WWE Raw is fresh off this heels of Extreme Rules where we saw many, many mental things occur. Braun Strowman murdered Bobby Lashley, The New Day became 6 time Tag Team Champions, AJ Styles stole the US Title from Ricochet and Brock Lesnar cashed in his Money in the Bank contract to become the first ever 3 time Universal Champion.
Paul Heyman’s Era is upon us in full-force now as he takes up his new role of Executive Director of Raw!
A video of Lesnar cashing in was shown & Paul Heyman did his whole catchphrase thing & Lesnar looked so happy! Heyman told us all that we were all upset because he told the truth. He said “we told you so” about 36,345 times, he also spoke about his new job and announced the competitors for the Cross-Brand All Star Battle Royale for later on and whoever wins will be named Number 1 Contender for the Universal Championship at Summerslam. Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Cesaro, Big E, Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley, Sami Zayn, Randy Orton, Braun Strowman & Rey Mysterio
Heyman then said we were all Brock’s bitches & then they both left.
3.5/5 π – It was pretty good. Pretty intriguing. The crowd response seemed positive.
Ricochet & The Usos vs Robert Roode & The Revival Best of 3 Falls
First fall, as usual, is delivered within 13 seconds. The second comes from a simple FlapJack – the first two falls were a bit simplistic, but the final one was pretty fun! They did their dives and finishes, Ricochet got the win for his team. Then The Club came down & taunted Ricochet so he like.. hit AJ with a sort of Suicide Dive Lou Thesz Press. All the Heels started attacking Ricochet until The Usos helped. They managed to fight off The Club, Revival & Robert Roode, but the Usos got taken out via a Shatter Machine & AJ flipped Ricochet over after a Phenomenal Forearm. He got a Magic Killer too before The Club would Too Sweet over his broken body. Looked pretty sick to be totally real with you.
3/5 π nothing outstanding. Also hating the 2/3 Falls stipulation being so common now all in order to serve the ad breaks.
Viking Raiders vs Jobbers
More Jobbers. Same 5 moves from these big men, Finisher and it’s over.
1/5π Hated this. War Machine were my favourite team to watch before they joined NXT, they literally are what got me to take notice of ROH every week. War Raiders were great in NXT and had absolutely classic performances there, but since joining the Raw Roster months ago, they have done nothing but beat up jobbers every other week. They don’t need it. It doesn’t make them look strong to beat people 4 times smaller than them. It would make them look strong if they beat legitimate teams every week. Hawkins & Ryder, The Usos, AOP, The Ascension – just for the record for a few years now I’ve been dreaming of seeing AOP vs War Machine. It would be one of the best tag matches in WWE history I think, The Ascension would be decent rivals for them too.
Drew McIntyre vs Cedric Alexander
Drew had words with Cedric backstage and he told Alexander he will eviscerate him tonight. But Alexander retorted with something witty.
Really fun match! Alexander got over almost immediately! He got beaten and battered, thrown around, then he got a few nice shots in, he then reversed the Reverse Alabama Slam into a roll up and won! Drew looked shocked, Cedric looked scrappy! This was a cool direction to take this story and I’m all for a Drew vs Cedric program!
4/5π it’s so high because I really enjoyed the direction, it was different to what I had anticipated and that was shocking! WWE is so predictable usually, but this shocked me a little.
Roman Reigns backstage
Roman says he doesn’t care what anyone says, it’s his week. Hobbs and Shaw released, he won the bravery award at the Espys and now he wants to win this Battle Royale tonight.
Samoa Joe vs Finn Balor
These two have had an amazing story in WWE so far. All the way from the Dusty Classic, to Joe turning Heel on Balor and taking the NXT Championship – all the way up to now.
Joe won via a roll up, then continued to beat on Finn, but Balor got the upper hand and hit a Coup De Gras on him. Then the music stopped slowly, the lights all flickered and flashed until they turned off completely, when they started flashing again, BRAY FRICKING WYATT was in the ring with Balor in a Sister Abigail position but Bray was in FULL Fiend gear! He looked incredible, the crowd started a “Holy Shit” chant and we realised very quickly that The Fiend will terrorise the WWE for years to come. Absolute entertainment gold right there!
6/5 π – Just. GO. Watch. It. Now! Let him in.
24/7 Shenanigans
Drake Maverick and his wife check into a hotel under Mr & Mrs 24/7 to go consummate their marriage.. R Truth followed them and is currently searching for them under the name ‘Hornswoggle’ after bribing the receptionist. I love R-Truth. This whole 24/7 thing is excellent.
5/5 π
Backstage
Street Profits were watching Truth backstage too. Now they are asking eachother all about the Women’s Number 1 Contender Fatal 4 Way coming up where we established that Angelo Dawkins has a crush on Nikki Cross, who isn’t in the match, but will be at ringside for Alexa Bliss vs Carmella vs Naomi vs Natalya. These two are great, they also picked Big E or Seth Rollins to win their match too, but I feel that I want to see them wrestle more than I want to see them mess around backstage. They’re entertaining as hell, but I want to see them face off against the likes of The New Day & The Usos, Heavy Machinery too!
3/5 π
Zack Ryder vs Mike Kanellis
This whole Maria and Mike thing is weird. I’ve been a fan of theirs for a long time now and it sucks that this storyline is happening.. I think. Unless it’s a play and they have a super secret ultimate end game as the conniving, conspiring crooks that we all loved outside of WWE, I just hope this goes somewhere. So, what happened here is that Maria shows up and talks down to Mike again.. she verbally assaults him, she says that she wants to face Zack Ryder instead and goes out to the ring. Mike goes to get her, and takes the match back.. he loses in 5 seconds. Maria says HER unborn baby had a better chance of beating Zack Ryder than he did. – No idea where this is going.. I love them so much, but i think I hate this story. It isn’t them. They were never ever like that, they always seemed so unbreakable and it hurts to see them like this. But.. is that simply a mark of great storytelling though? Hmm.. I don’t know!
2/5 π – not giving it a 0 or a 1 yet because I kinda sorta feel that they may have an ulterior motive.. It’s Mike & Maria for crying out loud.
Lucha House Party vs The Club
Loved it. Loved it. Loved it! The star was great, because it led into Gallows being shown as a beast & LHP were actually doing well against them! Ricochet came out of the crowd and attacked Styles, causing a mass brawl amongst the participants of the match. We got it restarted after their precious ad break though. This was a mix of my two favourite styles of Wrestling. Lucha Libre & Japanese Strong Style, it was hard hitting and flowed like a silk sheet in a heavy breeze. This was a lengthy match, Kalisto got a bloody wicked Hot Tag sequence too! Took everyone out! But after a Boot of Doom, Styles got the Calf Crusher in and got the win after a second or two but he wouldn’t let it go after the bell! This AJ Styles is a dangerous one. I love it.
5/5π
Seth Rollins backstage
He has an interview where he says he will win the match later. He says he’s hurt, but he’s a man possessed and says he will fight anyone who stands in his way back to the Universal Title.
Alexa Bliss w/Nikki Cross vs Naomi vs Carmella vs Natalya
Number 1 Contender’s Match. They got “This is Awful” chants. It wasn’t awful, but it was poorly thought out, poorly placed on the card & poorly timed, but it wasn’t as bad as the people there were making out in my opinion. Natalya and Bliss were the final two and that just did not work, the crowd booed and then, to make things worse, Nikki Cross got on the mic and told the crowd to start cheering for Bliss.. which was just a cringe move. She got booed, obviously. Alexa then got “you suck” chants. Oh.. what a car wreck this was towards the end. Not the wrestlers’ fault. “Let’s go Cena! CM Punk!” chants broke out soon after this.. Natalya won and will face Becky Lynch at Summerslam.. she got booed, which I’m sure was not the response they were going for. But then Becky got on the microphone after and turned the crowd right around. She got in Nattie’s face and told her she isn’t her friend when it comes to her championship, she said Nattie better bring her best because her career is lacking and she will wipe the floor with her at Summerslam, in her home country of Canada! Nattie says shes gonna pull the horseshoe out of Becky’s ass and beat the living hell out of her.. I liked this. It could go somewhere. Disliked the match. But liked the story advancement.
Match – 1/5π
Promo – 3.5/5 π – I think it could be something cool if executed in a shoot style.
Miz TV
Dolph Ziggler is on as a guest.. for some reason.. Ziggler requested to be on Miz TV to ask Miz if it was worth kissing all that ass to not even get booked on Extreme Rules, Dolph said Miz is a walking gimmick, he said Miz doesn’t care about anything but fortune and fame, he doesn’t want to be the best anymore, he’s just happy to be there. He then said Maryse is like that too and got a smack in the mouth for it. Looks like Miz vs Ziggler is the feud going into Summerslam then. I’m okay with that.
3/5 π
Drake Maverick is about to consummate his marriage.. on camera it appears.. but just as he gets in his Birthday suit and was only wearing his 24/7 Championship, his wife came to the bed, there was a knock at the door. In came the champagne.. BUT.. it was a referee serving it! Truth popped up from the serving table and rolled Drake up for a 2, then cross-bodied him onto the bed and pinned him. Your winner, and NEW WWE 24/7 Champion, R-Truth! I think this is his 8th or 9th reign now too!
5/5π
10 Man All-Star Cross-Branded Battle Royale To Determine A Number One Contender To Brock Lesnar’s Universal Championship at Summerslam
The action was pretty good. It had an element of the Royal Rumble about it seeing as there were only 10 and they were all top level talents. Cesaro was eliminated first, which was disappointing. He got a good showing in, but he shouldn’t have gone first. People were eliminated all over the place but each one felt important. Especially Big E’s which the crowd didn’t like at all. He felt like a favourite, I think Big E vs Brock would have been a massive draw. E is one of the most underrated talents and should have been a multiple time World Champion at this stage of his career. He’s done some amazing things, but I hope he gets a main event singles push soon. Heel or Face, the man is money. After that, Orton was thrown through the middle rope, and that left Baron Corbin in the ring with Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins & Braun Strowman. All guys he has pissed off mightily over the last 12 months, he got destroyed and eliminated, Strowman and Roman had a battle on the side of the ring when Orton came and eliminated them both and tried to get rid of Rollins after.. he failed though. Rollins managed to eliminate the Viper and we had our winner. Seth FREAKIN’ Rollins! Fair play. I like that. Add a little gimmick to it, like No Holds Barred or a Ladder match or something like that and it could be really, really cool.
Lesnar, Heyman and Rollins all had an arguement over the title at the end, Brock stormed the ring but backed off as usual. I’m okay with finishing this feud off at Summerslam. It deserves a big send off. BUT.. Rollins needs to beat Lesnar for it to mean anything.
4.5/5π
Conclusion
Stars: 49/70 π
RAW SCORE: 70%
Wow! What a jump! This was a really fun, really refreshing and actually really consistent episode of Raw that had a staggering ZERO segments featuring Shane McMahon! What a blessing that was. This show had some questionable choices, I don’t like that every match is placed specifically to align with the timing of an ad break, no issues with ads at all, they’re annoying but necessary, but booking your show around the adverts is absurd in my opinion. Also,during the Fatal 4 Way, it was awfully structured and it went on a little long, but I dont think it was as bad as the fans were making out, it must have been tough to perform under all that hate. I didn’t get why the crowd got so hot, it was more “Meh” than anything else. The segment that followed it was great, however. Nattie and Becky could be a blazing hot fire! Seth Rollins getting the win was exactly what should have happened. It made the most sense. I am all for this. Miz and Ziggler too. All for that. But.. YOWIE WOWIE! That was moment of the decade! No one will ever forget this moment. The Fiend is here.
Superstar of the Night
How could it not be ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt!? I felt something that I’d not felt before when ever watching wrestling when he appeared. I researched the bit many times.
