BRM Reviews the 7/19/2021 Raw (Eva Marie hits a new low)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 7/19/2021 Raw (Eva Marie hits a new low)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jul 25th, '21, 02:56

OPENING SEGMENT- didn’t like it
John Cena comes out and does his usual crowd-pumping before getting down to business. He says he came because of the fans, because “we can finally come back and cheer together and boo together and makes some noise and connect with people that love this. Who brought me back? It was you.”
Really, John? That would explain where why you weren’t here during the pandemic, but if the lively fans and the ability to connect with people is what “brought you back,” then why weren’t you back at any point in the eleven months before the pandemic?
“And it was Roman Reigns.”
Ah. Okay. If Cena needed both the fans back and the motivation to put Roman back on the straight and narrow and/or punish him for turning his back on the fans, then I withdraw my criticism… mostly. If the Roman thing is so important, it seems a little egotistical to want to wait until there are fans live in the building for you to “connect with” in order to do something about it.
Cena said Roman was an asshole. At least that’s what it looked like he said. I had to read his lips because the cut the audio off… but they did it before he even finished saying Roman’s name, so I’m not even sure why they thought they needed to cut the audio off. It’s not like he started to say f*ck and they cut it off in the middle of the word. There was no reason to think that Cena was going to say anything that couldn’t be broadcast, so cutting the audio here felt fake.
Cena called Roman the following:
“Arrogant”- that’s accurate
“Self-absorbed”- also true
“Over-hyped”- false
“Overprotected”- not really
“Overexposed”- perhaps
“Gimmick”- I don’t even see how this makes sense. Is Cena telling us that the kayfabe real Roman isn’t a douche and he’s just playing on for the cameras?
“Who’s is not as over as he says he is”- WRONG! Have you even been watching the TV or paying attention to the internet? Roman is every bit as over as he says he is.
Cena says that if Roman was really so great, he wouldn’t need to keep saying it; people would be telling him instead. The idea there is nice, but if pro wrestling has shown us anything (both in kayfabe and out), it’s that someone can be an arrogant braggart and still be truly great at what they do. Pretty much any great in wrestling history other than perhaps Sting, Mick Foley, and The Undertaker have proven that, and please note that two of those three exceptions- Sting and Taker- are guys who talked a lot less than most tops acts have in wrestling history.
One other thing that bothered me about Cena’s promo is why Roman is such a problem for him but Lashley isn’t. Yeah, Roman is more of a douche and more self-absorbed, but Lashley is still arrogant and a huge jerk. Why is Cena going after Roman but not Lashley?

MATT RIDDLE COMES OUT TO INTERRACT WITH JOHN CENA- They said “bro” a lot… and when I say “they said ‘bro’ a lot,” I mean that probably 90% of what they said was just the word “bro” over and over. I was kind of hoping that Riddle would still be seeing himself as Randy Orton’s “stand-in” and this would end with him giving Cena an RKO, but no such luck. It was just them making noise.

MATT RIDDLE & THE VIKING RAIDERS vs. AJ STYLES, OMOS, & JOHN MORRISON (w/The Miz)- 6.25/10
Riddle did the coolest takedown I’ve ever seen (Morrison had his knee trapped after blocking a kick and Riddle did a flip to turn it into a takedown and land in position to grab a crossface)… and the announces completely ignored it because instead of calling the action, they were talking about the Lashley vs. Kofi match from last night’s PPV.
This was a good six-man tag that had a stupid finish. Said finish saw Riddle grab Miz’s squirt gun (I’m not going to call it when they call it because I’m an adult) and squirt Omos in the back with it, then handed it to Miz. Being squirted with water made Omos angry, so he went after Miz and attacked Morrions when Morrison tried to save Miz. AJ went to stop Omos from killing Miz, leaving Morrison alone with the babyfaces to get hit by the Viking Experience for the finish.
What did this finish accomplish? It shouldn’t start a feud between AJ and Omos because presumably Omos will see a replay and some point and know that he was wrong (I guess you could have Miz not accept the apology, but does AJ & Omos vs. Miz & Morrison sound like a good idea to you?). And the win doesn’t even help the babyfaces because they won because the heel team self-destructed rather than winning on their own merits. Maybe you could say that it makes Riddle look smart, but I think that ship sailed several months ago.

JAXSON RYKER PROMO- fine
All he said was “wait till you see what I do to Elias tonight.”

SYMPHONY OF DESTRUCTION MATCH: “The Drifter” Elias Sampson vs. Jaxson Ryker- 7.5/10
There was a minute of pointless talking before this match. Why not just give the time to the match, instead?
These guys hit each other with stuff and had a great weapons match, (although the ref guiding Ryker’s hand to Elias’ chest to make the cover on the finish was pretty bad). Also, that thing Elias hit Ryker with that the fan and announcers kept calling a bello was pretty clearly a bass. If you need help telling the difference, a cello had a long stand on the bottom, while a bass has fins and scales.

ADAM PEARCE, SONYA DEVILLE, MANSOOR, & MUSTAFA ALI BACKSTAGE- bad
Mansoor looks like Ethan Page and Johnny Gargano had a baby.
Anyway, Mansoor has asked to be booked as Ali’s tag team partner because he understands that Ali was doing all of these things to him to help him. Normally when his happens, the manipulative heel is happy because he’s been trying to make naïve babyface his lackey, but in this case Ali was upset.

SHEAMUS, ADAM PEARCE, & SONYA DEVILLE BACKSTAGE- terrible
Sheamus tells Mansoor and Ali to scream, making them look like losers for not sticking up for themselves.
Last week, Sheamus attacked Humberto Carrillo before a US Title match to weaken Carrillo going into the match. Sheamus showed up here to complain about being booked against Carrillo again tonight. Adam Pearce rightfully called out that Sheamus’ actions last week were unfair. Sonya Deville said that the only “fair” thing to do was to add on a stipulation to tonight’s match where Carrillo will get another title shot if he wins.
How is that fair?! Sheamus unfairly attacked Carrillo before the title match to put him at a disadvantage going in, and Carrillo lost because of it. Carrillo got screwed last week. Fair would be giving him another title match. This is just rewarding Sheamus for his bad behavior.

CHARLOTTE FLAIR’S “CORONATION” CEREMONY- great… but not in the way WWE wanted it to be
She brags a bunch. The fans all chant “BECKY!” Is this going to be a problem until Becky actually does come back? If so, I hope she comes back soon, because I really don’t want every segment in this division to get derailed by fans wanting to see someone who they know is out on maternity leave.
Charlotte brags some more, including saying that she can beat Rhea Ripley any night of the week. This brings out Rhea (not selling her knee at all) to challenge Charlotte to a rematch tonight. Or- crazy idea here- how about instead of doing a rematch the next night, we let the amazingly brutal finish of last night’s tremendous PPV match actually mean something by having Rhea be injured and not able to wrestle?
Charlotte seems to agree with me, as she says Rhea can’t possibly be in any condition to wrestle after last night. Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville come out and book a rematch, and Charlotte reacts to this by immediately running up to Rhea and kicking her right in the knee… and I couldn’t help but pop for this and start to laugh my ass off. I completely respect that Charlotte is trying very hard to get me to do the opposite of that, but I felt like I was getting to live vicariously through her in this odd, meta way, where the way she reacted to this stupid kayfabe booking decision by Pearce and Deville is the way I wish I could react to the actual stupid booking of the whole promotion.
Rhea immediately went down, clutching her knee. Hopefully someone will get smart and cancel the match. Why not wait until Rhea is fully healed so that this sort of thing won’t happen?

ALEXA BLISS PLUGS HAVING A SPECIAL GUEST ON HER “PLAYGROUND” TONIGHT- Of all the people for management to give a talk-show to, why the hell would hey give one to the magical crazy lady?

TAMINA & NATALYA vs. SHAYNA BASZLER & NIA JAX (w/Reginald)- 2.75/10
Nia giving Tamina a Samoan Drop into the barricade looked cool and vicious. So much so that Nia probably should have saved it for a bigger spot that than this. Nia and Shayna lost a short match when Reginald interfered. I feel like I’ve seen that a million times and this point and it hasn’t gone anywhere.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Hey, look! It went somewhere!
Shayna says “I’m so sick of this!” I hear you, Shayna. So does Nia, apparently, because she attacked Reginald. The crowd chanted “REGGIE SUCKS!” Hopefully this is the end of him in WWE.

THE 24/7 GEEKS RUN THROUGH- oh no…
Yup. F*cking Reginald pinned Akira to Tozawa and won the Pointless Bullsh*t Championship. And he didn’t roll him up from behind or anything, either. He hit him with moves and pinned him.
Then they had Reginald be a dummy by running at the steps and doing a big flip over one of the geeks instead of just hopping the barricade. It worked, but he’s still an idiot for taking the risk. Also, he’s an idiot for heading backstage where there are fifty other wrestlers instead of running through the crowd, where there aren’t any.

KARRION KROSS VIDEO PACKAGE- fine
He’s debuting tonight. This got a great reaction from the crowd.

IF HUMBERTO CARILLO WINS, HE EARNS A SHOT AT SHEAMUS’ WWE UNITED STATES TITLE: Humberto Carrillo vs. Sheamus- 5.5/10
Carrillo took it to Sheamus until Sheamus headbutted him with his steel mask and then hit the Brogue Kick for the win.

BOBBY LASHLEY & MVP PROMO- the usual awesomeness

KEITH LEE vs. BOBBY LASHLEY (w/MVP)- 6.75/10
Keith Lee makes his big return by answering Lashley’s open challenge here in his home state of Texas where he gets a huge pop… and loses clean. Why not bring him back in a spot where he can win?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- people liked it, I didn’t
Goldberg comes out and the crowd goes nuts… and I don’t get it. We know how Goldberg works in this run. He’ll show up at the PPV and if we’re really lucky the match might even make it to the five-minute mark. Count me out.

KEVIN PATRICK INTERVIEWS MVP & LASHLEY- fine
MVP says they won’t dignify Goldberg’s challenge with a response. Corey Graves said “Goldberg needs to earn it,” he’s absolutely right. Goldberg’s last match was a world title match that he lost. Why should he get another shot?

DREW VS. JINDER FEUD SEGMENT- good
I don’t know why, but Jinder being equally happy that he got revenge on Drew and that it was his birthday greatly amused me. Low-midcard comedy heel with lackeys is a great place for Jinder, and it’s fine to spend a month or two on a feud between a main eventer and an undercard guy so long as the main eventer dominates every time the playing field is level, and that is what has happened in this feud. Jinder is a comedy figure, yes, but Drew is not brought down by being involved with him because Drew is being deadly serious (as poor Shanky found out).

KARRION KROSS vs. JEFF HARDY- 3/10
Jeff Hardy was an excellent opponent for Kross to beat to give him some instant credibility in his Raw deb…WHAT THE F*CK?! KROSS LOST?! ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?!
Yes, I know Jeff cheated, but that just makes it even dumber because WHY IS THE BABYFACE CHEATING?! It’s not like Kross cheated first and this was some sort of “turnabout is fair play” thing. Jeff just cheated out of the blue!

KEVIN PATRICK INTERVIEWS KARRION KROSS- bad
This was fine (Kross said that Jeff made the biggest mistake of his life) until the end, when someone decide that because Kross’ music says “fall and pray” a lot, he should use that in a catchphrase: “everyone will fall and pray!”
No! NO! NO! NO!
Karrion Kross is a guy who Wade Keller has (not inaccurately) criticized for spending too much time grunting and making scary faces… and the Vince, KD, and the main roster crew have found a way to make him feel even more one-dimensional.

ALEXA’S PLAYGROUND- Featuring: The worst thing Eva Marie has ever done.
Oh G-d, the stupid f*cking doll is back. Alexa was quickly interrupted by Eva Marie (wearing the single most ridiculous hat I have ever seen) and Dewdrop… and let the record show that WWE has so badly f*cked up Alexa Bliss in the past year that BRM was happy when Alexa Bliss was interrupted by f*cking Eva Marie.
Eva made fun of the doll. Alexa suggested that they send Dewdrop to “time out” so they could see what Eva could do on her own. Eva was scared but tried not to show it, but still made an excuse to leave. Up until this point, I will admit that I was begrudgingly enjoying parts of this. Thye did a good job of making it clear that the “time out” was magical without ever saying anything other than “time out,” and I enjoyed the way that Alexa subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) mocked Eva Marie.
Then it was time for the big magical moment. Except there were no special effects this time. When Eva walked by Lilly’s swing, she “tripped.” “Tripped” is in quotation marks because no one could possibly believe that she actually tripped. I want you to know that I am not being hyperbolic when I say that this was the single worst fake trip in the history of humanity. This was past “thank G-d no one else was in the room to see me watching this.” I would have been embarrassed if a total stranger had been peering into the window and saw me watching this. I’m even a little worried that some aliens were flying by in their spaceship and picked up this broadcast, and they now think less of us as a species.

Beating a guy who isn’t one of the tag champs in a match where the other team imploded is apparently all the Viking Raiders needed to do in order to earn another title shot, even thought they just lost cleanly to the tag champs yesterday.

WWE RAW WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Charlotte Flair(c) vs. Rhea Ripley- 6.5/10
Charlotte worked over the injured knee, but despite beating a healthy Rhea cleanly just last night, tonight Charlotte can’t even beat an injured Rhea and has to get herself disqualified.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- hated it
Rhea gets up and attacks Charlotte while Charlotte is celebrating her misdeed. The referees get Rhea away from Charlotte, but Nikki Cross comes out and cashes in Money in the Bank to win the title after Rhea did all of the work, so what the f*ck did Nikki actually accomplish here. At this point, she’s a paper champion.



Another bad episode of Raw. Who’d have thought the Jaxson Ryker and The Drifter would have best the best match on the show, and that that would be the second-best thing on the show overall, down only to an MVP and Bobby Lashley promo?
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 7/19/2021 Raw (Eva Marie hits a new low)

Post by Serujuunin » Jul 30th, '21, 16:41

Big Red Machine wrote: Jul 25th, '21, 02:56 let the record show that WWE has so badly f*cked up Alexa Bliss in the past year that BRM was happy when Alexa Bliss was interrupted by f*cking Eva Marie.
You know, with covid being a thing and the world being on fire or flooding or whatever… this is the sign that heralds the apocalypse.

User avatar
Big Red Machine
Posts: 27378
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

Re: BRM Reviews the 7/19/2021 Raw (Eva Marie hits a new low)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jul 31st, '21, 22:07

Serujuunin wrote: Jul 30th, '21, 16:41
Big Red Machine wrote: Jul 25th, '21, 02:56 let the record show that WWE has so badly f*cked up Alexa Bliss in the past year that BRM was happy when Alexa Bliss was interrupted by f*cking Eva Marie.
You know, with covid being a thing and the world being on fire or flooding or whatever… this is the sign that heralds the apocalypse.
LOL
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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