By CB@CB
About the newbee – *Hey, yo. My name is CB and I am the newest member of the Pro Wrestling Journal Kliq! I’m 25, Father of 1 and Step Father of 2 and I have been a crazy massive fan of wrestling for almost 20 years. My Fiancee is equally as Wrestling crazy. She has the old school logo for WWE tattood on her ring finger and we named our son Elias Austin Hunter. Being a part of this is an exciting venture for me and I can’t wait to share my opinions and theories with you all! Peace and love – CB*
Show Opener
So this week didn’t begin as it usually does. Which was kind of refreshing. It begins with JoJo saying “Ladies and Gentlemen.. Elias” and as the sound of his E minor chord strummed upward echoes over the roaring crowd, he begins to speak. He begins with his usual catchphrases and the crowd is more with him than against him this week, that is until he says he will be walking out of Money In The Bank the NEW WWE Intercontinental Champion and then we will all finally know that WWE truly stands for.. WALK WITH ELIAS! He then starts to jam out on his guitar to a video loop of him smashing Seth in the back with his guitar last week, which was actually pretty funny. Que Seth Rollins making a crashing entrance with an almost deafening pop from the crowd.. he gets in the ring and the two men have a sort of stand-off, Seth wielding a chair and Elias his guitar.. Seth hits the guitar with the chair knocking it out of Elias’ hands and Elias backs off.. in comes Jinder Mahal from the crowd with Sunil Singh and they attack Rollins. Elias joins in on the beat down and what happens next is pretty predictable. Roman Reigns comes to make the save. After a bit of a scuffle, RAW GM Kurt Angle comes out and did his best Teddy Long impression by making… a Tag Team Match for that very second. – An interesting segment that had a smidge of originality to it in the form of how Elias and Seth did their stare down, but unfortunately ended very predictably, I’d have preferred a swap of rivals for the night, Roman vs Elias and Jinder vs Rollins, but oh well.
Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins VS Jinder Mahal and Elias
Was an okay match. Nothing too exciting until the end. Sunil Singh was getting involved left, right and centre and ended up getting a chair to attack Rollins, Rollins turned around just before and Singh ran away into the ring, as Rollins is getting in, Rollins walks into a nasty DDT from Elias onto the chair and then gets hit with a Drift Away, which for a Fisherman’s Neckbreaker looked positively brutal, and to my amazement and delight, Elias pinned the IC Champion. All be it with help and weapons, but still! As for opening segments and matches, it wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t awesome either. Nice focus on Seth and Elias instead of Reigns and Jinder though.
Curt Hawkins vs Jobber
Next was Curt Hawkins who was in the ring talking about his 199 match losing streak and he is determined not to let it get to 200. Curt then brought our attention to a table with tacos on it and said if he wins, everyone gets a free taco.. which is ludicrous, especially given that he had maybe 100 tacos over 3 platters at a push, and there were upwards of 8,000 people in the arena.. So, Curt’s poor mathematics aside, he then introduced a Jobber and the match began. It wasn’t on long, just after Hawkins hit a vicious clothesline on the Jobber we heard Baron Corbin’s music. He came down laughing, hit the End of Days on the Jobber, so Curt lost by DQ taking his losing streak to 200 and ensuring that no one in the audience gets even a whiff of taco. Sad times. The Lone Wolf then slams Hawkins’ head into the tacos and tips the table onto him, not only making a mess but, seriously, what a waste of food! Weird segment, hopefully ties into a rivalry with Corbin and Hawkins because Hawkins is a great talent and deserves more in my opinion. Again, not awful but not awesome either.. there’s a theme here. However… there was a twist to the tale.. Corbin went to the back and was immediately confronted by Angle, who was furious, but then Corbin said that he only did that because he never gets any opportunities, so he went to see Steph McMahon in WWE HQ and he told her about his frustrations, she remedied this by making him the official Constable of Monday Night Raw. Which, personally, I just loved. As long as this doesn’ tie into a feud with Jason Jordan, I can see this being pretty cool. Constable Corbin, the eyes, ears and messenger for The Authority.
Nia Jax vs Natalya w/ Ronda Rousey on commentary
The peculiarity continues now with Nia Jax vs Natalya. They had a pretty sub par match in terms of entertainment, spots were very few and Nia was Heeling it up a tad too, then Natty seemed to hurt her knee in some fashion, so Nia took advantage and hit a Samoan Drop into a successful pinfall. After the match, the ref was seeing to Natty so Rousey came down to help, because apparently Natty and Ronda are besties, and Nia slightly nudged Ronda whilst she checking on Natty, so Rousey stood up and had an awkward stare down with Nia, Nia soon backed down and Rousey helped a limping Natty to the back. (Which is something we was last month too..) Nia did seem concerned for Natty though which was weird given her apparent Heelish attitude.. very inconsistent, didn’t really assist the feud at all.. just strange.
Promo
Bobby Roode was backstage having an interview with Reneé Young and he was energetic and pumped for the MITB match. Which lead us into his match with one of his opponents in the MITB match..
Bobby Roode vs Braun Strowman
This was a noticeably very short match for the former NXT and US Champion. Especially after such a powerful promo. But it was okay for the 5 minutes it was on. Looked interesting, a ladder was brought into the mix and THEN… THEN Braun snapped a ladder in two with his bare hands! That was pretty cool, Roode sold it like a champ and looked terrified, he then ate a Powerslam and Braun got the 1, 2, 3.
Promo
This was a very strong, very passionate promo from Kevin Owens to hype his MITB performance and his match with Fin Balor later. KO proves once again that he’s one of the best talkers on the roster.
Backstage Segment
I’m almost positive WWE was going for a “lets just confuse everyone” theme this week, as what followed that was yet another segment for Natty, Nia and Rousey. Natty and Rousey are in the back where Natty is having her knee iced and is on crutches. Nia Jax then shows up and is all upset for Natty. It’s almost coming across too pointless for it not to have a point. So I began thinking of where this could go. Without any context it’s tough to make sense of it all.. but I have a theory that could explain it. I think Natty is going to turn on Rousey at MITB and cost her the match and the title. It’s the only thing that makes any sense here for me.
Promo
Next was an interview with my new favourite Tag Team, The Deleters of Worlds, who gave a WONDERFUL speech regarding the competition and that no matter who wins the ‘Battle Royale’ will be DELETED!
Tag Team Battle Royal for the No. 1 Contender of the RAW Tag Team Titles
This featured every team on RAW. – This was a weird start, as everyone began fighting, but then JoJo started explaining the rules.. almost everyone jumped the gun and was fighting except Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler who were on the side of the ring laughing at the very obvious botch in timing. However though the first eliminated in the match was in fact Dolph Ziggler and as a result of another oddity in the show, Drew then had to leave too, despite not being eliminated himself. Which wasn’t the case for teams in 2016 when Zack Ryder won the same type of Battle Royal on SmackDown Live for the Hype Bros after Mojo was already eliminated. But whatevs, WWE. The match was very sloppy and no one really seemed to know what they were doing. Lots of no selling and fumbles. Ended with B Team winning to a huge pop! Heath Slater accidentally eliminated Rhyno for B Team to win! Which could indicate that Slater and Rhyno are gonna break up soon. But I was pleased with this outcome. Both members of the B Team are dudes I’ve always enjoyed watching and have been increasingly frustrated by how WWE never fully pulled the trigger with either of them.. So the result was good. It’ll be cool to see real life Brothers Bray and Bo in a rivalry too.
Promo? I think?
Next was a segment so bad, my eyes remained squinted in confusion throughout the whole thing. Lashley came out to call out Sami Zayn, who apparently was already in the crowd. Bobby invited him into the ring but Sami refused. Sami then put some of Lashley’s Instagram posts on the tron. Some inspirational quotes. Sami sarcastically regarded them as touching and powerful and Bobby just grinned a sickly grin throughout. Somehow though, Sami managed to read the teeny tiny text on the tron from about 350 feet away. He wasn’t even wearing his trusty bifocals either. Not entirely relevant, but was impressive. So then Sami said he made a burner account to tell Bobby how touching his quotes were and that Bobby just sent him a link to his own fan page where he can sign up for $19.99. Sami said he was a fraud and asked him if he was even in the army. Which turned Lashley’s arrogant grin into a face full of rage and he took his jacket off. Sami recognised he’d touched a nerve, Lashley’s music played and that was the end.. like.. that was literally it. Pointless segment to be honest and I am not invested in the story at all. Sami deserves better in my opinion. See? “Let’s just confuse everyone”.
Promo
After this there was a sort of FaceTime/Skype like promo between Mahal and Reigns. Which was odd, but intense. It ended with Roman going to find Jinder, but he literally walked about 25 steps and found him round the corner. It was kind of ridiculous, but that said, it did seem relatively shoot. It came across as real beef between these two. They were hitting each other really hard and ended up getting separated by backstage officials. Call me crazy, but these two may end up having a pretty decent rivalry if that continues and they keep racism, religion, stereotypes and other such low levels of entertainment out of it. Which I’m sure is as uncomfortable as holding in a sneeze for ol’ Vinnie Mac given both men’s heritage.
6 Woman Tag Match – Alexa Bliss, Sasha Banks and Ember Moon vs Riott Squad
Here we go again with yet ANOTHER 6 Woman Tag Match. The Women’s Division is suffering badly at the moment. Particularly on Raw. Ronda and Nia are in this out of the blue Title contention thing and the rest of the division are being all clumped together in one match that they repeat week after week. Why they’re not able to have individual rivalries like the men I’m not sure. I get this is for MITB hype, but it’s every week lately it seems. On both brands! Shameful really. Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame!
ANYWAY, tangential narrative over.. the 6 Woman Tag was okay, Alexa got “injured” early on and left Sasha and Ember on their own. That was until Bayley came out, climbed the side of the ring and got Sasha to tag in. Yep. She just decided she was in the match. She hit the Bayley To Belly Suplex on Sarah Logan and got the pinfall.. The Referee looked a right idiot! But as soon as the match ends it goes backstage to Corbin and Angle watching the match on a monitor and Corbin says exactly what we are ALL thinking, he asks Kurt if he thinks that was acceptable. He explains that people inserting themselves in matches is illegal and therefore he should overturn the decision and give the W to the Riott Squad. Kurt Angle gets hot under the collar and tells Corbin that it’s none of his business, to which Corbin retorts that is IS his business. Everything that happens on Raw is now HIS business as he is the eyes and ears for Stephanie McMahaon. This segment ended here with Corbin somehow looking like the only person in the whole situation who knew what the hell he was talking about! – This has to be the weirdest episode of RAW I’ve seen in years. – Next we see Ember, Bayley and Sasha walking together backstage and Ember said that Bayley is the reason they won and that Sasha and Bayley need to hug it out because she’s ready to go celebrate. As they look like they’re going to hug, Angle arrives and explains the rule breakage Bayley performed and thus is forced to overturn the decision in favour of the Riott Squad. Ember storms off in a huff like a teenager who’s been told she’s grounded, Sasha looks at Bayley and shakes her head in disgust and walks away leaving Bayley alone looking like an absolute tool. How she apparently didn’t know she wasn’t allowed to just waltz on into a match she’s not been billed for is super weird to me but hey, going by the general theme of the whole episode that’s what the writers were going for!
Main Event! – Fin Balor vs Kevin Owens
Big Show was on the stage next with the participants for Texas’ team for the American Special Olympic games – Which was awesome. Then Fin Balor came out and did his entrance with them all, Too Sweets all round and made his way to the ring. KO was out next and they got off to one hell of a match! Both men were dominant and they sold so well. They hit all their big moves and it ended with KO being so aggressive and zeroed in that he didn’t stop stomping on Balor’s head for the 5 count and the ref called for the DQ. KO then got a ladder from under the ring and set it up in the ring. He climbed up to presumably hit a Frog Splash, but chickened out and climbed down a few runs to try again, which was hilarious and very reminiscent of his Hell In A Cell matched with Shane O’Mac, but he took too long and got pulled down, Balor hit the Shotgun Dropkick to the corner and KO was positioned perfectly, Balor climbs up all but one run on the ladder and hit a thunderous Coupe De Gras from about 15 feet high! He then repositioned the ladder, climbed it and unhooked the MITB briefcase, RAW concludes with Balor holding the case above his head at the top of the ladder. This was a fantastic match from bell to bell! High spots, low spots, mixture of styles, very Strong Style central but a real mixture of techniques. The story they told, you could tell had history. Match of the night by far!
Verdict
All in all, RAW this week was a rollercoaster of delirium and almost as if it was made up on the spot by someone who doesn’t understand Sports Entertainment. However there were some good bits but I would say it was not anywhere near the standard they should be at after a quarter of a century. Hopefully it’ll change next week at the go home show.
That’s it for this week. Thank you for reading! I’ll catch you next week!
– CB
