BRM Reviews the 9/22/2014 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- Ambrose rocks. Cena’s insults were really lame, and the way the promo was structured, it made him seem a bit whiny. Props to Lawler for pointing out that their tease of fighting each other was stupid. I know that they’re babyfaces, but this is the sort of situation where I wouldn’t mind having two babyfaces try to team up to beat up one heel.
I liked the stuff with the Authority and I liked the little brawl they had and… HOLY SH*T SETH ROINS JUST STOLE SOMEONE’S CAR. On national TV. That won’t look good in the papers tomorrow for WWE.

AUTHORITY BACKSTAGE- Hunter books Kane vs. Ambrose and Orton vs. Cena.

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: The Miz(c) (w/Damien Miz-dow) vs. Dolph Ziggler- 6/10
Damien Miz-dow now has his own replica IC Title. The match was good, aside from the finish. First of all, STOP SWITCING THE F*CKING BELT! Secondly, babyfaces cheating is not good. And what are they trying to build to with this? A match will both guys will have to wrestle without anything covering them so that they can’t pull the other guy’s tights?
Also, this makes Truth look like a complete and total punk. Dolph loses when he is at ringside, but manages to win when he isn’t?

BO DALLAS vs. JACK SWAGGER (w/Zeb Coulter)- 3.5/10

SUMMER RAE PROMO- She started off by saying that she knows that the fans can’t relate to this, but she knows how hard it is like to be the most attractive person in the room. “Me, too, Summer!” I shouted, sitting alone in my living room at 2am, watching wrestling. “We should totally hang out!”
Then Summer said that she didn’t need Total Divas. “Me, too!” I once again shouted. “We should totally hang out, Summer!”
Then Summer said that she didn’t need any of us to be her friend, and I was sad again.
She concluded by saying that “Summer is over for every one of you, but it’s always Summer time for me and my girl Lay. Sorry, Summer. You’re not over You USED to be over when you were down in NXT, but for some idiotic reason, WWE decided that rather than let Summer be a character that actually worked, she needs to be a (hotter version of) Michelle McCool and bring back one of the most obnoxious gimmicks of all time.

SUMMER RAE (w/Layla El) vs. NATALYA (w/Rosa Mendes)- 0.75/10
If this dumb “Nattie is mentoring Rosa” thing means we’ll have to watch a Rosa Mendes match every week on Raw until Total Divas is over, I will have to invent a new word to describe how much I hate the effect the show has on WWE programming. Summer screams “you want to throw me out of the car, Nattie?!” *Insert BRM rant on Total Divas/Raw continuity issues and the kayfabe stupidity thereof here*

KANE vs. DEAN AMBROSE- 5.5/10
They were having a decent match until Rollins ran in and caused a DQ (I guess he returned the car. That’s good). Ambrose started to get the better of Rollins, but Kane gave him a chokeslam.

MORE BRAWLING BACKSTAGE- Road agents show up to break it up. Hunter orders them to throw Ambrose out of the building, but Steph instead orders them to lock Ambrose in a closet. Hunter asks her “what are you doing?!” to which she replies “have we ever thrown who someone out didn’t come back?” Steph got genre savvy! I LOVE IT!

THE USOS & SHEAMUS vs. GOLDUST, STARDUST, & CESARO- 7/10
A fun six man tag team match in which challengers for a title get a clean win over the champs. This is exactly what should have happened in this same match on LAST WEEK’S SHOW.
The announcers need to stop shouting wrestlers’ catchphrases. I know that others do it too, but for some reason it annoys me a lot more when these three do it.

ORTON & ROLLINS BACKSTAGE- Good idea and good delivery, but bad dialogue.

MARK HENRY, RUSEV, & LANA SEGMENT- good

MARK HENRY vs. RUSEV (w/Lana)- 6.25/10
Good match. A lot better than last night.

SLATER-GATOR vs. ADAM ROSE & THE BUNNY (w/the Exotic Express)- DUD!
JBL brought up a very good point: How did the bunny get a wrester’s license?
The blonde chick in the Exotic Express tonight was really hot.
So Adam Rose got beaten up, and THE BUNNY was the one who got the tag and made the comeback. To review: Adam Rose<Slater-Gator<The Bunny.


HEY DUMBF*CKS! Why are you COMPLAINING about people OVERPAYING for your product?!

BELLAS SEGMENT- Nikki cut a good heel promo, making crazy excuses for her losses. This angle needs to progress soon, though, and the way that it needs to happen is Nikki giving Brie a sucker-headbutt (Angle vs. Joe-style) with that spiky baseball cap on.
Brie says that Nikki is always the one insulting her, but those clips from Total Divas that Nikki played a few weeks ago really made it seem like the opposite is true, and Brie has never come up with any evidence to refute it.
They argue over who should get the Bella name. I understand that it means a lot to both of them, but the rest of us don’t give a sh*t because there is no prestige attached to it at all. Matt and Jeff wrestling for the Hardy name would be a big deal. Nikki and Brie wrestling for the Bella name is not.
Nikki insults Daniel Bryan, and this is finally what causes Brie to snap, slap her, and try or the Yes Lock. I actually really liked this. We see this sort of thing often enough, but I thought it was cool to do it with the gender roles reversed. It also keeps Bryan relevant to the product.

Then AJ came out, and apparently she has a match with Nikki. This came across really weird, but I acutally liked the way Cole explained it. AJ is off in her own little world. She doesn’t care about whatever issues the Bellas are having. She’ll just happily skip along by.

AJ LEE vs. NIKKI BELLA- 3/10
Oh my G-d. That… butt press?.. I don’t even know what to call it that Nikki did in the ropes. SO bad.
Nikki taps, because it’s not like we’d want to save that for Brie or anything.

JOHN CENA vs. RANDY ORTON (w/Seth Rollins & Kane)- 6.75/10
Another DQ, and we all knew it was coming. They try to cub-stomp Cen through cinderblocks but…WHAT THE F*CK?!
Dean Ambrose now has powers of teleportation, but not “turn the lights out” powers. He just made a seemingly impossible escape and turned up in place he shouldn’t possibly be, like he’s f*cking Houdini or something.
Ambrose takes it to the heels. Babyfaces stand tall in the end, but Rollins escapes.

A decent Raw.

[NWK2000]

1. From what I've seen, Summer is one of the top heels as far as Total Divas cast members, hopefully now that she's saddled away from Fandango, she'll be able to let her true talent as a heel shine through.
2. Why are you complaining about people overpaying for your product? I didn't see it as a complaint, I saw it as "Hey, there's a way more cost effective way for you to do this as a consumer" which is true. I've always said that if you're paying 50 bucks for WWE PPVs at this point you're a moron.

[Big Red Machine]

1. From what I've seen, Summer is one of the top heels as far as Total Divas cast members, hopefully now that she's saddled away from Fandango, she'll be able to let her true talent as a heel shine through.
2. Why are you complaining about people overpaying for your product? I didn't see it as a complaint, I saw it as "Hey, there's a way more cost effective way for you to do this as a consumer" which is true. I've always said that if you're paying 50 bucks for WWE PPVs at this point you're a moron.

1. Yes, but not with this faux Lay-cool gimmick. She's a great promo, but her real strength is in her facial expressions. They need to put her in situations where they can take advantage of that. Backstage segments where she can be mean and catty.
2. I agree that anyone paying full price right now is a moron. But if someone is insisting on pay full price, WWE shouldn't be making a stink about it.

[cero2k]

I've always said that if you're paying 50 bucks for WWE PPVs at this point you're a moron.

it's true. it's just not WWE's place to be calling that out..

I actually took the time and watched this raw (i was sick and didn't feel like doing anything anyway), but it was a bit of a waste of time. It was ALL repeat matches from either Night of Champions or past feuds. No Heyman, No Wyatts, a Bunny that has been training with Justin Gabriel. Most enjoyable thing was watching Mizdow copy everything Miz does but outside the ring and without an opponent. that man is still a genius