BRM Reviews the 9/14/2020 Raw (best in a while, but I still can't call it good)
Posted: Sep 16th, '20, 01:33
It’s Raw IN YOUR FACE on the route to Clash of Champions: Gold Rush in the WWE Thunderdome because WWE still hasn’t learned that the way to improve ratings is by improving the quality of your show rather than the quantity of your buzzwords. Or maybe they have. Let’s find out…
Our commentary team is Michael Cole, Byron Saxton, and Dolph Ziggler. So we got rid of the good announcer and the mediocre one and replaced them with the company’s most annoying announcer and a wrestler who makes fans grown every time he opens his mouth. I’m not optimistic.
OPENING SEGMENT- Why do they do this to me?
So Drew defies orders multiple times last week and doesn’t get punished at all?
He was advised to take time off but didn’t want to have to vacate his title, because that’s a thing now, even though it hasn’t been for the past few years because of Brock, and even in the post-Brock world, it hasn’t been for Braun (though Braun was at least healthy the whole time, but still had long gaps of over a month where he didn’t defend his title).
He put over that one good shot to the jaw could be disastrous for him, but he is willing to take that chance because he would rather leave in an ambulance every week than vacate his title.
He says that because he and Randy keep sending each other away in ambulances, they should just make their title match an ambulance match. A good promo…
If it had stopped there.
Instead, we got Drew continuing to talk, making a stupid, juvenile joke about underwear. And now we’ve got him pitching to graphics on the TitanTron of his Claymore victims in hospital gowns with cartoonish bumps on their heads other cartoon effects… and, of course, Randy is holding a bedpan. And I’m sure that Vince McMahon and the ages 4-7 demographic are laughing, while everyone else groans, screams, or changes the channel.
Adam Pearce comes out to hopefully put a stop to this. He tells Drew that because of the injuries he inflicted on Orton last week, Randy certainly won’t be able to be here tonight, and might not even make it to the PPV. Therefore, if Drew loses to Keith Lee tonight, Lee will be getting the title shot at the PPV. In other words, the finish of Drew vs. Lee will be Randy attacking Drew for the DQ.
Drew, being a dick, responded to this by asking “who put you in charge, anyway?” YOUR BOSS, DICK-WAD. What has Adam Pearce done to deserve Drew’s disrespect? NOTHING. The poor man is just trying to do his job. Why is Drew being a dick to him? To be “rebellious?” Being rebellious against unjust authority a la Steve Austin is a good thing. Being rebellious just for the sake of being rebellious is what immature teenagers do.
Keith Lee came out and he and Drew had a handshake complete with those pull-backs that are supposed to be dramatic but I don’t think anyone actually thought anyone would do anything, so it came across as false drama, and something these guys were doing because it’s a trope rather than anything that felt natural.
CESARO & NAKAMURA IN-SET PROMO- mostly bad
I know I shouldn’t be at this point, but I’m still baffled that the people writing this think that anything these two were told to say in this promo made them sound cool. “They ruined our Champions’ Lounge?” OH MY G-D! Are we sure that there are professional writers working for this company and not just a bunch of sixth-graders?
THE STREET PROFITS vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA & CESARO- 4.5/10
Cesaro and Nakamura got separate graphics. That was weird.
Cole repeated the offensively bad “they ruined their Champions Lounge!” in his terribly fake “isn’t this interesting and also shocking?!” voice, just in case someone wasn’t paying attention when Cesaro said the same thing ninety seconds ago. Byron Saxton decided to push back on Cole’s interpretation of events, instead insisting that they “upgraded it.” Okay Bryon. In that case I await your thank you card in the mail for when I show up to your house and “upgrade it” by inviting a bunch of other people in and spilling food all over the floor. Have fun getting the red wine stains out of your carpet, douchebag.
Dolph, meanwhile, told us that Shinsuke’s kicks “HURT!” No sh*t.
The match went less than ten minutes. The Street Profits won clean. I know I should be happy that we didn’t get a f*ck finish, but I’m still annoyed because the only possible outcomes of this are as follows:
1. They made the SD tag champs do a job for no reason and this will lead to nothing.
2. This leads to a title vs. title match at the PPV (it can’t be just the SD titles on the line because we’ve been repeatedly told that EVERY title will be on the line at the PPV) and we’ve then had one set of tag champs do a job just to set up a f*ck finish on a PPV.
MICKIE JAMES VIDEO PACKAGE- Very good. Maybe we could have done this while building her up for a title match instead of having her get booked in one because she argued with the champion in one segment and then playing this the night of the match?
ANGEL GARZA AND LANA BACKSTAGE- bad
Lana is complaining to Garza about Mickie getting a title shot instead of Nattie. She repeats her favorite little factoid, which is that Nattie is the winningest woman in WWE history, which is true… but she’s also the losingest. Nattie is an awesome wrestler, but her record really has more to do with tenure than anything else.
Garza tried to seduce her because Garza.
ZELINA, GARZA, AND ANDRADE HAVE AN ARGUMENT- bad
Zelina blames their losses on Garza leaving the match. Garza blames them on Andrade because Andrade was the one to eat the pin. They start yelling at each other in Spanish and we zoom in on them. Then Zelina comes back into the frame and gets between them just to announce that she “can’t do this anymore” and walks off. The moment she’s gone, they start fighting. At this point, I don’t even want to see these two fight. I just want to see them away from each other. We already have Sasha and Bayley who have done this for years. I don’t need a male version of them, too.
Mandy Rose was supposedly traded to Raw, so maybe she’ll have been traded for Garza.
TALKING SEGMENT IN THE FEUD THAT COINCIDENTALLY CONTAINS ONLY BLACK PEOPLE- decent
Hey! Don’t yell at me for that. Remember when Mustafa Ali was in this feud for five seconds? If you’re looking for an already-established best friend that we should be outraged that Cedric turned on, it’s Mustafa Ali, not Ricochet. Cedric and Ricochet were only partners for a few months, and weren’t even on TV too frequently during that time. 205 Live spent time building up that Cedric and Mustafa were friends. But Ali was in this feud for a moment, then mysteriously vanished once they decided that the story was going to be MVP trying to recruit Cedric and Cedric turning on his friends (Ali last appeared on the 8/17 Raw and MVP first approached Cedric on 8/24).
Cedric explains his heel turn as being because he was tired of getting his ass kicked every week. Ricochet and Apollo Crews came out and interrupted . They (but really mostly Ricochet) were fine.
RICOCHET (w/Apollo Crews) vs. CEDRIC ALEXANDER (w/the Hurt Business)- 4.5/10
Erik of the Viking Raiders ran out to brawl with Lashley because they’re wrestling later tonight. This was another match that was far too short. If you want to elevate these guys, you have to give them the time to impress fans. Cedric won after a distraction from MVP made Ricochet take too long going for the 630. Everyone in the ThunderDome was so disgusted by this that they logged off. And someone in the production truck was disgusted enough to shut the lights off.
Oh. Wait. This is a Retribution attack, isn’t it?
RETRIBUTION PROMO- meh
More talk of being angry at WWE for “empty promises” and saying that people who sell their souls to WWE are corrupt. They say that they are former Performance Center trainees… which basically makes them Gekido, doesn’t it? I guess we can assume the male ones are Jose and the two Franks.
SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS MICKIE JAMES- good
ADAM PEARCE YELLS AT THE SECURITY CREW- Dude… why are you yelling at building security for what was clearly a technological security issue? The Hurt Business offer to hire themselves out to Pearce to deal with Retribution. Even without Cedric, I’d take the Hurt business over these goofs.
WWE RAW WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Asuka(c) vs. Mickie James- 6.75/10
Mickie has changed her gear up. Odd.
This started off really well and built itself like it… well… like it wasn’t a WWE match. Their standard formulas with the chinlocks and so forth just weren’t there and it was beautiful. This was two wrestlers going out there and telling their own story.
Then it suddenly ended with what was essentially a f*ck finish because the referee called for a stoppage that surprised pretty much everybody. It felt like Mickie got screwed.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- very mixed feelings
Zelina Vega came out and cut a promo. Did you know Zelina has her own music? Because I sure didn’t. Zelina cut what was objectively a pretty great promo, but I just can’t get behind it because Zelina really isn’t that good of a wrestler, and splitting her up from Andrade is a bad move. Vince/the main roster writers need to learn to stop tampering with things that work. How many hundreds of times have we seen them break up a wrestler-manager pairing and it winds up being worse for everyone?
All of the announcers buried Zelina as having no chance. They’re not wrong, but having all of them do it, then cutting to Charly Caruso and having her do it, too, made it feel like piling on.
CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS KEITH LEE- good built for his match with Drew
BOBBY LASHLEY vs. ERIK- 1/10
MVP was on commentary for this match, replacing Dolph. Being tremendous, he found a bullsh*t way to take credit for Ivar’s injury (“I punched him in the chin and redirected his flight”). Not tremendous is renaming Lashley’s finisher the “Hurt Lock.” What’s next? The Damage Move? The Impact Strike? The Debilitation Technique?
Lashley won a short match.
SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS KEVIN OWENS- GREAT!
After Owens finished cutting his promo building up his match with Aliester Black tonight, he walked away. Then, for no reason other than that he is feuding with Owens, someone decided that it was necessary for Aleister Black to wander onto the screen.
BRAUN STROWMAN SHOWS UP AT RAW UNDERGROUND- So I guess this is his Quarterly Brand to Brand Invitation appearance.
Braun was f*cking tremendous here. No Bray Wyatt horse sh*t; just a mean dude who is very large and VERY angry, and wants to kick multiple people’s asses.
MVP is still on commentary. Cole made a comment that I assume is supposed to indicate that showing up on Raw Underground doesn’t count as showing up on Raw (which is f*cking ridiculous), but the way he said it sounded so much like a catchphrase (“anyone can show up on Raw Underground”) that I’m not even sure it was meant as an explanation instead of just being just another dumb catchphrase.
SETH ROLLINS & MURPHY IN THE LOCKER ROOM- fine
Seth says he has forgiven Murphy, but then chokes him and orders him to stay in the back and makes him call him sir.
R-TRUTH F*CKS AROUND WITH A KIT-KAT BAR- I saw Truth and immediately fast-forwarded, so I don’t know if this was a commercial or part of the show. Also, a blonde was there. I didn’t see who because it was on fast forward.
MANDY ROSE HAS BEEN TRADED TO RAW- Byron called this a “blockbuster trade.” Mandy is a midcarder at best right now, and, of course, they didn’t mention who she was traded for, so calling this a “blockbuster” is utterly ridiculous.
CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS DOMINIK AND THE MYSTERIOS- good
You know… any time you put an “up next” graphic on the screen, and the match doesn’t start for twenty minutes, I get pretty pissed off.
STEEL CAGE MATCH: Seth Rollins vs. Dominik Mysterio (w/the Mysterios)- 6.5/10
It’s a good thing they put this cage up. This way, that vicious gang of Mysterios can’t interfere like they did in Dominik’s match against Murphy last week. Of course, those dirty Mysterios still found a way to cheat during this match, as Rey tried to pull Dominik out the cage door. Fortunately, Murphy was there to prevent this.
Yes, Murphy. He came out to ringside in defiance of Seth’s orders and helped Seth.
Seth won, despite Murphy accidentally clonking him in the head with the cage door.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Seth attacks Murphy for not obeying orders, including smacking him in the head with the cage door. Seth was great here. “How does that feel?! It HURTS! I know because you did it to me!”
RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Dolph Ziggler vs. a jobber-
These guys were just doing some mat-work, but of course we’ve got to cut to a different camera angle every f*cking second. I want to tie Kevin Dunn to a chair, stand behind him, grab him by the head, and just yank it in a different direction every second so he can learn what it feels like to watch one of his shows.
Dolph wins, then Shane asks who wants a piece of Dolph. I don’t see Braun Strowman standing around anywhere, so I assume he got bored of Raw Underground and left. A wise decision.
RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Dolph Ziggler vs. Riddick Moss- no rating
This was short, but I enjoyed it more than any Raw Underground fight I’ve seen in a while. I could see this happening in early EVOLVE.
Unfortunately, it was just a set up for Braun to run in and attack both guys. I guess he must of have been in the bathroom while Shane was asking for someone new to fight Dolph.
KEITH LEE INTERRUPTS CHARLY CARUSO’S INTERVIEW WITH DREW MCINTYRE- GREAT segment, but…
First let me say that I loved how organic and natural the dialogue and the issue felt. I also think it did a good job of making a match between these two seem like something that could turn into more than “friendly” competition if one did something the other didn’t like. I LOVED that Lee was actually armed with a solid counterpoint to Drew claiming that he saved Lee from getting pinned last week by attacking Orton (Lee pointed out that the only match between him and Randy that Drew didn’t get involved in was the one where Lee won). My only misgiving is that I would not have had the guy with the fractured jaw get into a brawl, even if he never did get hit in the jaw.
THE BOUNCER BOTHERS TITUS O’NEIL BEFORE LETTING HIM INTO RAW UNDERGROUND- Who is this asshole anyway, not letting Titus in?
BRAUN STROWMAN BEATS PEOPLE UP IN RAW UNDERGROUND- snore
The commentators are doing commentary now instead of Shane. That’s an upgrade in terms of quality (which tells you how bad Shane is), but it does make Raw Underground seem more like everything else on the show.
Braun beat up some no-name, then Riddick Moss, then Titus.
KEVIN OWENS vs. ALEISTER BLACK- 6/10
Aleister jumped Owens from behind before the match. He worked the knee, but lost when Owens took advantage of a Retribution light-flickering distraction. This was not a good finish.
DREW MCINTYRE & KEITH LEE BRAWL BACKSTAGE- fine
Adam Pearce broke it up by threatening to cancel their match tonight and potential match at the PPV. Holy crap! An authority figure actually used the trappings of authority to do his or her job!
RIOTT SQUAD PROMO- fine
They explained why they would beat the champions at the PPV.
THE RIOTT SQUAD vs. NATALYA & LANA- 0.25/10
Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax were on commentary to annoy me. Ruby pinned Lana in a very short match. The tag champs beat Lana and Nattie up for no reason. Nia obliterated Lana with a Samoan Drop through the announcers’ table.
BRAUN STROWMAN BEATS EVEN MORE PEOPLE UP IN RAW UNDERGROUND- meh
Riddick Moss came back to get his ass kicked by Braun yet again. Ditto for Ziggler. Even two on one, Braun still dispatched both of them quickly. Then, for the first time in months, Babatunde finally got off his ass and decided he wanted to fight again. The two giants stared each other down… and Shane jumped in to tell them that they will fight next week instead. I’m not really sure why they listened to him, but they did.
IF KEITH LEE WINS, HE BECOMES THE #1 CONTENDER AT CLASH OF CHAMPIONS IF ORTON IS STILL INJURED: Keith Lee vs. Drew McIntyre- 6/10
They fought for a while but then Retribution ran in and attacked them both. Not Orton, huh.
On the one hand, I do like this as a way to set these two back on the same page while allowing the heat to simmer. On the other hand, it’s YET ANOTHER F*CK FINISH.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Between the match with Lee and beat-down, Drew took far too many shots to the jaw for someone for whom “one good shot to the jaw” could send him to the hospital again.
After a while of a beat-down, the Hurt Business came out to make the save. They looked like the most badass group of badasses you’ve ever seen. Eventually Lee and Drew recovered enough to do a big dive onto the pile, and we ended the show with them having a stare-down.
This was probably the best episode of Raw in a long time. Dolph was actually pretty decent on commentary (MVP was, of course, awesome). The show in the ring was better than it has been recently, but I think the thing they did that made the most difference was making sure the matches either felt important or felt like they had a purpose.
If you ignore quality and cleanliness of finish- big ifs, I know, but I need to illustrate my point- and just look at the matches based on where they fit in their own storylines and at the construction of the card, and transposed this to a storyline-based indy running on a frequent basis (think 2006-2009 ROH, which is two shows a weekend, two weekends a month), this feels like a show that while not top-tier, you would definitely expect it to move some DVDs. To continue with the 2006-2009 ROH framework, this is an Edison or Detroit show. Either the bigger show of the smaller weekend or the smaller show of the bigger weekend.
Look at the card here:
1. Action opener between two pushed tag teams
2. Undercard feud match with dirty finish
3. Title match that we know will be good, even if no one thinks the challenger has a snowball’s chance
4. Semi-squash
5. Gimmick match in big feud with a post-match angle that could result in changes for a secondary character in the feud.
6. Midcard grudge match with a finish that lets the feud continue
7. Squash to put over challengers, then a post-match angle with the champions being mean, also setting up a match for the champs next week
8. Match between two main eventers with title implications.
For a TV promotion on a monthly PPV cycle, this is a pretty good week three out of four or five.
The problem tonight was the bad finishes. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again many times: Nothing exists in a vacuum. F*ck finishes have been a plague in WWE for quite a while, and tonight we got them in three of the five top matches (maybe even three of four if you have Owens vs. Black over the tag champs).
The other big problems I see are Raw Underground and Retribution. With Retribution, enough has been written about how poor the execution has been that I don’t need to rehash it here. All I’ll say is that it’s been two months, and they still feel like an excuse to give f*ck finishes in matches that WWE doesn’t want either guy to lose rather than feeling like a story that exists for its own purpose.
With Raw Underground… it has been two months now. What is the point of this? Why is it here? Guys show up and have what are supposed to be shoot fights. We rarely get clean finishes anymore unless they’re squashes. People will be important one week and then disappear the next (Babatunde, Jessamyn Duke). It has been two months now, and Raw Underground has not progressed in any way from what it was that first week. It has added nothing to the show. It needs to be scrapped. The stare-down between Braun and Babatunde would have been no different if it had happened in the main show’s wrestling ring.
At the moment, I can’t go so far as to call this a good show, but I will say that I think there is a positive sign here that WWE has at least learned something. This was a show where it felt like things moved forward rather than treading water, but not in a way where it felt like they were doing what TNA started to do and just desperately give the PPV away on TV in the hopes of popping a rating. This was the first time in a long time I’ve had reason to be optimistic after watching an episode of Raw, but it’s certainly a very cautious optimism.
Our commentary team is Michael Cole, Byron Saxton, and Dolph Ziggler. So we got rid of the good announcer and the mediocre one and replaced them with the company’s most annoying announcer and a wrestler who makes fans grown every time he opens his mouth. I’m not optimistic.
OPENING SEGMENT- Why do they do this to me?
So Drew defies orders multiple times last week and doesn’t get punished at all?
He was advised to take time off but didn’t want to have to vacate his title, because that’s a thing now, even though it hasn’t been for the past few years because of Brock, and even in the post-Brock world, it hasn’t been for Braun (though Braun was at least healthy the whole time, but still had long gaps of over a month where he didn’t defend his title).
He put over that one good shot to the jaw could be disastrous for him, but he is willing to take that chance because he would rather leave in an ambulance every week than vacate his title.
He says that because he and Randy keep sending each other away in ambulances, they should just make their title match an ambulance match. A good promo…
If it had stopped there.
Instead, we got Drew continuing to talk, making a stupid, juvenile joke about underwear. And now we’ve got him pitching to graphics on the TitanTron of his Claymore victims in hospital gowns with cartoonish bumps on their heads other cartoon effects… and, of course, Randy is holding a bedpan. And I’m sure that Vince McMahon and the ages 4-7 demographic are laughing, while everyone else groans, screams, or changes the channel.
Adam Pearce comes out to hopefully put a stop to this. He tells Drew that because of the injuries he inflicted on Orton last week, Randy certainly won’t be able to be here tonight, and might not even make it to the PPV. Therefore, if Drew loses to Keith Lee tonight, Lee will be getting the title shot at the PPV. In other words, the finish of Drew vs. Lee will be Randy attacking Drew for the DQ.
Drew, being a dick, responded to this by asking “who put you in charge, anyway?” YOUR BOSS, DICK-WAD. What has Adam Pearce done to deserve Drew’s disrespect? NOTHING. The poor man is just trying to do his job. Why is Drew being a dick to him? To be “rebellious?” Being rebellious against unjust authority a la Steve Austin is a good thing. Being rebellious just for the sake of being rebellious is what immature teenagers do.
Keith Lee came out and he and Drew had a handshake complete with those pull-backs that are supposed to be dramatic but I don’t think anyone actually thought anyone would do anything, so it came across as false drama, and something these guys were doing because it’s a trope rather than anything that felt natural.
CESARO & NAKAMURA IN-SET PROMO- mostly bad
I know I shouldn’t be at this point, but I’m still baffled that the people writing this think that anything these two were told to say in this promo made them sound cool. “They ruined our Champions’ Lounge?” OH MY G-D! Are we sure that there are professional writers working for this company and not just a bunch of sixth-graders?
THE STREET PROFITS vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA & CESARO- 4.5/10
Cesaro and Nakamura got separate graphics. That was weird.
Cole repeated the offensively bad “they ruined their Champions Lounge!” in his terribly fake “isn’t this interesting and also shocking?!” voice, just in case someone wasn’t paying attention when Cesaro said the same thing ninety seconds ago. Byron Saxton decided to push back on Cole’s interpretation of events, instead insisting that they “upgraded it.” Okay Bryon. In that case I await your thank you card in the mail for when I show up to your house and “upgrade it” by inviting a bunch of other people in and spilling food all over the floor. Have fun getting the red wine stains out of your carpet, douchebag.
Dolph, meanwhile, told us that Shinsuke’s kicks “HURT!” No sh*t.
The match went less than ten minutes. The Street Profits won clean. I know I should be happy that we didn’t get a f*ck finish, but I’m still annoyed because the only possible outcomes of this are as follows:
1. They made the SD tag champs do a job for no reason and this will lead to nothing.
2. This leads to a title vs. title match at the PPV (it can’t be just the SD titles on the line because we’ve been repeatedly told that EVERY title will be on the line at the PPV) and we’ve then had one set of tag champs do a job just to set up a f*ck finish on a PPV.
MICKIE JAMES VIDEO PACKAGE- Very good. Maybe we could have done this while building her up for a title match instead of having her get booked in one because she argued with the champion in one segment and then playing this the night of the match?
ANGEL GARZA AND LANA BACKSTAGE- bad
Lana is complaining to Garza about Mickie getting a title shot instead of Nattie. She repeats her favorite little factoid, which is that Nattie is the winningest woman in WWE history, which is true… but she’s also the losingest. Nattie is an awesome wrestler, but her record really has more to do with tenure than anything else.
Garza tried to seduce her because Garza.
ZELINA, GARZA, AND ANDRADE HAVE AN ARGUMENT- bad
Zelina blames their losses on Garza leaving the match. Garza blames them on Andrade because Andrade was the one to eat the pin. They start yelling at each other in Spanish and we zoom in on them. Then Zelina comes back into the frame and gets between them just to announce that she “can’t do this anymore” and walks off. The moment she’s gone, they start fighting. At this point, I don’t even want to see these two fight. I just want to see them away from each other. We already have Sasha and Bayley who have done this for years. I don’t need a male version of them, too.
Mandy Rose was supposedly traded to Raw, so maybe she’ll have been traded for Garza.
TALKING SEGMENT IN THE FEUD THAT COINCIDENTALLY CONTAINS ONLY BLACK PEOPLE- decent
Hey! Don’t yell at me for that. Remember when Mustafa Ali was in this feud for five seconds? If you’re looking for an already-established best friend that we should be outraged that Cedric turned on, it’s Mustafa Ali, not Ricochet. Cedric and Ricochet were only partners for a few months, and weren’t even on TV too frequently during that time. 205 Live spent time building up that Cedric and Mustafa were friends. But Ali was in this feud for a moment, then mysteriously vanished once they decided that the story was going to be MVP trying to recruit Cedric and Cedric turning on his friends (Ali last appeared on the 8/17 Raw and MVP first approached Cedric on 8/24).
Cedric explains his heel turn as being because he was tired of getting his ass kicked every week. Ricochet and Apollo Crews came out and interrupted . They (but really mostly Ricochet) were fine.
RICOCHET (w/Apollo Crews) vs. CEDRIC ALEXANDER (w/the Hurt Business)- 4.5/10
Erik of the Viking Raiders ran out to brawl with Lashley because they’re wrestling later tonight. This was another match that was far too short. If you want to elevate these guys, you have to give them the time to impress fans. Cedric won after a distraction from MVP made Ricochet take too long going for the 630. Everyone in the ThunderDome was so disgusted by this that they logged off. And someone in the production truck was disgusted enough to shut the lights off.
Oh. Wait. This is a Retribution attack, isn’t it?
RETRIBUTION PROMO- meh
More talk of being angry at WWE for “empty promises” and saying that people who sell their souls to WWE are corrupt. They say that they are former Performance Center trainees… which basically makes them Gekido, doesn’t it? I guess we can assume the male ones are Jose and the two Franks.
SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS MICKIE JAMES- good
ADAM PEARCE YELLS AT THE SECURITY CREW- Dude… why are you yelling at building security for what was clearly a technological security issue? The Hurt Business offer to hire themselves out to Pearce to deal with Retribution. Even without Cedric, I’d take the Hurt business over these goofs.
WWE RAW WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Asuka(c) vs. Mickie James- 6.75/10
Mickie has changed her gear up. Odd.
This started off really well and built itself like it… well… like it wasn’t a WWE match. Their standard formulas with the chinlocks and so forth just weren’t there and it was beautiful. This was two wrestlers going out there and telling their own story.
Then it suddenly ended with what was essentially a f*ck finish because the referee called for a stoppage that surprised pretty much everybody. It felt like Mickie got screwed.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- very mixed feelings
Zelina Vega came out and cut a promo. Did you know Zelina has her own music? Because I sure didn’t. Zelina cut what was objectively a pretty great promo, but I just can’t get behind it because Zelina really isn’t that good of a wrestler, and splitting her up from Andrade is a bad move. Vince/the main roster writers need to learn to stop tampering with things that work. How many hundreds of times have we seen them break up a wrestler-manager pairing and it winds up being worse for everyone?
All of the announcers buried Zelina as having no chance. They’re not wrong, but having all of them do it, then cutting to Charly Caruso and having her do it, too, made it feel like piling on.
CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS KEITH LEE- good built for his match with Drew
BOBBY LASHLEY vs. ERIK- 1/10
MVP was on commentary for this match, replacing Dolph. Being tremendous, he found a bullsh*t way to take credit for Ivar’s injury (“I punched him in the chin and redirected his flight”). Not tremendous is renaming Lashley’s finisher the “Hurt Lock.” What’s next? The Damage Move? The Impact Strike? The Debilitation Technique?
Lashley won a short match.
SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS KEVIN OWENS- GREAT!
After Owens finished cutting his promo building up his match with Aliester Black tonight, he walked away. Then, for no reason other than that he is feuding with Owens, someone decided that it was necessary for Aleister Black to wander onto the screen.
BRAUN STROWMAN SHOWS UP AT RAW UNDERGROUND- So I guess this is his Quarterly Brand to Brand Invitation appearance.
Braun was f*cking tremendous here. No Bray Wyatt horse sh*t; just a mean dude who is very large and VERY angry, and wants to kick multiple people’s asses.
MVP is still on commentary. Cole made a comment that I assume is supposed to indicate that showing up on Raw Underground doesn’t count as showing up on Raw (which is f*cking ridiculous), but the way he said it sounded so much like a catchphrase (“anyone can show up on Raw Underground”) that I’m not even sure it was meant as an explanation instead of just being just another dumb catchphrase.
SETH ROLLINS & MURPHY IN THE LOCKER ROOM- fine
Seth says he has forgiven Murphy, but then chokes him and orders him to stay in the back and makes him call him sir.
R-TRUTH F*CKS AROUND WITH A KIT-KAT BAR- I saw Truth and immediately fast-forwarded, so I don’t know if this was a commercial or part of the show. Also, a blonde was there. I didn’t see who because it was on fast forward.
MANDY ROSE HAS BEEN TRADED TO RAW- Byron called this a “blockbuster trade.” Mandy is a midcarder at best right now, and, of course, they didn’t mention who she was traded for, so calling this a “blockbuster” is utterly ridiculous.
CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS DOMINIK AND THE MYSTERIOS- good
You know… any time you put an “up next” graphic on the screen, and the match doesn’t start for twenty minutes, I get pretty pissed off.
STEEL CAGE MATCH: Seth Rollins vs. Dominik Mysterio (w/the Mysterios)- 6.5/10
It’s a good thing they put this cage up. This way, that vicious gang of Mysterios can’t interfere like they did in Dominik’s match against Murphy last week. Of course, those dirty Mysterios still found a way to cheat during this match, as Rey tried to pull Dominik out the cage door. Fortunately, Murphy was there to prevent this.
Yes, Murphy. He came out to ringside in defiance of Seth’s orders and helped Seth.
Seth won, despite Murphy accidentally clonking him in the head with the cage door.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Seth attacks Murphy for not obeying orders, including smacking him in the head with the cage door. Seth was great here. “How does that feel?! It HURTS! I know because you did it to me!”
RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Dolph Ziggler vs. a jobber-
These guys were just doing some mat-work, but of course we’ve got to cut to a different camera angle every f*cking second. I want to tie Kevin Dunn to a chair, stand behind him, grab him by the head, and just yank it in a different direction every second so he can learn what it feels like to watch one of his shows.
Dolph wins, then Shane asks who wants a piece of Dolph. I don’t see Braun Strowman standing around anywhere, so I assume he got bored of Raw Underground and left. A wise decision.
RAW UNDERGROUND FIGHT: Dolph Ziggler vs. Riddick Moss- no rating
This was short, but I enjoyed it more than any Raw Underground fight I’ve seen in a while. I could see this happening in early EVOLVE.
Unfortunately, it was just a set up for Braun to run in and attack both guys. I guess he must of have been in the bathroom while Shane was asking for someone new to fight Dolph.
KEITH LEE INTERRUPTS CHARLY CARUSO’S INTERVIEW WITH DREW MCINTYRE- GREAT segment, but…
First let me say that I loved how organic and natural the dialogue and the issue felt. I also think it did a good job of making a match between these two seem like something that could turn into more than “friendly” competition if one did something the other didn’t like. I LOVED that Lee was actually armed with a solid counterpoint to Drew claiming that he saved Lee from getting pinned last week by attacking Orton (Lee pointed out that the only match between him and Randy that Drew didn’t get involved in was the one where Lee won). My only misgiving is that I would not have had the guy with the fractured jaw get into a brawl, even if he never did get hit in the jaw.
THE BOUNCER BOTHERS TITUS O’NEIL BEFORE LETTING HIM INTO RAW UNDERGROUND- Who is this asshole anyway, not letting Titus in?
BRAUN STROWMAN BEATS PEOPLE UP IN RAW UNDERGROUND- snore
The commentators are doing commentary now instead of Shane. That’s an upgrade in terms of quality (which tells you how bad Shane is), but it does make Raw Underground seem more like everything else on the show.
Braun beat up some no-name, then Riddick Moss, then Titus.
KEVIN OWENS vs. ALEISTER BLACK- 6/10
Aleister jumped Owens from behind before the match. He worked the knee, but lost when Owens took advantage of a Retribution light-flickering distraction. This was not a good finish.
DREW MCINTYRE & KEITH LEE BRAWL BACKSTAGE- fine
Adam Pearce broke it up by threatening to cancel their match tonight and potential match at the PPV. Holy crap! An authority figure actually used the trappings of authority to do his or her job!
RIOTT SQUAD PROMO- fine
They explained why they would beat the champions at the PPV.
THE RIOTT SQUAD vs. NATALYA & LANA- 0.25/10
Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax were on commentary to annoy me. Ruby pinned Lana in a very short match. The tag champs beat Lana and Nattie up for no reason. Nia obliterated Lana with a Samoan Drop through the announcers’ table.
BRAUN STROWMAN BEATS EVEN MORE PEOPLE UP IN RAW UNDERGROUND- meh
Riddick Moss came back to get his ass kicked by Braun yet again. Ditto for Ziggler. Even two on one, Braun still dispatched both of them quickly. Then, for the first time in months, Babatunde finally got off his ass and decided he wanted to fight again. The two giants stared each other down… and Shane jumped in to tell them that they will fight next week instead. I’m not really sure why they listened to him, but they did.
IF KEITH LEE WINS, HE BECOMES THE #1 CONTENDER AT CLASH OF CHAMPIONS IF ORTON IS STILL INJURED: Keith Lee vs. Drew McIntyre- 6/10
They fought for a while but then Retribution ran in and attacked them both. Not Orton, huh.
On the one hand, I do like this as a way to set these two back on the same page while allowing the heat to simmer. On the other hand, it’s YET ANOTHER F*CK FINISH.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Between the match with Lee and beat-down, Drew took far too many shots to the jaw for someone for whom “one good shot to the jaw” could send him to the hospital again.
After a while of a beat-down, the Hurt Business came out to make the save. They looked like the most badass group of badasses you’ve ever seen. Eventually Lee and Drew recovered enough to do a big dive onto the pile, and we ended the show with them having a stare-down.
This was probably the best episode of Raw in a long time. Dolph was actually pretty decent on commentary (MVP was, of course, awesome). The show in the ring was better than it has been recently, but I think the thing they did that made the most difference was making sure the matches either felt important or felt like they had a purpose.
If you ignore quality and cleanliness of finish- big ifs, I know, but I need to illustrate my point- and just look at the matches based on where they fit in their own storylines and at the construction of the card, and transposed this to a storyline-based indy running on a frequent basis (think 2006-2009 ROH, which is two shows a weekend, two weekends a month), this feels like a show that while not top-tier, you would definitely expect it to move some DVDs. To continue with the 2006-2009 ROH framework, this is an Edison or Detroit show. Either the bigger show of the smaller weekend or the smaller show of the bigger weekend.
Look at the card here:
1. Action opener between two pushed tag teams
2. Undercard feud match with dirty finish
3. Title match that we know will be good, even if no one thinks the challenger has a snowball’s chance
4. Semi-squash
5. Gimmick match in big feud with a post-match angle that could result in changes for a secondary character in the feud.
6. Midcard grudge match with a finish that lets the feud continue
7. Squash to put over challengers, then a post-match angle with the champions being mean, also setting up a match for the champs next week
8. Match between two main eventers with title implications.
For a TV promotion on a monthly PPV cycle, this is a pretty good week three out of four or five.
The problem tonight was the bad finishes. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again many times: Nothing exists in a vacuum. F*ck finishes have been a plague in WWE for quite a while, and tonight we got them in three of the five top matches (maybe even three of four if you have Owens vs. Black over the tag champs).
The other big problems I see are Raw Underground and Retribution. With Retribution, enough has been written about how poor the execution has been that I don’t need to rehash it here. All I’ll say is that it’s been two months, and they still feel like an excuse to give f*ck finishes in matches that WWE doesn’t want either guy to lose rather than feeling like a story that exists for its own purpose.
With Raw Underground… it has been two months now. What is the point of this? Why is it here? Guys show up and have what are supposed to be shoot fights. We rarely get clean finishes anymore unless they’re squashes. People will be important one week and then disappear the next (Babatunde, Jessamyn Duke). It has been two months now, and Raw Underground has not progressed in any way from what it was that first week. It has added nothing to the show. It needs to be scrapped. The stare-down between Braun and Babatunde would have been no different if it had happened in the main show’s wrestling ring.
At the moment, I can’t go so far as to call this a good show, but I will say that I think there is a positive sign here that WWE has at least learned something. This was a show where it felt like things moved forward rather than treading water, but not in a way where it felt like they were doing what TNA started to do and just desperately give the PPV away on TV in the hopes of popping a rating. This was the first time in a long time I’ve had reason to be optimistic after watching an episode of Raw, but it’s certainly a very cautious optimism.