BRM Reviews the 4/6/2020 Raw (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

Advertised for tonight are:
1. Supposedly “shocking” footage of Drew McIntyre after he won the title last night.
2. A completely pointless and baseless rematch of the Raw Tag Team Title match from last night even though the champions cleanly defeated their challengers.

ASUKA vs. LIV MORGAN- 6/10
Apparently there was a pre-show match for Mania where Liv Morgan beat Nattie. Commentary told us ho important of a win this was for Liv. And then Liv lost cleanly to Asuka tonight. So much for that big win building to anything. That being said, Liv has definitely improved over the years.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS BECKY LYNCH AFTER HER TITLE DEFENSE AGAINST SHAYNA BASZLER- bad
This felt like they told Becky to fill a bunch of time, and so she just rambled on with nothing interesting to say as Charly asked her the most generic questions possible.

SHAYNA BASZLER PROMO AFTER LOSING TO BECKY LYNCH- great!
She said “the thrill of victory; the agony of defeat” several times, then looked into the camera and said “the thrill of victory, and- for you, Becky- the agony of my defeat.

WWE RAW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Street Profits(c) vs. Angel Garza & Austin Theory (w/Zelina Vega)- no rating, terrible segment on principle.
Zelina Vega always dresses in street clothes when she manages, but tonight she is already in her gear. Dude… if you want to do a Bianca Belair vs. Zelina Vega, just f*cking book Bianca Belair vs. Zelina Vega! By doing so, you would:
1. Protect the tag titles by not giving a shot at them to a team that everyone in the world can logically deduces should be at the back of the line because YOU JUST SHOWED US THEM LOSING CLEANLY TO THE CHAMPIONS IN THEIR LAST MATCH!
2. Not make Bianca Belair look like an idiot for not coming out the moment that she saw Zelina coming out, because everyone knows she’s going to interfere!
3. Not rub our faces in the fact that the show is a work by having Zelina randomly decide to do something she never does and come out in her gear the one time her interference is going to result in her wrestling right afterwards.
4. Not needlessly waste the audience’s time with a match that is so obviously going to go to a DQ!

So yeah. They wrestle for a bit, then Zelina just blatantly interferes for the DQ. Then they do the exact same set-up with the two heels grabbing Montez Ford and Zelina kicking him, leading to Bianca Belair coming out to make the save. Actually, this time they did it worse than last night, because tonight someone decided that Bianca should do her entrance routine on the stage, complete with dancing and spinning around, while every just stopped and watched. This bitch just kicked your husband in the face while her goons held him so he couldn’t defend himself. Don’t stop to dance before making the f*cking save!
Bianca finally get to the ring and the babyfaces all dump the heels out of the ring- yes, just like last night- and then it somehow got worse! Bianca starts to cut her introductory promo, ending with her challenging Zelina to face her in the ring… except that Zelina and her charges are on the ramp, and Bianca is cutting this whole promo with her back turned to them because someone told her “make sure you’re facing the hard-cam.” GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
I cannot recall a segment that has been so bad while not containing any botches and having everything everyone said make perfect logical sense.
Anyway, after a commercial break we got…

BIANCA BELAIR (w/the Street Profits) vs. ZELINA VEGA (w/Angel Garza & Austin Theory)- 3/10
They had an okay wrestler vs. mostly manager match… and then that ended via double DQ, so Bianca can’t even win her first match, and against someone who is mostly a manager, no less. Montez Ford then picked up a microphone and cut a promo setting up the six-person tag that we all knew was coming so I ask, again, WHY THE F*CK DIDN’T YOU JUST BOOK THIS MATCH IN THE G-D DAMN FIRST PLACE?!
And they had the f*cking audacity to tell me that this was “the most unpredictable Raw of the year?” F*CK OFF.

MIXED TAG TEAM MATCH: Bianca Belair & the Street Profits vs. Zelina Vega, Angel Garza, & Austin Theory- 2/10
The match was probably a bit better than this, but as you can probably tell, I’ve more than run out of patience with this at this point.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS BOBBY LASHLEY AFTER HIS LOSS AT WRESTLEMANIA- fine
He wants to dump Lana already. She shows up, totally oblivious to all of this. They married them three months ago and now they’re going to break them up.

ALEISTER BLACK vs. APOLLO CREWS- 7/10
You might remember (if you have a very good memory) that Apollo Crews was a member of the Smackdown roster the last time you saw him. Well apparently he’s on Raw now “because of draft picks that were about to expire.” WHAT? How does that make any sense? When they laid out the rules of the draft back in October at no point did they mention anything about leftover draft picks, nor an expiration date for them. And based on the way that draft worked, Raw would have to choose someone who wasn’t already part of the SD roster, which Crews was. And if they could pick someone who was part of the roster, why pick Apollo Crews when you could have picked Roman Reigns or Kofi Kingston or Daniel Bryan or Shinsuke Nakamura?
Anyway, this went almost half an hour, which is a lot longer than the squash I was expecting. Considering that this went twenty-seven minutes and how talented both guys are, I was expecting something better than we got, but it’s still the best match Crews has been allowed to have probably since coming to the main roster four years ago. The story was Black working over Crews’ knee with kicks, but they didn’t focus on it as much as they really should have. Black won clean. After he beats Titus next week, I think WWE will be out of muscular, bald African-Americans for Aleister to defeat. Maybe Big E. will lose a hair vs. hair match.

DANNY BURCH & ONEY LORCAN vs. CEDRIC ALEXANDER & RICOCHET- 3.75/10
This was fantastic for the mere three and a half minutes it got.

KEVIN OWENS PROMO- very good

DENZELL DEJOURNETTE vs. SETH ROLLINS- squash
Seth was very angry but also very focused.

NIA JAX vs. DEONNA PURRAZZO- squash
Nia Jax is back. Oh, those poor women in the Raw women’s division.

HUMBERTO CARRILLO vs. BRENDAN VINK- 4.5/10
A fine short match with a big vs. little story. I was shocked that they let Vink go basically 50/50 with a guy on the main roster.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS CHARLOTTE FLAIR AFTER WINNING THE NXT WOMEN’S TITLE AT WRESTLEMANIA XXXVI- good stuff

FOOTAGE OF WHAT HAPPENED AFTER WRESTLEMANIA XXXVI WENT OFF THE AIR- dull
Drew does a full entrance to do an interview. If they wanted to interview him in the ring, why did they have him leave? Oh. So he could change the plates on the belt. That does make sense, but is also really stupid that he would do that instead of calling his family (who he said he hadn’t talked to) or take a shower or something. Drew cut an okay promo.
Then Big Show came out with his own referee and challenged Drew to a title match, right here right now. Drew said he wouldn’t fight because he had fought already, but Big Show slapped him so he accepted the match. That’s it? They had been building this up all night as “shocking,” and this is what we get? I guess Big Show’s language was a bit shocking (he said “sh*t”, which got bleeped, and “bitch,” which didn’t), but this felt like a pretty routine pro wrestling segment.

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Drew McIntyre(c) vs. Big Show (taped last night)- 4.5/10
Byron went on and on about how we’d never seen someone win a title at WrestleMania and then defend it less than half an hour later. Tom made comments along the same lines, so I guess neither of our announcers are familiar with the ending of WrestleMania IX, then.
Drew won a very meh match.

A very bad episode of Raw. Even the very long match between the two great workers was disappointing, and that Street Profits & Bianca vs. Zelina & Friends segment was one of the most frustrating things I’ve seen in quite a while.