BRM Reviews the 7/27/2015 Raw (infuriating)

[Big Red Machine]

THE AUTHORITY MAKE A BUNCH OF MATCHES FOR TONIGHT-
Big Show vs. Dean Ambrose
Paige vs. Sasha Banks
Kevin Owens vs. Randy Orton
Fox & Nikki vs. Becky & Charlotte

All of those (aside from the last one) could be fine PPV matches with build. Especially Owens vs. Orton. HOW THE F*CK DO YOU NOT SAVE THAT FOR PPV?

Rollins cut an okay promo but was interrupted by Cena. Cena came off terribly here. Rollins says he’s the best ever. So what? EVERYONE says that. And yet here Cena is coming out like this is somehow the ultimate disrespect to everyone else who has ever held the belt.
Cena wants a title match against Rollins tonight. Rollins says no but Steph interrupts him and says she should ask the people. Turns out she’s just trolling. She says Cena has to earn his title shot. Has she not been paying attention to all of Cena’s wins since Summer Slam? Anyway, Hunter books Rollins vs. Cena for the US Title, so I guess Cena is going over clean to set up the WWE Title match at Summer Slam. Everyone have their complaining hats on? Okay, good.

Apparently Big Show tried to chokeslam Dean through the announce table two weeks ago on Smackdown but Dean reversed it into a DDT. HOW THE F*CK WAS THIS NOT MENTIONED ON RAW LAST WEEK?! Is there NO CONTINUITY BETWEEN THESE SHOWS AT ALL?!

DEAN AMBROSE vs. BIG SHOW- DUD!
So Big Show has Dean in a submission… and Dean gets out of it by UNTYING BIG SHOW’S SHOES, which I guess automatically compels Big Show to disengage the submission so that he can re-tie his shoes. SOOOOOO DUMB!
So not only did Dean basically get squashed, but they managed to do so in a way that needlessly killed Big Show’s chokeslam… but Big Show needs to win by count-out because Dean might have gotten totally destroyed in this match, but for God’s sake we need to protect him. This SUCKED!
POST-MATCH- EVEN DUMBER! Dean avoids a spear and Show goes through the barricade so he looks like an idiot, too.



ADAM ROSE vs. ADRIAN NEVILLE- 0.5/10
No Rosa at ringside. This wasn’t even commented on. The match was extremely short.

STARDUST PROMO- bad.
Instead of talking total non-sense, he is now talking in cryptic abstract terms, but with a goofy delivery. He’s basically comedy Bray Wyatt.

Wow. They’re being REALLY liberal with this “first time ever” stuff. It might technically be the first time most of these matches (like Matadores vs. Lucha Dragons) have happened on Raw, but I’m sure they’ve happened at least a few times on Main Event or Superstars (though I guess that means it will be the first time that anyone will actually watch them- ZING! But seriously, those shows have been made completely worthless). I think the most ridiculous of all, though, was “Rollins vs. Cena first time ever for the United States Title” as if this match will be any different than the bunch of matches they had while feuding last fall.

BABYFACE DIVAS BACKSTAGE- f*cking terrible. Just pointless talking with unbearable dialogue. I hate this show right now.
Am I the only one who thought Paige’s whole “Look. Everyone on Facebook and Twitter is saying that they love us” speech came off as insecure and obnoxious?
Stephanie’s involvement has just ruined everything about this whole deal for me (aside from the in-ring parts). Even just hearing them say the phrase “Divas Revolution” makes me want to scream because it’s the sort of bullsh*t corporate title that they give things like this because they think it sounds cooler.

SASHA BANKS VIDEO PACKAGE- they actually interrupted Sasha’s entrance to play this (after the bayface were already in the ring, too), which makes no sense. Why not play at a totally different time during the show.

PAIGE (w/Becky Lynch & Charlotte) vs. SASHA BANKS (w/Tamina & Naomi)- 5.75/10
In the backstage segment that happened right before the commercial break, the babyface divas were all wearing their own t-shirts, but now that they’re in front of the crowd, they are all wearing PAIGE’s t-shirt, because these two new girls are just Paige’s sidekicks. And Paige herself is so important that she doesn’t get her entrance shown.
I don’t know what the technical term for Sasha’s piece of hand-bling is, but she needs to use it as a foreign object a la William Regal. That would be SOOOO awesome.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS SETH ROLLINS- Good promo.
We are an hour and fifteen minutes into the show and this was the first thing that didn’t suck.

ARNOLD AS THE TERMINATOR WILL BE A PLAYABLE CHARACTER IN THE NEW WWE 2K GAME- that is so horribly stupid. What’s next? WWE vs. Capcom?
(My brother’s joke, which is much funnier than mine, was that Arnold’s mission is to go back in time and terminate Hogan’s contract).
RUSEV & SUMMER RAE SEGMENT- In case you didn’t know Rusev as the heel, they had him all but say that women belong in the kitchen. But other than that, this was good. That whole “Dog Ziggler” bit was fantastic.
Ah. And here is Lana coming out and reminding us all that it’s the twenty-first century and women don’t have to “just obey.” Summer is a f*cking awesome heel. And then Lana just takes away all of their heat. Well… that was counter-productive. Summer and Rusev were both awesome, though.

LUCHA DRAGONS vs. LOS MATADORES (w/El Torito)- 6/10
Cole tells us that these two teams “are jockeying for position in title contention” or something like that. Lucha Dragons haven’t won a match on Raw in almost a month while Los Matadores pinned the tag champs last week. How the f*ck is it even a question which of these teams deserves a title shot?! Titus O’Neil seems to be thinking on a slightly similar wavelength. Unfortunately he also accidentally said “professional wrestling,” so it’s possible that PTP’s push might end.
Lucha Dragons win a fun match when New Day comes out to distract PTP on commentary. Because why have a feud that actually gets built up when you can just have some teams constantly trade wins for weeks and then throw them all together in a clusterf*ck. Because that worked so well at Survivor Series. Or Elimination Chamber. Or WrestleMania.

Why do they keep promoting this big “reveal” that the guy in the hoodie was Luke Harper rather than just promoting the fact that Harper attacked Ambrose.

BRAY WYATT & LUKE HARPER SEGMENT- great
Bray at least tries to justify letting Harper and Rowan leave the stable. GREAT promo by Bray.
Harper was good, but I laughed my ass off when he blatantly stole Michael Elgin’s “when you pray for the rain, you’d better be prepared to deal with the mud” line from ROH TV last year that I was the only person on the entirety of God’s green internet who liked.

BECKY LYNCH & CHARLOTTE (w/Paige) vs. ALICIA FOX & NIKKI BELLA (w/Brie Bella)- 4.25/10
They enter to Charlotte’s music. Why not let them do separate entrances so Becky actually gets her music played?
F*cking idiot Byron Saxton decides to talk about Becky’s past careers as a flight attendant and a clown, because I guess he wants to bury her.
They NEED to think of a better name for Becky’s finisher than the “disarmer.”

KEVIN OWENS vs. RANDY ORTON- 6/10
Sheamus is on commentary so we already know we’ll be getting a f*ck finish. No need to get excited anymore. Maybe that’s why they’ve barely been promoting this match. Of course, they could have just had him jump Orton right at the beginning and do the same thing they did for the finish, but instead they decided to waste a HUGE first-time-ever match. Good job, WWE.
Based on the commentary, Orton and Sheamus appear to be feuding over which of them is “entertaining.” Why can’t it just be about wanting to win wrestling matches?

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS JOHN CENA- good

WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: John Cena(c) vs. Seth Rollins- 7.5/10
Look… I hate it as much as you, but this was the right finish for the match they want to set up.

One thing that NEEDS to stop is WWE either sticking someone on commentary or showing us someone watching backstage just to remind us there is a feud going on. Let the announcers do that.

A BAD show from WWE, even with one or two great segments and the great main event. So much about this company can just be SOOOO infuriating, and for whatever reason it just came out of me tonight.

[cero2k]

ADAM ROSE vs. ADRIAN NEVILLE- 0.5/10
No Rosa at ringside. This wasn’t even commented on. The match was extremely short.

it was Fandango. Adam Rose for what I understand and rumored, has been nixed and the poacher will be the Wyatt's third man.

This show was also terrible for me. I started watching it this morning and half way through the Cena promo i got super annoyed of what a crap copy they're doing of ROH's Lethal vs Briscoe feud, so at that point i decided to read your review and see what was worth checking out, i tried that divas promo and Paige again annoyed the fuck out of me, so i just turned the video off. I guess i'll work this morning.

[Big Red Machine]

ADAM ROSE vs. ADRIAN NEVILLE- 0.5/10
No Rosa at ringside. This wasn’t even commented on. The match was extremely short.

it was Fandango.

Well. That explains that, then.

Adam Rose for what I understand and rumored, has been nixed and the poacher will be the Wyatt's third man.

I, too, have heard this. It will be better than Adam Rose, that's for sure.

I guess i'll work this morning.

You picked a good morning for it. The G1 show has been very eh. I'm just about to start the main event (haven't seen the pre-lims, yet, but I can't imagine that they'll change my view of it).

[Serujuunin]

No Roman Reigns. Sadface Seru.