BRM Reviews the 9/8/2014 Raw (awesome)

[Big Red Machine]

STEEL CAGE MATCH: Chris Jericho vs. Bray Wyatt (w/the Wyatt Family)- 8/10
Jerry Lawler became the frontrunner for the Overstatement of the Year award when he described the feud between Chris Jericho and Bray Wyatt as “the stuff of legend.”
See… here’s the problem with giving people magical powers of teleportation: If Bray wants to win this match, why doesn’t he just teleport to the outside? Or if his goal is to hurt Jericho, why do Harper and Rowan not just teleport inside?
This was an awesome match. That shrug before the dive… THAT is what sets the greats apart from the rest. And that finish… THAT is the sort of finish that more cage matches should have.
The Wyatts assault Jericho after the match because they’re heels and they do stuff like that.

THE AUTHORITY BACKSTAGE- decent.

ZIGGLER HAS SCANDALOUS PHOTOS OF MIZ- a good job playing into a news story.
The pictures are real. JBL wondered who was taking the photos, which was a very smart question. I assumed it was Sandow, but that theory was shot down when Sandow was in the last picture with Miz. Sandow and Miz were unhappy about this invasion of privacy. Sandow tried to attack Miz, but got punked out. This was a fun segment.


They showed a Tweet from Pete Rose about Jerry Springer’s appearance on Raw. He advised Jerry to “enjoy the Bella twins, but stay clear of Kane.” LOVED IT!

AJ LEE & PAIGE vs. ROSA MENDES & NATALYA- 1/10
Nattie and Paige started off. When Rosa got tagged in, the first thing Paige did was slap her in the face. Hard. After last week, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing that. AJ tags herself in VERY hard, then makes Rosa tap. Then we got more of this AJ-Paige weirdness. At the end of this, a contingent in the first row started to loudly chant for AJ, which put a HUGE smile on AJ’s face. She then skipped off happily.

ORTON ASSAULTS JERICHO IN THE TRAINER’S ROOM- good

PAUL HEYMAN & JOHN CENA SEGMENT- AMAZING!
Next week on Raw, we’ll get either Cena fighting Brock or Cena kicking Heyman’s ass.

SETH ROLLINS vs. SHEAMUS- 6.5/10
Sheamus a lot of running knees, which I don’t remember seeing him do before. Cesaro distracts Sheamus by grabbing the US Title belt. Sheamus didn’t take the Curb Stomp well, so it didn’t look good. After the match, Cesaro taunted Sheamus by doing his pose and yelling “fella,” then hit him the Neutralizer.

LANA & RUSEV STUFF- eh.
When Wresltemania comes around, they need to bring Nikolai Volkoff out to sing the Russian national anthem.

NXT TAKEOVER II PLUG- it’s good that they did it, but it should have been better. They should have hyped up the NXT Title match more, and also the Women’s Title match (or at least hyped up Charlotte). KENTA looked cool, though.


SAMI ZAYN & ADRIAN NEVILLE vs. TYLER BREEZE & TYSON KIDD- no rating. PERFECT segment.
I’m marking out like a three year old in Disney Land. They wrestled an awesome five minute match. Everyone was allowed to look good. I guarantee that this got a bunch of people to check out NXT who wouldn’t have otherwise done so.


JERRY SPRINGER SEGMENT-
Wow. That dress made Nikki Bella six times as hot as usual. And they even let Brie act like a real person for most of it!
I actually thought this was really good, so I will give WWE a hand here and help them explain away this seeming violation of kayfabe. We’ll say that their actual, legal last name is Garcia, but they have gone through life Nikki and Brie Bella because Bella is their mother’s last name, and they feel closer to her because she raised them.
G-D F*CKING DAMMIT! I was trying to be nice! I really was! I was even going to complement them on how they used clips from past seasons of Total Divas as well as what I assume are clips from this season to make it look like this really was something that had been building up for a long time… and then they have to just sh*t on kayfae for no reason! GAAAAHHHHH!
They had three choices here:
1. Kayfabe one parent’s last name to Bella
2. Just don’t show the parents’ last names at all. (It’s not like it is relevant. All they need to tell us is that this is their mom and this is their dad.)
3. Break kayfabe for no reason and no gain.
WHY THE F*CK WOULD YOU CHOOSE #3?!
Wait… WHAT?! So they don’t bother kayfabing the parents’ last names, but they do kayfabe the brother’s last name?! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
And now the graphic doesn’t kayfabe his name?!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Okay. At this point, the only possible explanation is that they are doing this intentionally to f*ck with me personally.

USOS PROMO- decent. I’m just glad they’re still selling that injury instead of wrestling on this show.

LOS MATADORES vs. GOLDUST & STARDUST- 2.5/10
Good for the time it got and what it was supposed to be. Cody’s new finisher is a cool new variation on the Reverse STO.
After the match, the very angry Usos attacked Goldust and Stardust from behind, but the heels ran away. I actually liked this because it let the heels run away without looking week, allow Jey to not really fight on his injured foot, but still look strong for coming out, but vulnerable for selling the injury while doing it. The pre-match promo did a good job setting up the Usos would be angry enough to attack from behind.

JOAN RIVERS TRIBUTE- great.

ADAM ROSE (w/the Exotic Express) vs. TITUS O’NEIL (w/Heath Slater)- no rating. Good segment.
I am liking that Titus is actually looking strong in these defeat. The Bunny has a pretty good Superkick. Then they hurt it by having Adam Rose be a dick and have the Bunny give Titus a Frog (Bunny?) Splash for no reason.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS ROMAN REIGNS- good

ROMAN REIGNS vs. RANDY ORTON- 7.25/10
So these guy were having a great match and then Kane and Rollins ran in for the DQ, flanked by an army of people who I assume are backstage workers, began to go under the ring and assemble some sort of contraption… which turned out to be whatever they use to hold the cage in place. The “cage is lowering” music played, which means that either the sound guy has no idea when such things are in appropriate, or the top of the cage is attached to a string which is attached to an audio cassette player, and when the cage lovers, the string pulls something, which turns on the cassette player and that is how the music is play.
The heels were apparently planning on trapping Reigns in the cage and kicking his ass, but Reigns threw Kane and Rollins out before the thing finished closing. Rollins tried to get in there with a chair and almost got in stabbed in the head by one of the pikes that hold the cage in place.
Reigns kicked Randy’s ass, but Kane and Rollins managed to work their way into the cage (Kane distracted Reigns at the door, allowing Rollins to scale the cage and hit Reigns with a flying crossbody off the top of the cage. Then Reigns got his ass kicked. First he ate a chokeslam, then Orton hit him with a chair a million times, then Rollins hit him with a HUGE curb stomp into a chair! This whole thing was extremely exciting. A fantastic angle.

An awesome Raw. A GREAT bounce-back from last week’s pile of crap.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. JBL (about cage match)- “The only thing that limits you in a match like this is your imagination.”
And… you know… the walls of the cage.

[cero2k]

we almost saw a man die tonight

[WrestlingJoker]

we almost saw a man die tonight

Holy shit...