Hello! It really is that time again already. Last Night was of course the Go-Home show for Extreme Rules, and as I've said a number of times WWE simply just had to do more for most of the angles on the card. I will admit, I didn't have high hopes for last night- because Go-Home shows are never good- and the matches announced prior that I saw on Twitter (Usos/Club & Kalisto/Del Rio) didn't exactly enthuse me. However, what we got last night was something that I definitely wasn't expecting given the general quality level in this "new era" so far.
AJ Styles & Roman Reigns Promos
This segment, specifically AJ's Promo nicely sums up this RAW to me. I can't say for definite, but I'm fairly certain AJ had a complete mind-blank halfway through his Promo. For those of you who have watched it, when he had that giant pause I practically heard Vince yelling "COVER FOR HIM" in Cole's ear. Overall this segment was decent though, Roman did his job pretty well in-terms of selling the match on Sunday and getting the "Bloodline" name out there for him and The Usos. I just want more out of a Promo Segment for the Main Event of a PPV on the Go-Home show, but maybe that's my problem given neither guy in this is a great promo.
Sami Zayn v Cesaro/Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens v Cesaro & The Miz
Look, WWE has made a lot of stupid decisions recently- but if you thought they'd give away Zayn/Cesaro for Free as the first match on RAW just before a PPV...
The actual Zayn/Cesaro match wasn't much, but that was literally the point- and it was just a way to get to the now standard dysfunction Tag Team match dynamic we've had with these four for pretty much the entire build to Sunday. The difference last night was of course getting Sami and Owens facing Miz and Cesaro, so basically the two separate feuds we have going into the 4-Way. It's been a while since we had a dynamic like this one, so I was all for it personally. Zayn and Owens in particular knew exactly how to play the whole angle off, and the dynamic between the two is obviously a really good one. I thought overall the match was pretty good, and it was of course ended by Kevin Owens winning the match all by himself.
Chris Jericho Backstage Promo
Jericho's great. I realise that's not exactly an "out there" thing to say to all of you Stupid Idiots, but he is. The one thing I wish we'd get from Backstage Promos involving Renee now is having EVERYONE take a shot at her Dog. That Owens thing last week was just amazing.
The Shining Stars v Two Jobbers (One of them being Mr. Kennedy apparently)
Firstly, I'm fairly certain the two jobbers were John Skyler and Corey Hollis who we've seen on NXT a few times. But then Cole called one of them Mr. Kennedy and it just threw me off completely.
I'm not going to bury this nearly as much as most people probably will. For the simple reason, Epico & Primo are doing their absolute best with probably one of the worst gimmicks of all time. I won't bury Epico and Primo for trying their best with what they've been given, I will bury whomever came up with this fucking horrendous idea for a gimmick.
I was wondering the "Puerto Rico" vignettes would translate into a live performance, and aside from renaming them "Puerto & Rico" I had nothing. We didn't even get that, and the extent of the gimmick is Epico & Primo holding a Flower and wearing unbuttoned shirts. I have no idea what their Promo was even about, they were equating the Ring to Puerto Rico and how it would be their Paradise while they were in there or something. It's just like, what? If the Ring is Puerto Rico whilst they're in there, surely they should be friendly with their Opponents right? That was literally the point of the vignettes "So come to Puerto Rico, the Shining Star of the Caribbean".
I'm putting way too much thought into this, I do realise that- but this segment just massively annoyed me. I'd give it a month before Epico & Primo are off TV to be repackaged again.
Dean Ambrose, Chris Jericho Segment
The segment was pretty good I thought, Ambrose's Promo was a bit "meh" at the start- but he grew into it as the segment progressed. The "Asylum" Match looks pretty stupid in my opinion, it's basically Lethal Lockdown but with "themed" (worse) weapons. The stuff with the lights and the Cage lowering as Ambrose did his Promo would have been great were it not for the "menacing" music that made me burst out laughing. I'm not even sure why, but the music really did blow the segment for me. Which is a shame because overall I thought it was a pretty good segment.
We have less than a week to protest against this match, it's not a lot of time- but if we do it strategically I think we can get this barbaric match called off. I WILL NOT STAND FOR ANOTHER PLANT DEATH ON SUNDAY. PLANT LIVES MATTER.
Dana Brooke v Becky Lynch
I'm not saying Dana Brooke was perfect last night, because that would be a blatant lie. However, considering the situation she's now found herself in- she needs a degree of leniency at the moment in my opinion. She's been called-up while still pretty green, to mainly be Emma's heater/Tag-Partner to reintroduce Sasha to team with Becky. What she's now got to do is stand on her own two feet and get over by herself straight away, and as much as I like Dana I fear she may sink rather than swim.
Becky did her best, but the match just didn't really "click" which is understandable for the reasons stated above. The problem now, is how do they actually do this angle that they presumably had planned for Sasha to return and help Becky. Of all of the Women available to team with Dana, I'd love Summer. Especially because of hers and Sasha's history in NXT that I could play up in my head- even if Commentary won't.
The Dudleys & McMahons Backstage Promo
I found this funny, The Dudleys went into the McMahons Office and asked for a Squash Match.
Fabreeze v Golden Truth
I refuse to call them Breezango, so on here they shall only be referred to as "Fabreeze". We literally had 5 Months of build to this, making it I believe the longest angle that WWE currently have going on- and it's for that exact reason I knew Golden Truth would lose. The only thing that would make it better is if last night was the end to the whole angle. 5 Months building up to Truth & Goldust teaming, they do it once and decide it's just not for them.
New Day's "Time Travel" Segment
I was going to say that this was the sort of segment that you either loved or hated, but then I thought about it and realised I was pretty indifferent towards it. The good stuff like Kofi turning back into a Jamaican and saying 2009 was his best year and the "Sticky Keyboard" comment balanced out the general stupidity and/or cringeworthy factor of the segment.
There's two things that I wish we could've gotten out of this segment, more "meta" stuff like Big E coming out to Dolph's Music and absolutely refusing to emote, Xavier yelling "It's Morphing Time" and all of that stuff. The other, I wish they kept the Black & White Filter on when The Vaudevillains attacked New Day. I don't know why, I just think it would've looked cooler.
The Usos w/Roman Reigns v Gallows & Anderson w/AJ Styles
Right, this is the first segment in quite a long time that's annoyed me. Like, not sort of a "blow it off" annoyance- actively pissing me off. I said last week that WWE were getting dangerously close to blowing the Gallows & Anderson angle before Balor's even debuted, and I'm officially declaring this angle to have jumped the shark as of last night.
I said in my RAW Review where Gallows & Anderson first debuted, that the WWE had something special here- and they needed to try their absolute best to not fuck it up. It seems as though WWE read that and thought, you know what we need to do now? Fuck it up! My main issue with the angle has been the fact Gallows & Anderson have been put on the same level as The Usos, rather than have The Usos booked "up" to Gallows & Anderson- Gallows & Anderson have been booked "down" to their level.
What we got last night, with the fucking Usos beating Gallows & Anderson clean in the middle of the ring was just beyond idiotic. If I were booking, I wouldn't have even had Gallows & Anderson wrestle yet- and even if I did have them wrestling I DEFINITELY wouldn't be booking them to lose clean to the fucking Usos.
I'm not suggesting "The Club" should be on the nWo level of Wins to Losses, but especially early on- surely WWE realise that they need to be booked better to be established as proper threats before they can lose matches. The worst bit is, Gallows & Anderson losing did nothing for anyone. The Usos didn't even come out of the match looking good, because Gallows & Anderson have been booked so poorly that within kayfabe they're probably above them.
To cap it all off, Post-Match they gave away literally the best spot they could have done on Sunday in my opinion both in-terms of impact and crowd reaction in the Styles Clash on the Chair to Roman on Free TV on the Go-Home Show. I don't know who booked this segment, but whoever did- please make yourself known so TNA can hire you. You'd fit right in there.
Big Cass v D-Von
This wasn't much, but it did the job. Cass got the quick win to make himself look good, D-Von did the job well- and overall this was just a very quick segment that did what it was meant to do well.
Alberto Del Rio v Kalisto
This was the second segment that just had me laughing when that's definitely not what its intended purpose was. The match was decent, but what really had me laughing was Rusev's attack on Sin Cara. He just kept attacking him, and attacking him, and attacking him, and attacking him, and attacking him- by about the 3rd Minute of Rusev just rag-dolling Sin Cara I was just laughing. It was hilarious, it was the living embodiment of the "He's already dead" thing from The Simpsons.
The stuff with Kalisto & Rusev after was good, the kick from Rusev to the back of Kalisto's head looked brutal- and I'm just hoping Rusev destroys Kalisto on Sunday.
Charlotte & Natalya Contract Signing
I said this the last time a Womens Contract Signing Main Evented RAW, you can't just shoehorn a Womens Segment into the Main Event and go "We're giving them a chance".
Especially with Natalya being in there, while she's a good wrestler she's nowhere near charismatic enough to be in the Main Event of a RAW. Nattie is about as good at emoting and putting emotion into her Promos as Captain Holt is in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Everything's said in exactly the same tone no matter what the content of her Promo is, and it's just absolutely infuriating.
Charlotte was better, and she's definitely improved since her last RAW Main Event appearance Promo wise. Being a Heel has definitely worked for her, and as I've said so many times now- the annoying thing for me is the fact there's no jeopardy in this feud. If Sasha, or even Becky were in this feud instead of Nattie I'd believe there was a chance of Charlotte dropping the Title. As it is, we've got Nattie and it's just so "meh".
I think the end to this segment nicely summed up it all up. I was more into the possible Shane/Ric fight than the Nattie/Charlotte one. We actually got a "STEPH-A-NIE" chant before we got a chant for Nattie last night. IMAGINE THAT! PEOPLE WERE CHANTING FOR STEPHANIE MCMAHON IN THE MAIN EVENT SEGMENT OF THE GO-HOME SHOW FOR A PPV OVER THE TWO PEOPLE ACTUALLY IN A MATCH ON SUNDAY!
Also, surely Charlotte could have put up a bit more of a fight before she tapped to the Sharpshooter last night. It wasn't even fully on and she was tapping. I know she wasn't in a match, so she just wanted the move off etc. but come on.
I said this last week as well, the ending to the Charlotte/Nattie match on Sunday is going to be such a huge anti-climax it'll actually be funny. Nattie's not getting the Title, Ric's banned from ringside- so Charlotte's either winning clean (huge anti-climax given the build) or Charlotte's going to cheat in some other way (huge anti-climax). Unless they do have Nattie win, which would be the stupidest option of the three.
This RAW was by far and a way the worst so far of the "new era". Speaking of which, two of the people given opportunities in Shane's "new era" in Apollo and Corbin weren't even on the show last night. So it's going well. I do have reasonably high hopes for the overall match quality at Extreme Rules though, which I'll go into greater detail in during my Predictions out on Sunday.
Thanks for reading as always, as just mentioned- the Extreme Rules Predictions will be out on Sunday so hopefully you'll be around for those. Then we've of course got the Extreme Rules Review on Monday and then we're back here again this time next week for another RAW Review where hopefully we'll have had a lot more storyline progression than we did coming out of Payback. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you have a good week- and remember always PLANT LIVES MATTER.
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