BRM Reviews the 7/20/2015 Raw (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

UNDERTAKER PROMO- decent. He’s pissed that Brock keeps bringing up breaking The Streak. This was one of those promos that we kind of let Taker get away with just because he’s Taker, even though it feels very early-90’s. He needs to regrow his goatee to stop himself from looking quite so old.

HUNTER & STEPH BACKSTAGE- Hunter says this will be bigger than the first match. A blatant lie.
Hunter & Steph have decided to have this match at Summer Slam. Hunter says he will call Brock and Heyman and tell them not to show up so that Taker and Brock don’t fight before the PPV.

GAH!!!!!!!!! Every time they give Steph credit for saving the Divas Division it makes me want to throw things.

BRIE BELLA (Nikki Bella & Alicia Fox) vs. CHARLOTTE (w/Becky Lynch & Paige)- 6/10
These two wrestled last night. Why aren’t you giving us Becky Lynch?! And to make matters worse, they’ve got all three members of B.A.D. out here just because. If you want these girls to break out, you can’t keep making them part of a crowd. Wait… they’re not out here for no reason. They’re out here to be on commentary. All three of them! TOO MUCH!
And now the WWE cameramen are taking their stupid ideas from the ROH cameraman and filming the people on commentary instead of the action in the ring.
Holy crap that missed plancha spot made Charlotte look like such an idiot. Pile that on top of Brie doing so many babyface spots and I’d almost say someone was trying to put one over on Charlotte.

HUNTER ON THE PHONE WITH HEYMAN- good. They’ve set up the tease that Brock actually will show up.

HUNTER & MIZ- Hunter is a dick and books Miz vs. Big Show.

THE PRIME TIME PLAYERS vs. LOS MATADORES (w/El Torito)- 2.5/10
I had totally forgotten that Los Matadoes existed. They had an eh match and then the New Day came out to distract PTP, causing PTP to lose… and not even by roll-up, either. Titus got pinned after eating a move in like four minutes… and it might well have been one of the first moves he took all match.

MIZ vs. BIG SHOW- DUD!
Short match. Big Show wins with a terrible-looking top rope elbow drop. Big Show cut a heelish promo after the match. He challenged Ryback to a match tomorrow night on Tough Enough. Also, apparently, on Tough Enough, he will be seeing if the male competitor are “Tough Enough” to survive the WMD. I assume that, for the sake of gender equality, all of the female competitors will be eating an axe kick from Sara Del Rey.

HUNTER & STEPH SPOT HEYMAN BACKSTAGE- They started this segment off by having Hunter and Steph commission some art for a poster for Summer Slam, and from across the room, they spotted Heyman. Look… I love that they thought up a reason for Hunter and Steph to be walking around backstage instead of chilling in their office… but if you’re going to go that in depth, you should be asking yourself why there is a camera following them around.
Paul swore that it’s just him here and not Brock but Hunter and Steph don’t trust him.

HUNTER & STEPH ADDRESS THE LOCKER ROOM- they order everyone to help prevent Brock and Taker from fighting. Why don’t they go through this sort of thing to protect EVERY big PPV match?

PAUL HEYMAN PROMO- great. “You can sell your soul to the devil, but your ass belongs to Brock Lesnar!”
Taker showed up to murderize Heyman but Brock just ran down the ramp to make the save. Yes. After all of Hunter’s security arrangements, Brock still just waltzed down to the ring the normal way. They brawled for a few seconds until the locker room emptied out and we got a SUPER-MASSIVE pull apart. The only thing I can think of that comes anywhere close to it is Joe and Morishima from Glory By Honor V: Night 2

We’re back from commercial AND THEY’RE STILL GOING AT IT!

ROLLINS, STEPH, & HUNTER- Rollins asks for permission to cut a promo. Because even the world champion is petrified of accidentally offending Hunter and Stephanie.

BRAY WYATT (& LUKE HARPER) PROMO- decent

LUKE HARPER (w/Bray Wyatt) vs. ROMAN REIGNS (w/Dean Ambrose)- 5.75/10
An okay match that ended in a DQ. The babyfaces got their asses kicked, so at least we got some good heat out of- never mind. Babyfaces made the comeback anyway. I guess this makes some sense if it leads to Bray and Harper getting a third guy next week and beating the babyfaces down and then Sting coming in as rumored the week after that to set up a six-man on PPV.

SETH ROLLINS PROMO- boring. He took WAY too long to get around to ordering Lillian to announce him as the LOSER of last night’s match, but still the champion.

SETH ROLLINS & JOHN CENA SEGMENT- also boring. Cena says Rollins is scared of defending the title, Rollins says Cena’s opponents don’t earn it.

NXT DIVA CALL-UPS COMMERCIAL- a good commercial, but once again, the fact they’re giving Steph the credit is infuriating.

BECKY LYNCH & PAIGE (w/Charlotte) vs. SASHA BANKS & NAOMI (w/Tamina)- 5.75/10
Once again, the new girls come out to the old girls’ music. Fail!
And we’ve got Fox and both Bellas on commentary because I guess we wouldn’t know they are feuding otherwise. You’d think they’d have at least some faith in their announcers.
GRRRRRRRRRR!! GET THE CAMERA OFF THE GUEST COMMENTATORS AND ONTO THE ACTION!
JBL totally flubbed his lines here and mentioned something about a failed WCW attempt to do WWE. Also, Nikki Bella claimed that the women were taking over. Her evidence for this: there were TWO Divas matches on one show. Good job, there Nikki.
They really need to stop talking about this “revolution” of women sports because they sound SO DUMB when they say it. They’re trying to pat themselves on the back for being right with the curve, and to do it they are citing Ronda Rousey (who has been a huge star for over a year and a half at this point), and the victories of the US Women’s National Soccer Team (because women’s soccer wasn’t popular before? It was. Just not in the US… which makes them sound dumb when they’re trying to laud themselves for being so international) and Serena Williams (who has been a huge star for almost TWENTY YEARS… and Women’s tennis has been possible for a long time before that!) Just limit yourselves to talking about the Divas Revolution going on in WWE, okay? Because that’s the only one that doesn’t make you sound like an idiot.

They’re advertising Sasha & Naomi vs. Bellas for Smackdown. Sorry. Not watching. Now if it was Sasha vs. Paige… THAT I would watch.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS LANA- didn’t she claim that Rusev had ordered her to speak with a Russian accent? If so, why is she still using it?
Summer Rae shows up, cosplaying as Lana. She looks atrocious, but Rusev puts over and makes out with her to make Lana jealous. He then told Lana she looked “tired” and walked off laughing as if this was somehow clever or evil. Then Summer slapped Lana, which I think is supposed to get major heat from the women watching because based on my understand of their secret female code of conduct, this totally flies in the face of tradition because it should be Lana slapping Summer because Summer is the one wearing an outfit that Lana has previously worn, thus violating Lana’s claim to it (or however it is that that works).
Lana, the supposed heroine, looked like she was about to break down in tears like a wuss after just one slap and one pathetic insult. This was all terrible. They should have given this time to the main event.

@KendallLee5 on Twitter is thanking Steph for “ushering in the #DivasRevolution.” Kendall… shut the f*ck up!

JOHN CENA, RANDO ORTON, & CESARO vs. KEVIN OWENS, SHEAMUS, & RUSEV (w/Summer Rae)- 6/10
They were having a good match until Sheamus- ONE OF THE HEELS- walked out on his team, putting the BABBYFACES at an advantage. And now Owens and Rusev are arguing and Owens kick Rusev and he walks out. Now the babyfaces are up 3-on-1. HOW THE F*CK DID THIS HELP ANYBODY?! Is it really so difficult to just do a f*cking six man tag team main event with six top stars?! Would another loss have hurt Cesaro or Orton or Sheamus that much that you couldn’t give us a clean finish? Really?
Rusev has no chance of winning, so I now don’t give a sh*t about this match.
And now they’re doing spots specifically to make Rusev look like a babyface. Again. And now Lana comes out to fight with Summer. Good to see that Lana finally found a spine. And of course this leaves Rusev distracted, so he walks into an AA, then a Cesaro Swing, then a catapult by Cesaro into an RKO, which would have been cool if it wasn’t a THREE-ON-ONE BEATDOWN BY THE BABYFACES! Stupid, back-asswards booking.

A bad show aside from the Brock-Taker stuff.