Rollins, Cesaro, Owens & Orton Opening Segment
I actually liked this weirdly. On another night I almost definitely would have hated it, the thing with Rollins' mouth on Cena's picture was the sort of thing I usually hate- but I got a few laughs out of it and made my peace with it. The rest of the segment was great, it's good to see Cesaro getting mic time and the crowd actually reacting heavily to it and Owens is just great. So all in all I liked this, even though I wouldn't usually- I guess it's just one of those days.
Team Bella v Team BAD
Firstly, I do feel like I was one of the main contributors to the downfall of the Submission Sorority name- but now Paige, Becky and Charlotte are named after a Digger. This match was quite forgettable, the only thing I remember was the "We Want Sasha" chants- oh yeah and the worst roll-up I've seen in god knows how long. I did see some people last night bitching about Brie using Daniel Bryan moves and all, but I made my peace with that weeks ago. This may in fact shock some of you, Brie Bella isn't a good worker. Provided your mind hasn't just blown up we can carry on, Brie doesn't know how to work- she just does moves (mostly really sloppy) and hopes for the best.
The stuff after was necessary, but I still didn't like it for the similar reason that I didn't like the mass-brawl when they first debuted in that it became a complete clusterfuck only this time we didn't get the cool submissions pay-off. Summerslam is really strange in that it should be like Mania in there being multiple blow-off matches, it might just be the way I think- but I can see there being shenanigans in nearly every match. It might just be wishful thinking, but I'm hoping we see a turn from Charlotte in the Elimination match so we can finally get a storyline going- rather than just matches.
New Day v Los Matadores
This might shock some of you, if you didn't have your minds blown earlier you just might now. New Day does in fact rock. I don't remember anything about the match other than Kofi being great, Xavier's spot with the Torito Hurricanrana just amazing and then we had the dance stuff after which kept New Day's spot as the most GIFable part of RAW every week.
I'm not going to go overboard with my praise of New Day, I just love these guys- they're the one act that's consistently fun and at the end of the day that's what Wrestling should be.
New Day Backstage Promo
Speaking of New Day being fun, they gave Renee Young the clap. In fact you can pinpoint the exact moment Renee Young get's the clap in this GIF.
This little segment was so great, you can tell New Day are so close to "snapping" and just telling everyone to fuck off now- especially Xavier. I honestly won't even be opposed to them not winning the Belts at Summerslam provided it does lead to them snapping.
Randy Orton v Cesaro v Kevin Owens- #1 Contender Match
Wow this match was great. The only issue I had with this match was the finish- not even the finish as such, just who won. As soon as Orton was thrown into the barricade you knew exactly what was going to happen and how it was going to happen. But apart from that I really did like this match, but I don't know why that would shock anyone to be honest- in terms of ability in-ring these three are at least Top 5 in the company.
Ambrose & Reigns Backstage Promo
I said it last night and I'll say it again, I'm not sure what this promo accomplished from a storyline progression standpoint- but I liked it a lot.
Undertaker/Brock Lesnar Video Package
This was great. It's this sort of stuff that I wish they'd do so much more of. This video package managed to hype up the Summerslam match, keep both guys relevant, cement it as a proper Main Event AND accomplish all of this without either guy appearing. You had pretty much everyone relevant in the WWE world at the minute talking about the match as a must see, that in turn creates buzz around the match and tells the audience "Hey, this is going to be something special". It sometimes really is that simple to get an angle over.
Luke Harper v Dean Ambrose
This was a really fun match, and once again I liked it. Firstly, the "Sit Down Byron" chants- absolutely great. The crowd was great the whole night actually, they were loud- but they didn't try and get themselves over at any point during the night and they "did their jobs" and enhanced the show. The actual match was really fun, I've got a slight issue with it- given what happened in a later segment but I'll talk about that then.
If you've been reading these at least back to Battleground I've been predicting Ambrose turning on Roman. After the way these last few weeks have gone since Battleground and with the obvious possibility of the turn now it's "only" a Tag Match- and especially after what happened last night if Ambrose doesn't turn on Roman at Summerslam then I just simply don't know wrestling anymore. The only thing I can think of that would mean they don't is that they're making it so obvious Ambrose will turn to swerve us and for Roman and Dean to win clean. Hey that rhymes.
MizTV w/ Daniel Bryan
Bryan and Miz have this really weird chemistry together that just clicks, even though by all logic it shouldn't. The segment was really fun just with Bryan and Miz even though there wasn't really a point to 95% of what they did apart from plugging various outside of the ring endeavours. Then Big Show came out and even he was fine tonight with the way he acknowledged the "Please Retire" chants and used them. Then we got Ryback's return and overall this was just a really fun segment that got everything where it needed to be heading into the go-home RAW.
Mark Henry v Rusev
Okay. We had the Harper/Ambrose match where Ambrose was hitting Bray, Harper was superkicking Reigns and Reigns & Bray were going after each other- none of that was a DQ despite the fact we actually had people involved in the match getting involved with people who weren't. That's all fair enough as a standalone because the people who weren't never directly got their hands on the people who were. Then we move onto this "match". Lana attacked Summer because Summer was on the apron, then Lana roles Summer into the ring and starts laying into her- and apparently this means that Rusev should be DQ'd. It's these sort of moments that just make me want to scream, because pretty everything else on the show made sense- and then we get this.
That said the Bulgarian Flag with Rusev on it was pretty cool, and Summer's Accolade looked surprisingly good- given the amount of time she took to set it up I was sure she was going to fuck it up, but she got the set-up right eventually and really cranked it.
Neville v King Barrett/ Stephen Amell & Stardust stuff
This match was a complete squash, I looked away for maybe 20 seconds at the most just to check how my Post I put up yesterday was doing- I looked back and Neville was doing the Red Arrow. In short Barrett was completely killed.
I'm fine with Celebrities coming in to generate buzz, and under the right circumstances I'm fine with Celebrities coming in and wrestling a match. Those "right circumstances" are pretty much; Will it generate buzz? and Is the guy at least mildly athletic? From what I saw last night both of those things are accurate when it comes to Amell coming in. The guy looked like great last night, from what I've seen and from what's been said he does the majority of his own stunts and trains like a lunatic. The way he vaulted the barricade and top rope showed he had more athletic ability than some of the people being paid to wrestle week-in week-out.
Stephen Amell & Neville Backstage
Oh Yeah, Amell can cut a pretty good promo as well. I didn't really like Triple H effectively burying him and his legitimacy as a threat to a Wrestler- especially after he'd just gotten the better of Stardust with a take-down/spear but that's just Triple H and it built Amell up as an underdog of sorts so it's not a big issue.
The only problem I had with this whole dynamic now is, what on earth is Barrett doing in there? Neville just killed him in at the very top end a minute- and now he's wrestling at a PPV. If Barrett get's significant offence on Neville (which is likely given Amell will be the Hot-Tag) I might just scream. Also, Barrett isn't even in there to take the Pin unless I've misread it- because I can't imagine Amell will be in for more than one match, as such I think there's a 99.9% chance he pins Stardust.
Sheamus Backstage Promo
This wasn't that noteworthy, the only thing I got out of this was that Sheamus has a laugh PERFECT for a psycho heel character. Oh Yeah, he also pretty much spoiled the Main Event before it happened- but we all knew it was going to happen anyway so it's a non-issue to me.
Randy Orton v Seth Rollins- WWE Title
I'm dropping the World Heavyweight part even if WWE isn't. It's just an unnecessary mouthful and I'm just getting bored with it at this point. The match up to the Sheamus interference was quite "meh". These two as opponents just peaked at the Mania RKO and it's all been down since then- so it may be unfair to say it, but I am.
Then we got one of the most unintentionally hilarious seeming fuck ups in recent memory. I was wondering what was going on, and for a second I did in fact think Sheamus was going to cash-in. That moment was when Sheamus put Orton over the other side of the barricade which by WWE logic is approximately 10 miles from the ring. It's even more funny now I'm thinking back to it. What on earth were they thinking doing that barricade spot if Sheamus wasn't going to cash-in. We just had Sheamus yelling "I'M CASHING IN" at the Ref over and over for at least 20 seconds before Orton came back in. I can only assume Orton was meant to come in sooner, unless it was meant to be a rib on someone which I doubt. Either way it was hilarious, and completely nullified what happened before it because I was laughing too much to care about anything else that had happened during the segment.
Heading into the Review I was a bit "meh" on this RAW, but now I've actually thought back to what happened and gone through it all for the Review I actually really liked this episode. Considering the people missing and the way they had to compensate I left the show feeling content. In fact I think that may be the reason I was light on the Rollins Opener because he's pretty much having to carry this feud by himself with very limited material. My expectations will be a lot higher with the go-home next week, but do think they'll be met now the Summerslam picture is a lot clearer on nearly every front and the "big guns" should be coming back into play.
Thanks for reading as always, this one in particular because of the no doubt disjointed plugs that'll be coming out for the first part of the evening. So Yeah, thanks again for reading- it'll be hectic but I'm pretty sure I'll be on Twitter for Tough Enough tonight so feel free to join me and tag along on another week of hilarious bad TV, or as Bryan put it "the best TV show in the history of TV shows".
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