BRM Reviews the 9/29/2014 Raw (terrible)

[Big Red Machine]

Michael Cole informs us that, on Smackdown, Dean Ambrose stole Seth Rollins’ MITB briefcase. G-D DAMN IT! I was going over my ballot for the ¾ of the way through the year awards, and had just decided to give Smackdown the award for Worst Television Show because of how pitifully irrelevant it has become… and then WWE goes and does something important on it!

AUTHORITY PROMO- Steph cut a good promo. Then Hunter said that the MITB briefcase “is a symbol of this business.” I’m not sure why he thinks that, as it doesn’t make any sense to me, and he didn’t bother to explain himself. He said that they wouldn’t let anyone disrespect the business.
Paul Heyman showed up and was great. He wanted to know if Rollins trying to cash in was something he did on his own, or something he did on the Authority’s orders. Rollins came out and said that he did it on his own. Rollins said that “nobody here wants to see John Cena become World Heavyweight Champion again” which got a great reaction. Heyman warns Rollins not to do it again, or else Brock will be angry. Heyman turned to leave, and Triple H took advantage of the fact that Lesnar wasn’t in the building to intimidate Paul a little.
Rollins says that there are “personal items” in the MITB briefcase that he needs returned to him immediately. If he meant the contract, why didn’t he just say so? Does Seth keep his porn in there? And if so, an even better question… why does Seth have physical porn instead of using the internet?

Ambrose shows up on the screen and tells Seth to come get him. It turns out to be a trap, because when Rollins charges up the ramp, Cena charges down the ramp to meet him. Cena gets one good shot in, but Rollins manages to run away.

THE AUTHORITY BACKSTAGE- Hunter order Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury to get the briefcase back. Noble asks if they can have some sledgehammers to help them do it, and for some reason Hunter says no. He then yells at them and tells them “Got get that briefcase back. I don’t care how.” Well if you don’t care how they get the briefcase back, why won’t you let them use sledgehammers?

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: Dolph Ziggler(c) vs. Antonio Cesaro vs. The Miz (w/Damien Miz-dow)- 6.75/10
Great match. I get that they’re trying to build up Ziggler vs. Cesaro for the IC Title, but do they have to have Dolph act like such a heel. So far, he has cheated to win the title. Then retained because the ref didn’t see the other guy on the ropes, and now he not only used Miz’s own submission against him, but also stole a pin.

JAMIE & JOEY LOOK FOR DEAN AMBROSE: PART 1- Khali is a dick to Jamie Noble, then claims he doesn’t know who Ambrose is. It’s going to be a long night of dumb sh*t like this, isn’t it?

WYATTS VIDEO PACKAGE ABOUT LUKE HARPER- hmm… don’t you think they should have done this sort of thing about a year ago?

JOEY & JAMIE REPORT BACK TO THE AUTHORITY- darn. I was right.
They claim to have checked the whole arena. I’m calling bullsh*t. It has only been about half an hour. For some reason, Hunter and Steph did not pick up on this. Instead, Steph noticed that Jamie Noble had some mustard on his face, yelled at them for stopping for a hotdog, and then declared that if they don’t find Ambrose tonight, they’d be fired.

MIZ & MIZ-DOW “DEMAND ACTION” FROM THE AUTHORITY- Miz-dow cut the promo in the first person, as if he was Miz. That made me laugh. Hunter then totally buried them both, and also booked Sandow vs. Sheamus.

LAYLA EL (w/Summer Rae) vs. ROSA MENDES (w/Tyson Kidd & Natalya)- DUD!
So apparently Total Divas is doing an angle where Nattie and TJ are having “marital problems.”
We got “NATTIE’S HUSBAND!” chants, so at least the good people of Chicago are watching NXT.
TJ is playing on his phone. Nattie yells at him for not paying attention to the match. This was all captured right on camera, which means that the cameraman wasn’t paying attention to the match, either. That’s probably for the best, of course, because Rosa Mendes is involved. In fact, I’ll bet anything that playing on his phone was a coping mechanism for TJ, because having to watch Rosa Mendes wrestle on Raw, while he is stuck in NXT might well drive TJ to the point of suicide.
Oh. And whose dumb idea was it to have the heels be the only ones wearing the shirts supporting the fight against breast cancer?

DEAN AMBROSE COMES OUT TO THE RING-
He apparently stole a bunch of merch from the concession stand, and wants to sell it to the fans at discount prices. Of course, the wrestlers make royalties based off of a percentage of their merch income, so what Dean is doing here is cheating some very hard-working wrestlers out of their money. What an asshole!
Joey and Jamie finally show up, and Ambrose says “Uh-oh. They sent the Cruiserweight Division out to get me.” That was funny.
Ambrose gives up the briefcase, but he rigged it to explode with green spraypaint when opened, ruining Seth’s suit and beard. Rollins went nuts. I thought this was all horribly dumb. The crowd was into it, though, so that’s good.

Throughout the show, Cole kept referring to Ambrose’s theft as “pirating.” I assume this was a dig at people who pirate PPVs. And there really is no excuse anymore for people who pirate PPVs. They’re just TEN DOLLARS! (Not saying there was an excuse for it before, but $50 each is a lot more money than $10 each).

Apparently Big Show knocked Rusev out on Smackdown. Do I actually have to start watching Smackdown again?

THE AUTHORITY BACKSTAGE- Hunter books Kane & Orton vs. Ambrose & Cena. Then the briefcase started vibrating, and they implied that maybe Seth had a vibrator in there. Rollins claimed it was an electric razor. Either way, how did it just magically turn on?

MARK HENRY vs. BO DALLAS- HOLY F*CK.
Bo Dallas just beat Mark Henry clean in about two minutes.

MARK HENRY JUMPS BO BACKSTAGE- So is this a heel turn for Mark? Will it even lead to anything?

STARDUST & GOLDUST PROMO- they’re back in the room with the chalkboard, being weird. So they’ve won the tag team titles, but really we’ve gone nowhere.

HANDICAP MATCH: Brie Bella vs. Eva Marie & Cameron- DUD!
Nikki cut a promo setting this up, insulting the fans, Brie, and Bryan. The match was short and boring. Brie wins clean in the handicap match because everyone knows the best thing to do is bury your heels and not allow anyone to get any heat on the babyface at all.

A MATADOR (w/The Other Matador & El Torito) vs. HEATH SLATER (w/Hornswoggle dressed as an alligator and Titus O’neil)- DUD!
Adam Rose was on commentary. As JBL pointed it out, “it’s impossible to take anything you say seriously. You’ve got a bunny on your lap.”
Hornswoggle and Torito had a staredown in the ring, because that’s an angle we really want to repeat. This caused a distraction which allowed Heath to pin the Matador, killing the “loser” part of his loveable loser gimmick. Then the killed the “loveable” part of it as well by having him attack the Matador after the match. They also beat up Hornswoggle. The whole time, Adam Rose was protesting the injustice of this… but he didn’t actually, ya know… GET UP AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, because he is an unlikeable tool.
Oh. Wait. Here we go. He’s finally getting up off his ass to make the save (after Torito has already eaten a big flapjack from Titus and is suffering in a gator roll by Gator-Swoggle. Rose got Titus to charge at him, but low bridged him. Then he and the bunny distracted Slater so that BOTH Matadors could sneak up on him and attack him from behind like yellow-bellied cowards. Only once Slater was down and out did the Bunny hit Heath with a Frog Splash, because he/she/it, too, is a coward.
EVERYONE came out of this segment looking bad.

BIG SHOW & RUSEV SEGMENT- good
Rusev spoke English for the first time. The whole “I will break every bone in your body” line was good, but the “I will bite your ear. I will kick you in your groin” part was dumb. It was also weird that Big Show yelled at them to stop speaking Russian right after Rusev had spoken his first words in English. If I were scripting this segment, I would have had Show interrupt Lana with the “enough. We don’t speak Russian” line, then have Rusev respond by grabbing the mic and speaking English for the first time. Big Show wants to fight, but the heels run away. Big Show gets under their skin by pulling down the Russian flag. Rusev tries to fight him, but gets knocked down. Good build, but they have three more weeks of TV to build this up over, and they’ve already done everything they can.

CENA PROMO- Ambrose shows up. Ambrose’s coments about not letting Cena “take food off of [his] plate” made no sense in this context.

PAIGE PROMO- made no sense. She also has a “new best friend”: Alicia Fox. Oh joy.

AJ LEE vs. ALICIA FOX (w/Paige)- 0.5/10
Paige distracts AJ, allowing Fox to pin her. The heels then beat AJ up after the match. Will this sh*tty AJ vs. Paige feud ever die? And if not, could they at least find someone who hasn’t been in the title picture recently to ply Fox’s role?

SHEAMUS vs. DAMIEN MIZ-DOW- 5.5/10
FINALLY! A babyface wearing the anti-cancer merch.

HULK HOGAN WANTS US ALL TO FIGHT BREAST CANCER- Well if your goal is to raise money for to help fight breast cancer, then you should probably partner with someone who doesn’t spend most of their money on “awareness” campaigns for a disease that everyone already knows about and instead actually gives most of their money to FINDING A CURE FOR THIS HORRIBLE DISEASE.

BEST OF STING DVD COMMERCIAL- GREAT!

KANE & ORTON BACKSTAGE- they don’t like Rollins. Steph yells at them to do what they are told, and also gives them an inspirational speech. Good stuff from Steph.

RANDY ORTON & KANE vs. DEAN AMBROSE & JOHN CENA- 6/10
Oh great. ANOTHER main event DQ with these guys. I did like that they let Ambrse be the one to look strong during the match.

POST-MATCH BRAWL- Cena and Ambrose BOTH get their hands on Rollins… so why should I buy the PPV? The heels then beat them down afterwards. I don’t care anymore.


A terrible Raw.

[cero2k]

as much crap as i give them, i'm surprise at how much heel heat WWE has created around Rollins.

Ambrose hates him
Reigns hates him
Cena hates him
Lesnar and Heyman don't like him because of NoC
Randy and Kane are tired of putting up with his shit

i'd like for seth to become the man that both faces and heels hate alike

Hornswoggle and Torito had a staredown in the ring, because that’s an angle we really want to repeat.

would rather have more WeeLC matches than Usos/Dustbrothers matches

[NWK2000]

To your point about the MITB not being a staple of the business, I'd imagine any prop that is hotly contested for in a match is a staple of the business, like a belt for example, and the MITB is on par with a championship

You know what I don't understand about the Rosa match? Why was Nattie pissed about Tyson not paying attention? It wasn't even a match he had any stake in. It would've been one thing if it was a Nattie match in which Tyson would've had a stake.

You're right on Ambrose and Cena both getting their hands on Rollins, but they didn't get to seriously maim him, which both want to do.

[Big Red Machine]

You know what I don't understand about the Rosa match? Why was Nattie pissed about Tyson not paying attention? It wasn't even a match he had any stake in. It would've been one thing if it was a Nattie match in which Tyson would've had a stake.

Because not paying attention to the match buries the match. Also, because that's the angle that Total Divas wants, so that's the angle that they are putting on Raw.