BRM Reviews the 7/1/2013 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

VICKIE PROMO ANNOUNCING THE MAIN EVENT- Vickie puts over the two top titles, sucks up to the McMahons a bit, and announces that we will be getting World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio vs. WWE Champion John Cena tonight. This was great. A match like this deserves special hype and an announcement before the opening theme song is just that.

OPENING SEGMENT- Everyone comes out and puts over the fact that they want to be WWE Champion and therefore they are going to win Money in the Bank. Good, effective segment. Dragon asking Sheamus “is there any way I can dial 1-800-fella and have you come out here and Brogue Kick your own head off?” was hilarious. Kane’s selling of the RKO at the end was weird. I think he didn’t take the move right because Dragon was too close behind him, so Orton had to hit the move slow and as a result it wasn’t as impactful (obviously I’m not an expert and am just speculating here). If we get Dragon vs. Punk out of this, I will be very happy.

THE SHIELD vs. CHRISTIAN & THE USOS- 6/10
The Shield get their win back, but beating the Shield has been built up as such a big thing that this doesn’t at all take away from Christian and the Usos’ win on Smackdown. Only thing I would have done differently is to not have had Ambrose pin Christian.

KANE & DRAGON BACKSTAGE- grrrr… if Dragon is the Special Guest Ref for Kane vs. Orton then it is unlikely that he will face Punk, too.

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. JINDER MAHAL (w/3MB)- 2.25/10

DANIEL BRYAN IS THE SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Randy Orton vs. Kane- no rating. Good segment.
You can see how, in his own way, Dragon is trying to make it up to Kane for causing him to get RKOed earlier. Everyone gets to be the babyface.

PUNK, HEYMAN & AXEL BACKSTAGE- good segment.

SHEAMUS vs. FANDANGO (w/Summer Rae)- 4/10
I don’t quite remember who I heard say this but he said “if you don’t have a productive finish, then DON’T BOOK THE MATCH!” This is an example of a match that should not have happened. This doesn’t do anything for Sheamus because all he is doing is beating a guy who is much lower on the card, and it doesn’t do anything for Fandango because he is just running away from Sheamus. This interaction isn’t building to anything (these guys are in separate MITB matches)… so why book it?

RYBACK vs. THE MIZ- DUD!
Ryback whines and cries that his leg is too hurt and asks for the match to be stopped. Ryback has now officially lost all of his badass points and has become a joke. Then babyface Jericho jumps him from behind after the match.

MARK HENRY PROMO- decent. I looked this up, and, surprisingly, Mark has only had three WWE Title matches in his career, and they were all last April against CM Punk, so his gripes about not being given a chance to be WWE Champion are pretty kayfabe legit.

BRICKIE & MCMAHON FAMILY MEMBER X SEGMENTS- eh. I was amused by Vince yelling at Vickie for throwing Champion vs. Champion away on free TV. Steph was obnoxiously overbearing here. Someone needs to tell her to chill out and let Vickie do her f*cking job! Then Steph mellows out and Vickie tries to play the gender card out of nowhere, but Steph isn’t buying it, and Steph yells at Vickie again and tells her that they are going to do a public job performance evaluation on her next week. Considering how crappy these things always turn out to be, and how crappy these segments with Vickie and the McMahons have been, I am definitely not looking forward to that.

THE PRIME TIME PLAYERS vs. CM PUNK & CURTIS AXEL (w/Paul Heyman)- 5/10
Good story with Punk and Axel not getting along. I just wish they had gotten a bit more time to explore it.

WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP PROFILE OF STING- that’s new and exciting.

ALICIA FOX vs. KAITLYN (w/Layla)- 2.25/10
Yeah, I get that they are friends, but having Layla out there for “emotional support” against someone who barely gets TV time makes Kaitlyn seem like an emotionally unbalanced wimp who will break out crying at anything. If Kaitlyn can’t take a verbal jab from AJ without breaking down in tears, then she really isn’t someone I want to root for. Imagine if Mickie James had needed a friend with her at all times to make sure that she didn’t burst out in tears whenever LayCool called her fat. There would have been no heat because everyone would have thought Mickie was too pathetic to deserve sympathy.
The match itself was very short, but they did a lot with the time that they had. Hopefully, after seeing this match, WWE officials will be wondering why they haven’t been using Alicia Fox on TV more often.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- AJ & Big E. come out and AJ shows a picture of Kaitlyn photo-shopped to make her look super-fat. Kaitlyn laughs this off, making me wonder why Layla was out here in the first place if Kaitlyn doesn’t really need her for emotional support. This crap with one of them doing something to humiliate the other after the match is getting old and repetitive, and they have another three shows before the PPV.

RHODES SCHOLARS PROMO- Sandow is wearing a suit and tie instead of his usual intellectual bathrobe. They say that even though they will be competing against each other at MITB, they will still be best friends.

ZEB COULTER PROMO- oh G-d. He mentioned same-sex marriage along with the immigration stuff. Now all they’ve done is make him a right-wing caricature (not that he wasn’t before, but now it is an all right-wing views thing).


CODY RHODES (w/Damien Sandow) vs. ANTONIO CESARO (w/Zeb Coulter & Jack Swagger)- 3.5/10
“WE THE PEOPLE!” chants! Never thought I’d hear that. WWE can’t be happy about that one.

THE BELLAS & TWO CHICKS I HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE (& THE OTHER DIVAS) BACKSTAGE- bad.
The Funkadactyls are written like high school stereotypes. I guess this was intended to hype the divas reality show. As if anyone watching Raw didn’t know about it already. Anyway, I would have been fine if they Bellas got their asses kicked at the end of this, but they didn’t, so boo.

WYATT FAMILY VIDEO PACKAGE- stop it with these video package with the nightmare-inducing goat mask (especially the nightmare-inducing goat mast) and just debut already!

ALBERTO DEL RIO vs. JOHN CENA- 6.5/10
They promoted this right but didn’t give it the time it deserved. Ziggler screws Del Rio, which everyone saw coming, to keep Del Rio strong in his loss. Then Henry comes out and does some stupid fake-outs with Cena.

They close the show by repeating the Wyatt Family promo. They are pushing this very hard.

Overall, a good show from WWE. Weaker in the ring than I would like, but everything seems to be heading somewhere.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Ziggler beats a jobber and King and JBL insist that he has “never looked better.”

[cero2k]

BRICKIE & MCMAHON FAMILY MEMBER X SEGMENTS- eh. I was amused by Vince yelling at Vickie for throwing Champion vs. Champion away on free TV. Steph was obnoxiously overbearing here. Someone needs to tell her to chill out and let Vickie do her f*cking job! Then Steph mellows out and Vickie tries to play the gender card out of nowhere, but Steph isn’t buying it, and Steph yells at Vickie again and tells her that they are going to do a public job performance evaluation on her next week. Considering how crappy these things always turn out to be, and how crappy these segments with Vickie and the McMahons have been, I am definitely not looking forward to that.

i'm actually exited about this cuz it's likely gonna start a good thing between triple h, steph and vince whether to fire vickie or not, and hopefully it'll trigger whatever feud they have thinking for them.

CODY RHODES (w/Damien Sandow) vs. ANTONIO CESARO (w/Zeb Coulter & Jack Swagger)- 3.5/10
“WE THE PEOPLE!” chants! Never thought I’d hear that. WWE can’t be happy about that one.

after how the match ended, Sandow is turning on Cody soon