BRM Reviews the 8/10/2015 Raw
Posted: Aug 10th, '15, 22:04
OPENING SEGMENT- Rollins was good until the segment started dragging on, so I drifted off into a dream sequence where Rollins said he’d do another open challenge for the title this week and Daniel Bryan made his triumphant return and came out and beat Rollins for the title.
I was pleasantly awoken by Cesaro’s music. Then Kevin Owens also came out. They cut promos and then Orton showed up and I got bored and drifted into a nightmare sequence where Teddy Long showed up and made a tag team match, playa! Instead, Triple H came out and reveals that he has stolen a page from Delirious’ lazy booking book by making a triple threat match for a title shot later tonight.
TEAM B.A.D. INSET PROMO- horribly scripted. I’m not sure why they constantly felt the need to talk about the Bellas and the Kardashians, but whatever it is, I’m certain it wasn’t worth it.
TEAM BELLA vs. TEAM B.A.D.- 5/10
Paige, Charlotte, and Becky were all on commentary lest we forget that they are part of this feud. The announcers proceeded to all but ignore the match so that JBL and Cole could talk to the three women at ringside.
I know that this is really just one of those “unfortunate implications” situations, but in response to a question as to whether she was a better athlete than Naomi, Charlotte responded by saying that she knew she was “genetically superior.” So basically, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, perfectly Aryan-looking girl just said she was “genetically superior” to the black girl.
It’s a dumb catchphrase in the first place, even without the uncomfortable associations. Why do they insist on using it?
I really didn’t like the way they plugged Becky’s NXT Title #1 contendership match this week. If she’s on the main roster, she should be “above” a #1 contendership match for the developmental title. With Sasha and Owens it’s fine because they came up to the main roster as the champion, but for someone who had Steph come out and say “this is Becky Lynch. She is going to revolutionize women’s wrestling on the main roster” it feels like a step down.
The match was fine. The Bellas are usually heels, but they set this up for Brie to be the babyface because it’s her husband’s home market. The roll-up at the end looked like it was going to be really ugly but Brie managed to position herself on top of Tamina in such a way as to make it look good by the end.
We had an entirely pointless post-match schmoz which somehow devolved from a schmoz to a tense but non-violent staredown. That was really dumb.
LOS MATADORES (w/El Torito) vs. THE NEW DAY (w/Xavier Woods)- 4/10
I think I’m hearing “NEW DAY ROCKS!” chants. That’s not good.
Michael Cole noted that The New Day lost to PTP and Mark Henry in a trios match recently, but said that The New Day claim that it shouldn’t matter to their title pursuit because Mark got the pin and not Darren or Titus. This infuriated simply because it shows that WWE does indeed know some tenants of good, logical booking- they just don’t use them because they’re f*cking lazy.
They showed us PTP watching the match backstage. Darren was taking notes. He was also wearing a Seahawks hat for the cheap pop, despite the fact that he is from New Jersey.
RENEE INTERVIEWS THE NEW DAY- it is announced that PTP will defend against Both The New Day and Lost Matadores and Lucha Dragons. Because why build up a match and try to make people care about it when you can just lazily throw teams together and call it a title match?
ROLLINS AND TRIPLE H BACKSTAGE- Rollins has to give Hunter a pep talk because I guess Triple H is a babyface now?
WOW! Apparently something important happened on Smackdown! If only that would happen more than once every few months, someone might actually watch that show. (Said important thing is Bray accepting Roman’s challenge for a tag match at Summer Slam).
WINNER GETS A WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE SHOT LATER TONIGHT: Kevin Owens vs. Randy Orton vs. Cesaro- 8.5/10
Awesome match, and thankfully they protected Owens on the finish.
DEAN AMBROSE & ROMAN REIGNS PROMO- Bad
Dean Ambrose endorsed car theft as a fun activity for children to engage in. If there are any children reading this: DO NO STEAL CARS! Or anything else. And that goes for you, too, adults.
The rest of the promo was lame.
BROCK-TAKER VIDEO PACKAGE- eh. It definitely didn’t make me want to watch the Network special.
LUKE HARPER (w/Bray Wyatt) vs. DEAN AMBROSE (w/Roman Reigns)- 6.5/10
Roman got his own entrance, even though he is just Dean’s second. That annoyed me.
The whole “sit down, Byron!” thing made me laugh. What an idiot! Just grab another chair and sit down so that the paying customers can see the match!
The match was fine, but I thought it would have been a much more interesting finish to do that spot towards the end where Roman got his hands on Bray and have Harper try to pull Roman off, but have Roman slug Harper, resulting in Dean getting DQed. This way you could have Dean be pissed at Roman for costing him the match and play up the whole “Dean is a loner” thing to set up some dissension between the babyfaces going in to Summer Slam.
MIZ TV WITH SPECIAL GUEST DANIEL BRYAN- really fantastic until Big Show and Ryback showed it. It just made Bryan’s presence feel like a waste. Don’t get me wrong: it was fine build to the IC Title shot. It just felt like a HUGE waste of Daniel Bryan.
CHARLOTTE VIDEO PACKAGE- yup. WWE is REALLY swinging from Ronda Rousey’s ovaries. Paige says she wants to main event WrestleMania. Yeah… I don’t see that happening.
We’ve got a three-team elimination match announced for Summer Slam. Of course, the odds that the match will actually end this feud or even mean anything to it are miniscule, so who cares.
MARK HENRY vs. RUSEV (w/Summer Rae)- no rating. Decent segment.
I laughed my ass off at JBL trolling Lana: “I just noticed: you look a lot like Summer Rae. Are you trying to copy her or something?”
Lana was on commentary and told us that Dolph would be back after Summer Slam. The match quickly went to a double DQ when Lana and Summer fought in the ring. Summer kicked Lana’s ass. The Rusev ordered her to “Summer! CRUSH!” and Summer locked Lana in the Accolade and it was great. I just wish they wouldn’t waste Mark Henry like this.
I really hate how the announcers are all jumping on Rusev for this when Lana started it by attacking Summer.
NEVILLE VIDEO PACKAGE- eh.
Wow. If they keep showing us these replays from Smackdown and making it look important, I might actually have to start watching that damn show.
NEVILLE vs. WADE BARRETT- dud!
Barrett got squashed. Remember a few months ago when he won King of the Ring?
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Stardust jumps Neville, then goes over to Arrow and pie-faces him or something. I wasn’t really paying that much attention. This resulted in Arrow jumping the barricade and beating up the trained wrestler. Props to Cole for pointing out that Amell did the wrong thing when he jumped the barricade.
TRIPLE H YELLS AT AMELL- That “Stardust is the one that started it” line was terrible. It made him seem like a whiny child. The rest of this was good, but the end result- we’re getting Stardust & Barrett vs. Stephen Amell & Adrian Neville at Summer Slam- is something I have absolutely no interest in seeing.
JOJO INTERVIEWS SHEAMUS- he all but tells us that he is going to f*ck up the main event. Why do this? Why not take advantage of the concussion rumor and actually give us some hope that we can have a clean finish in the main event?
WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Seth Rollins(c) vs. Randy Orton- 7.25/10
For my thoughts on the finish, see above.
POST-MATCH- Sheamus gives Seth a Brogue Kick and decides that he wants to cash in MITB, so he goes over to the referee and yells at the referee like five times that he wants to cash the briefcase in, but he keeps hold of the briefcase so the referee can’t take it, and thus can’t start the match. What a f*cking idiot.
Of course Orton RKOs him before he can cash in.
A good Raw in the ring, but this show really feels like it is just treading water. At least the interesting parts of it, anyway.
I was pleasantly awoken by Cesaro’s music. Then Kevin Owens also came out. They cut promos and then Orton showed up and I got bored and drifted into a nightmare sequence where Teddy Long showed up and made a tag team match, playa! Instead, Triple H came out and reveals that he has stolen a page from Delirious’ lazy booking book by making a triple threat match for a title shot later tonight.
TEAM B.A.D. INSET PROMO- horribly scripted. I’m not sure why they constantly felt the need to talk about the Bellas and the Kardashians, but whatever it is, I’m certain it wasn’t worth it.
TEAM BELLA vs. TEAM B.A.D.- 5/10
Paige, Charlotte, and Becky were all on commentary lest we forget that they are part of this feud. The announcers proceeded to all but ignore the match so that JBL and Cole could talk to the three women at ringside.
I know that this is really just one of those “unfortunate implications” situations, but in response to a question as to whether she was a better athlete than Naomi, Charlotte responded by saying that she knew she was “genetically superior.” So basically, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, perfectly Aryan-looking girl just said she was “genetically superior” to the black girl.
It’s a dumb catchphrase in the first place, even without the uncomfortable associations. Why do they insist on using it?
I really didn’t like the way they plugged Becky’s NXT Title #1 contendership match this week. If she’s on the main roster, she should be “above” a #1 contendership match for the developmental title. With Sasha and Owens it’s fine because they came up to the main roster as the champion, but for someone who had Steph come out and say “this is Becky Lynch. She is going to revolutionize women’s wrestling on the main roster” it feels like a step down.
The match was fine. The Bellas are usually heels, but they set this up for Brie to be the babyface because it’s her husband’s home market. The roll-up at the end looked like it was going to be really ugly but Brie managed to position herself on top of Tamina in such a way as to make it look good by the end.
We had an entirely pointless post-match schmoz which somehow devolved from a schmoz to a tense but non-violent staredown. That was really dumb.
LOS MATADORES (w/El Torito) vs. THE NEW DAY (w/Xavier Woods)- 4/10
I think I’m hearing “NEW DAY ROCKS!” chants. That’s not good.
Michael Cole noted that The New Day lost to PTP and Mark Henry in a trios match recently, but said that The New Day claim that it shouldn’t matter to their title pursuit because Mark got the pin and not Darren or Titus. This infuriated simply because it shows that WWE does indeed know some tenants of good, logical booking- they just don’t use them because they’re f*cking lazy.
They showed us PTP watching the match backstage. Darren was taking notes. He was also wearing a Seahawks hat for the cheap pop, despite the fact that he is from New Jersey.
RENEE INTERVIEWS THE NEW DAY- it is announced that PTP will defend against Both The New Day and Lost Matadores and Lucha Dragons. Because why build up a match and try to make people care about it when you can just lazily throw teams together and call it a title match?
ROLLINS AND TRIPLE H BACKSTAGE- Rollins has to give Hunter a pep talk because I guess Triple H is a babyface now?
WOW! Apparently something important happened on Smackdown! If only that would happen more than once every few months, someone might actually watch that show. (Said important thing is Bray accepting Roman’s challenge for a tag match at Summer Slam).
WINNER GETS A WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE SHOT LATER TONIGHT: Kevin Owens vs. Randy Orton vs. Cesaro- 8.5/10
Awesome match, and thankfully they protected Owens on the finish.
DEAN AMBROSE & ROMAN REIGNS PROMO- Bad
Dean Ambrose endorsed car theft as a fun activity for children to engage in. If there are any children reading this: DO NO STEAL CARS! Or anything else. And that goes for you, too, adults.
The rest of the promo was lame.
BROCK-TAKER VIDEO PACKAGE- eh. It definitely didn’t make me want to watch the Network special.
LUKE HARPER (w/Bray Wyatt) vs. DEAN AMBROSE (w/Roman Reigns)- 6.5/10
Roman got his own entrance, even though he is just Dean’s second. That annoyed me.
The whole “sit down, Byron!” thing made me laugh. What an idiot! Just grab another chair and sit down so that the paying customers can see the match!
The match was fine, but I thought it would have been a much more interesting finish to do that spot towards the end where Roman got his hands on Bray and have Harper try to pull Roman off, but have Roman slug Harper, resulting in Dean getting DQed. This way you could have Dean be pissed at Roman for costing him the match and play up the whole “Dean is a loner” thing to set up some dissension between the babyfaces going in to Summer Slam.
MIZ TV WITH SPECIAL GUEST DANIEL BRYAN- really fantastic until Big Show and Ryback showed it. It just made Bryan’s presence feel like a waste. Don’t get me wrong: it was fine build to the IC Title shot. It just felt like a HUGE waste of Daniel Bryan.
CHARLOTTE VIDEO PACKAGE- yup. WWE is REALLY swinging from Ronda Rousey’s ovaries. Paige says she wants to main event WrestleMania. Yeah… I don’t see that happening.
We’ve got a three-team elimination match announced for Summer Slam. Of course, the odds that the match will actually end this feud or even mean anything to it are miniscule, so who cares.
MARK HENRY vs. RUSEV (w/Summer Rae)- no rating. Decent segment.
I laughed my ass off at JBL trolling Lana: “I just noticed: you look a lot like Summer Rae. Are you trying to copy her or something?”
Lana was on commentary and told us that Dolph would be back after Summer Slam. The match quickly went to a double DQ when Lana and Summer fought in the ring. Summer kicked Lana’s ass. The Rusev ordered her to “Summer! CRUSH!” and Summer locked Lana in the Accolade and it was great. I just wish they wouldn’t waste Mark Henry like this.
I really hate how the announcers are all jumping on Rusev for this when Lana started it by attacking Summer.
NEVILLE VIDEO PACKAGE- eh.
Wow. If they keep showing us these replays from Smackdown and making it look important, I might actually have to start watching that damn show.
NEVILLE vs. WADE BARRETT- dud!
Barrett got squashed. Remember a few months ago when he won King of the Ring?
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Stardust jumps Neville, then goes over to Arrow and pie-faces him or something. I wasn’t really paying that much attention. This resulted in Arrow jumping the barricade and beating up the trained wrestler. Props to Cole for pointing out that Amell did the wrong thing when he jumped the barricade.
TRIPLE H YELLS AT AMELL- That “Stardust is the one that started it” line was terrible. It made him seem like a whiny child. The rest of this was good, but the end result- we’re getting Stardust & Barrett vs. Stephen Amell & Adrian Neville at Summer Slam- is something I have absolutely no interest in seeing.
JOJO INTERVIEWS SHEAMUS- he all but tells us that he is going to f*ck up the main event. Why do this? Why not take advantage of the concussion rumor and actually give us some hope that we can have a clean finish in the main event?
WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Seth Rollins(c) vs. Randy Orton- 7.25/10
For my thoughts on the finish, see above.
POST-MATCH- Sheamus gives Seth a Brogue Kick and decides that he wants to cash in MITB, so he goes over to the referee and yells at the referee like five times that he wants to cash the briefcase in, but he keeps hold of the briefcase so the referee can’t take it, and thus can’t start the match. What a f*cking idiot.
Of course Orton RKOs him before he can cash in.
A good Raw in the ring, but this show really feels like it is just treading water. At least the interesting parts of it, anyway.