BRM Reviews the 2/3/2020 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

RANDY ORTON PROMO- F*CK THIS SH*T!
Ten minutes of standing around for “I can’t do this” and then walking to the back?
Look… I understand the idea here, but there is such a thing as timing, and doing this one week after Charlotte came out here and a wasted a bunch of time only to tell us that she hadn’t made her mind up about which title she will challenge for is a bad idea. At this point if they tell me a promo segment is going to be important, I don’t believe them because it has now been two weeks in a row when they’ve hyped a segment up big-time, then wasted my time not giving me what they advertised. I would have been fine with this if not for the Charlotte segment last week.
Also, the announcers did a horrific job of selling the idea that RANDY ORTON is conflicted and almost seems remorseful about something. Lawler tried, but the way the question was framed to him made it feel like cookie-cutter WWE stuff (talking about the “moments in the history of Raw”), and Tom’s follow-up and then segue to the Rumble was also poorly executed.

We’re advertising a three-way between Rollins, Lashley, and Ricochet to determine who faces Brock in Saudi Arabia. What did any of these guys do to earn this opportunity?

LIV MORGAN vs. LANA- 0.25/10
Lawler still hasn’t gotten the Women’s Evolution memo. The other commentators pushed the fact that “these two eliminated each other from the Royal Rumble” and that they hate each other so much that they “cost each other a chance at a guaranteed title match at WrestleMania,” all of which misses an important point: Liv played by the rules while Lana did not. Once you get eliminated, you’re supposed to go to the back. LIV MORGAN GOT SCREWED.
I bring this up not only because of my desire to see rule-breaking vehemently decried so that maybe fans will actually be able to get angry about it, but also because ignoring that fact robs us of the idea of having a babyface and a heel in this feud, and that babyface vs. heel narrative is essential to any defense WWE tries to mount in order to claim that this feud isn’t being booked purely be to be tits and ass.
Liv Morgan won cleanly in a match that was even shorter than last week’s match, so what purpose did this serve? If you wanted Liv in the ring to set up the post-match segment, let her beat a jobber so that the show at least doesn’t feel obnoxiously repetitive.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- hated it
Ruby Riott is back! We get the swerve of the hug before Ruby Riott starts beating Liv up. The announcers keep asking “why?” but I think it’s pretty obvious. Liv pretty publicly rejected Ruby’s leadership. You might have missed it if you were focused on the image of her getting into the bathtub, but the general idea of shedding off others so that she can finally be herself was the point of her promos.
Anyone remember the end of last week’s show when a wrestler showed up and pretended to be friends with a former tag tram partner, only to attack that partner and nearly beat him to death in the middle of the ring? Yeah? Well can we please get some f*cking security out to the ring to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again right now?
Ruby kicked Liv’s ass and left. Then Lana hit Liv with her finisher because apparently this feud must keep going, even though it has not gone anywhere since the first segment.

DREW MCINTYRE PROMO- I don’t like this new Drew McIntyre. He’s trying too hard to be cool. This “sexy Scotsman” crap and the counting down before the Claymore Kick need to stop.
Just about the only thing I did like here was that he actually addressed Mojo’s presence instead of ignoring him.

DREW MCINTYRE vs. MOJO RAWLEY (w/Riddick Moss)- DUD!
So we gave Mojo a belt… and now we’re going to put him on TV in a match that was designed to make him look as bad as possible. I don’t think they could have made him look any worse without turning things into a total farce.
And if you are going to have the 24/7 Champion get obliterated in the ring like this, at least have it lead to something, like someone showing up and pinning him. Hell, get Riddick Moss over by having someone show up and try to pin Mojo but have Moss stop him. There! I made this segment productive, and actually featured the Goofball Championship at the same time. Was the at really so hard?

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS BUDDY MURPHY & AOP- frustrating
Murphy said nothing of consequence… and, quite frankly, nothing that didn’t amount to “Seth Rollins is great.” This is the sort of thing that stops Murphy and AoP from being valuable characters when the stable inevitably breaks up because you have hinged their entire personalities on Seth’s presence, so when Seth is no longer there, no one has any reason to care about them.
As if to prove my point, Seth Rollins came out and shooed them away, stealing their interview. He cut a good promo building up the possibility of himself against Brock in Saudi Arabia and then himself vs. Drew for the title at WrestleMania.

ELIMINATION TAG TEAM MATCH: Buddy Murphy & the Authors of Pain (w/Seth Rollins) vs. Kevin Owens & the Viking Raiders- 6/10
The message the announcers pushed relentlessly was that last week “Samoa Joe sacrificed himself” during the match. I’m sure someone thought this verbiage sounded cool in the same conversation as “Monday Night Messiah” Seth Rollins, but in reality it sounded idiotic and pretentious, to the point where when heel announcer Jerry Lawler told Tom Phillips to call it was what it is- that “Samoa Joe got injured during the match,” I popped because someone was finally speaking the truth.
Ivar was injured and Erik was eliminated after inference by Rollins, so Kevin Owens is now alone again. Once again, I understand the greater story they are trying to tell here, but once again, the match they advertised to me (a six-man elimination tag) has quickly turned into something else (a three-on-one handicap match).
This match did get exciting with the three-on-one story, but I think it was a HUGE mistake. Owens eliminating two of the three heels on his own just makes the heels look bad, and the heels don’t get anything from their dirty win. All we did here was hurt Erik, Murphy, and Akam by pinning them (yeah, Rollins’ interference helped beat Erik, but no one is going to remember that. The only specific finish they’re going to remember is the finish). This match served NO PURPOSE, and all it did was affect people negatively. Do they really think that interfering to cost Owens a pointless match is going to Rollins any real heat?

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS RICOCHET- a good promo to build up his chances of winning the #1 contendership match.

ALEISTER BLACK vs. ERIC YOUNG- 0.25/10
They couldn’t even do EY the courtesy of letting us pretend that his entrance took place during the commercial. No. Black made his entrance and we went to commercial, and then Black’s music was still playing when we came back, with EY apparently having been standing there the whole time like the biggest jobber in the world.
Another short match that was pretty much a squash other than one early flurry by EY. I fail to see the purpose of this. We’ve seen Aleister squash people for MONTHS. Then he had a feud with buddy Murphy and he won a bunch of awesome matches… and now he’s back to doing pointless, repetitive squash matches again.

ALEISTER BLACK PROMO- Until one of these promos actually turns out to have meaning in hindsight, I’m going to declare him to be Bray Wyatt without the magic.

HUMBERTO CARRILLO, ZELINA VEGA, & ANGEL GARZA SEGMENT-
I guess this was supposed to be a match. Otherwise, I’m not sure why Humberto even came out here.
We got a typically awesome Zelina Vega promo, but it had this awkwardness to it where she was basically flipping back and forth between addressing Humberto and providing exposition for fans who didn’t know Angel Garza was, but she seemed like she was speaking to Carrillo the whole time, so it was odd. Why would she need to point out to Carrillo that her new client is his cousin? He knows his own cousin.
Then Garza started to speak, and it hit me how completely wacky it was that Garza- a native Spanish speaker- was addressing another native Spanish speaker in English. At least when Humberto responded he did so purely in Spanish.
Anyway, Zelina slapped Carrillo and Garza beat him up, then laid him out with the Wing Clipper. Vega ordered him to give Carrillo the hammerlock DDT on the exposed concrete… and YET AGAIN we have someone trying to do something that could end someone’s career for the second week in a row, and security is nowhere to be found!
Fortunately for Humberto he has one friend, Rey Mysterio Jr., who was able to come out and save him. It’s a pity Edge doesn’t have any friends, or else he might be bale to wrestle tonight.

REY MYSTERIO JR. vs. ANGEL GARZA (w/Zelina Vega)- 5/10
If I had a nickel for every time they told me that Angel Garza was Humberto Carrillo’s cousin I’d have enough money to buy the company and make a rule where if an announcer says something too many times, I would come out and flog them in the middle of the show.
This match was rather disappointing, and that was before the stupid finish. Said finish saw Garza give Rey a DDT on the concrete (Tom Phillips called it a “hammerlock DDT but it was really a single-arm DDT, so Tom Phillips can’t correctly identify a f*cking hammerlock)… and then the referee called for the bell. Since when is DDTing someone on the floor a DQ?
And if you didn’t want anyone to get hurt on the exposed concrete, why wasn’t anyone sent out to pull the match back down? They had PLENTY of time to do that during this match. And speaking of having plenty of time during this match, I’d think that Humberto Carrillo would have had plenty of time to recover during this match and come out and make the save, but apparently not.

CHARLOTTE FLAIR PROMO- meh
They actually have the nerve to hype up that Charlotte is going to come out here and announce her WrestleMania opponent after the bullsh*t they pulled last week. Charlotte talked for a bit. The fans chanted for Rhea Ripley, so they’ve been reading the sheets. Rhea came out and pointed out that she has beaten Charlotte before but Charlotte has never beaten her. She suggests that Charlotte challenge her. Charlotte didn’t answer, but we all know Rhea would never have been sent out here if this wasn’t the match… which means that they just spoiled the NXT Women’s Title match at TakeOver: Portland. Is there any reason they couldn’t have waited until after that show to do this?
Hell… how about this: Have Charlotte come out and scout the various champions every week, and then, after TakeOver: Portland, have her come out and make the surprising announcement that she wants to challenge Rhea. That way you not only don’t spoil the TakeOver result, but you also avoid a situation where Rhea apparently decided to fly through a snowstorm to show up to a show that she wasn’t even booked on.

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS BOBBY LASHLEY- very good
This was easily the best promo he has cut since returning to WWE. This was flashes of 2016 TNA Bobby Lashley.

NATALYA NEIDHART vs. ASUKA (w/Kairi Sane)- 6.75/10
It took us almost two and a half hours, but we finally found something worth watching. Asuka won off of a distraction from Kairi, so every match so far tonight has either been a squash or had a dirty finish.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Asuka demanded a rematch for the Raw Women’s Title. Becky Lynch came out and was very annoying before saying yes. This newly cocky Becky is about fifty feet on the heel side of the “confidence vs. arrogance” line.
Kairi tried to attack Becky from behind but Becky saw it coming and disposed of her. In the process of this happened, Becky had her back turned to Asuka for a significant amount of time, and Asuka did not attack her despite being a mere three feet away. It this isn’t going to be important, they shouldn’t have let it happen, and if it is going to be important, the announcers should have made note of it.

They’re advertising that Charlotte will be on NXT on Wednesday to give Rhea Ripley an answer, while Goldberg will on Smackdown on Friday to let us all know who he is going to squash at the Saudi show.

SETH ROLLINS PROMO- very good

WINNER CHALLENGES BROCK LESNAR FOR THE WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE AT SUPER SHOWDOWN: Bobby Lashley vs. Ricochet vs. Seth Rollins- 7/10
What have these guys done to earn this match, especially as compared to someone like Erick Rowan, who is actually 12-0 in his last twelve singles matches, and hasn’t been pinned, submitted, DQed, or counted out in MONTHS.
Stuff happened for a bit until Rollins’ friends ran in. Kevin Owens and Erik ran in to stop them (Ivar has now been added to the list of people who have “sacrificed themselves” for Kevin Owens). The match got pretty damn good after that point, and we even had a clean finish. Ricochet pinned Lashley, I think is what we were all expecting.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Brock Lesnar ran out and F-5ed Ricochet, because we’ve apparently got to get that heat right away, before the babyface even has the chance to celebrate earning his title shot.


Another bad episode of Raw. Especially the first two hours. And speaking of two hours, that's about how long that Fast & the Furious trailer lasted.

[cero2k]

Another bad episode of Raw. Especially the first two hours. And speaking of two hours, that's about how long that Fast & the Furious trailer lasted.

you may have accidentally watched the full movie there

[KILLdozer]

I still DON'T GET the Lana and Liv Morgan stuff....sure she interrupted the wedding and all...SOOO...they were secretly gay or Bisexual but they've never actually flat out came and said it? So what's supposed to behind all of this? They were a thing of some sort but they didn't really say it and it's still going regardless lol.

[cero2k]

I still DON'T GET the Lana and Liv Morgan stuff....sure she interrupted the wedding and all...SOOO...they were secretly gay or Bisexual but they've never actually flat out came and said it? So what's supposed to behind all of this? They were a thing of some sort but they didn't really say it and it's still going regardless lol.

it's not even like she spoiled the wedding, Lashley and Lana ended up married anyway and Rusev is now nowhere to be seen. These two have zero reason to be hating each other other than one eliminated the other on the rumble, but that's it.

[Big Red Machine]

I still DON'T GET the Lana and Liv Morgan stuff....sure she interrupted the wedding and all...SOOO...they were secretly gay or Bisexual but they've never actually flat out came and said it? So what's supposed to behind all of this? They were a thing of some sort but they didn't really say it and it's still going regardless lol.

it's not even like she spoiled the wedding, Lashley and Lana ended up married anyway and Rusev is now nowhere to be seen. These two have zero reason to be hating each other other than one eliminated the other on the rumble, but that's it.

They have handled it pretty poorly, to the point where it feels like the whole point of doing it was to get attention because LESBIANS.

[cero2k]

They have handled it pretty poorly, to the point where it feels like the whole point of doing it was to get attention because LESBIANS.

i'm sure you're right. Which kinda sucks because they re-packaged Liv, who I thought was a really fun and genuine character, the potential to be a new version of lita/AJ Lee/Paige

[Big Red Machine]

They have handled it pretty poorly, to the point where it feels like the whole point of doing it was to get attention because LESBIANS.

i'm sure you're right. Which kinda sucks because they re-packaged Liv, who I thought was a really fun and genuine character, the potential to be a new version of lita/AJ Lee/Paige

Really? I thought she came off as kind of wacky and fake. Maybe if her old character hadn't debut as part of a group where Ruby Riott was clearly the leader and they seemed to be made in Ruby's image it wouldn't have come off as so fake to me.

[cero2k]

Really? I thought she came off as kind of wacky and fake. Maybe if her old character hadn't debut as part of a group where Ruby Riott was clearly the leader and they seemed to be made in Ruby's image it wouldn't have come off as so fake to me.

granted, I stopped watching Liv Morgan when I stopped watching NXT, I can't fully judge the main roster version. Even so I thought she had charisma. I mean, at least she wasn't a LARPing Viking.