BRM Reviews the 4/14/2014 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND MATCH: Alberto Del Rio vs. Rob Van Dam- 6/10

ORTON, BATISTA, & THE AUTHORITY BACKSTAGE- Hunter puts over how dangerous the Shield are, but then says that if Hunter, Orton, and Batista are on the same page, there is no one who can stop them. Orton and Batista both just want to be world champion and tell Hunter he is on his own.

CODY RHODES & GOLDUST vs. CURTIS AXEL & RYBACK- 5.5/10
AWESOME finish.

PAIGE vs. ALICIA FOX- 4/10
Another match where Paige gets the crap beaten out of her for 90% of it. To make things worse (and I don’t know if this is just a combination of her hair and her eye shadow or what), but when the camera got close-ups of her during the heat, it looked like she was crying. I was much more impressed by Alicia Fox. At least Paige got to show off her badass submission finisher.
JBL (about Paige): “she must go to the same tanning salon as Sheamus.”

RANDY ORTON & BATISTA vs. THE USOS- 5/10
They go for a while, then the Shield attack heels, causing a DQ and get the best of first Orton, then Batista.

ORTON, BATISTA & THE AUTHORITY BACKSTAGE- perfect.
They started this with Orton and Batista silently walking down the hall together, clearly bruised and beaten, heads hanging low in defeat. They come upon Hunter and Steph and Hunter says “told ya” while Steph shakes her head in pity. This got over absolutely EVERYTHING it needed to PERFECTLY with just two words.

INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND MATCH: Mark Henry vs. Cesaro (w/Paul Heyman)- 4/10
The finish got Cesaro’s strength over, which was the whole purpose of this.

THE AUTHORITY & BRAD MADDOX BACKSTAGE- Hunter orders Maddox to tell the Shield that they are booked in tonight’s main event against mystery opponents.

XAVIER WOODS (w/R-Truth) vs. ALEXANDER RUSEV (w/Lana)- squash
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- eh.
Truth comes in to make the save when Rusev won’t release the Accolade after Woods has tapped. They have a staredown but Lana breaks it up, then orders Rusev to attack Truth when Truth isn’t looking. Why not just have Rusev kick Truth’s ass like the monster he is? Why wait for Truth to be distracted?

INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND MATCH: Sheamus vs. Jack Swagger (w/Zeb Coulter)- 6.75/10

SANDOW & BIG SHOW SEGMENT- dumb
We came back from commercial in the middle of some promo by Sandow, who kept saying that he deserved “it”… but one ever said what “it” was. Then Big Show came out and did nothing. Then Sandow ranted some more, saying the same exact things he was saying before Show came out. Then Show knocked Sandow out without any provocation whatsoever.

BRAY WYATT PROMO- good. He says Cena just needs one more little push to send him over the edge. Then he calls Cena out. Cena comes out and responds “the last thing I need right now is another push. Nobody wants to see that.” That made me laugh.
Cena claims the monster Bray is trying to bring out in him doesn’t exist. Cena says he is going to try to get the Wyatts to not be so serious. Standard Cena “comedy” and hometown pops. He claims to have pictures of the women in Bray’s family… but it’s the guys in the Wyatt Family photoshopped into women’s clothing. This was about as funny as it sounds.
Bray called Cena out on not being serious, so Cena cut a serious promo. He challenged Bray to a match where the Wyatt Family can’t help him… a steel cage match at Extreme Rules. Bray cut a good promo accepting the challenge.

FANDANGO & LAYLA EL vs. SANTINO MARELLA & EMMA- DUD!
Emma is made to look like a total chump. At least have the heels CHEAT!

STEPH GIVES KANE A JOB REVIEW- she says he’s been doing a bad job. And she’s right. She yells at him, calls him a shell of his former self and asks “what happened to Kane.” Kane then goes and takes his mask from its case and tells Steph that he is “going to eviscerate Daniel Bryan and send him to the depths of hell.” Okay then…

PEOPLE PLAY HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS AT AN ADAM ROSE PARTY- Colt CaBunny’s girlfriend loses, but Adam Rose cheers her up. At least it was different than the other one.

Props to whoever came up with the RawIsWarrior hashtag.

INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND MATCH: Dolph Ziggler vs. Wade Barrett- 6.75/10

Somehow they already have a video-package made up for the return of mean, masked Kane. Why not save this for Smackdown?

HANDICAP MATCH: The Shield vs. 3MB, Curtis Axel, Ryback, Fandango, Titus O’Neil, Alberto Del Rio, Wade Barrett, Alexander Rusev, & Jack Swagger-
The Shield are placed in an 11-on-3 tag team match… which, if I remember correctly, was similar to something that either Vickie did last year, which wound up resulting in the Shield being put in a similar situation but Hunter saved them by cancelling the match. And even if there isn’t some artistic call back, this was still an awesome segment (though the match getting tossed out came WAY too quickly for my liking).
So the zillion heels beat the Shield up… then Hunter, Orton and Batista come out… to Evolution’s music, and the Shield (after a brief hope spot) get destroyed by Evolution.

A good Raw.

[badnewzxl]

I'm so happy Evolution didn't get a huge ovation; hopefully they won't go over the Shield at EC