Opener
This weeks Raw is the Summerslam Go Home show, baby! Ronda Rousey is out first and as she’s walking to the ring we get a lovely little introduction to the wonderful temp addition to the announce team, Renee Young! But the smiles soon vanished as Rousey talks about the now late, the great Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, she sends love to Nattie Neidhart and her family and the fans show their love for her. All of us here at PWJ and Kayfabe Today send our love and support to the whole Hart Family. Rousey then announced that Ember Moon will be replacing Nattie tonight against Alexa Bliss. Bliss comes out to cut a wickedly sharp promo on Rousey and it came over super shoot! Either there’s real beef there (or tofu for our non meat-eating readers), or these two have fantastic chemistry. We shall see in 6 days. Bliss was running all over Rousey and the blatant favouritism towards Rousey shown by Kurt Angle. Bliss says Constable Corbin have her some security, so she proceeds in bringing out 4 developmental guys.. oh, sorry, I mean her ‘Personal Security’, to back her up in her match to make sure Rousey doesn’t attack her. But.. naturally.. Rousey destroys them all. Then kicks Foxy’s ass too. This was a nice opener to Raw. Yeah, I enjoyed this one. Promising start. But.. can it continue?
Ember Moon w/ Ronda Rousey vs Alexa Bliss w/ Alicia Fox
First off, Renee is smashing this. #GiveReneeTheJob #TempToPerm. The match was entertaining. I would love to see these two women go at it in a full on feud. It all ended with Ember Moon reversing the DDT into a vicious gut buster, seriously, it looked like it sent Bliss’ stomach into her throat, then hit the Eclipse and technically beat the Champ! But Foxy got involved and caused a DQ. Rousey came in and threw Foxy around via her arm. Rousey looked like she knew all of about 3 moves here, so I’m feeling like I may be expecting too much from her at Summerslam, but who knows! Its Ronda Frickin’ Rousey! Anything could happen!
Cheeky Little Plug
SmackDown 1,000 is plugged for 16th October, which just so happens to fall on my Wrestling mad Fianceé’s Birthday! I’m very excited by the idea of this 1,000 for two reasons, 1. Raw 1,000 wasn’t half bad and 2. Hopefully it can DELETE the memory of the monstrosity that was Raw 25. They also showed a recap of how much of a bastard Brock Lesnar is and reminding us that he’s turned on everyone, including Paul Heyman. They also show an unseen clip from last week’s interview with Heyman where he said “Roman Reigns doesn’t stand a chance.. unless..” then stops. Renee pressures him to reveal and he just unhooks the mic and leaves. Heyman is totally gonna screw Lesnar at Summerslam!
Constable Baron Corbin vs Tyler Breeze
He’s handpicked his own opponent for himself and one for Balor tonight for their ‘warm up matches’. There’s actually a “let’s go Corbin – Corbin SUCKS” chant going and Baron tries hard to cover his smile but it’s there. This new gimmick is working well for him. This was surprisingly NOT a squash match and Breeze went over looking decently strong! Almost like a glimpse through the shattered reflection of the Tyler Breeze who faced Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger just a few years ago at TakeOver! Tyler deserves better and this was a stepping stone! So, good! But no time to dillydally! The next match starts immediately!
Finn Balor vs Jinder ‘Shaaaanti’ Mahal w/ Sunil Singh
But wait!… there’s more. Because then Corbin introduces a second opponent for Balor. Kevin Owens.
Finn Balor vs Jinder Mahal & Kevin Owens w/ Sunil Singh
But wait.. again. there’s more.. again. Out comes Kurt Angle to the stage to announce a 3rd amendment to this matchup! It’s now a tag match with Finn’s partner being.. GANGREL!!.. BUT obviously it wasn’t actually Gangrel. It was in fact, BRAAAAUN Strowman! Not too bad but would have preferred to see Finn do it alone as he was so happy to do it before Angle showed up. Or Gangrel. Either would have sufficed.
So.. any more tweaks? No? If we are good with no more changes then.. okay. They’ve gone back to their cupboard. We’re safe now.
Finn Balor & Braun Strowman vs Jinder Mahal & Kevin Owens
Loving the banter between the commentary team. Graves and Renee are best friends off-screen so this was really cool. Totally ripping on the writing of the Kevin Owens port-a-loo angle on TV and Strowman flipping Owens’ car.. Yep. I love this announce team.
WWE, please stop airing ads during matches and showing them with the match still going on. It seriously feels like a YouTube ad that you can’t skip! It’s disrespectful to your talent for one, but two, it’s just straight up bloody annoying. We know Summerslam is this Sunday. You’ve been reminding us every 3 minutes.
The match was good. Nothing special, but good. Strowman used Sunil Singh as a battering ram at one point and that’s never a bad thing. Strowman decided chase Owens after the match and Corbin blindsided Balor with the End of Days. He gives himself a round of applause and walks away.
Backstage
Second time this episode that McInZiggs goes to Kurt Angle to find out when Rollins is gonna show up. Angle is leaving him a message as they walk in. Apparently he’s having travel issues, but since Ziggler said Rollins is just scared and doesn’t want to face him at Summerslam and that his match won’t be official unless he shows up on Sunday, I’m guess they have something to do with Seth’s vanishing act.
Promo
Now. Theres a man in the ring with a guitar. Says he is a huge fan of Elias and that he’ll be in the Country Music HOF one day. I love this whole thing with Elias and his album. Elias says he wants this guy, who is definitely a Jobber, to beat up Bobby Lashley. Elias says his usual stuff about the town he’s in, but Lashley enters and gets in the ring with Jobber, Ricky Roberts. Lashley says Elias is a ‘no talent clown who plays the guitar’ so he obviously knows very little about music, but.. Roberts smashes the guitar over Lashley’s back, makes him angry and, we don’t like him when he’s angry, he destroys Ricky Roberts in seconds. End. Bit a pointless segment, but it was a bit silly and I quite like that.
Backstage
B Team have a pep talk backstage and they say it’s been amazing so far and even if they lose it’ll still be the best run of their careers. They get a pop and shout ‘B TEAAAAM’ and run off for their match.
B Team vs The Revival vs The Deleters of Worlds for the WWE World Tag Team Championships
This match was good, but they seriously could have gone so much more with this. The crowd loved it, a “This is awesome” chant erupted after Hardy superplexed Dawson to the outside on top of everyone else. A Shatter Machine hits Bray Wyatt and Axel throws Dawson from the ring and steals the win. Deflating really. The match could have been seriously amazing.
Backstage
Ziggles and Drew say there’s a clause in the contract that says Rollins can have someone in his corner. Dolph gets upset and then says that it’s fine because it won’t matter if Rollins doesn’t show up.
Promo
Roman Reigns is out and says his usual ‘get rid of Lesnar’ thing. Paul Heyman comes out and basically looks normal and sounds normal as opposed to last week where he looked like he’d been roughing it on the mean streets of Suplex City but now Paul, clean-shaven, well dressed and presumably not at all smelling like a bin, says he will give Roman all of Lesnar’s secrets. He also says if he does this, it wont be a prediction, but a spoiler that he will beat Brock Lesnar at Summerslam. Roman says no and wishes him luck in his future endeavours. Heyman says that he used to ride with Roman’s Uncle and his Dad. I don’t know what he said but he said something in Samoan and then gave Reigns a piece of paper with an agreement on it, once Roman declined, Heyman pepper sprayed him! Which was both hilarious and fitting. Here comes Brock Lesnar. Reigns is blinded and The Beast is coming for him. He comes in and takes out a defenceless Reigns. Lesnar put Reigns in a Guillotine and Roman passes out. Lesnar sucks, man. He then leaves. Heyman is still going to screw him out of the title I think. This screams Survivor Series 2002 at me.
Lesnar gets back in the ring and F5’s Roman Reigns. Then leaves.
Fair build. I can’t say I’m overly excited for it, but it should be good. I have hope Strowman/Owens cashes in though. Personally I think it would be hilarious if Reigns finally captures it and then loses it seconds later.
AOP & Mojo Rawley vs Titus Worldwiiiide & Bobby Roode
Match was almost not worth putting on. Bobby Roode pinned Mojo very quickly. So all the build for Mojo over the last month or so has seriously been for nothing. Roode has pinned him twice now. Cleanly too. I do not understand the logic behind this booking, but okay. I guess that’s what we’re going.
Video Package
A very emotional and tear jerking video package for Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart next. A huge round of applause filled the arena.
Matches announced for the pre show of Summerslam. Cruiserweight Title match, mixed tag Andrade Almas and Zelina Vega vs Rusev and Lana and just announced B Team vs The Revival for the Tag Titles.
Sasha Banks w/ Bayley vs Ruby Riott and the Riott Squad
Lovely to see Ruby back, she pretty much works Banks all match. It was okay. Ruby won with a roll up, but only after having her nose virtually broken by Banks’ knee.
Contract signing for the IC Title.
Ziggler and McIntyre make their way to the ring and they begin totally dissing Rollins and says he and McIntyre are there for each other. Ziggler says he doesn’t care about anyone and that he need a to sign the contract and make it a Seth Rollins forfeit. As soon as it’s signed, Rollins is out! Rollins said he wasn’t totally honest and that although he was dealing with travel issues, they weren’t exactly his travel issues. Rollins says he was waiting for Dolph to sign the contract so he wouldn’t back out when Rollins revealed who would be in his corner. He says since the Scottish psychopath will be in Dolph’s corner, he deemed it appropriate to have a Lunatic in his. I felt my little heart skip a beat when I heard that engine rev up and DEAN FRICKIN’ AMBROSE walked out on stage areturned!! They legged it to the ring and hit Drew with a superkick into Dirty Deeds and Ambrose looked angry, but also so relieved to be back! Welcome back Ambrose, we’ve missed you like mad.
Conclusion
6.5/10 🌟
I quite enjoyed the structure of the show this week. Lots of Wrestling, dubious calls and finishes, but the promos coming mid-show felt a lot more welcomed by everyone, including myself. But it lacked in delivering that ‘MUST-SEE‘ quality over all. I’m left feeling a little excited for Summerslam but not as much as I’d like to be. Let’s hope SmackDown can drive it home tonight. But WOW! DEAN AMBROSE!? That totally shocked me! So pleased for him now he’s back!
Match of the Night: Baron Corbin vs Tyler Breeze mainly for the surprise in his well Tyler fought back!
Performer of the Night: No one particularly shined this week, but Ember Moon had a great match and technically beat the World Women’s Champion. So yeah. Ember Moon.
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Until next time, guys and gals. Peace and love.
CB.
