BRM Reviews the 8/10/2020 Raw (bad)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 8/10/2020 Raw (bad)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 11th, '20, 00:07

ROLLINS/DOMINIK MYSTERIO CONTRACT SIGNING- meh
Other than the over the top speech they had Dominik give, I thought this was mostly good. Samoa Joe was tremendous. I’m really not fond of Rollins saying Dominik can use weapons at SummerSlam, though. It makes Dominik feel like a one-off gimmick wrestler and not someone who is starting a career in pro wrestling.

SETH ROLLINS (w/Buddy Murphy) vs. HUMBERTO CARRILLO (w/Dominik Mysterio)- 3/10
Seth wins a short match despite Dominik stopping Murphy from interfering

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- too much
Murphy attacked Dominik. Seth came in, too, and Dominik was eventually beaten up two on one. They got him stuck in the ropes, then beat him with his own kendo stick. This went on for way too long without someone coming out to help Dominik. Could Joe really not run in and make the save here? If he can’t, at least have him mention that he’s been told he’ll be fired for putting his hands on a wrestler who doesn’t touch him first so that there is a reason why he can’t make the same. Also, if this act of torturing Dominik is as heinous as the announcers are telling us, then why aren’t any other babyfaces coming out to stop it?

This might have been a fine go-home angle for Rey vs. Seth, but Rey vs. Seth isn’t the match.

ZELINA VEGA PROMO- mixed
She spoke passionately, and she’s absolutely right that her poisoning Montez Ford doesn’t make too much sense (especially with something strong enough that Montez is now questionable for SummerSlam), but her line about how she keeps her men “in line” and she is the one who creates their success was the sort of line that someone like Zelina is way too smart to say out loud, even if that’s how she truly feels, because all saying that out loud is going to do is get her charges annoyed with her.

ANGELO DAWKINS vs. ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS (w/Zelina Vega & Angel Garza)- 2.5/10
The lights and music went out here during Dawkins entrance. This is clearly supposed to be the work of Retribution, but what do they get out of doing this. If they want to disrupt the show, why not just get a car, point it at the generator, and tie a brick to the accelerator?
Speaking of Retribution, how has no one yet brought them up as suspects in Montez’s poisoning?
They had a short match. We couldn’t let the challenger with the singles history beat one half of the tag champs in a singles match. Instead we had to create a spot where Bianca Belair could run out and pull Zelina off the apron to prevent her from stopping Dawkins from winning. We’ve already got Bianca vs. Zelina booked, but apparently we need to do an angle to set it up, anyway. Meanwhile, our challengers at the PPV look like total losers once again.
And it’s not even like this angle let the Belair vs. Vega match have a hot start because they cut to a commercial so we missed any hot start their might have been for…

BIANCA BELAIR (w/Angelo Dawkins) vs. ZELINA VEGA (w/Andrade “Cien” Almas & Angel Garza)- 4/10
Bianca beat Zelina up. Zelina kept insisting that she didn’t poison Montez. Bianca won… so where he hell is the heat in this feud?

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS BIANCA BELAIR & ANGELO DAWKINS- bad
Charly asks Bianca if she has any evidence that Zelina was the one who poisoned Montez. Bianca says she does, then proceeds to provide no evidence. Instead, she talks about how she wants to kick Zelina’s ass to get revenge on her. Didn’t I just see you do that five seconds ago? If that wasn’t sufficient revenge for the babyface, then why did they waste our time with the match?
Dawkins insisted that Montez would be back in time for SummerSlam, which we all knew anyway.

APOLLO CREWS INTERRUPTS THE VIP LOUNGE- EXCELLENT!
MVP came out and cut the typical great MVP promo. Apollo came out and was also great. Excellent build for SummerSlam. Then Shelton and Lashley went to attack Crews but he slipped between them, got into the ring and threw MVP out. Then he picked up one of those big VIP Lounge couches and chucked it at the heels.

APOLLO CREWS vs. SHELTON BENJAMIN (w/the Hurt Business)- 5/10
This was a fine little match. Shelton pinning Crews after a distraction sets him up as a challenger for after SummerSlam.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Lashley locks in the Full Nelson but MVP tells him to let go because he doesn’t want Crews to miss their title match due to injury again. MVP tried to use this as evidence to Crews that “I’m only looking out for you, man,” but then tried to punch him. Fortunately for Crews, he was waster on the draw than MVP was and hit MVP with Enzugiri.

MOMENTS AGO, RETRIBUTION THREW A CINDERBLOCK THROUGH A GLASS WINDOW- snore
See… for this, they come up with a reason for the camera to be there (the cameraperson followed the nameless WWE official who was sent to do his best Bill Alfonso impression while telling Retribution to “GO HOME!”) They know that this is how to shoot a wrestling show if you want it to feel realistic… so why don’t they do it all the time?
Anyway, they through a cinderblock through a glass door, then celebrated their petty vandalism by running around and shouting. How on Earth does anyone think this is good?

SARAH SCHREIBER’S INTERVIEW WITH MICKIE JAMES IS INTERRUPTED BY NATTIE & LANA- bad
Nattie and Lana were wearing the most garish matching dresses I have ever seen. Lana asked how Mickie could possibly “lead the locker room” *insert puke emoji here* if she didn’t have a Tik-Tok. Mickie had a response. I wish social media had never been invented.

IVAR TALKS TO SOME BLONDE WHO I THINK WAS ON THE SHOW LAST WEEK- bad
Is she the one from The Batchelor? Anyway, Ivar was telling her about how he dunked a basketball, because we all needed to be reminded of that dumb sh*t. Erik, Cedric Alexander, & Ricochet came to go get him for his match. The blonde said that Ivar was cute, but Erik “not so much.” Is she dumb? If she’s actually interested in Ivar, insulting his best friend is not a good idea.

AKIRA TOZAWA & HIS NINJAS vs. THE VIKING RAIDERS, RICOCHET, & CEDRIC ALEXANDER- DUD!
This went seventy seconds. One of the ninjas wouldn’t get in the ring with Tozawa. It turned out to be R-Truth, who rolled Tozawa up to win the 24/7 Title for the Nth time where N=who could possibly give a sh*t?
This was dumb and pointless. I would say that I hope G-d has mercy on the soul of the person who came up with the 24/7 Title, but if I’m being honest, I’m really hoping for the opposite.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS DREW MCINTYRE- Drew cut a decent promo on Randy Orton.

BILLIE KAY (w/Peyton Royce) vs. LIV MORGAN (w/Ruby Riott)- 1/10
The Riott Squad got back together last week and got their big win over the bullies. The story should be over now, but yet it continues for some reason. And now the heels have won again and the babyfaces are once again upset with each other.

RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Dolph Ziggler vs… someone- 1/10
This one got out of the ring, and went longer than some of the others did. It was still short, and wasn’t very exciting, especially because we know the guy with no name wasn’t going to beat Dolph Ziggler.
Also, knock it off with the f*cking camera cuts.

IF ASUKA WINS, SHE GETS A SHOT AT THE RAW WOMEN’S TITLE AT SUMMERSLAM: Asuka vs. Bayley (w/Sasha Banks)- 7/10
Hey, look! A match that actually got time! And it was great! The story was each woman working over a body part, as well as Sasha’s interference. Bayley made a critical mistake and decided to waste time mocking Kairi Sane, which gave Asuka enough time to recover. Asuka won with the Asuka Lock soon afterwards.

RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Arturo Ruas vs. a nameless jobber- squash
I do love me some Arturo Ruas. That being said, if you’re going to tell us the guy is a big amateur wrestler, maybe don’t have him spend 99% of the match throwing strikes

RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Dabba-Kato vs. a nameless jobber- squash
This included an extended testicular claw.

SHAYNA BASZLER SHOWS UP AT RAW UNDERGOURND- No one wants to fight her, so she’s apparently allowed to just go on the outside and attack some poor woman. A second woman runs in to try to defend her, but Shayna takes her out, too. A third woman came in a did better but was still defeated quickly. Then all three tried to attack Shayna at once but Shayna still won.

RETRIBUTION HAVE FLIPPED OVER A CAR OUTSIDE- snore
They flipped over a car. So what?

KEVIN OWENS vs. RANDY ORTON (w/Ric Flair)- 6.75/10
Orton wins a very good match cleanly. There are fifteen minutes left in the shoe at this point so I assume we’re going to get some mischief by Retribution. But I’m wrong. Instead we get a…

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t care for it
Randy and Ric got all emotional and blah blah blah and of course Randy turned on Ric. The performances were very good, but it really felt like the only reason this was happening was so Randy could do something heelish and so Drew could be the big babyface making the save for Ric. This pairing has been SOOOOOOO good over the past two months, and this is essentially just breaking them up for cheap heat.


This was a mostly bad episode of Raw, with one or two highlights (the MVP/Apollo Crews stuff and the Bayley vs. Asuka match). The lack of any explanation for anything about Raw Underground, as well as the complete and total lack of follow-up to the show-closing angle from last week where the Hurt Business went in there and beat everyone up exposes it as the flailing shot in the dark with no plans behind it that it is. If someone were including to be generous they could give WWE one more week to explain it, as that would allow them to react to fan criticism and shoot some new footage (remember that this week’s show was taped the before last week’s show aired), but I am not inclined to be so generous because the criticism this has received and the questions fans are wanting answered are questions that any competent booker would have known were coming and already had answered before we even had to ask.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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Serujuunin
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Joined: Dec 17th, '10, 19:56

Re: BRM Reviews the 8/10/2020 Raw (bad)

Post by Serujuunin » Aug 11th, '20, 13:22

Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 11th, '20, 00:07 SARAH SCHREIBER’S INTERVIEW WITH MICKIE JAMES IS INTERRUPTED BY NATTIE & LANA- bad
Nattie and Lana were wearing the most garish matching dresses I have ever seen. Lana asked how Mickie could possibly “lead the locker room” *insert puke emoji here* if she didn’t have a Tik-Tok. Mickie had a response. I wish social media had never been invented.
What will happen, I wonder, if Trump bans Tik-Tok like he says he will?

I also hate social media, especially when it's shoe-horned into my entertainment. If I wanted to be involved with social media, I would be, stop shoving it down my throat.

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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/10/2020 Raw (bad)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 11th, '20, 13:29

Serujuunin wrote: Aug 11th, '20, 13:22
Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 11th, '20, 00:07 SARAH SCHREIBER’S INTERVIEW WITH MICKIE JAMES IS INTERRUPTED BY NATTIE & LANA- bad
Nattie and Lana were wearing the most garish matching dresses I have ever seen. Lana asked how Mickie could possibly “lead the locker room” *insert puke emoji here* if she didn’t have a Tik-Tok. Mickie had a response. I wish social media had never been invented.
What will happen, I wonder, if Trump bans Tik-Tok like he says he will?
I'm sure they'll just replace it with Instagram or whatever in every promo.


Anyone remember when WWE bought into and tried to push Tout?
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

User avatar
Serujuunin
Posts: 2441
Joined: Dec 17th, '10, 19:56

Re: BRM Reviews the 8/10/2020 Raw (bad)

Post by Serujuunin » Aug 12th, '20, 12:43

Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 11th, '20, 13:29
Serujuunin wrote: Aug 11th, '20, 13:22
Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 11th, '20, 00:07 SARAH SCHREIBER’S INTERVIEW WITH MICKIE JAMES IS INTERRUPTED BY NATTIE & LANA- bad
Nattie and Lana were wearing the most garish matching dresses I have ever seen. Lana asked how Mickie could possibly “lead the locker room” *insert puke emoji here* if she didn’t have a Tik-Tok. Mickie had a response. I wish social media had never been invented.
What will happen, I wonder, if Trump bans Tik-Tok like he says he will?
I'm sure they'll just replace it with Instagram or whatever in every promo.


Anyone remember when WWE bought into and tried to push Tout?
... just barely. Wasn’t it like Snapchat or vine or some shit? I dunno, I don’t social media. I have a Twitter to follow musicians so I know when an album is coming out, and since this site went up and we weren’t communicating on Facebook, I haven’t used it at all lol.

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