BRM Reviews the 6/13/2016 Raw (horrible)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 6/13/2016 Raw (horrible)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 14th, '16, 14:45

OPENING SEGMENT- New Day comes out. They waste time first burying Stephen Curry’s new shoes and burying Kofi for wearing them (which probably makes any fans who own them feel bad). Xavier is wearing some sort of… elf shoes. And not like D&D elves. I mean like Keebler elf shoes, with the curled toes. Big E.’s shoes are just plain black and REALLY shiny.
Then Cass and Enzo come out, make a vibrator joke (about the unicorn horns) and talk about how they will be teaming tonight. The top of this show WWE plugged a contract signing and talk show segment. If you’re going to write a segment that presupposes knowledge of a match happening later, why plug that, too? I mean… it’s probably and eight or ten person tag match, and we know that Roman, Seth, Dean, AJ, and Cena aren’t wrestling because they’re in other segments, so this will probably be the main event, right? So many we can plug that at the top of the show, too?
So even though we’ve established that they’re teaming together tonight, Enzo and Cass go out of their way to antagonize New Day. Even worse, the way they did this was by making sex jokes about the f*cking trombone. Then Big E. said they should have a “verbal joust of wits” or something like that and they all started dancing and I was just about ready to turn off the show here. That’s right. They made me want to not watch Enzo and Cass cut promos. That’s how bad this was. Then the Vaudevillains showed up and I shouted “THANK G-D!” That’s right. They made me happy to see the f*cking Vaudevillains.
They said stuff. Aiden English sang. I saw him do this for at least a year on NXT and he never went anywhere. Why are they having him do it on the main roster? Oh. That’s right. Because the Vaudevillains are a one-note joke of a gimmick that has already run its course on the main roster despite having been on the main roster for a little more than two months.
Then Gallows and Anderson showed up and had some not so good dialogue, but they managed to get heat by insulting the local football team. Cass got to do his catchphrase and then his music played so I guess that means that the allotted time for verbal sparring is over. We went to commercial with Cole telling us that the match was next, but before that happened we were “gifted” (and I use that term very loosely) with a shot of our babyfaces all turning towards the hard camera and dancing like idiots, despite the fact that their opponents are just a few feet away. I would have popped so hard if they just rushed the ring and beat all of the babyfaces up.

We got a commercial where they claimed this would be the “greatest Money in the Bank PPV of all time.” Cole also used this line earlier in the show. Yeah. That’s not a promise that is just setting people up for disappointment (especially considering that we’re only five years removed from MITB 2011).

LUKE GALLOWS, KARL ANDERSON, & THE VAUDEVILLAINS vs. ENZO AMORE, COLIN CASSADY, & THE NEW DAY (w/Xavier Woods)- 6.5/10
So we get back from the commercial and the match starts, and Cole wants to get over that all of these teams will be in the tag title match at the PPV, but because of WWE’s dumb way of doing things he is apparently only allowed to do this via conversation with the other announcers. As a result he does this by randomly saying “Byron, all of these men will be involved in the Fatal 4-Way for the tag team titles Sunday,” as if Byron, who works for the company and just sat through the same segment that Michael Cole did, might have somehow forgotten this.
The match was fine. Maybe even better than I’m giving it credit for (like 6.75/10) but these guys put me in a bad mood. Anderson and Gallows pin Kofi with the Magic Killer except that Cole replaced “magic” with a different word I couldn’t hear clearly.

The announcers ignore the match to bring up the idea of Aiden English getting a part in Hamilton because in WWE’s mind, talking about things other than WWE will make them seem more cool. Process that for a second.

They tried to build up tonight’s talk show by showing us a videos of how cool The Shield was… and that’s exactly the problem. The point of this segment should be to build up the Rollins vs. Reigns world title match for the PPV, but in WWE just has to go and put it on Dean’s talk show even though Dean should be completely irrelevant here. All Dean’s presence does is distract from the real issue here… and that’s exactly what WWE wants because they KNOW that no one gives a sh*t about the story they want to tell with heel Seth facing super babyface Roman… and yet they insist on telling that story anyway!
As a result, they do sh*t like this where they are trying to disguise this segment as a Shield reunion in what is basically an attempt to trick us into giving a sh*t about their story. Here’s not one but TWO pieces of free advice for you, WWE (and to anyone out there interested in telling stories to a large audience):
1. If you feel that the most effective way to get people to care about your story is to trick them into it, then you shouldn’t be telling that story.
2. You will never get people to care about your story by trying to trick them into it because once they realize what you’re trying to do (and they inevitably will), they will not only revert to not caring, but they’re going to be angry at you, too.

BOB BACKLUND & DARREN YOUNG BULLSH*T- it’s already 2AM and I have pulled one all-night already this week, so I skipped it.

SHANE & STEPH BACKSTAGE- apparently Shane wasn’t really on vacation last week. It was just Steph telling us he was. He says he had to miss the show for “personal reasons.” You’d think Shane would want to correct this as quickly as possible, like maybe on his social media pages or maybe on the WWE website or the various WWE TV shows at any point during the past week, but apparently he didn’t care enough to do so.
They bicker over control of the shows. Shane says they should each get one but Steph wants both of them. How dare that greedy Stephanie want control of both shows! It’s not like there was a match to see if Shane would get control of one of them and he lost right?
Corporate Kane showed up after having apparently just decided to skip work for a few months. He then says that he should get to run at least one of the shows in order to stop them from fighting. Steph responds by saying “but you’re psychotic” in a tone of voice that makes it clear that only a complete and total moron would think it was a good idea to leave Kane in charge of a TV show.
*searches YouTube and pulls up tons of clips where Steph and Hunter left Kane in charge*

Kane then opened his briefcase and pulled out a resume to hand to Steph. Yes, really. Why would Steph need his resume when the only place Kane has kayfabe worked is for the WWE?! As if this couldn’t get any worse, Kane then handed Shane a “letter of recommendation” from The Undertaker. Yeah. We’re supposed to believe THE UNDERTAKER- you remember him, right? Internationally renowned badass who talks about stealing people’s souls and sh*t like that- took time away from his… training or holding druidic ceremonies or riding his motorcycle around Death Valley or whatever he does all day, in order to write a f*cking letter of recommendation for Kane to get a job that hasn’t really even been announced yet.
Oh. And congrats on that smooth move there, going out of your way to remind people about that Shane vs. Taker match whose stipulations you not only ignored, but have actually made the fact that you are ignoring those stips your big overarching story since the night after that match happened!
I did enjoy Kane’s fire-related wordplay, but that was nowhere near enough to make up for how dumb this was. Also, once again they emphasize that Smackdown will be live but make no mention of the roster split.

ZACK RYDER TALKS TO RANDOM PEOPLE BACKSTAGE- One of the people looks like the result of Darren Young knocking up Mike Tyson. He’s apparently making fun of Sheamus for getting beaten up by Apollo Crews. Sheamus got cut a decent promo. Also, apparently, these two are wrestling tonight. Then Ryder used a “Hey! Look over there” type of distraction and ran away from the bully.

THE SHINING STARS WANT US TO COME TO PUERTO RICO- these right here are the most pointless thing on WWE TV right now, and that says A LOT.

RUSEV JUMPS TITUS O’NEIL FROM BEHIND- a good segment, although I do have to note that super nice guy Titus O’Neil who gets all of these awards for being a great father seems to have absolutely no friends in his place of work. Where is Darren Young? Won’t Jack Swagger return the favor for Titus saving him from Rusev last week?

THEY SHOW US HUNTER’S TWEET CONGRATULATING THE PENGUINS FOR WINNIG THE STANLEY CUP- why do they think we care about this in any way.

AMBROSE ASYLUM WITH SPECAL GUESTS ROMAN REIGNS & DEAN AMBROSE- ATROCIOUS!
Dean says that this match is “two years in the making.” Except that, you know… IT’S ALREADY HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES BETWEEN NOW AND THEN!
When Dean brings Seth out, Michael Cole plugs a picture that Rollins posted to his SnapChat “moments ago.” Why are you checking Seth Rollins’ SnapChat in the middle of the show? How about doing your f*cking job and doing research so that you can talk about things in an informed manner?
Seth and Roman stand there, staring at each other, neither talking nor fighting. Yeah. Because that worked so well two weeks ago. Dean was annoying, trying to bring levity to the big stare-down between the champion and the #1 contender. That’s not something that should EVER happen!
Dean asked Seth how his knee was. This was a stupid question because, as Seth pointed out, this question has been answered many times since he came back, most prolifically on the big WWE Network special they did about it. Dean makes a dumb joke insulting Rollins, and then he and Roman laugh about it together like bunch of assholes.
Dean then turns to Roman (completely turning his back to the man he hates most in the entire world). He asks Roman how New Orleans has been treating him. Being a babyface, Roman is required to say “pretty good,” except that the fans don’t like him, so while he says this, he gets roundly booed.
Seth is in a serious mood, so Dean calls him a “sour puss” and tells him that “we’re having fun,” which was a blatant lie. I was having more fun than this watching most of the matches on Slammiversary, and I thought that was a bad show.
Seth finally gives in and they reminisce about The Shield and how much fun that was. From there he takes the obvious route and says that the most fun he ever had in the ring with them was when he turned on them. They finally started talking about the actual match.
Dean was an obnoxious little sh*t the whole time. Seth and Roman eventually got around to cutting very good promos, but Dean had to f*cking stick his nose in and destroy the tension. They have completely killed his character dead. He used to be a violent badass who never backed down from a fight, no matter the odds or the consequences. Now he’s quirky, funny guy who is more concerned about his bullsh*t “talk show” than anything else.
Dean then teases that he will win MITB and cash in on one of them, which we all know means it won’t happen.
Seth turned to leave, but as soon as Dean turned around, Seth shoved him into Roman and then started to beat him up. Dean made his own comeback. For some reason Roman tried to break it up but Seth attacked him so Dean and Roman teamed up to lay out Seth to ensure that there would be no heat going into this match. Then, for absolutely no reason, Douchebag Dean attacked his best friend and laid him out with his finisher.

AJ STYLES WILL BE ON AUSTIN’S PODCAST NEXT WEEK- I’m not at all excited. The preview itself made this seem like it would be at least partially kayfabe, so you can be certain that they won’t even mention TNA, which is a good chunk of AJ’s career.

STEPH & DEAN BACKSTAGE- she tells him that he will face Chris Jericho in tonight’s main event. Are you kidding me? Now they’ve got TWO people running the show and they still can’t book a f*cking main event until halfway into the show?
And does anyone really care to see Jericho vs. Ambrose yet again? Never mind that they are just coming off of a two month long feud against each other, but WE JUST SAW IT ON SMACKDOWN (and they think the reason no one watches Smackdown is because it isn’t live. I’d LOL but it’s really more sad than funny). It’d also be nice if they could show something resembling creativity and NOT just book the MITB competitors against each other in meaningless matches like they’ve been doing for the past two weeks.
Then they had to end this with them trading stupid insults and comments about there being “hatred running through [Steph’s] veins.”

We learn that it will be Nattie & Becky vs. Charlotte & Dana at Money in the Bank. So Nattie has been screwed out of the title like four times since WrestleMania… and they won’t give her another title shot? Isn’t this the sort of thing Shane should be making sure happens?

PAIGE vs. CHARLOTTE (w/Dana Brooke)- 2.25/10
All the women got their entrances skipped. Yup. It’s definitely a new era for women’s wrestling here in the WWE. And when I say “all of the women” I don’t just mean the competitors (and Dana). Nattie and Becky did, too. They’re out here to do commentary because that’s the only thing that the inappropriately-named “Creative” department knows how to do.
Charlotte and Paige are exchanging strikes in the ring, but the camera keeps cutting to Becky and Nattie. WE KNOW THEY’RE THERE! WE CAN HEAR THEM! LET ME SEE THE F*CKING MATCH!
At one point Nattie asked Becky if she was following her cat on Instagram. IT’S A G-D DAMN F*CKING CAT! IT DOESN’T NEED AN INSTAGRAM BECAUSE IT DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF A PHOTOGRAPH, MUCH LESS THE INTERNET! Stu Hart must be rolling over in his grave hearing his granddaughter talk about pictures of her cat instead of the wrestling match going on in front of her.
They said more cat things. Meanwhile, Paige knocked Charlotte to the outside where our babyfaces proceeded to be assholes and mocked Charlotte. Dana came over to “help” Charlotte by violently throwing her back it the ring like you would do to an opponent. Paige then superkicked her and pinned the champion with the Rampage. Of course, the purpose of this was to create friction between Charlotte and Dana so of course this won’t actually lead to a title match.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS CESARO- Cesaro is facing Sami, so Sami immediately interrupted him like a jerk. Yes, that’s right. They found a way to make Sami Zayn unlikeable. Cesaro calls Sami out for this and Sami gets offended. Cesaro repeats the “whatever you did before you came to WWE doesn’t matter” line that Vince loves so much. They managed to make me unhappy at the announcement that we’re getting Claudio vs. Generico.

GOLDBERG WWE 2K17 COMMERCIAL- so… what, exactly, is going on here? Did he get locked in this shed and called the cops to get him out?

CHARLOTTE AND DANA ARGUE BACKSTAGE- this started off pretty terribly but Charlotte was actually pretty good by the end of it. Dana came across like an abused puppy.

ZACK RYDER vs. SHEAMUS- 2/10
Another match where both entrances were skipped. I hope that segment with Shane, Steph, and Kane was worth it to you.
Sheamus and Crews will face each other on the kick-off show. With this being Crew’s PPV debut and the recent focus on how far down the card Sheamus has slid, there could actually frame this match in an intriguing way by focusing on the idea that Crews is trying to fight his way up the totem pole while Sheamus is trying to prevent himself from sliding any further down it (at which point he wouldn’t even be on PPV at all) but of course WWE will never do that because requires telling a story that says the results of your matches actually effect your position on the card.
The match was very short, but they made certain that each guy got all of his sh*t in. Sheamus won clean with the Brogue Kick.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Sheamus goes to beat Ryder up after the match, too. Apollo Crews makes the save. He’s got new music now that is so much lamer than his old music. Oh. Wait. Now here’s his old music. Maybe someone in the sound truck f*cked up.

CLIPS OF PAST MITB MATCHES- padding.

SHANE, KANE, & OWENS BACKSTAGE- finally something good!
Owens is trying to get Del Rio in trouble for showing up to work late and suggests that he be removed from the MITB match as punishment. Then an angry Del Rio showed up and absolutely FUMED about something Owens had done. Shane finally managed to calm Alberto down and get him to tell us what happened. Apparently Owens called airport security and convinced them that Del Rio was a suspicious individual so Del Rio was delayed for five hours. He was glaring at Owens as he said this and pointing accusatorially… and Owens responds “well with that kind of behavior I’m not surprised they stopped you”… and he said this with a big f*cking grin on his face. It was f*cking awesome! They’re apparently wrestling on Smackdown.
They traded one of two more barbs and it should have ended there, but then they started yelling at each at the same time in their mother tongues until Kane speaks up and thinks that instead of fighting each other, they should team up and face the Lucha Dragons. That suggestion right there? That’s proof that Kane shouldn’t be put in charge of either show. Also, if the Lucha Dragons win, they get Owens and Del Rio’s spots in MITB. Owens points out that Kane has no booking power but Shane is apparently just as dumb as Kane because he thought this was a good idea, too. Cole told us that this match would be taking place later tonight, but I don’t think that either Kane or Shane ever said that.

SAMI ZAYN vs. ANTONIO CESARO- 6.5/10
With my luck so far tonight, this is going to go forty seconds before the Social Outcasts run in and cause a DQ (I REALLY hope I didn’t just jinx this).
Well… there was no run in, but they didn’t give them much more than eight minutes, either.

DEVRY UNIVERSITY PLUGS THE WWE PRODUCTION TRUCKS- hooray for cross-promotion

AJ STYLES & JOHN CENA CONTRACT SIGNING- this company is completely schizophrenic.
Some preliminary thoughts that hit me in the beginning of Cena’s promo:
1. Have they ever promoted a PPV as being “WrestleMania quality” before? I don’t ever remember them hyping a PPV like that.
2. They need to stop it with this “fifteen years” bullsh*t because it simply isn’t true. Not even in kayfabe! If you go back and watch Cena’s main roster debut- which was only about fourteen years ago (even the f*cking t-shirt Cena is wearing says “established 2002” on it!)- Cole and Taz aren’t saying “wow! I’d love to see this John Cena guy face AJ Styles.” They’re saying “I’m pretty sure Kurt Angle is going to destroy this nobody in less than three minutes. Why do they have this allergy to being truthful even when the truth itself sounds impressive? Is it really that much less impress to them to say that this match is twelve years in the making than to say fifteen? WWE seems to have acknowledged that it benefits them to mention a wrestler’s accomplishments in other organizations and now often do so… but they still insist on living in their own fantasy world whenever it suits them.

Well… that was unexpected. More-so the ROH part than the New Japan part, and the PWG part even more-so than the ROH part. Especially because AJ really isn’t identified with PWG very much… which probably has something to do with the fact that he has wrestled a grand total of two matches there since 2006. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t one of those amusing times where WWE tries to show off their knowledge of the indies but only manages to show off their ignorance. They probably think “PWG is an indy that people talk about and AJ was a big name on the indies, so he must be a PWG guy!
It’s also almost amusingly telling that they still won’t mention TNA.

Cena then said that he had won fifteen championships (which means he is only counting world titles), but AJ had won more than fifteen. By my count (and this is being pretty generous with what counts as a “world title, as I am counting PWG, IWA-MS, and even RPW, which only claims to be a regional championship but they’re now well-known enough that I’ll include them), AJ only has ten. Eleven if you want count the ROH Pure Title which Gabe wanted to portray as equal to the world title, but when AJ won it that was clearly not the case. Anyway, the point is that WWE is once again telling an un-truth that will quickly be discovered by anyone whose curiosity is piqued enough by this segment to do a quick Google search on AJ and read his Wikipedia page.
Now Cena is giving Shane credit for bringing AJ in even though he debuted at the Royal Rumble. This was less than six months ago and they already expect us to have forgotten it? Really, WWE? Really?
Cena says that Shane has authorized him to “do this contract signing a little bit differently,” and calls AJ out. What is different about this one was that AJ is being given a choice. He can either sign a contract for a match where The Club is allowed to be at ringside and one for a match where they aren’t. Cena gives AJ the grand speech about how it’s important to answer the question of “what if?” and have a definitive answer with no interference at all… and while Cena is giving this speech, all I can think is “why is he so obsessed with promoting this thing as a dream match and trying to start a dueling chant? Shouldn’t he be angry that AJ sucker-punched him and beat the sh*t out of him?”
So AJ cuts this promo about how if he hadn’t been kept out of WWE he would have been in Cena’s place and would have won all of those world championships… and then Cena interrupted him and buries him for being “entitled” and “whining” “just like every other indy guy” despite the fact that Cena showed him respect… but aren’t the things that AJ is saying pretty much exactly the point that Cena was trying to make? Some people have kept AJ out of WWE for the past fifteen years and over that period of time Cena rose to greatness in WWE while AJ went to other places and won so many titles, and now we finally get to find out who is better? Is Cena really taking this much offense to AJ saying what amounts to “I’m better than you” going into a match to find out who is better?
So Cena gets to cut another promo on AJ about how he needs to prove himself, and AJ eventually signs the contract for the one-on-one match and AJ cut a promo on Cena, ending with “your time is up, my time is now.” Not a good segment, but a both fascinating and scary peak into the mind of WWE.

Also…
SUCK ON THAT, HIPSTERS! PWG ISN’T COOL ANYMORE BECAUSE JOHN CENA MENTIONED IT ON RAW!


IF THE LUCHA DRAGONS WIN, THEY GET OWENS AND DEL RIO’S SPOTS IN MITB- 4.75/10
They told their story well, but that doesn’t change the fact that it made the Lucha Dragons look like such gigantic losers that they can’t even beat two guys who not only aren’t a regular team but also can’t get even get along with each other. Del Rio kicked Owens in the head after the match.

MIZ FACEBOOK PROMO FROM THE SET OF MARINE 5- pointless.

STEPH & OWENS BACKSTAGE- Owens complains that Sami Zayn is on commentary for the main event because apparently Shane said so. Owens says that he wants to be on commentary, too, so Steph says okay. Then Del Rio shows up and accuses Owens of sucking up to Steph. He wants to be on commentary, too, but thankfully Steph says no. Instead, she makes him the special guest timekeeper because that is something that is for some reason necessary. They might as well have run a big message across that screen that said “OUR MAIN EVENT WILL HAVE A F*CK FINISH!”

SHANE & STEPH BACKSTAGE- they bicker. Shane is kind of a hypocrite. Shane now says that Cesaro will be the guest ring announcer. So I guess they both like f*ck finishes, which means that I don’t want to see either of them in charge of either show.
Then Kane shows up and they tell him he won’t get the job. Then they make a joke about that time when Kane TORTURED SHANE MCMAHON BY ELECTROCUTING HIS TESTICLES WITH A CAR BATTERY- because torture is funny. Then they went back to bickering.

CHRIS JERICHO vs. DEAN AMBROSE- 6.75/10
And holy f*ck it was clean, with almost no interaction with the other guys whatsoever. So they set things up perfectly to protect someone on the finish… and then they don’t? Of course we had to have a schmoz after the match when Owens jumped Ambrose from behind and then everyone else got involved. Jericho won the schmoz and climbed to the top and got the briefcase, but we all know by now that that doesn’t mean sh*t in terms of “momentum” because “momentum” going into a match never matters in WWE.

A terrible Raw from WWE. Just terrible. The problems with the booking in this company are staggering, and the fact that they’d rather hide their heads in the sand than deal with them makes me dread this brand split, because it will be just two more hours of the same old sh*t, but I’ll have to watch all of it if I want to see my favorites WWE wrestlers.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
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NWK2000
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/13/2016 Raw (horrible)

Post by NWK2000 » Jun 15th, '16, 08:46

I thought Xavier's shoes were supposed to be Iron Shiek shoes, and I swear one of the commentators made that comparison at Extreme Rules.
NWK Reviews is closed for business for now.

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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/13/2016 Raw (horrible)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 15th, '16, 10:14

NWK2000 wrote:I thought Xavier's shoes were supposed to be Iron Shiek shoes, and I swear one of the commentators made that comparison at Extreme Rules.
It's stupid either way.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/13/2016 Raw (horrible)

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 15th, '16, 17:51

This New Day shit seriously needs to end.

There's SOOOO much better shit available for all three of them, instead of "be as stupid and idiotic as you can, on purpose ."
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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