The Authority Promo
I said it last week as well, and it may just be because my standards are lowering week-to-week. I honestly didn't mind this. They put over everything that needed to be put over for the show- and one of the key reasons I didn't mind this was that it all went less than 10 Minutes, YAY!
I saw some people bitching about Stephanie & Triple H dancing with New Day, and I'm sorry if you were one of them- but that's just stupid. Firstly, it had absolutely no long-term impact on the show- it was just a fun little thing that went about 30 seconds. Secondly, despite New Day being the best part on RAW- they are in-fact still Heels. Surely the Heels Stephanie & Triple H would also like the Heels in New Day.
New Day v Primetime Players- Tag Team Titles
The sigh of relief I had when New Day won was so big. Looking back I didn't have any real reason for concern, but I was petrified that they would want to open up the "Season Premiere" with a bang and do a Title switch leading to a Triple Threat at Night of Champions where The Dudleys would get the Belts by winning them from the Primetime Players.
The actual match, in the Wrestling sense was fine- Titus' Hot-Tag gimmick is starting to get quite funny to me now. It's not that Titus is bad, but next time he makes a Hot-Tag watch his feet. Every time I listen to people discussing Wrestling and running the ropes etc. they always say it should be three steps across the ring and Titus takes about 70. But as always in a New Day match the Wrestling is the side-show. Everything from the Pre-Match Snow Angels from Big E to Xavier doing the fucking Pink Panther thing while Big E "creeped up" on Darren, this was all just amazing. This may in fact be a surprise to some people, New Day do indeed rock and once again they were the best fucking thing on the show.
Charlotte & Ric Flair Promo
This actually annoyed me. We all knew Nikki was getting the record, so all I could think was that they had brought Ric Flair in for a shit pay-off.
Sasha Banks v Paige
It's not that these matches are bad, in fact from a pure Wrestling standpoint they're pretty good. The problem for these matches, and the "revolution" as a whole is that we've now had this match on the last three shows. I may have missed the point, and with the Divas that's actually highly likely- but surely the point of having 9 Women involved in this "revolution" is to have different matches week-to-week to showcase different talents and different dynamics. Paige v Sasha Banks is one of the matches that one day COULD Main Event a RAW, but not in it's current incarnation where there is literally zero fucks to give.
MizTV w/ The Wyatts, Reigns & Ambrose
Poor Miz. He's going to get so much shit from the fans and most likely backstage with his Hell in a Cell botch. That was one of the (very few) times I wish I had a Commentator's headset on just to hear Vince going apoplectic. This whole segment was just really weird, them saving the 3rd Man reveal until Sunday has guaranteed it won't be a "big" name because they aren't building the match at all on the 3rd Man and his name value. That's one to watch on Sunday, and it's annoying because I can't really be sure what the match outcome will be until we know the last competitor in the match.
John Cena v Sheamus
Again, this match got so much in my opinion just stupid and unnecessary criticism. I don't think these two have had a Singles Match against each other for at least two years, I might be wrong- but I'm pretty sure. As far as matches go in 2015 WWE with so much TV time that's a pretty fresh match. This was a pretty good TV match, the finishing sequence was good and it put Cena over strongly for the PPV. All of this was fine, there's so much more shit to bitch about on this show that Cena & Sheamus having a pretty good match.
Ryback & Kevin Owens Promo
Speaking of shit on this show to bitch about. STOP SCRIPTING RYBACK'S PROMOS. NOW. Some of Ryback's Promo was good, the back and forth with Owens set the match up well- but as a counterbalance RYBACK DID A SHIT FUCKING ELVIS IMPRESSION. Ryback and Roman Reigns are the perfect examples of someone having an entertaining personality but then being fucked over by how their Promos are scripted.
I recently went back over a few of the good RAWs from this year, because I'm already thinking ahead to The 2nd Sammy Awards in a couple of months- and the first RAW I watched was the one they did in Montreal at the beginning of May. That was such a fucking great RAW, I genuinely was able to watch the whole thing through again and be entertained by all of it apart from the R-Truth/Stardust Plastic Spiders angle. On that show, Ryback went off script and the crowd LOVED him. Owens burying The Secret and self-help stuff in general was great- and also bang on for the most part. At least for me because I hate all of those books. I seriously think the Ryback/Owens match will be great on Sunday, I'm not saying Match of the Night with Rollins having two- but for me it's got a pretty good chance of being 3rd.
Cosmic Wasteland & Team Flippy Shit Brawl
This felt like a segment that happened the way it did because they timed the show out wrong and they suddenly realised they were going too long and had to cut time off of a segment. That's not to say the angle was bad, and I'm just happy we didn't get Stardust/Neville as billed for the billionth time in the last three months.
Charlotte v Nikki Bella- Divas Title
Oh here we go. I've already said it, but I'll repeat myself- I don't give a fuck that Nikki Bella got the record. I don't understand why people are getting hung up on this record, being the longest reigning champion in PRO WRESTLING means absolutely fuck all. I looked it up last night, out of the five (because three ain't enough) Titles that are currently active in WWE none of the longest runs were in any way the best.
Tag Titles- London & Kendrick
US Title- Dean Ambrose (or Luger, but it's the WWE Version of the US Title)
IC Title- Honky Tonk Man
WWE- Sammartino/Punk ("Modern Era")
and now Nikki Bella with the Divas.
Good Title runs in PRO WRESTLING aren't remembered for how long they go for, they're remembered for- well being memorable. Whether that's the actual run with the person being great, a particular match that "made" the Title run or just the way the run was booked either being great- or in a way that made the run fun (see Crash Holly). None of those can be said for Nikki's run, now Nikki's got the record her Title run isn't long for this world now. I'm not sure if they're going to have Charlotte win on Sunday, I think they might have Paige turning still- but still it's not going for much longer. The record is only relevant while Nikki is, and without knowing I think it's a pretty good guess that Nikki will gradually be phased out over the next year/year and a half.
Now a couple of things, the booking last night. I believe I said two weeks ago that I've given up on this "revolution" and will now view the way they book the Women as a parody of how to book Womens Wrestling. Sometimes I'm so right it scares me. Last Night was a complete parody of the booking of the Divas. It was a pretty average match, and it had a not just a shit finish- but a shit finish that's still fresh in the memory. They didn't even do some meaningful false finishes before the Brie shenanigans to try and get the crowd invested, I think that actually annoyed me more than the Brie shenanigans. They don't want us to care about the Divas, if last night didn't make that abundantly clear then I don't know what will- we still don't have a meaningful angle as I was expecting with Paige's turn and the Charlotte stuff on Sunday should she win won't mean as much now that Nikki's got the record which was her character's clear goal.
I've seen a lot of people giving Cena shit after last night, which I just found hilarious. I realise Cena isn't everyone's favourite- and a lot of people look for every excuse to bash him, but COME ON. SERIOUSLY? I'm not saying Cena hasn't "put a word in" to help keep the Belt on Nikki, I'm not. At the same time, Nikki wasn't losing the Belt until after tonight- I SAID THAT LAST DECEMBER. I don't give a fuck what Meltzer said about them having plans to put the Belt on Charlotte, they weren't taking the Title off of Nikki Bella until after last night. That's just a fact. The only two times I thought Nikki had a chance of losing the Belt was very briefly when Paige said she was doing it "for Dusty" at Money in the Bank and when they seemingly got behind Naomi and it looked as though they wanted to do something with her. But even that was very brief after Naomi and the move-set she had to do on that RAW turned her into a one-woman Botchamania.
What's really bugging me about this Cena stuff, let's say Cena did politic to keep the Belt on Nikki- okay if you're going to hold that against him and give him shit for that you'd better fucking give it to Taker as well. I don't mind people giving shit to someone for perceived politicking, but be consistent with it- if you've got double-standards with regard to this sort of stuff you're the worst kind of fan and a living, breathing example of the stereotypical "smark". Taker was doing this exact same thing in the late 2000s with Michelle McCool and using his influence backstage to help McCool out- what's the difference? Politicking is not unique to Cena, I can almost guarantee one of your favourite wrestlers of all-time was a Backstage Politician it just seems as though some fans have selective memories when it comes to that fact.
The one thing I did have to laugh at was Stephanie coming out to "protect the integrity of the Divas Division", that was funny. The "Divas" Division is exactly where it needs to be, it's an outdated concept and term that infuriates me- with a Title that looks like it should be in Toys R Us as a fucking Little Girls Toy. I also think that was a shot at AJ- more specifically a way they wanted to "get at" Punk with regard to the integrity stuff. You can get on about how they should have restarted the match and what happened at Money in the Bank, but I just can't give a fuck about it- they wanted to get the record off of AJ. Good for them, now we can move on with our lives.
So in short, yes- Nikki Bella is the longest reigning Divas Champion of all time. Good for Nikki, do I give a fuck? Absolutely not.
Cesaro v Rusev
This is something I will get pissed about, what the fuck are they doing with everyone in this segment?! The one hope I have for Night of Champions is that they make what's been portrayed on TV official with a double-turn on Sunday. They surely can't be clueless enough to think that Dolph hasn't come off as a complete dick for this whole feud. I hope the thing with Summer and Dolph's gift is actually a tease unlike the stuff with Ambrose and Reigns because a swerve for the sake of a swerve would just kill everyone- both the Wrestlers and the Crowd.
Sting v Big Show
For what they wanted to do tonight, and that's get Sting's WWE Win/Loss Record up so when he loses on Sunday his record doesn't look atrocious- this was a pretty good way to do it. I did find it quite hilarious that they gave us the one Sting match that we actually saw in WCW, but thankfully they kept it short(ish) and set-up the proper Main Event angle.
Sting & John Cena v Seth Rollins & Big Show
The finish for this annoyed me a bit. I understand having Sting getting Rollins to tap- a variation of that sort of thing happens on literally every Go-Home Show ever. It still annoyed me though. I thought the point of having Big Show in the match would be for him to take the pin and then Rollins would get killed by Cena and Rollins after the match and end it with Rollins tapping to Sting having him in the Deathlock and Cena pretty much having a Crossface on him while calling it the STF. All this finish said to me was that there's no chance Sting's winning because he got highlighted and chances are Cena's getting the US Title back. Which I really don't mind, the unification stuff was cool- but it really isn't a good idea for Rollins to be working twice on every show and with the work Cena did with the US Title prior to the Rollins feud I'm all for him getting it back.
Overall I didn't think this RAW was that bad, as far as go-home shows go we've had infinitely worse one's this year. Even the angle with Charlotte & Nikki in a vacuum wasn't a bad way to set-up the Rematch at Night of Champions, it's just the significance of the angle with the record stuff they were hyping and the repetitive nature of it just made it shockingly bad TV. I came up with an analogy of sorts heading into RAW last night that I may as well repeat here. Nikki Bella is the female Honky Tonk Man. I'll just leave it at that.
Thanks for reading as always, obviously we're now headed into Night of Champions so I hope you stay tuned for the Predictions and Review for it. Before all of that we're stopping off at the Impact Zone for one of the last Impacts on Destination America so hopefully you'll stop by for that Review. In the mean time I hope you have a good week, and stop taking a record in Pro fucking Wrestling so seriously. Sit back, Relax and Clap all of your anger away.
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