PROMO- dull

MIZ TV WITH SPECIAL GUEST DOLPH ZIGGLER- Yeah… this sounds like something I want to skip at this point in the night. It was boring as hell. You can already guess how it was going to go. Typical Ziggler promo, dull barbs exchanged, fight.

24/7 TITLE BULLSH*T- stupid and embarrassing to the point where I was thankfully no one walked into the room while I was watching it.

CROSS-BRANDED ALL-STAR TOP TEN BATTLE ROYALE FOR SHOT AT THE WWE UNIVERSAL TITLE AT SUMMERSLAM 2019- 6/10
This was very good for an eight-minute battle royale. Rollins won after Orton distracted himself by jawing with Heyman. I don’t give a sh*t about Seth vs. Brock at this point.

SETH ROLLINS PROMO- good… but then Brock killed it by laughing it off.


Another bad and frustrating episode of Raw. Not as bad as last week, but then again, it’d be pretty hard to be that bad again.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Michael Cole insisted that “last night Samoa Joe took WWE Champion Kofi Kingston to the limit” in their match. That match went less than ten minutes. Meanwhile, the big motif that they repeated ad nauseum during Kofi’s road to the title was him lasting nearly an hour in matches.

[cero2k]

THE VIKING RAIDERS vs. TWO JOBBERS- DUD on principle
These guys got called up THREE MONTHS AGO. Why are they still doing squashes instead of being involved in actual storylines?

apparently one of the jobbers was called Jackson James which was Garrett Bischoff's old gimmick.

Garrett Bischoff is coming to Smackdown soon, you just wait. And he's bringing Wes Briscoe with him.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT #2- HATED IT!
Dumb effects happened with the music cutting off slowly like the power was being drained. Then the lights cut off in sequence. Then, when it was dark, we heard a bunch of sounds. A f*cking spotlight would occasionally come on and we’d catch glimpses of Bray Wyatt in his new nightmare-fuel mask holding Balor in position for Sister Abigail. He eventually hit it. Then we got a long zoom in on the creepy mask with lights going on and off.
I know a lot of people are going to be excited about this and think it’s all cool and artsy. DON’T BE FOOLED! That light show and zoom in on the mask and all of that crap isn’t art. It’s not the sign of a deep character that WWE has put a lot of thought into and have an intelligent plan for. That’s the sh*t that WWE relies on to distract you from the fact that this really isn’t any of those things. And I know this because I sat through FIVE STRAIGHT YEARS OF THEM DOING THIS EXACT SAME THING WITH THIS EXACT SAME GUY.

I can't not see TNA's Menagerie when I see this Wyatt, he looks like a cheap Joker/circus knockoff. this whole thing is based on a cool mask, nothing else

[Bob-O]

Drew McIntyre feels buried by not being included here. US Champion AJ Styles and US Champion Nakamura really should have been in here, too.

I think McIntyre would have been a better fit than E or Zayne, but I'm OK with keeping the secondary champs out of the world title picture regardless of who they are. It kind of buries the belts, especially after they both just won them. In hindsight, and while I'm also OK with Drew playing Razor to Credric's 123 Kid, I think inserting Drew into this battle royal and not having him win it would have done him a little damage.

Cedric won with a roll-up. Michael Cole called this “perhaps the biggest win of his career,” totally burying the Cruiserweight Title.

It's not burying the Cruiserweight Title, he just beat DREW MCINTYRE! Nobody called it the "best match" of his career or the "biggest moment" of his career, but it's a tough sell to point out a bigger win - especially in WWE Universe. Hyping an upset victory over a top star is going to do him far more favors than reminding us he was the cruiserweight champion on another show for a long time.

THE VIKING RAIDERS vs. TWO JOBBERS- DUD on principle
These guys got called up THREE MONTHS AGO. Why are they still doing squashes instead of being involved in actual storylines?

Given the recent storylines... dude... let them keep squashing jobbers.

MIKE KANELLIS vs. ZACK RYDER- DUD!
I don’t like or care about this story at all. I don’t want to see Mike Kanellis get squashed and then berated by his pregnant wife. What is the possible positive endgame here that I’m supposed to be looking forward do? What is the outcome of this story that we as fans are supposed to desire?

All I can figure is that this is Highschool Vince punishing them for how their re-signing played out. There is no desirable outcome for we the fans... all for Vince's amusement. Wouldn't be the first time...

FOUR-WAY ELIMINATION #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Naomi vs. Natalya vs. Carmella vs. Alexa Bliss! (w/Nikki Cross)- 6.5/10
It wasn’t great, but it certainly didn’t deserve the dead-heat “Let’s go Cena!/Cena sucks!” chant that the crowd engaged in

Apparently, from multiple sources, the crowd was complete shit for this match. Even Alexa seemed a little tactfully (see: out of character) pissed about it.

CROSS-BRANDED ALL-STAR TOP TEN BATTLE ROYALE FOR SHOT AT THE WWE UNIVERSAL TITLE AT SUMMERSLAM 2019- 6/10
This was very good for an eight-minute battle royale. Rollins won after Orton distracted himself by jawing with Heyman. I don’t give a sh*t about Seth vs. Brock at this point.

I could absolutely give a shit about Orton at this point, though. He was great tonight! In a time where they're scrambling for stars, he's a legit active one yet has been an afterthought for ages...

[KILLdozer]

I really hope this is the major character revitalization she needs and we're not just throwing Natalya in another title match just to get it over with again.

[cero2k]

I really hope this is the major character revitalization she needs and we're not just throwing Natalya in another title match just to get it over with again.

you already know the answer to this

[KILLdozer]

I really hope this is the major character revitalization she needs and we're not just throwing Natalya in another title match just to get it over with again.

you already know the answer to this

She's so stale she should be thrown out like bread...

[KILLdozer]

So on Hulu I just missed 6, SIX THINGS, total between that post match and Balor V Joe. I saw the attack after the opener then the Reigns promo....

[KILLdozer]

Yeah...that match was horrible. Natalya was the only one above average in it. If there were obviously no count-outs then were there DQs? If not then why did they never come into play? They just were NOT into the match at all...and it never really got going enough anyway....out of all of the matches, they gave them that THAT kind of time...

Also, yeah once again, enough of Becky Lynch.

[KILLdozer]

And yeah I'd also agree with the idea of Orton as a completely fresh and brand new feeling instant legitimate, huge star, universal champion. It seemed like such a better possibility when it was just Him and Rollins left near the end.

[NWK2000]

POST-MATCH SEGMENT #2- HATED IT!
Dumb effects happened with the music cutting off slowly like the power was being drained. Then the lights cut off in sequence. Then, when it was dark, we heard a bunch of sounds. A f*cking spotlight would occasionally come on and we’d catch glimpses of Bray Wyatt in his new nightmare-fuel mask holding Balor in position for Sister Abigail. He eventually hit it. Then we got a long zoom in on the creepy mask with lights going on and off.
I know a lot of people are going to be excited about this and think it’s all cool and artsy. DON’T BE FOOLED! That light show and zoom in on the mask and all of that crap isn’t art. It’s not the sign of a deep character that WWE has put a lot of thought into and have an intelligent plan for. That’s the sh*t that WWE relies on to distract you from the fact that this really isn’t any of those things. And I know this because I sat through FIVE STRAIGHT YEARS OF THEM DOING THIS EXACT SAME THING WITH THIS EXACT SAME GUY.

I think Bray Wyatt has wormed his way into that Undertaker/Kane fandom niche, where, because he's taken such a wacky gimmick with a ton of different iterations and been entertaining to the people who enjoy the magic/special effects part of pro wrestling, no matter how inconsistent he is or how poorly booked he is, people will always mark out for him. And I'm in that niche, I was one of those kids that fell in love with wrestling because it intertwined cartoon/anime levels of fantasy and real sports. I also think it should be said that Windham Rotunda, much like Mark Calloway before him, is one of those people who understands everything about his character, so that everything he does is on point.

That said, having identified my niche, I can step outside myself and identify that you're completely right. We have no reason to trust that this will lead to a long term success or consistency for Bray Wyatt as a character, but I've gotta say, whoever designed Bray's attire should be given a golden statue of themselves at the Performance Center. I want an action figure of this immediately

[Bob-O]

whoever designed Bray's attire should be given a golden statue of themselves at the Performance Center.

I'm down, but it's gonna be a hard sell...

[cero2k]

whoever designed Bray's attire should be given a golden statue of themselves at the Performance Center.

filled with chocolate, right? he looks like a fat version of Crazzy Steve with the 'Death of the Family" Joker mask on

[NWK2000]

whoever designed Bray's attire should be given a golden statue of themselves at the Performance Center.

filled with chocolate, right? he looks like a fat version of Crazzy Steve with the 'Death of the Family" Joker mask on

You say that like it's a bad thing.