BRM Reviews the 8/17/2020 Raw (worst of all time?)

[Big Red Machine]

We go on the air with… technical difficulties. Oh boy!
Things advertised for tonight’s show are Rey maybe showing up, Shawn Michaels showing up to undoubtedly get assaulted by Randy Orton for more cheap heat, and Sasha & Bayley vs. Asuka & Baszler. I really wish I wasn’t so certain that the finish to that match would involve Baszler and Asuka losing because they get into an argument.

DREW MCINTYRE PROMO- bad
He gets overdramatic about Randy Orton attacking Ric Flair. I’m sorry, but this whole thing feels so phony. What was Orton’s thought process here? “Well, Ric, you’ve been cheating to help me win matches recently and you just said you want to see me break your record for world championships and I have a world championship match coming up in less than two weeks. This seems like a good time for me to attack you.” How does that make any sense?! This was Randy doing something evil for no other reason than because the plot demanded that he do something evil at this moment.
Look… did Randy Orton do something evil by turning on an old man and assaulting him? Absolutely. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that up until the moment that Randy laid a hand on him, we were supposed to be booing Ric Flair, because Ric was a bad guy doing bad things, helping bad guy Randy steal wins he didn’t deserve from the good guys and saying mean things about them. This was a case of evil doing evil to evil, and while evil should certainly be condemned no matter the circumstances, when the target of an evil act is itself evil, it’s kind of hard for me to have any sympathy. Hell, I’m happy that now Ric Flair won’t be around to screw the heroic Drew McIntyre out of the world title at SummerSlam. And thus Drew coming out here and giving this big speech about how what Randy did to Ric Flair was so terrible at best doesn’t resonate with me, and at worst feels phony (or maybe, even worse, makes Drew seem like a sheep who has been swayed by WWE’s narrative about Ric Flair’s sainthood, which is a sharp turn from the way the announcers talk about him just two weeks ago, before this attack.
Drew kept talking while someone was playing having with the screen, showing clips of the wrong things and putting the wrong graphics up. Holy crap, I never thought I’d say this, but I want Retribution to show up and interrupt Drew McIntyre. That’s how much I don’t give a sh*t about Drew’s big speech about getting revenge on Randy Orton for attacking Ric Flair.

We finally cut a camera running to the production truck (why can’t Retribution just cut away from that camera? Or maybe they want to be seen at this point. The point is that if you asked someone in Creative, my guess is they wouldn’t have an answer because it never even crossed their minds). In the truck we see Retribution menacing people with baseball bats and smashing laptops over their knees. I love how they don’t use their baseball bats to smash any of the big expensive monitors or production equipment. They want to cause damage to WWE property and mess with the show… but apparently not too much that it would be more than a minor annoyance. Yeah.
They finally made someone just take the show off the air…and at least WWE was smart enough to not have the commercial start up right away. A test-pattern would have been better.

WRESTLERS BACKSTAGE- bad
When we return to the show, everything seems to be under control. Just like on Smackdown, we’ve got a bunch of midcarders mulling around in a common area backstage, wondering what they should do.
Drew shows up to be the captain, but it immediately interrupted by Titus O’Neil. There might be lunatics running around with baseball bats trying to ruin the show, but Titus knows what’s really important. He wants to know if Ric Flair is going to be okay. Dude… the assault happened a f*cking WEEK AGO. How do you not know by now? And it’s not like Drew is Ric’s next of kin and so there is information only he would be privy to, either. Again, this is the sort of thing that makes this all feel overdramatic and fake. Ric Flair’s health is given WAY outsized importance for this particular moment (remember, someone just took the show off the air and threatened the health of several defenseless production crew members), and Drew is positioned as the defender of Ric Flair’s honor, being the go-to guy for knowledge on Ric’s condition even though there is no reason for him to be the go-to guy on it, and at a point where Ric’s condition should not be a secret within the company.
Anyway, Drew gives the “WE MUST BAND TOGETHER AND STOP RETRIBUTION” speech that really should have been given weeks ago. Seth and Murphy show up and Seth gives this speech about how Drew doesn’t need to be the leader because Seth is Raw’s messiah and therefore the natural leader. Who could possibly give a f*ck about who the “leader” of the locker room is?
Bullsh*t arguments start that only seem to exist to hype up the already-hyped points on this show (Rey might show up to get revenge on Seth, Orton vs. Drew is happening at SummerSlam.
Who was the guy standing behind Tozawa?

Anyway, the show is just going on right now. How long were Retribution in the production truck for? And they didn’t manage to destroy on single piece of equipment necessary to keep the show on the air? Really?


HURT BUSINESS/APOLLO CREWS SEGMENT- good
The Hurt Business are badasses calling out Retribution. Why are these guys the heels? Oh. Because they’re blaming the babyfaces for being behind Retribution with no evidence. MVP did, however, have a very solid case based purely on circumstantial evidence, which I greatly appreciated.
Apollo Crews came out and some words were exchanged, resulting in MVP telling Shelton to go kick Apollo’s ass, with the stipulation that if Apollo won, Shelton and Lashley would be barred from ringside. This was the first thing on this show that I actually liked.

IF APOLLO CREWS WINS, SHELTON BENJAMIN & BOBBY LASHLEY ARE BARRED FROM RINGSIDE FOR THE US TITLE AT SUMMERSLAM: Apollo Crews vs. Shelton Benjamin (w/Bobby Lashley & MVP)- 3.5/10
This was fine for the time it got, but the finish was baffling. R-Truth ran through, chased by a ninja. This distracted Shelton, allowing Crews to win. Why couldn’t the babyface just beat the bottom guy in the group he’s feuding with cleanly?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- started off fine, but…
The Hurt business beat up Crews until Ricochet, Cedric Alexander, & Mustafa Ali came out to make the save. This was a perfectly fine thing to do as a go-home segment… but then it just kept going.
Then R-Truth ran back into the area, so Shelton gave him a big boot and pinned him. Who could possibly care?
MVP then grabbed a mic and challenged Crews and two buddies to a six-man elimination tag team match. Why are we spending more time on this feud? You already hit the points you needed to hit for the go-home show: Crews won a match to get the other heels barred from ringside at the PPV, the Hurt Business attacked him after the match because they’re sore losers, and Crews’ buddies made the save for him. Why is there a six-man tag being booked? If you really want to book MVP & Lashley vs. Cedric & Ricochet to give MVP & Lashley a win then that’s fine, but there is no reason to include Crews and no reason for Crews or Shelton to be wrestling a second time.

ANGEL GARZA FLIRTS WITH “DEMI BURNETT OF THE BATCHELOR” BACKSTAGE, BUT IT INTERRUPTED BY IVAR- THE WORST THING ON WWE TV IN A LONG TIME… AND THINK OF THE GROUND THAT COVERS!
Ivar interrupts Garza flirting with Demi to offer her a big turkey leg and offer for her to be his plus-one o Raw Underground tonight. I will be the first to admit that I am no a professional wrestler, and I have no experience with underground fight clubs (that can be proven. Ignore the fac that the undefeated and very charismatic masked Gran Machina Roja and myself are of the exact same build), but an underground fight club is not a place I’d take a f*cking DATE, and doubly so one who looks as cartoonishly fragile as this Demi Burnett does.
Ivar promises that this Turkey leg was not poisoned by Angel Garza. By the time this segment was over, I found myself wishing that Garza actually did poison it so that Demi would decide she was done with this Ivar goof as well as done with Garza and never show up on Raw again.
Demi told Ivar “I would LOVE to be you plus one!” and then turned to Garza and said “Angel, you didn’t actually poison Montez?” Garza insisted that no one poisoned Montez and that Montez was just trying to get out of his title defense at SummerSlam. He then told Ivar that Ivar would not be pretending to be hurt after their match.
Garza slapped the turkey leg of out of her hand. Ivar told him to “put some respect on that name.” Then he used the Force to call the turkey leg back to him and gave Demi the dirty turkey leg. We then got the graphic telling us that this match was next while Demi shrugged with Garza’s rose in one hand the Ivar’s turkey leg in the other and the most cartoonish “I don’t know which one to choose” look on her face. As I paused my DVR to type all of this up and saw Demi’s obnoxious face sitting there, frozen, it made m wish Shayna Baszler would come by and bite her face off so we’d never have to see her again.
This was so over the top it was offensive. Segments like these are the reason that people look down on all of us for watching pro wrestling. F*ck WWE for this, and f*ck Demi Burnett and Ivar, too. At least Garza felt like a real person and not a sixth-grader trying to do sketch comedy. I don’t remember getting this angry at a segment in a long time.

TOM PHILLIPS PLUGS WWE “THUNDERDOME”- I dread this
Whatever this is, it starts this Friday on Smackdown, and has something to do with them being at the AmWay center. They showed us a bunch of media blurbs, only one of which said anything useful, which was one claiming there would be “virtual fans.” That sounds like a terrible idea. Someone also said at one point that fans would be shown on “massive LED boards.” Yeah… this is going to be pointless and stupid.
They advertised it as an “all-new virtual fan experience,” and said that they will have “State of the art set, video-board, pyrotechnics, and lasers.” Don’t they already have that stuff?

IVAR (w/Erick) vs. ANGEL GARZA (w/Andrade “Cien” Almas & Zelina Vega)- 2.5/10
Garza won a short match with the dreaded dropkick. Yes really.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Angelo Dawkins and Demi Burnett show up on the TitanTron, and Demi is just happily helping Dawkins cut his promo, just like she was happy and excited while talking to Garza earlier, and has been every other time she appears. She seems completely oblivious to anything going on in the universe of WWE. Dawkins mentions to Demi that Garza is also pursuing Charly Caruso. He then threatens to show some video or another so Garza charges to the back.
Do we follow him to the back? Of course not! Instead, we just sit around at ringside where we get to hear Zelina asking Joe what video they are talking about. Joe explains that due to Retribution’s actions, WWE began going over security footage from the past two weeks, and apparently found something.
I’m going to spoil this for you right now. Well… maybe “spoil,” isn’t the best word to use. I’m going to tell you what happened in advance. Creative were the ones who spoiled this.
The footage is of Zelina spiking Montez Ford’s drink, so apparently she did poison him. The reason I told you this now instead of in the next segment was to explain how dumb their explanation for Dawkins knowing about this video and Vega not knowing about it is. Someone involved in the investigation sent the video to Joe, who then sent it to Dawkins. So they’ll show it to Joe, but not to the subject of the investigation? Either WWE’s HR department is extremely negligent (which is likely the case), or the reason they hadn’t talked to Vega about this yet is that the investigation was still on-going, which case Joe has ruined it by prejudicing people Vega by leaking footage when the investigators thought more context was needed. And does this mean that Garza knew the video was out there but didn’t tell Zelina?

When we get back from commercial, we got a plug for SummerSlam, including photos of all of the welts on Dominik’s body.
POST-MATCH STUPIDITY, PART 2- A whole different kind of bad
Then we got Demi, Garza, and Dawkins backstage. Dawkins gets Demi’s number. Garza shows up and orders her to delete it or else she won’t get any more texts from him at 2am. Dawkins claims that he “only wanted her number to show her the video.” Why can’t you just show her the video on your phone? We just saw that she is capable of holding it. If Deni wants to give everyone her number, that’s her prerogative, and if Dawkins wants her number, that’s fine, too. Why are you denying what’s happening here with such an obvious lie?
Zelina and Andrade show up and demand the phone, as if Joe and WWE security both don’t have copies of it, so stopping Dawkins from sending Demi the video from his pone won’t accomplish anything.
Then Charly Caruso shows up and says “I was just around the corner. What’s all the commotion.” I would have been fine with this if not for one problem: Charly is holding her microphone… but there is no new camera. We’re using the same camera we’re been using to see this segment under the “pretend the cameras aren’t there” philosophy, but if this is supposed to be a spontaneous “backstage” happening, why is Charly carrying a microphone like she’s here to do an interview… but without a camera?
Dawkins order the camera to roll some footage, and we see Zelina putting something into a red solo cup next to Montez’s crown. At this point I’ve got to ask what Zelina poisoned Montez with that he’s still unable to show up two weeks later. That’s go to be some weapons-grade sh*t right there! How the f*ck did Zelina Vega get her hands on something terrorists groups have been trying to get for years?
Zelina claims that Charly doctored the footage because she’s jealous that Garza dumped her to go after Demi. Is that what happened? Based on Garza’s reaction earlier, I thought he was trying to hook up with both of them.
Whatever. This is all dumb. Dawkins started to cut a promo to set up Montez’s big return. He’s really lucky the heels decided to listen patiently to him instead of jumping him before Montez was able to show up. The brawl was extremely short, and we cut away before there was a winner.

MICKIE JAMES vs. NATALYA (w/Lana)- 0.25/10
This was Mickie’s big return after being out of action for a year, and she didn’t even get her entrance shown. She didn’t even get the end of her entrance shown when they cut to the ring. She was immediately distracted by Lana and beaten up by Nattie. Byron then said “think about how huge it is for our women’s division- our entire women’s division- to have Mickie James back in action.” So big you did everything you could to make it look unimportant, including not hyping this up at all.
Mickie is back because she “wants to provide leadership to the Raw locker room.” In other words, the same thing they’ve been doing in the men’s division for years and has worked at all. Well… that’s gender equality in action.
Speaking of failed locker room leader characters, here comes Seth Rollins. He’s demanding to know how Joe knows that Rey Mysterio Jr. will be here tonight. We saw them argue while the women’s match took place in the background, including Mickie James getting bumped off the top rope to the floor, which would result in her losing via count-out. She took Lana out for taunting her after the match, then hurried away so that she wouldn’t be in the way of the men’s segment. Hooray for the Divas’/Women’s R/Evolution!
I gave the match the highest rating I could based on what we saw, since the failure here was entirely Creative’s fault, not theirs.

Apparently Sasha and Bayley have to defend the tag titles at Payback, which is the week after SummerSlam. Seeing as how that’s less than two weeks away at this point you’d think they’d be doing something to set up some contenders, but apparently not.

SASHA BANKS & BAYLEY PROMO- Sasha was decent; Bayley went over the line into “I just want this to end” obnoxious.
SHAYNA BASZLER AND ASUKA ALSO CUT PROMOS- dull
Baszler unliterally declares herself the #1 contender for the Raw Women’s Title after SummerSlam. Asuka said nothing of any use.

SASHA BANKS & BAYLEY vs. SHAYNA BASZLER & ASUKA- 5.25/10
Nia Jax pushed a fiberglass divider over onto Baszler and attacker her. Some referees and Pat Buck came out to get rid of her. Nia and Baslzer brawled around. Somehow, the referee didn’t manage to see any of this.
So yeah, Baszler isn’t really in this match, so you’ve now falsely advertised the only match on this show I can possibly see anyone having an interest in. Yes, I understand that this is Asuka alone against Bayley and Sasha in a variation of what we’ll see on Sunday. That doesn’t mean doing that was worth the false advertising and the ridiculous set-up. Yes, Baszler came back. I don’t care. We still didn’t get the advertised tag team dynamics.
Baszler won for her team, making the Smackdown Women’s Champion tap out, because who gives a sh*t what some someone is on in this division at this point?

MIDCARD BABYFACE CREW BACKSTAGE- fine
Crews picks Ricochet and Ali to be his partners. Cedric is still selling his neck from earlier, so Crews tells him to take a rest. Cedric is not happy with this. Hopefully this is going somewhere.

They left the screen, and the camera stayed there for no reason .Fortunately, Randy Orton happened to wander into frame.

SHAWN MICHAELS & DREW MCINTYRE BACKSTAGE- bad
Shawn tells Drew to not be distracted by what Orton did to Flair. He tells Drew “I know how much Flair meant to you.” Well Shawn might, but I sure didn’t. I don’t think Drew had even mentioned him on the air before this week.
Drew is still depressed because Randy Orton has “run roughshod” and taken out guys like Big Show, Edge, Christian, and now Ric Flair on his watch. Well you should feel bad, Drew, because I didn’t see you running out to help ANY of those guys.
And speaking of not helping people, why is it so bad when Orton does it but not when Seth does it? Seth has taken out Rey Mysterio Jr. and Aleister Black (and I think he put Humberto Carrillo on the shelf for a while, too), plus he was torturing poor Dominik last week. Where the f*ck were you then?
Shawn then gave Drew this great big inspirational speech that I’m sure mattered to Drew, but to me as a fan sitting here watching this, all to told me was that Drew is dedicated and tough and works hard, which are all things I already knew.

THE IICONICS BOTHER THE RIOTT SQUAD BACKSTAGE- Does this segment happen every week?
Anyway, words were exchanged. Ruby got gravely offended that the IIconics called live “trash.”
After the babyfaces left, the heels noticed Shayna Baszler talking to Jessamyn Duke & Marina Shafir, and asked “whose that?” Do they really not know?

PEYTON ROYCE (w/Billie Kay) vs. RUBY RIOTT (w/Liv Morgan)-
Speaking of things that seem like they happen every single week, we have this match. Peyton pushed Ruby into Liv, then hit her finisher and got the pin. Oh no. The babyfaces’ newly-reformed friendship might be in jeopardy until Liv actually watches the tape, at which point it won’t be anymore. How dramatic.

SHANE MCMAHON SHOWS UP TO RAW UNDERGROUND- bad
This was basically Shane trying to be the cool boss showing up to work, but here’s a hint: If you’re insisting that your employee open the door for you, you’re not a cool boss. You’re just a douchebag.

RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Erik vs. A Jobber- DUD!
Erik won. I’m tried of these squashes. Shane is now sharing the microphone with Dolph Ziggler, making this even more annoying.

RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Erik vs. Dolph Ziggler-
Holy crap, something actually competitive. This was… okay. And that this coming from someone who loves this style (plus pinfalls). Dolph locked in a sleeper hold, but when that wasn’t working, he won via stoppage after an eye poke. I guess this sin’t heelish because there are no rules, that still comes off as heelish.
Also… STOP MOVING THE F*CKING CAMERA!

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- finally, an angle!
Ivar charges in and pounces Dolph out of the ring and onto a pile. I think I saw Boogenhaagen in there. That man should be nowhere near an underground fight club. His existence totally kills the atmosphere.

MYSTERIOS & SETH ROLLINS ANGLE- didn’t like it
Rey and Dominik came out and were GREAT. Then Seth showed up on the Tron and cut one of his boring-ass promos where he says nothing that makes any real sense. The babyfaces challenged the heels to come out and fight, but it was a trap because they had stashed weapons at ringside, which Dominik attacked the heels from behind with while Rey distracted them. Not only was this a little heelish, but if I just saw Dominik beat the sh*t out of Seth with weapons right here, why should I care about seeing it a second time at the PPV?

MVP TRIES TO RECRUIT CEDRIC ALEXANDER BACKSTAGE- good

RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHTL Arturo Ruas vs. Riddick Moss- no rating, confusing segment
These guys were having a fine little fight until they wound up on the outside… and then each guy randomly punched someone in the crowd, and Shane declared the fight over for no reason that I can discern.

SIX-MAN TAG TEAM ELIMINATION MATCH: The Hurt Business vs. Ricochet, Mustafa Ali, & Apollo Crews- 4/10
First Lashley got to treat Ali and Ricochet like jobbers. Then Crews got to treat Shelton and MVP like jobbers. Cedric ran out and pinned Shelton to win the 24/7 Title, so he’s a jobber, too. The first thee eliminations happened in under three minutes. Lashley pinned Crews to win the match. This might have been the most ill-advised thing on a night full of ill-advised things, as it hurt pretty much everyone in the match, and didn’t really help the guy who won very much.

THE HORSEWOMEN TALK TO SHANE- This was a commercial bumper while the announcers were doing to the talking.

WWE 24/7 TITLE MATCH: Cedric Alexander(c) vs. Akira Tozawa (w/his ninjas)- 0.5/10
For a guy whose neck is supposed to be hurt, Cedric looks pretty fine. We also cut MVP backstage, so we didn’t even get to see the match for a few of the mere eighty-six seconds that this match lasted. These two did what they could with that time.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Shelton Benjamin comes out and attacks Cedric, then pins him to win the title back. Who could possibly care?

Dolph Ziggler vs. Ivar in Raw underground has been booked for next week.

RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Marina Shafir vs. A Jobber- squash
I’m sick and tired of these squashes.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Are you kidding me?
Nia Jax run in and took down both Shafir and Jessamyn Duke. She challenged Shayna to a fight and the bell rung, but Nia just left. Shane told her she had to fight but she just ignored him and walked away and he couldn’t do anything about it.

MONTEZ FORD (w/Angelo Dawkins) vs. ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS (w/Zelina Vega & Angel Garza)- 1/10
Apparently we’re not done with this feud for tonight. No. It was definitely necessary to have Ford beat Andrade in three minutes. That definitely doesn’t kill any heat that might have been left and also make Andrade- one half of the challenging team- look like a total loser when compared to one half of the championship team.

YET ANOTHER OLD MAN GIVES RANDY ORTON A LECTURE THEN GETS BEATEN UP BY HIM- Making things worse, only Drew McIntyre came out to check on Shawn, so of course Randy beat Drew up, too.

This was an absolutely ATROCIOUS show. It was a very strong contender for the worst Raw of all time. There was absolutely nothing redeeming about it, many segments were just plain dumb, and it seemed to be trying to actively undermine the PPV that it was supposed to be a go-home show for.