BRM Reviews the 10/1/2018 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- meh
Charly Caruso interviews Dean Ambrose in the ring. Charly asks him if he thinks there is any truth to what the heels said last week that Seth and Roman have been “using” Dean. Dean says that there is, and repeats the heels’ talking points. Again, I must take issue with this characterization that Rollins was the one who replaced Ambrose with Jason Jordan because Rollins was against the replacement but it was forced on him by Kurt Angle. The heels can say this because they are liars, but Dean should know what really happened because he watched it on TV just like all of us! And even if he didn’t want it, he should have many friends who can show him video evidence of it!
Dean seemed to purposely f*ck with Charly and, by extension, everyone else asking what he thought was a stupid question) by teasing the idea that he might turn on The Shield before declaring that “The Shield is not a business. The Shield is not a brand. The Shield is a brotherhood, and we will always ride into battle together.”
Dean was about to leave but then Baron Corbin came out for no reason. Dean repeated “world’s largest substitute teacher” line that got a pop on a recent episode of Raw, because as we all know, jokes are always funnier the second time around. Corbin says he will give Dean three choices of a match tonight: he can face Braun Strowman in a regular match, or get a shot at either Roman or Seth’s singles titles. This was actually a clever little idea by the booking team… and then they just killed it by having Dean threated Corbin and Corbin respond by just announcing that he is going to pick Strowman and booking the match for right now.

DEAN AMBROSE vs. BRAUN STROWMAN- 6.75/10
They had a match that was going very well (minus the babyface announcers excusing Dean’s cheating). Once Braun started to really dominate, Roman ran in for the DQ, then Seth also came out and they all beat Braun up. The announcers did their best to get over the idea that Braun was just trying to hurt Dean at his point rather than win the match, but it didn’t really feel like that to me, yet.
After the match, Drew McIntyre & Dolph Ziggler came out onto the stage to stand with Braun while Corbin came out and announced Seth vs. Drew for later tonight, and Roman Reigns vs. Dolph Ziggler for “right now.”

AMBROSE & ROLLINS & THE TRAINER’S ROOM- meh
Apparently when Corbin said “right now” he meant six and a half minutes from now, after not just a commercial break, but also after we send a camera backstage with Seth and Dean and stick with that for a while just in case they happen to say something interesting.
Seth tried to explain to Dean that Roman thought Dean needed help but did so in a very diplomatic way. Dean’s physical reactions of frustration were good, but his dialogue (“you know what’s funny? I could have been Intercontinental Champion right now) was overly combative and acidic. I thought it would have been much better for Dean to explain to us that he’s frustrated because he thought he was doing fine against Braun and had a shot a winning but Roman running in ruined it, and have that be the cause of him and Seth arguing. Dean’s comment here feels like the comment that Dean should be making at the end of tonight’s show, after he has received beatings trying to save both Seth and Roman from the Anti-Shield.

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. ROMAN REIGNS- 7.25/10
So we finally cut back to the match promised to us for “right now” and the referee begins to act like this is a title match, taking the belt from Roman, showing it to both competitors and holding it high above his head. The announcers then expressed a similar bewilderment to what I was feeling, which is problematic because they are right there at the ringside area where Dolph and Roman have been the whole time. Are you telling me that Roman offered to make this a title match, but didn’t do so over the microphone, and that the referee never bothered to tell JoJo so she could announce it as such?
This stupidity was done solely so that Baron Corbin could come out and declare “you don’t run this show, Roman! I do,” and then get booed for telling the fans that not only would they not be seeing a Universal Championship match tonight, but they wouldn’t be seeing an IC Title match, either (I didn’t even realize Seth’s belt was supposed to be on the line). Yes, Corbin is “punishing” The Shield by making them not defend their championships.
He also announced that Roman would not be allowed to defend his title until Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia. So after spending months and months telling us how terrible it was that Brock Lesnar wouldn’t defend the Universal Title, WWE is now themselves preventing the Universal Champion from defending his title for over a month. (And, of course, how much do you want to bet that Roman defends the title on pretty much every house show from now until then, anyway?)
This announcement distracted Roman so Dolph could get the jump on him, but Roman turned it around pretty much immediately. Thankfully Roman at least sold his anger and disgust at this sneak attack throughout so they didn’t reduce it to meaning absolutely nothing in the long (or even medium) run. The match itself was pretty great. Roman won clean, which almost feels like it had to happen after the “no title defenses until Saudi Arabia” announcement. Cole was unhappy with Dolph raking Roman’s eyes, which is the exact opposite stance that he took in the previous match when Dean poked Braun in the eye. Your lead babyface announcer should NEVER be a hypocrite.


RIOTT SQUAD SELFIE PROMO- fine
There must have been some miscommunication here because Cole’s intro for this was “earlier today in Seattle we had the opportunity to catch up with the Riott Squad,” which makes it seems they brought a camera to wherever the Riott Squad were hanging out around town so the Riott Squad could cut a promo. Instead what we got was the Riott Squad cutting a selfie promo in front of what was pretty clearly a random wall in the arena. Either that, or maybe “we had the opportunity to catch up with X” is the WWE-mandated phrasing to pitch to any promo.
The promo wasn’t bad, but was probably a little too artsy-sounding for its own good. Just give me Ruby Riott talking about how she wants to beat Ronda and make Ronda suffer.

RONDA ROUSEY (w/the Bella Twins) vs. RUBY RIOTT (w/the Riott Squad)- 4/10
Ruby Riott wrestled Ronda Rousey. Ronda Rousey wringed and wrenched Ruby Riott by her radius. Ruby Riott retreated to ringside, and Ronda Rousey waited for Ruby to return. Ruby Riott rocked Ronda Rousey with repeated rounds, but Ronda Rousey rolled Ruby Riott out of the ring. Ruby Riott then rammed Ronda Rousey into the railing. Ruby rapped Ronda on the back, then restrained Ronda in the ropes. Ruby Riott then whipped Ronda Rousey from the ring. The ringside Riott Squad wanted to wallop the writhing Ronda, but the ref’s wary watch returned to Ronda, rebuffing the Riott Squad, as they wouldn’t want to risk repudiation resulting in Ruby being required to relinquish the riches that were reliant on her winning.
Ruby Riott rolled Ronda Rousey into the ring, then went to win with a pin but Ronda Rousey still retained the wherewithal to wrest herself from away from Ruby’s restraint. Ruby returned Ronda to the ropes, wrapped her in them, then wrenched her hair. Then Ruby Riott ripped at Ronda Rousey’s right cheek while walking Ronda Rousey around the ring. Ronda Rousey reached the ropes, but Ruby Riott rocked Ronda with a robust right. Ronda Rousey replied with rounds to Ruby Riott but Ruby Riott wrenched Ronda to the ring canvass.
Ruby repeatedly ran her right boot across Ronda Rousey’s reddened face, but Ronda replied by restraining Ruby’s whack at the Riott Kick and wildly winged Ruby Riott overhead, resulting in Ruby Riott’s face ramming into the ring. Ronda Rousey wrathfully repaid Ruby Riott for the wounds Ruby had wrought on Ronda throughout their rivalry, repeatedly racking Ruby with a relentless rush of rights and other raps, rocking Ruby so Ronda could wrench Ruby up and then roughly returning her to the ring surface.
Then Ronda Rousey took a whack through the ropes at the Riott Squad’s resident Viking, which whipped up a window for Ruby Riott to roll Ronda Rousey up, but Ronda Rousey worked out a way to rescue herself from Ruby Riott’s wily roll-up. Ronda Rousey then wrenched Ruby Riott up into a reverse rack and performed her rotating Samoan Drop, then locked Ruby Rioitt in her world-renowned armbar, which required Ruby to resign, relinquishing the win to Ronda.

BOBBY ROODE (w/Chad Gable) vs. KONNOR (w/Viktor)- 3/10
Roode & Gable cut an inset promo that was… fine. Konnor cut one that was actually pretty decent, although they had some production snafus in their attempt to splice it into the show. Konnor won a match that was entirely too short for Roode to be doing a job in.

“A MOMENT BLISS” ALEXA BLISS! PROMO- fine
WWE needs some fact-checkers. Alexa claimed to have first met Trish after a WWE show at age seven… which would be before Trish ever got into the wrestling business. We’re clearly supposed to think that this story is false because of all of the terrible things Alexa claimed Trish did, and if the fact that the timeline doesn’t add up is used as evidence of this then I’ll give WWE credit… but I don’t think that’s going to happen. This is a company that had Lita go out at WrestleMania and give a big, long speech about how she was inspired to get into wrestling after watching Wendi Richter at WrestleMania even though Lita wrote in IN HER OWN AUTOBIOGRAPHY that she first became a wrestling fan after seeing Rey Mysterio on Nitro.
That being said, I would actually like to see someone at some point take a slightly different track with this sort of angle. The actions that Alexa described would actually be relatively in character for the heel Trish Stratus we saw during the first year and a half of Trish’s career. It’d be kind of cool to do an angle where the babyface comes out and admits that he/she did, in fact, do that, and “I’m completely ashamed by it, but I changed and became a better person” and then have the heel still attack him/her and not accept the apology. It would be a nice little nod to kayfabe, rather than what usually happens in pro wrestling nowadays, which is that anything that happened in the past can be overwritten by non-kayfabe factors that become public knowledge, and legendary heels are treated as if they had always been babyfaces in their interactions with the fans.

THE B-TEAM vs. THE REVIVAL- 4/10
The Revival are back to jobbing to the B-Team again. Them boys should have quit while they had the chance to headline All In. Then the Authors of Pain ran out and destroyed the B-Team.

DEAN & ROMAN BACKSTAGE- a little better than the segment with Seth, but in hindsight they seem to have made a big mistake by not having Dean actually pick to face Strowman. The quick nature of the way that whole thing was done and the announcers claiming that Corbin had Strowman in waiting either way really take the punch out of the idea that Dean could have chosen to face one of his teammates but didn’t.

BARON CORBIN, DRAKE MAVERICK, & THE AUTHORS OF PAIN BACKSTAGE- bad
Corbin put the AoP over.

WWE/SUSAN G. KOMEN PUBLICITY BULLSH*T- If you want my rant on Komen, look for it on one of the October Raw reviews a few years back. If you want to give money to someone who is actually interested in helping fight breast cancer instead of putting themselves over, here is a list of better breast cancer charities courtesy of Charity Navigator:
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index. ... rtg&cgid=5

THE ANTI-SHIELD BACKSTAGE- decent
Dolph is certain that Dean is going to turn. Braun puts Ambrose over and tells Drew that he had better beat Rollins tonight, then tells calls Dolph a “weak link.”

DREW MCINTYRE vs. SETH ROLLINS- 6.75/10
The match I was most looking forward to ended on a distraction finish when Ziggler came out.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
The heels beat Seth up after the match. Roman Reigns came out to make the save but got distracted by Braun Strowman’s music so he got taken out from behind. Braun came out, but then got attacked from behind with a weapon by Ambrose. Said weapon was an axe-handle. Where did Dean find one of those lying around? The heels beat up the babyfaces, giving us some final heat for Super Show-Down here on the go-home show.

KEVIN OWENS & THE DRIFTER BACKSTAGE- pointless
They yell at a Valued Backstage Crewmember for getting The Drifter the wrong kind of nuts.

THE DRIFTER (W/KEVIN OWENS) SINGS- They made a comment about Seattle losing its basketball team, which really got under the fans’ skins. Personally, I think they spent too much time milking it, because this started to get boring. They cut a promo on Cena that, while good, had way too many good points about Cena only showing up for big shows this year.
Lio Rush eventually came out to cut a promo on them in which he put over John Cena for a while before bringing out Lashley. The crowd mostly just kept chanting for the Supersonics.

BOBBY LASHLEY (w/Lio Rush) vs. KEVIN OWENS (w/”The Drifter” Elias Sampson)- 4.5/10
Owens worked over Lashley’s arm. Elias attacked Lio, which distracted Lashley so Owens could roll him up. Lashley tried to attack Owens and Elias but got beaten down. Lio Rush tried to help but was easily dispatched by Elias. Owens laid Lashley out with an assisted pop-up powerbomb.

BAYLEY (w/Finn Balor) vs. ALICIA FOX (w/Jinder Mahal & Sunil Singh)- 2/10
Alicia Fox cut an inset promo in which she was wacky. The match was short and did far less than less week’s match to build up Mixed-Match Challenge. The babyfaces won clean.

CLOSING SEGMENT- good for what it was, I guess.
HBK comes out to cut his promo. He says he’ll be ready if Kane tries anything at Super Show-Down. Kane magics himself into the ring behind Shawn and knocks him down. Then Taker appears. He picks HBK up to give him a Tombstone Piledriver but lets him go when Triple H comes out.
Taker and Hunter trade punches. Kane gets involved and goozles Hunter but HBK makes the save. Kane and Taker eventually hit D-X with stereo chokeslams. Taker then gives Hunter a Tombstone Piledriver and the Brothers of Destruction head up the ramp, do the double Undertaker pose, and we go off the air.


This episode of Raw was not very good (although, to be fair, it did hit all of the important notes as a go-home show for Super Show-Down). I think Seru put it best when she said that the Ambrose stuff was interesting but everything else was extremely boring. I will add in that that feud gave us the only good matches we got tonight.
I think the biggest problem on Raw right now is a complete and total lack of stories. Think of all of the feuds going on right now:
Shield vs. Anti-Shied- has a story
Balor & Bayley vs. Jinder & Fox- no real story other than “teamwork,” and is only happening because of Mixed-Match Challenge
Owens & Drifter vs. Lashley & Lio- no real story (even the idea that Owens blames Lashley for injuring Sami Zayn hasn’t been mentioned since Owens’ initial promo)
Riott Squad vs. Ronda & the Bella Twins- no real story
Roode & Gable vs. Ascension- no story
D-X vs. Brothers of Destruction- has a story, but not one you can really build on with action week after week.

Hopefully this will change after Super Show-Down but I’m not betting on it.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. When the lights went out and Taker’s gong sounded, Michael Cole responded by shouting “IT CAN’T BE!”
Why not? We see Taker use magical powers of teleportation and lighting/sound equipment control all the time! What makes this time different that Cole is surprised that Taker is able to do this? Did someone erect a special anti-Undertaker magical barrier around the arena?

[cero2k]

Hopefully this will change after Super Show-Down but I’m not betting on it.

After that comes Crown Jewel, so i doubt it, and then into Survivor Series's annual RAW vs Smackdown feud.

[Big Red Machine]

Hopefully this will change after Super Show-Down but I’m not betting on it.

After that comes Crown Jewel, so i doubt it, and then into Survivor Series's annual RAW vs Smackdown feud.

True. A chunk of the problem seems to be that with these overseas show they announce the card first and then try to shoot angles but seem to think that the fact that the match is announced means that the story is already told so they don't really try to tell a story. If we get no real story advancement in most feuds from September to December, I'm going to be quite unhappy.

[KILLdozer]

Ruby Riot and Ronda Rousey match review is why you don't smoke crack...lol

[Big Red Machine]

Ruby Riot and Ronda Rousey match review is why you don't smoke crack...lol

I'll have you know I'd been planning that since the moment that match was announced!

[KILLdozer]

Ruby Riot and Ronda Rousey match review is why you don't smoke crack...lol

I'll have you know I'd been planning that since the moment that match was announced!

Mmmmmmhhhmmmm....

[Big Red Machine]

Ruby Riot and Ronda Rousey match review is why you don't smoke crack...lol

I'll have you know I'd been planning that since the moment that match was announced!

Mmmmmmhhhmmmm....

Dude... how can you not here "Ronda Rousey vs. Ruby Riott" and not think "Betty Botter bought some butter?" And it just ballooned from there.

[KILLdozer]

I'll have you know I'd been planning that since the moment that match was announced!

Mmmmmmhhhmmmm....

Dude... how can you not here "Ronda Rousey vs. Ruby Riott" and not think "Betty Botter bought some butter?" And it just ballooned from there.

That entire thing probably had more substance than the actual match. When she had her up across her shoulder and just dropped her pretty much...not good.