Wednesday 27 July 2016

Smackdown Live Review: 26th July

Hello! Yes, it's the first official Smackdown Review post-split- and we're officially at the end of the 4 days in a row of posts on here as of this Review. I was really looking forward to last night's Smackdown, the competition aspect of the WWE is back to an extent in that RAW and Smackdown are competing with each other. That can (hopefully) only lead to both RAW and Smackdown trying to put on better shows, as we saw on Monday for RAW. I'll preface this whole review by saying, I didn't think Smackdown could beat RAW this week- but I was still expecting a really good show and for them to set a high benchmark for themselves as RAW did 24 Hours prior.

Shane, Bryan & the Smackdown Roster Opening Segment
So, the show opens with Shane and Bryan backstage- and Bryan says something to the effect of "this show isn't about the authority figures". That's one of the first lines said on the show, keep that in mind.

This segment was fine, and it was a necessary one in that we needed a "state of the union" address from Shane and Bryan before everything kicked off. The 6-Pack challenge thing was interesting, although just because I wanted it for RAW as well I wish we could've gotten a Tournament leading up to Summerslam- which as I'll talk about later on would've probably been a better idea in-terms of having a really strong show last night. This segment was quite "meh" on the whole though I felt, although AJ's reaction to when they called him in as one of the 6-Pack guys was hilarious.

The only real criticism I have of this segment is the fact they had Bray out there standing outside the ring like just another guy. I tweeted about this last night as well, and someone responded "well, he has to be there for when his name is called". Why did he have to be there? Genuine question, why did Bray have to be there for the segment to not completely fall apart? Especially because Bray/The Wyatts were exempt from these segments when we seemingly got them weekly under The Authority for a run they know it's a stupid move to have him out there and yet they did it.

Battle Royal for a 6-Pack Challenge spot
This was a complete non-entity of a Battle Royal. It really only served to highlight just how weak Smackdown's undercard is once you've scratched away the surface of the Cena's, Orton's, Wyatt's, Styles' etc. The people that I thought had a chance of winning this match were Crews, Kane and Kalisto. So I wasn't far off in my predictions. I was happy that Crews did win, mainly because I had a really weird feeling that Ambrose would be wrestling Kane for the Title at Summerslam.

Shelton Benjamin Vignette
AIN'T NO STOPPING ME NOW! This vignette was genuinely the most I've marked out at any point over the last three days of wrestling. I love Shelton Benjamin so fucking much, so to see him coming back is ridiculously exciting for me. I always joked on Twitter about Shelton "deserving better" than what he got, and while I don't think he's going to end up as WWE Champion- if we get one more really good run out of him I'll be absolutely over the moon. Especially with the natural fit for him seemingly being a run with The Miz hopefully capped off with an IC Title win.

The one thing that does have to be said, Smackdown was all about Shane's "new era" right? So, the fact Smackdown's seemingly getting the majority of the returns of people 40+ doesn't really make sense does it?

Becky Lynch v Natalya
This match was just... a match. The crowd weren't really into it for the most part, I wasn't really into it- and it just sort of happened. I was hoping that this would be the blow-off of the angle with these two, and given what followed it could be- but at the same time it could just as easily not be.

The Smackdown Womens Division comes out
The only purpose of this segment was to highlight just how weak Smackdown's Womens Division was. That was literally it. There wasn't a Title that was announced, an angle with anyone or anything like that. We had Carmella, Alexa Bliss and Naomi come out and deliver a few lines and then we had Eva with the most hilariously amazing over the top heel entrance arguably in history. I genuinely wouldn't be opposed to Eva just coming out and making her entrance with the announcer bloke saying how she's beguiling and whatever else every week without ever actually seeing her wrestle.

MizTV w/ Randy Orton
I'm torn on this segment, because the stuff with Miz interviewing himself was fine up to a point but it largely died a death. However, when Randy came out and he was being all sarcastic and stuff it was really entertaining to me. It seems as though Randy's just in a "zero fucks" "I'm just going to have fun" type mindset for his return, which is fine by me- because the only way Randy can ever really be bad is when he comes across as bored. The end-game of this segment was to have the Orton/Miz match set-up, so the segment did its job on the whole- and that's all that can really be said about it.

Randy Orton v The Miz
In the mandatory "ridiculously scary moment" last night after Sasha nearly killing herself on RAW and Big E nearly killing himself at Battleground- literally the first bump Randy took on his return looked scary as anything and it looked like he'd done his shoulder again. I'm assuming it was a work, or at least the injury wasn't as bad as it looked- because if he'd fucked his shoulder this close to the match with Brock there was no chance of them carrying the match on. This match was just odd. It was odd from the moment Orton took the bad bump within the first 20 seconds of the match, and it only progressed from there.

I know what people are about to say, in that Miz was wrestling Randy Orton. However, did they have to kill their Intercontinental Champion? To quote Miz "really?". There are literally two titles on Smackdown, the WWE Title and the IC Title. Given that fact, and there can only ever be a select number of guys feuding for the WWE Title at one time- surely it would've been a good idea to start building the IC Title up for the "best of the rest". Instead the IC Title is completely dead on night one of the "new" Smackdown. Good job, guys.

American Alpha Vignette
I'm assuming because they had to pack almost everyone into the Battle Royal earlier on in the show, there just wasn't an opponent for American Alpha to face this week. Another misstep on Smackdown's part in my opinion. Granted, American Alpha doesn't have much of a tag division with which to compete with- but getting them out on the first show and indirectly telling us that Jordan and Gable are the guys they want to build the tag division around would've been a good move in my opinion.

Heath Slater Promo/Rhyno's Return
This was a really fun segment, right up until the moment that Rhyno came out from under the ring. I get the feeling that this is going to be a running theme of the next few weeks where Heath comes out and then someone returns and kills him. Which is a shame actually, because Heath was great in this segment. Heath's great 99% of the time, and I was (and still am) hoping for him to start a faction of some "'forgotten" guys who are "pissed off" and want what's "owed" to them with guys like Hawkins and Jinder who are rumoured to be returning. But just for now, NXT's Rhyno has officially been called up. Bit of a joke they called this young upstart up over Nakamura, Joe etc. isn't it?

Dolph Ziggler v AJ Styles v John Cena v Apollo Crews v Baron Corbin v Bray Wyatt- 6-Pack Challenge #1 Contender Match
Dolph Ziggler, the actual Dolph Ziggler is now the #1 Contender for the WWE Title heading into WWE's second biggest event of the year. No, really. I'm actually in two minds about whether Dolph's win last night was a good move or not. That's mainly just because I've been over Dolph for at least a year at this point.

Dolph's win put over the whole "everyone's on an equal playing field" type environment they seemingly want to create with Smackdown, because in the eyes of the fans Dolph's been a guy who's been consistently "held back" and not been given what fans perceive he deserves. The thing is, in my opinion- and I'll happily be proven wrong Dolph peaked over two years ago at this point. I'm not saying he still can't be a compelling on-screen character to oppose Ambrose (especially if he turns), but it's not going to be as good as some people think in the sense that some are still in love with "cash-in" Dolph and don't want to look past that.

The actual match was really good, if a bit messy at times- and Dolph won by Superkicking and pinning AJ. That caught me off guard even more than Dolph winning, because apart from the Dolph/Ambrose feud- Cena/AJ is the feud on Smackdown for Summerslam. I always thought Bray was winning this, so I'm interested to see where he goes especially now- because it's not like there's necessarily an obvious avenue for them to explore with him at present. Then, going back to the very first thing I talked about in this Review- the show not about the authority figures ended with the authority figures coming out and Bryan getting the crowd to chant "Yes". Seriously. It was a moment of complete stupidity to mark a fairly mediocre first episode of the "new" Smackdown.

Last night's Smackdown had its moments without a doubt, however on the whole I felt like it was a pretty weak episode. While comparisons between RAW and Smackdown won't really be appropriate in my opinion for at least three months given the respective states of the shows and their rosters, Smackdown last night wasn't even close to RAW the night before.

The main problem last night had was the fact that they packed basically every single guy with some credibility except for Randy in the Main Event, rather than spreading the "star power" out over the two hours. That meant they had to fill an hour and a half's worth of TV time with the dregs of the Smackdown Roster, which were the dregs of the dregs of the RAW Roster for the most part. I mean, apart from a few- the Battle Royal and its participants wouldn't have looked out of place on an above average episode of Main Event.

I'm not going to get too upset with Smackdown though, at least not for a number of weeks- because Smackdown is more of a "project" show in the sense that they need to use the 2 Hours of TV time they get a week to build new stars and try and make it compete with RAW by organically growing over a number of months. As opposed to RAW where the majority of the pieces for them are already in place. You can almost compare it to NXT Pre-Network in a way, in that the Roster had a lot of potential but they just needed time to really grow.

Thanks for reading as always, for those of you who've read all four of the posts that have come out over the last four days thanks for your support- and hopefully if you're new around here you'll keep coming back in the weeks to come. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you have a good week and THERE AIN'T NO STOPPING ME NOOOOW!

Tuesday 26 July 2016

RAW Review: 25th July

Hello! Well, as of last night we're officially in the new "new era" of WWE. Yep, the brand split has finally happened- and we've gotten unique rosters on RAW and Smackdown. I said last week in my RAW and Smackdown Review's that I've basically been giving the WWE a free pass between Money in the Bank and Battleground, but now the draft's happened by expectations have gone way up. So in short, let's see if last night's RAW lived up to my raised expectations.

Mick & Stephanie address the RAW Roster
I was never really a fan of these types of segment when we used to get them seemingly weekly with The Authority, but it did make sense within the context of the segment last night. It did help that Mick and Steph didn't go out of their way to bury everyone in sight, in direct contrast to those old Authority segments. We had the announcement of the Womens Title match and the Fatal 4-Way's, as opposed to the Tournament that I wanted- but the end game was basically the same.

The Fatal 4-Way's were of course for the new WWE "Universal" Championship. Firstly, it's just such a stupid name for a Title. I understand why it's called the "Universal" Title obviously, but the name just sounds moronic. They must have 30 people on creative, and then obviously Vince, Triple H and to a lesser extent Stephanie. Assuming the creative teams are split, that's 15 people on RAW plus the top people in the company. All of those people couldn't come up with a better name than the "Universal" Title.

With all that said, if Rollins wins at Summerslam and comes out the next night on RAW and boasts about him being "champion of the universe" I'll absolutely love it.

Finn Balor v Rusev v Kevin Owens v Cesaro
It was Finn Balor's big RAW debut, and when he came out the commentators really put over just how big of a deal Finn was. That was a good move. The problem was, his entrance wasn't actually his big RAW debut- because they had him show up on the stage like just another guy in the segment two minutes prior. Even if they had to have him on the stage for the previous segment, couldn't they have had Finn's 4-Way on second to build some anticipation for his first match? Instead when he made his entrance, the crowd just went "oh yeah, we've just seen him... yay".

The match was really fun for the most part. All four of the guys looked really good in the match, and the only problem I really had with the match was I didn't really want any of the four guys to take the pin in this match. Actually saying that was the only problem I had is a lie, because I really didn't like the fact they had Finn take so many big moves as we approached the finish of the match. But, they had to do the old "underdog" type storyline I suppose. It's really a small complaint in the grand scheme of things.

Nia Jax v Britt Baker
I'll talk about this a lot more in one of the later matches, which was an even better version of this match. Actual, proper squash matches have returned to TV guys! I love it. The one worry I do have with Nia doing these squashes, presumably for at least a month or two is it could stall her in-ring development. While Nia isn't even "good" yet, she's just had her best match on NXT TV "last week"- so to say she wasn't progressing would be a lie.

Sasha Banks & Golden Truth Backstage Segment
I was convinced that UpUpDownDown episode with Goldust playing Pokemon Go was a rib on Goldust. So if it was, then the rib has officially reached WWE TV.

Roman Reigns v Chris Jericho v Sheamus v Sami Zayn
I actually thought that this was the better of the two Fatal 4-Way's. There were a few issues with how it was shot for me, especially when Sheamus was doing moves weirdly- but the actual match itself was really good. The one issue that this match had was the fact that everyone in the building knew that Roman was winning. It just kind of took away a bit from all of the near-falls in my opinion.

The thing that does have to be pointed out at this point, was the fact that all of the stuff mentioned took up the 1st hour (and a bit) of the show. We had one talking segment, which was a necessity to set-up the rest of the show, two fairly long matches with a clear purpose and a squash match to build up a new star. This was a very good start for RAW post-split.

New Day & The Club Segment
I feel like sometimes I miss references with New Day. I'm specifically thinking of the time where they "roasted" the Steph Curry trainers, because I had no clue what was going on in that segment until someone explained it to me. With that said, I now have to ask if I missed a reference with this "Sonny Boy" shit? The best guess I saw was that it's a joke that's funny to Vince, so maybe he was just part of the ring crew with a wacky name that Vince found funny and we got this segment as a result.

Either way, this segment died a death. Which is a shame when you consider the fact that this was a "celebration" of all things New Day- and this type of talk segment is usually what New Day have done best. The Club attack was good, and it was the next logical feud for the Tag Titles. It's over to Summerslam now to see how invested the WWE are in The Club.

Neville v "Mr Irrelevant" Curtis Axel
At first, I thought the "Mr Irrelevant" stuff was just a burial of Axel- but it turns out that it's an actual sports reference. Which is good in a way, because when I heard him referred to as "Mr Irrelevant" I was a bit annoyed- because I really wish they'd do an "Average Joe Hennig" gimmick with Axel.

This match was the first match that was a bit of a misstep of this "new era" of RAW. That's the case for the simple fact that they actually had a match. I know they had to fill time, but this should have been a showcase of Neville doing a load of flippy shit to re-establish himself to the crowd and it ideally should've taken no more than 2-3 minutes. Instead I think it went 5 or 6, and the crowd just didn't really care. One could say that this match was... irrelevant.

Darren Young, Bob Backlund & Golden Truth Segment
Again, I'm still not convinced the Pokemon Go stuff with Goldust isn't just a rib. I'm not really sure what they do with Darren now to be honest. I suppose he could wrestle Rusev, but that's an angle they should hold off on until Darren's been built up a bit more and an "upset" win is at least on the minds of people.

Sasha Banks v Charlotte- Womens Title
Do you wanna know how I knew Sasha was winning a good five minutes before she did? Charlotte. She's not the best at hiding her emotions is ol' Charlotte, and every time they showed a close up of her after a big move towards the end she seemed to be on the verge of tears.

This match was just absolutely fucking phenomenal. At this point of the show, the crowd were completely dead- and a womens match was the match that actually put some energy back into the crowd, which would've been inconceivable even a couple of months ago.

Sasha doing the old "Eddie" spot was good, and it was made better by the fact we didn't just have JBL going off on commentary shouting "Viva La Raza"- and the move was brought back to the match's focus which was Sasha and how the move was associated with Sasha. The match itself was just so good, and these two gave everything to try and put on the best match possible for this title change.

The only real problem I have with this match, was the fact that it didn't actually happen at Summerslam. We'll of course get the rematch at Summerslam, and they've presumably done it like this to get Charlotte's rematch clause out of the way before Bayley's officially called up- but I can't help but wish that it would've happened in Brooklyn basically a year after the Horsewomen's farewell from NXT.

Braun Strowman v James Elsworth
This was the absolute ultimate squash match, and I loved it for that fact. They had a guy out there in what looked like his actual underwear, looking a bit like E.T. and they had Strowman come out and just kill him. I found this match absolutely hilarious, and because of that fact I can't really criticise it. I can safely say I was entertained by this match, and if we keep getting these in the coming weeks I may end up really warming to Strowman.

It does have to be said that Braun is about as generic as possible now, and his theme is quite "meh"- so whether my opinion of Braun changes over the next few weeks after the fun segment last night remains to be seen.

Enzo & Cass v The Shining Stars
Do you wanna know how we know this is a "new era"? We even got a pay-off to the Golden Truth/Pokemon Go angle last night. This segment wasn't really much, and I'm not sure what to think of Enzo & Cass going from teaming with Cena to wrestling the Shining Stars- but all I'll say for now is I hope they've got a good plan for Enzo & Cass for Summerslam. Especially with the fact it'll be Enzo & Cass in Brooklyn for Summerslam.

Finn Balor v Roman Reigns
I saw a lot of discussion about Roman Reigns after Battleground, specifically Meltzer talking about how Vince has seemingly cooled on Roman for want of a better way to describe it. If there was ever going to be a clearer indicator that what Meltzer said was true than what we had here I'd be surprised. Weirdly though, that may in fact be the best thing possible for Roman. The main problem most fans have with Roman is the fact he's been completely shoved down our throats and Vince desperately wanting him to be the next top babyface.

So, now that Vince has seemingly cooled on that plan- Roman can either turn heel or continue as a less exposed babyface and try and get over a bit more organically with his ring work. It's probably too late for that second option without a complete restart that'll take a year or more to pull off- but it's not an impossibility.

I know I said last week that I was worried about Finn being "stuck" in the Cruiserweight division, but in hindsight I'm not really sure why I was worrying. Finn is basically Triple H's guy, so of course he was going to come in around the top levels of the company. Whether or not he wins at Summerslam is another thing entirely, although it does have to be said that using Summerslam to establish the "new" Club to take us into the rather dead Autumn/Winter period before the Rumble would be a really smart move in my opinion.

Overall, I absolutely loved this episode of RAW. The only proper missteps were the Neville match and the New Day segment in my opinion. So, as far as the kick-off to the "new era" on RAW goes, it was an absolutely great one. I'm genuinely not sure how Smackdown can possibly top last night to be honest, and I'm interested to see how the "new era" of Smackdown kicks off. Because I've got a weird feeling all of the "new" stuff we had last night on RAW like the Announcers Desk being re-positioned won't be on Smackdown and it'll be the same as last week.

Thanks for reading as always, hopefully you've enjoyed all of these posts over the last few days and you'll be back again tomorrow for the Smackdown Review. As I've already said, I'm looking to Smackdown's "new era" and basically how they even try to top last night's RAW. I love some good ol' competition. Thanks again for reading, and let's look forward to hopefully another great night of wrestling. They could almost become a new "thing" at this rate.

Monday 25 July 2016

Battleground Review

Hello! Yes, the last PPV before the Draft comes into effect is officially in the books. I said in my Predictions that last night didn't really matter long-term beyond a few of the obvious things like where the Titles end up, but I also said I was expecting quite a fun show. Last night's card had a lot of potential, I don't think many people would've disputed that- so it's really just a case of seeing whether it fulfilled said potential now. Let's jump right into the review.

Pre-Show: Cesaro Pre-Show Panel stuff
This little segment with Cesaro perfectly summed up why Vince doesn't see Cesaro as a top-level guy. I love Cesaro, but simply put he was just not very good here. He was stumbling over his words a few times, he ended up repeating what he had already said a few times- and in general just seemed a bit uncomfortable. Cesaro's been wrestling for 15+ Years at this point, if he was going to be a good talker- he would be one by now. It's the old thing Paul Heyman always says you need "accentuate the positives, and hide the negatives". They're not doing that with Cesaro by having him show up with the sole purpose being to talk. I do have semi-high hopes for Cesaro though, if they can limit his promos to backstage Pre-Tapes to get his "pissed off" character over and then let him do what he does best it could be a good move for him.

Pre-Show: Fabreeze v The Usos
For a Pre-Show match, with literally no build- this was about as good as it could have been in my opinion. The match was actually better than I thought it would be, mainly because I was expecting wacky spots galore with Fabreeze- and what we actually got was a proper wrestling match between the two teams. I'm not going to complain about that by any means though, because Fabreeze being treated like an actual credible Tag Team will only help the Smackdown Tag Division that's ridiculously weak at present. Also, going back to a point I made a few weeks ago in a RAW Review- Fabreeze might genuinely have the best Win/Loss ratio in the entire company just counting RAW, Smackdown and PPV's. Think about that for a minute.

Sasha Banks & BAYLEY (!) v Charlotte & Dana Brooke
Yep, Sasha's mystery partner was in fact Bayley. I'd said multiple times that Bayley was pretty much the only person the crowd would accept in this spot, but the pop for her was completely beyond what I was expecting. This match wasn't really important to be honest. The match was fine, without being anything more. The only two things that really mattered was the fact that Sasha's partner was in fact Bayley, and the finish of Sasha making Charlotte tap. This was pretty much as good as it could have possibly gotten, and we've now got a clear Womens Title match for Summerslam as a result of Sasha making Charlotte tap.

The only thing that wasn't ideal about this segment is the fact that it was made clear that Bayley's not been called up yet. Even then, I would expect her to lose to Asuka in Brooklyn and then be officially called up on the following Monday where hopefully she can be inserted into the Title picture with Sasha as champion.

The Wyatts v New Day
I said in my predictions that it would be beyond stupid if the Wyatts who are about to be split up beat New Day last night. So, wouldn't you know it- Bray pinned Xavier clean in the middle of the ring.

I got into a bit of a debate about this on Twitter last night, I wasn't expecting Bray to be pinned- but surely it was common sense to make the faction that's staying together go over the one that is guaranteed to not be together after the PPV? The Wyatts aren't together anymore, that's a fact. Strowman's on RAW, and from that weird vignette Rowan had on Twitter you have to assume Rowan's being broken off from Bray as well despite him being on Smackdown with Bray. So this faction that's just gone over the longest running Tag Team champions in history, and now there's not even going to be a follow up to it.

On a more positive note, we got a pretty good pay-off to the whole Xavier angle with Bray and him seemingly getting over his fear of Bray. That was as close to a pay-off as we're getting for this whole angle, so it's a take it or leave it type situation. The match was quite fun as well, it does have to be said. So overall I liked the match, but the finish was just so fucking stupid.

Rusev v Zack Ryder- US Title
This was a pretty average, basic match. That's not necessarily a criticism of the match, but it's about the only way it can possibly be described. Both guys did their jobs well, they did alright with the whole story of the match- and then Rusev won clean.

Then Rusev attacked Zack after, and Mojo Rawley's music hit. The Mojo/Rusev stare down was fine, but in the back of my mind I could just think "there's literally no chance of a pay-off" because Mojo and Rusev are on separate shows. At least we know the Hype Bros are going to be a "thing", because as I've said a few times Smackdown's Tag division is really, really weak.

Sami Zayn v Kevin Owens
Sami Zayn is now fully on course to be the Wrestler of the Year in WWE. At the time of writing this, he's had two of the top three matches in WWE this year. His match with Nakamura in Dallas, and this match last night. I'm not sure where to rank this up against Nakamura/Zayn to be honest. My feelings toward a match can change pretty suddenly, but at the time of writing this- I'm still favouring Nakamura/Zayn for the MOTY in WWE. The storytelling in the match last night, and the story in general was miles better than the Nakamura/Zayn match- but for the match itself and the atmosphere with it being Nakamura's debut I'm still favouring the match in Dallas.

This match was just so fucking good. There's not really much else in the way of descriptions that can be used for this match. If you haven't seen the match, go out of your way to watch it. It really is that simple. The one thing that'll be absolutely unforgivable in my book is if they have Zayn and Owens together on screen at any point on RAW tonight. I will literally threaten to stop watching, only to then continue watching. Shit's getting real. I say this, because I've got a really bad feeling they kept these two on the same brand to turn them into a dysfunctional tag team that'll chase New Day. I really hope I'm wrong, because Gallows & Anderson and/or Enzo & Cass should be next in line- but it's a feeling I've had since they were announced as being kept on the same show.

Natalya v Becky Lynch
I predicted Becky, but the more I thought about it- Nattie winning was the fairly obvious finish. Natalya is pretty much the only even semi-credible woman on Smackdown alongside Becky at the moment. They need to build Alexa Bliss up a bit, so in the meantime Becky needs a feud for Summerslam.

This match just completely died. No match would've been able to follow the Owens/Zayn match, and this was the old "women in the death spot" type booking- but just earlier on in the show. The crowd simply couldn't care about this match. The match just happened. There was a bunch of moves, and then Nattie just won. The one thing I do have to take issue with this match was Nattie winning clean. Would it have killed them to have Nattie do something underhanded to win? It's not like this card was full of fucked finishes, so that was a bit stupid to me.

Dean Ambrose, Daniel Bryan & Shane McMahon Backstage Promo
This was quite a fun backstage segment. It did a good job of setting up the Main Event and the Smackdown/RAW permutations, and that's that. It's also amazing that Daniel Bryan's done more to get Smackdown and Dean Ambrose over in a week than the WWE have done in literally years.

The Miz v Darren Young- IC Title
If you read all of my Reviews and Predictions, you know I always position the winner of the match first in the title line. I legitimately have no clue how to position Miz and Darren in the title line. WWE's Twitter said Miz had been counted out directly after the match, but then on WWE.com it says the match was a Double DQ. So in short, I don't have a fucking clue when it comes to the finish.

The actual match just wasn't very good. I've been a big fan of The Miz this year, but where he's excelled is when he's been put into the ring with people better than him from an in-ring perspective. Darren Young does not fit into that category. The Becky/Nattie match had already pretty much killed the crowd, and this match didn't really help it either. I'm legitimately not sure what the finish was actually meant to be. I'm not sure if Backlund and Maryse were supposed to attack Miz and Darren or what. This finish was just a complete mess, and the thing is- there's going to be literally no follow up to this because Darren and Miz are on different shows now. That's probably a good thing though given the match we had.

I did like Darren doing the Backlund thing of staring at his hands in supposed disbelief though. That was a fun little thing to end an otherwise horrendous segment.

John Cena, Enzo Amore & Big Cass v The Club
As was the case with a few of the matches last night, this match was as good- or very close to being as good as it could have been. Enzo's promo Pre-Match was absolutely fucking amazing, and as with the Zayn/Owens match it's something you should go out of your way to see. However, Enzo & Cass from an in-ring perspective still aren't quite there yet in my opinion. Gallows also really struggled last night I thought, and there were a few times where it was really noticeable.

Overall I did really enjoy the match though. We got the finish that I wanted with AJ taking the pin, which of course sets up the Cena/Styles match at Summerslam. I do wish that we'd have gotten The Club turning on AJ last night to lead into tonight. WWE are probably going to be bringing Balor up as a Babyface now given the fact he was never a Heel at any point in NXT, but I just wish that wasn't the case. Balor's better as a Heel, it really is that simple- and Gallows and Anderson function better when there's a 3rd guy in the mix with them. That's for tonight though, and last night's match was a fairly good end to this chapter of the story.

The Highlight Reel w/ Randy Orton
There's honestly not a lot worth discussing from this segment. Randy's still ridiculously awkward on the mic as a Babyface, to the surprise of absolutely nobody. He had the one amazing line where he said "no enhancement needed" before literally dropping the mic, and it ended with an RKO "outta nowhere". We obviously know where Randy's headed for Summerslam, but I'm actually really curious to see where Jericho goes next. I'm not sure if the RAW Cruiserweight Division is going to have a weight limit that'll actually be a proper weight limit, but I'd love a run from Jericho where he calls himself the "original" Cruiserweight and has feuds with the likes of Neville.

Dean Ambrose v Seth Rollins v Roman Reigns- WWE Title
On most nights, this would've been the Match of the Night. Unfortunately, it had to go up against Owens/Zayn- that not many matches in the whole world have been able to top this year. The main question that needs an answer, is did this live up to the expectations people had for the match. This was one of the most anticipated Triple Threat matches in WWE history without a shadow of a doubt.

For me personally, my expectations were met. The match was just absolutely amazing, and as with the Zayn/Owens match it was taken to another level than it may have otherwise been at because of the story that led up to the match. I'm not talking about the direct build for the match in the last month because in my opinion it was pretty shite- but the video package we had pre-match was just absolutely phenomenal in the respect of telling the story of The Shield and all three guys in The Shield.

Not only that, but Ambrose actually won! I was fully convinced that WWE were going to do something stupid to kick off the Draft and put the WWE Title on RAW last night. They didn't! Smackdown actually means something now that it's officially got the WWE Title, and we're presumably going to be getting Rollins in the mix for the new Title that I can see Steph and Mick introducing tonight.

My ideal scenario if they are going to introduce a World Title to RAW, is for there to be a good ol' fashioned tournament leading up to the Final of said Tournament at Summerslam. Rollins will obviously get to the Final, and then Roman will be on the other side and the match is seemingly obvious but we get a "big" upset win in the Semi's with someone like Sami, Finn or Cesaro beating him. Whether that actually happens remains to be seen, and if there isn't going to be another world title- then the chances of it being Rollins/Triple H at Summerslam have gone up massively in my book.

I really enjoyed the PPV last night, and it's probably been the best PPV of the year. Which isn't bad considering the card looked a bit "meh", and this PPV was one of the least important PPV's in WWE history given what's coming from tonight onwards.

Thanks for reading as always, we've of course got RAW tonight- so hopefully you'll be following along with me on Twitter before you're back for the RAW Review tomorrow. We're now properly into the Draft, with the show tonight being the first post-split show- so lets all look forward to a Nia Jax squash match, presumably some returns and hopefully a show that doesn't feel really dragged out. Thanks again for reading, and let's just hope for a good one tonight eh? If nothing else, at least we get Corey Graves tonight.

Sunday 24 July 2016

Battleground Predictions

Hello! Yes, tonight is the last night before we officially dive into the brand split and everything that comes with said brand split. You know what that means? This PPV largely means absolutely nothing. I have no doubt the majority of the matches tonight will be quite fun, and the WWE Title match will be interesting- but I highly doubt there'll be much in the way of interesting follow up to this PPV beyond who wins the WWE Title, a potential angle with The Club and Sasha's mystery partner. There's 9 matches to predict, so I'm just going to jump right into them.

Pre-Show: The Usos v Fabreeze
I have to assume that The Usos are winning this match. Beyond the obvious part of it being a Pre-Show match which means the babyfaces generally win, returns aside The Usos are by far and a way the most credible team on Smackdown to rival American Alpha. The thing is though, saying that- Fabreeze have actually been on TV more than The Usos over the last month or two. They've actually gotten a few wins in that time as well, so it's not inconceivable that Fabreeze do actually win. However, as already said- I just can't see it personally. I wouldn't mind The Usos turning heel in the near future actually, because we just need to see a different side to them now they're likely to be moved back into the spotlight.
Winner: The Usos

The New Day v The Wyatt Family
Before we found out the rules for the Draft, and the Draft did in fact take place I would've said that the Titles aren't on the line in order to give The Wyatts a win and a rematch for said Titles at Summerslam. However, as we now know The Wyatts are inexplicably being split up (again). With that in mind, it just doesn't make sense to put the team that's breaking up over the team that's staying together. Surely even WWE can't be stupid enough to do that.
Winner: The New Day

Sasha Banks & ??? v Charlotte & Dana Brooke
The outcome for this match isn't really in question. Given the fact that basically every woman except for Becky, Nattie, Carmella and a few of the complete jobbers are on Smackdown- the whole problem with the New Day/Wyatts match doesn't come into play for this. Sasha's team is winning without a shadow of a doubt to set up a Title match at Summerslam where Sasha has to win.

The question is of course about who Sasha's partner is going to be. I'll preface this by saying, I'm not really going to talk about Bayley in this section. I talked about Bayley in both the RAW and Smackdown Reviews earlier on in the week. The extent of what I'm going to say about Bayley is, the crowd won't accept anyone except Bayley tonight. Apart from an absolutely top-tier return, the crowd are going to absolutely bury this match if Sasha's partner isn't Bayley.

I said it in my RAW Review, and the Smackdown/Draft Review. The fact Bayley wasn't drafted and brought in to do a run-in on Tuesday means her chances of being Sasha's partner has massively gone down in my book. So, it's time to look at the other options.

Nia Jax
If we're talking within kayfabe, Nia would be a choice that makes sense for tonight. It would actually work quite well because Nia can establish herself as one of the women to "look out for" by being in the same ring as Charlotte right off the bat, and then she can branch off from Sasha and say how she's only out for herself tomorrow.

Lita/Trish Stratus
This is the top-tier return I referenced a bit earlier on. I know Trish recently said she was open to a run as a Heel manager, and long-term a return tonight could eventually end up with that- so I wouldn't rule it out. Lita's basically just because I think she's on the road as an agent now, so it would be quite an easy position for her to fill- and again, because she's Lita it would help to offset the lack of Bayley.

Nikki Bella
A Nikki return is fairly close now. I saw Nikki's tweet saying how she's headed to the Performance Center, which means she's been cleared to a point and because of this obviously being a Tag match Nikki can take it a bit easy and just beat up Dana Brooke for most of the match. This would be a surprise partner that I'd actually want to see, just to see how much it's completely buried by the crowd.

This could be a point in the show where the crowd turns on the show in general as well, so WWE really need to play it smart when it comes to where they position this match on the card if Bayley isn't actually the tag partner.

Personally I think the "top-tier" return is most likely, because it'll be easier to write said "top-tier" return out of the direct spotlight heading into Summerslam with Sasha/Charlotte needing to be the match.
Winner: Sasha Banks

John Cena, Enzo & Cass v The Club
This is a fairly straightforward outcome in my opinion. My ideal outcome believe it or not would be Cena pinning AJ to set-up the rematch at Summerslam with them being 1-1 with pins on each other. I know that sounds weird because CENAWINSLOL and Cena's burying him!

AJ is being split away from Gallows & Anderson. Gallows & Anderson are going to be on RAW with Finn Balor. Even the most moronic of people in WWE's creative can put those pieces together. I don't know if I'd have Gallows and Anderson turn on AJ during the match to protect him a bit in taking the pin, or they turn on him after. But given the fact this is the last time AJ, Gallows & Anderson will be on the same show together for a while it has to be tonight.

Balor doesn't have to debut on the show tonight, but the turn does have to happen tonight for the reasons already mentioned. Either way, Cena's team is winning, most likely with AJ taking the pin.
Winner: John Cena, Enzo & Cass

The Miz v Darren Young- IC Title
I already talked about the angle that I believe they're doing with Darren in this weeks RAW Review, so I won't go into too much detail on it again. Suffice to say, I'm expecting Darren to have a pretty strong showing tonight- but then get fucked out of winning the title in some contrived way. Whether that be a count-out, double pin, DQ etc.
Winner: The Miz (possibly Darren, but Miz still retains)

Zack Ryder v Rusev- US Title
I've seen a lot of talk about the distribution of Titles over the two shows, specifically linked to the match just discussed and this one. The general consensus from what I've seen is that if Darren or Zack wins, then both of them are winning. My issue with that line of thought is it's simply not sound logic. RAW's getting the Cruiserweight Division, and presumably a Cruiserweight Title so that'll be a Title to have on RAW- and then as I'll discuss later I have a feeling the WWE Title will find its way back to RAW in the Main Event.

Smackdown needs to seem important. The whole reason for the split is because the ratings for Smackdown on Thursday were shit and USA were getting worried by them. So having the US and IC Titles on Smackdown with them hopefully being built up a bit is one way that I can see them trying to make it seem important.

While it's unlikely, I've had a weird feeling that Zack's winning since the match was made so I'm going to stick with my gut. Which is probably stupid, especially when considering the fact that Mojo was called up to presumably team with Zack in the Hype Bros.

Kevin Owens v Sami Zayn
As with the Wyatts/New Day match, the outcome of this match seemed completely obvious- right up until the draft took place. To the surprise of basically everyone, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens haven't actually been split up.

I think everyone was expecting Owens and Zayn to be split up, Sami gets the "feel good" win to send both guys on their way and that's that for this chapter of their rivalry. Now they're both on RAW I have no fucking clue what's going to happen in this match. I'm leaning toward an Owens win, but honestly I don't really know. I wasn't nearly as critical of the draft as most, but the decision to keep Owens and Zayn on the same show was just absolutely fucking stupid.
Winner: Kevin Owens

Becky Lynch v Natalya
In the "I can't believe this isn't on the Pre-Show" match, we've got Becky Lynch v Natalya. This is one of the more straightforward matches to predict. Becky's most likely going to be the top woman on Smackdown, so she needs a win tonight to kick off her run. The other way to look at it is that if Becky loses to Nattie then she can chase Nattie for the womens feud on Smackdown building to Summerslam, which is probably quite likely- but I hope that isn't the case.
Winner: Becky Lynch

Seth Rollins v Dean Ambrose v Roman Reigns- WWE Title
I realise this is somewhat contradictory to what I said earlier on about Smackdown needing to be viewed as "important", but I can't see the WWE Title staying on Ambrose tonight. Equally, I can't see Roman getting the Title for obvious reasons- so the only option left is to put the Title back on Seth and have Seth/Roman be the WWE Title match for Summerslam.

The other way to go is to have Ambrose retain and have Rollins/Roman for the new world title that they're going to presumably be introducing before Summerslam. It'll probably be "cleaner" for the split that way as well because there won't be any of those pesky rematch clauses floating around. The only guy I can't see leaving with the Title is Roman, because despite what some people are saying- Vince knows that he can't just give Roman the Title back tonight. Especially with the Brock stuff, giving Roman the Title on his first televised appearance back after a Wellness Violation will be sending completely the wrong message. So now that I've said that expect "the guy" to be standing tall at around 4am tonight.

As I've already said, this PPV simply doesn't matter. Especially with the fact that we had two WWE Title matches on TV this week, I can actually say this is going to be like a slightly more important RAW. We're even getting a Talk Show segment! With that said, the matches should be fun- and there is at least some potential for some interesting angles on the show.

Thanks for reading as always, with Predictions there is a Review to follow not soon after- so keep an eye out for it tomorrow. Then we officially start the RAW Review/Smackdown Reviews with completely separate rosters as of this week. So in short there's a lot to look forward to at the moment, and hopefully you'll be coming back for all of the Reviews that are going to be coming your way. Thanks again for reading, and just remember- if we don't get a Ryback return to team up with Sasha as "Rybanks" Sasha's partner will be a huge anti-climax.

Wednesday 20 July 2016

Smackdown Live/WWE Draft Review: 19th July

Hello! That's right, the Draft has finally taken place as of last night- we know where everyone barring injured people and Heath Slater is going and the focus now shifts a bit onto Battleground but more so on how the Rosters will work now they've largely taken shape. This does have to be said straight away, the Rosters aren't "finished" after last night.

They kept the Draft as exclusively guys who are already (officially) within the WWE system whether it be Main Roster or NXT, so I'm expecting a few returns in the next couple of weeks and possibly beyond. For example, right off the bat- I think there's about 3 people who would qualify for the Cruiserweight Division that got drafted to RAW so surely they'll be bringing some more people in on that front. There were a few really odd picks, and I'll bring those up throughout this Review- but I'm not going to be getting too carried away about either Roster at this moment in time.

Round 1 of the Draft
Seth Rollins- RAW
Dean Ambrose- Smackdown
Charlotte- RAW
AJ Styles- Smackdown
Finn Balor- RAW

This was a really strong start to the Draft in my opinion. The only real surprise to me was the fact Roman wasn't picked among the first 5. Let's be honest, the Draft order doesn't actually matter too much- so I'd have thought they would want to get the mentioning of Roman out of the way as early as possible knowing the reaction his drafting would get.

The first issue that arose from the Draft, and the cynical side of me would say it was to hide the fact Roman wasn't there- is we didn't get any sort of reactions to any of the drafts. Once a name was said, they cut to a 10 second video package and it was time to move on. I know they posted it on Youtube, but the reaction for Balor being shown on TV would've been nice as well. Especially because I thought that would be the whole point of keeping all of the NXT guys at the Performance Center. It was probably more convenient for Breaking Ground I suppose.

Finn Balor's obviously the name that jumps out from this round of 5. He's finally gotten the call-up and will be on RAW. The fact he was positioned so high up in the Draft gives me a reasonable amount of hope for Finn's immediate prospects on the Main Roster, but I can't help but feel like he's going to be in the Cruiserweight Division for the first few months. That could change, especially with a certain club being split and Gallows and Anderson ending up on RAW with Finn. But at this moment in time, It's best to say I'm cautiously optimistic.

John Cena v Luke Gallows
No match except the WWE Title one was going to get time on this show, as weird as it sounds given all of the bitching- for the Draft last night Smackdown really would've benefitted from being 3 Hours long. The match was fine for what it was, but it was really a "blink and you'll miss it" type match.

Round 2 of the Draft
Roman Reigns- RAW
John Cena- Smackdown
Brock Lesnar- RAW
Randy Orton- Smackdown
New Day- RAW

I found this round of 5 funny, for the simple fact that all of them barring New Day would've been a #1 Pick at some point in the last two years. Yet they couldn't even get drafted in the first 5 last night. Again, this round pretty much went as I expected it would. I think everyone sort of knew that it would be Roman on RAW and Cena on Smackdown from basically the time that the Draft was announced. There's not really much else to say about this round to be honest. It all made sense, and I was generally happy with all of them.

Zack Ryder & Darren Young v Rusev & The Miz
If Cena wasn't getting much time, this match didn't really much of a chance did it? The match was fine, I'm still not really sold on Darren Young- but it does have to be said that he got a really good pop when he did the Crossface Chicken Wing. So more power to Darren. He would've probably gone up even further in the audiences estimation if he wasn't drafted below The Ascension.

Bray Wyatt v Xavier Woods
I actually thought this match was the best match from last night, including the WWE Title match. For me they told the best story, everything they did was really good- and crucially Bray looked like an absolute monster. While it wasn't official at the time of this match, I think it was fairly accepted that The Wyatts were going to be split given they weren't listed as a Tag Team/Faction, so they really needed to make Bray look strong tonight- and hopefully Sunday as well.

Kane, Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn Segment
This segment pissed me off. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn are heading into one of the biggest matches on a PPV on Sunday. You can count the number of times Kane's been on TV this year on your hands. So, what do they do? Have Kane do a Double Chokeslam spot and have Kane be the one who looks good coming out of this segment. Why?

Round 3 of the Draft
Sami Zayn- RAW
Bray Wyatt- Smackdown
Sasha Banks- RAW
Becky Lynch- Smackdown
Chris Jericho- RAW

This was the first round of Draft picks where I felt a bit annoyed once they were all announced. None of the actual draft picks were ones I disagreed with, but they had Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens out there. As we found out later on, Owens and Sami are both on the same brand- could they really not have shown Owens' live reaction to that while him and Sami were both stumbling to the back after having made the youngster Kane look strong? Even do a thing where they come to a realisation that they're still on the same brand and then they do the now standard punching spot as they go back through the curtain. Just do something to make it seem like it actually means something to anyone that was actually drafted.

Charlotte & Dana Brooke v Sasha Banks- Handicap Match
The best that can be said about this match was that it made sense. You have the numbers game being played up on TV to build to Sasha "evening the odds" with her Tag Partner choice on Sunday. Even though I've seen people arguing that Bayley wasn't drafted so it's more of a "surprise" when she's called up on Sunday, I'm really not convinced it's going to happen. I'll happily be proven wrong, because Bayley's the only name 99% of people will accept- but for some reason I don't think it's happening now.

Round 4 of the Draft
Rusev (and Lana)- RAW
Miz (and Maryse)- Smackdown
Kevin Owens- RAW
Baron Corbin- Smackdown
Enzo & Cass- RAW

This was where the draft started to fall off a cliff a bit. I was actually fine with the Rusev and Miz picks, because each brand needed a Title. Owens should've been drafted sooner, but as I said at the start- the draft order didn't really matter for the most part. I like Baron Corbin, that's not just me saying it- you can go back over my Reviews. However, how Baron Corbin was drafted as soon as he was baffles me. You had guys like Cesaro (and I'll get to Cesaro a bit later) still available, you also hypothetically had guys like Austin Aries and Samoa Joe- who have both beaten Corbin in the not too distant past. So basically this one just blew my mind, and it started off the draft going really downhill.

Chris Jericho v Cesaro
The booking of this match made sense by the logic they imposed on themselves, in that Jericho realistically had to win clean- because otherwise it makes Jericho being picked before Cesaro look stupid. As with every match on the show apart from the Title match, it was a bit too short for my liking- but we've had a variation of this match seemingly a million times recently so I won't complain about that too much.

Natalya & Becky Lynch brawl
This was fine for what it was, and at least they've finally decided to give a bit of a build to Becky/Nattie the week of the PPV. Positive thinking, guys.

Round 5 of the Draft
Gallows & Anderson- RAW
American Alpha- Smackdown
The Big Show (really)- RAW
Dolph Ziggler- Smackdown
Nia Jax- RAW

This round was a really mixed bag, so I'll start with the positives. Gallow and Anderson being split from AJ Styles after Sunday and ending up on the same brand as Finn Balor surely can't be a coincidence. I've already said I'm a bit scared when it comes to Finn being in the Cruiserweight Division- but if he doesn't then this is surely the only way they can really go. For me, the ideal scenario is The Club winning on Sunday- Gallows and Anderson turning on AJ after, Finn coming out on the ramp and doing the "Too Sweet" hand thing with them. It sets up a potentially compelling angle with AJ in that he can be pissed off, betrayed all while having to "go it alone" for (presumably) a match with Cena at Summerslam. While we obviously get the "original" Club on RAW to feud with basically anyone they want to.

Next positive, and that's of course American Alpha. Alpha and Balor were two of three picks that I thought were "locked in"- and the other may still be getting the call on Sunday. It doesn't really have to be explained why American Alpha was called up, although the lack of any Tag Team with a shred of credibility on Smackdown beyond The Usos is a bit of a worry from an American Alpha perspective. As I said though, the rosters aren't "finished" yet- and this is one area where I'd expect to see reinforcements.

I basically explained why Nia Jax was called up in my Draft Preview yesterday so I'll let you go back and read that, but suffice to say I was reasonably happy with it. Also, the reaction to Stephanie saying she was calling up an NXT Woman and everyone thinking it was Bayley and then the reaction to when she said Nia Jax was absolutely amazing.

Now for the negatives, The Big Show was in the Top 30 draft picks- and he was higher than Cesaro, Darren Young and Zack Ryder. Cesaro's in this sentence for obvious reasons, but Young and Zack both have Title matches on Sunday. But no, they're awful- so RAW wanted The Big Show above them. Sadly, the same be said for Dolph. Dolph was one of two people who lost clean on Monday, the other being Sin Cara. But again, Dolph is picked above Zack- who they had Dolph take the clean loss for on Monday specifically to protect Zack. There's some amazing logic in that.

Round 6 of the Draft
Neville- RAW
Natalya- Smackdown
Cesaro- RAW
Alberto Del Rio- Smackdown
Sheamus- RAW

This was it as far as the "on air" picks went, so at least Cesaro wasn't completely buried by not even being picked on the live show. Neville was the one that made the most sense, because he's going to be one of the pillars of the Cruiserweight division going forward most likely. I'm not sure how Cesaro didn't end up on Smackdown to be honest, but despite that being a mistake in my opinion if he did- we may not have gotten the Promo he did on the Network after.

If you haven't seen Cesaro's Promo yet, find it. It's one of the top posts on r/SquaredCircle at the time of writing this, and it's probably on Twitter as well. It's absolutely fucking amazing. He was so pissed it was unreal and just completely buried the draft basically. I love Cesaro, and I hope things go well for him on RAW for obvious reasons- but I can't see him not getting some heat from the promo.

The other picks in this round were fairly standard in hindsight because we know who the NXT picks are, but at the time you had to at least hope we'd be getting one more big NXT name to end the (televised) draft with a good pop for someone and end it on a "positive" note. But no, the last pick of the televised draft was Sheamus.

Dean Ambrose v Seth Rollins- WWE Title
I said it in my RAW Review, having three WWE Title matches in a week is just overkill. I know why they had the match, because they wanted to try and keep the TV viewership as high as possible throughout the two hours and the Title match was the "hook"- but I just didn't really care for this match. The actual match was good, but the crowd weren't really into it for about three quarters of the match and it felt like these two didn't ever really even attempt to get out of 2nd gear last night.

It made sense from a booking perspective to have the #1 Smackdown pick stand tall to end the first live Smackdown I will say that, but I'm still not really sure how I feel about Seth losing clean to Dean, let alone losing clean to Dean within a week of the Shield Triple Threat. If anything, Dean's clean win last night makes it less likely he retains on Sunday- and that's the one that actually matters.

My expectations for last night were probably too high, so I'm not sure if my calling last night a bit of a let down and an anti-climax is actually saying it was a let down and an anti-climax by current WWE standards. However, even with Smackdown going off the air- the Draft wasn't done. Much like after RAW, we had to go to the Network to watch the conclusion of the Draft.

Round 7 of the Draft
Golden Truth- RAW
The Usos- Smackdown
Titus O'Neil- RAW
Kane- Smackdown
Paige- RAW

There's not really much worth talking about from this round. As I've already said, The Usos are pretty much the only Tag Team with some credibility on Smackdown to rival American Alpha at present- so that's something worth keeping an eye on. We should get some fun skits with Bryan and Kane as well, so that'll be fun. Perhaps most noteworthy is the fact Paige and Del Rio are on separate shows, and Del Rio seemed pissed with that fact judging by the way he did his interview on the Network.

Round 8 of the Draft
Darren Young (and Bob Backlund)- RAW
Kalisto- Smackdown
Sin Cara- RAW
Naomi- Smackdown
Jack Swagger- RAW
The Ascension- Smackdown

Again, not much worth talking about. Apart from the obvious part of Darren Young, who is the #1 Contender to the IC Title, being the #36 Pick in the Draft. Also, Kalisto not being on RAW was a weird call because of the Cruiserweight division obviously being exclusive to RAW. Things are not looking good for Kalisto at the moment.

Round 9 of the Draft
The Dudleys- RAW
Zack Ryder- Smackdown
Summer Rae- RAW
Apollo Crews- Smackdown
Mark Henry- RAW
Alexa Bliss- Smackdown

Zack Ryder, who I genuinely think has a chance of winning the US Title on Sunday was drafted below among others; Sin Cara, Jack Swagger, The Ascension and Titus O'Neil- who's already lost to Rusev multiple times. Also, the one Tag Team that I would've been pushing to be split wasn't in fact split in The Dudleys.

The notable name from this round is of course Alexa Bliss. She wasn't my first choice as far as NXT picks go, but as you'll have seen in my Draft Preview I definitely thought she was a possibility. I'm happy Bliss is on Smackdown where the Womens Division isn't as cluttered as the one on RAW because it'll help to establish her to a wider audience, unlike Nia who is immediately going to garner some interest just because of her size.

Round 10 of the Draft
Braun Strowman- RAW
Fabreeze- Smackdown
Bo Dallas- RAW
Eva Marie- Smackdown
The Shining Stars- RAW
The Vaudevillains- Smackdown

I personally didn't believe them, but if some reports are to be believed- Braun Strowman was going to wrestle The Undertaker at this years Wrestlemania at one point. Now he's the #48 Draft Pick. Not only that, but they had officially split The Wyatts up as of this draft pick. I just don't understand it to be blunt. They already tried splitting The Wyatts up, it didn't exactly go well. Now they've split them again, but with Strowman instead of Harper. So there's a high chance of it going even worse than the last time- and that couldn't have actually been conceivably worse at the time.

I wonder if Erick Rowan will rediscover his passion for being a Winemaker now.

Round 11 of the Draft
Alicia Fox- RAW
Erick Rowan- Smackdown
Dana Brooke- RAW
Mojo Rawley- Smackdown
Curtis Axel- RAW
Carmella- Smackdown

A lot depends on Sunday when it comes to this round of picks. It's not a coincidence that Mojo and Zack are on the same brand, and as I said in my Draft Preview a Hype Bros run is not far away now. Carmella being called up was the only NXT Pick that I didn't consider a possibility, for the simple reason that they kept Carmella down in NXT to get her ready for a singles run.

Carmella's had probably 3 NXT TV matches since they made the decision to keep Carmella down in NXT and bring Enzo & Cass up, and two of them were fairly standard squash matches. Obviously she's been working live events as well, but it just seemed a bit weird to me. Again, depending on Sunday it's hilarious to me that Bayley lost the Horsewomen a year ago when they were called up- and she's potentially lost Carmella last night while she's still down in NXT.

That is officially that. I've seen a lot of people talking about the Rosters and whether RAW or Smackdown "won" the Draft, which to be honest I don't really understand. It's Wrestling, if it was an actual competitive sport fair enough- but in Wrestling it doesn't really matter who got the "better deal" because it's now the job of the brand that supposedly "lost" the Draft to put all of their efforts into building their supposed "lesser talent".

Thanks for reading as always, this Review officially kicks off the Smackdown Reviews on here- so hopefully you'll be coming back every week for them. I've already said I felt like the Draft was a bit of an anti-climax. However, I'm still quite hopeful in-terms of seeing how the shows shape up next week. So basically, expect the real disappointed reviews to start next week. Thanks again for reading, the next post on here is the Battleground Predictions on Sunday so stay tuned for that- and hopefully you can have a good rest of the week.

Tuesday 19 July 2016

RAW Review: 18th July

Hello! Well, we had RAW last night. I think that's the only thing that's really happening this week- so once you've read this Review feel free to go back to the real world and forget about Wrestling until next Monday. Come to think of it, we've got that little draft thing on tonight- but nobody really cares about that do they? In all seriousness, now is a great time to be a Wrestling fan. It's not such a good time to be a Wrestling Fan in the UK called Sam though, because fucking hell this heat is killing me. I sometimes joke about how I'd die in a hotter climate than the UK, and I think the fact this heat has rendered me barely able to function is a testament to that. Anyway, despite that- the Reviews can't stop for anything at the moment so lets jump straight into last night.

Shane & Stephanie announce the Smackdown and RAW GMs
In the interest of jumping straight into things, the RAW GM is Mick Foley and the Smackdown GM is Daniel Bryan. I don't think anyone would really have been shocked by Bryan, especially if you'd seen that thing where they accidentally spoiled that it was going to be Bryan on the App. Foley was an interesting one, because there were a lot of people (including myself) who was questioning why Stephanie would pick Foley within kayfabe.

The best I could come up with is Stephanie begrudingly respects Mick's knowledge of the business, while also acknowledging that she may cause some viewers to favour Smackdown because of how much of a bitch she's been over the years. Outside of kayfabe I'm over the moon with Mick being RAW GM, because as I said last week- chances are the two-tiered authority structure is to make it so Shane and Stephanie's appearances become a lot more spread out. This of course means we're not going to have a Heel authority figure on either show week-to-week. We can actually enjoy watching a show without being told our lives are meaningless!

The segment itself had varying degrees of success. The pop for Daniel Bryan was of course the highlight, and I just hope they book him as GM in such a way that means he doesn't outshine the active wrestlers. I'm fairly certain both Mick and Bryan forgot their lines at one point during this segment, with Bryan recovering it himself while Stephanie had to give Mick his. I actually liked Stephanie quite a bit in this segment and the night in general as well. So overall I liked this segment despite its flaws, and I'm looking forward to what is to come as a result of this segment.

Sami Zayn & Cesaro v Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens
With the Draft tomorrow, only the very bottom of the barrel guys were actually going to lose clean last night. As a result, I wasn't really expecting much out of this match beyond the standard "good match" that you're basically guaranteed. In that regard, my expectations were met- but they weren't exceeded by any means. Jericho was the most expendable of the four because Cesaro took a pin last week, so they did their best to protect all four guys while still having the Babyfaces go over.

Daniel Bryan & Stephanie Backstage Segment
The stuff with Stephanie was basically what you'd expect, what was actually noteworthy about this segment is that Bryan did a dab. Really.

Darren Young v Alberto Del Rio
What did I say about it being almost impossible for anyone to actually lose clean last night? It does have to be said that a dodgy finish for this match does sort of fit the angle I at least think they're going for with Darren Young. I say "think" because they've not put it over once on commentary. The angle I think they're going for with Darren is actually one they talked about on Wrestling Observer Radio last week, so rather than just describe the angle- I'll just link the video because frankly it's too hot.
https://youtu.be/U4-aJzh-f6M?t=181

John Cena, Enzo & Cass, New Day & The Club Promo Segment
This was perhaps the most fun I've had with a segment all year. They literally gave this segment and the subsequent match over 1/6th of the whole show, which would actually be an even bigger chunk if you take out the time taken up by Ad Breaks.

Cena was just absolutely great in this segment. It's actually funny, because I was talking about Scream (the TV Series) the other day and it brought me on to an angle I wanted them to do with the Scream Films where they had Sidney Prescott as the killer because she's desperate to stay relevant in this era of celebrity culture and famous people being famous for being famous.

This was not dissimilar to what we had with Cena in the sense that Cena was the "old timer" in this segment, because he was playing the out of touch uncle in this segment with New Day and Enzo & Cass while they did all of their up to date "pop culture" stuff. If I'm honest I'm surprised it took Xavier this long to work Pokemon Go into one his promos, and I had to laugh at him getting heat from the crowd for being in the Valor Club. Overall I just really liked this segment, and even though it was quite long- I actually wanted it to go longer in a way.

Why on earth would there be an easily 20+ Minute promo segment to set up a 12-Man Tag involving The Wyatts, and then not have Bray of all people talk. That didn't make sense to me, but on the whole this was a really fun segment.

John Cena, Enzo & Cass and New Day v The Club & The Wyatts
This was about as good as a 12-Man Tag match could be, so full credit to all of the guys involved. My thing from last night was, I wasn't expecting much in the way of storyline progression- so my only criteria was basically "was the match fun" and this match was fun. The one thing I was disappointed about was we didn't get Xavier playing Cena's theme on Francesca II, but that aside I really liked this match. I wasn't completely sold on the finish, for the simple reason that AJ's been beating Enzo a lot since this feud came to be- but they did a decent job of adding a new dimension to Sunday's match with Enzo hitting Cena at least.

Seth Rollins' "empty arena" Promo
The Promo wasn't absolutely "oh my god" amazing, but I just really liked the different presentation to the Promo than the standard backstage promo or video package we're fully accustomed to. More of this please, on both shows.

Shane McMahon & Mick Foley Backstage Segment
I liked this segment, and it was interesting to me- for the simple fact that even with Mick being announced at the start of the show I wasn't actually convinced Mick was going to last the night and we were going to end up with a Heel GM on RAW. So Shane trying to tease tension between Mick and Stephanie was perhaps more interesting to me than it should have been because of me having this in my head.

Baron Corbin v Sin Cara
So, the Lucha Dragons split up off TV- and then Sin Cara goes into his role of being a complete jobber all within about 48 Hours. It's not looking up for ol' Sin Cara. The match was fine as a squash match to put Corbin over, we had the Kalisto run-in to presumably set up the Pre-Show match on Sunday. This was a perfectly fine segment on the whole for me.

Sasha Banks & Becky Lynch v Charlotte & Dana Brooke
This was the one time on the whole show, apart from Foley where I was genuinely shocked by what happened. Sasha Banks didn't make Dana tap for the finish, and that's up there with Brock beating the streak levels of shocks in my book. The DQ finish made sense with Sunday in mind, both to build Nattie/Becky and the whole numbers game type thing with Sasha, Charlotte and Becky.

I'll be interested to see if they announce Sasha's tag partner tonight or on Sunday, because in my opinion if they don't announce it tonight then it's not Bayley. Bayley's first PPV match is something they know should be built up a bit. So in my mind if Bayley isn't announced tonight for the Tag match then it's going to be Paige, or worse Eva Marie. *shudders*

Dean Ambrose Backstage Promo
I really liked this Promo and the Seth one for the simple fact that the presentation wasn't what we were used to, and the presentation made sense for obvious Shield related reasons. The promo was like the Rollins one where it wasn't an outstanding promo, but the fact it was presented differently meant it was better than the same promo content would've been in a simple backstage interview setting.

Rusev & Sheamus v Zack Ryder & Dolph Ziggler
There was two people who lost clean on the show last night, Sin Cara and Dolph Ziggler. Just think about that for a second. This match was fine from a purely match perspective, but there was absolutely no reaction to anything in this match. The match basically just something that happened.

Daniel Bryan & Mick Foley Backstage Promo
I thought this segment was really good. These two did a really good job of teasing tension between the two while still keeping both as Babyfaces, so this was about as good as it could have been in that respect.

Dean Ambrose v Seth Rollins- WWE Title
Something about this match just felt a bit "off" for me. I don't know if it was the fact that this was a WWE Title match where the crowd was quite flat, and not really into much like you've come to expect with Title matches- but this just seemed in relation to what the match could've been quite "meh".

I didn't think this match was as good as Roman/Seth at Money in the Bank, even before we had the wacky finish- and then the wacky finish put it even further down in my estimation. However, the match was still really good but I say this a lot- were people really expecting anything less than a really good match given who was involved?

As I've already said, and you should know by now- there was a really wacky finish for this match that just pissed me off. I was expecting a fucked finish, but I thought we'd actually get a fucked finish and it would all be resolved on RAW last night. Nope, they went off the air with Rollins holding the Title- not once did Cole, JBL or Saxton say "go to the Network now". Instead, as I went up to bed I opened Twitter on my Phone just to see if I had any notifications and I just randomly saw the WWE tweeting about the show that was still going on on the Network. We'll likely never know, but I do wish we could find out how many people actually watched the Network part of this whole thing in comparison to how many people were watching on TV.

If the fact they had the resolution to the angle on the Network wasn't bad enough, on Twitter today in I believe the fairly early morning in the US- they've announced we're getting a Rematch tonight on Smackdown! Because why not?! I know there's some people who want WWE Title matches on RAW sometimes just for a bit more excitement- especially with how well the Roman/Sheamus matches went from a crowd reaction perspective. However, 3 WWE Title matches in a week including Battleground is complete overkill.

Overall I thought this was about as good a RAW as it could have been given the circumstances. Tonight should be fun in the sense that we're getting the actual Draft so it'll be something a bit different- and hopefully the crowd is hot for it throughout by virtue of it being an hour shorter. Then after Battleground is in the books my expectations of RAW (and Smackdown) are going to increase again. I've said numerous times in these Reviews Post-MITB that I'm giving them a lot of leeway because they couldn't really do much until the Draft. Now we've officially arrived at the Draft, that's not an excuse that can be used any more.

Thanks for reading as always, the Smackdown Reviews start tomorrow unless I die as a result of this heat- so hopefully you'll be back here tomorrow for the first of the weekly Smackdown Reviews. Thanks again for reading, it's Draft Time boys!

Bonus Round
With a lot of stuff happening this week and in the week just gone, I thought as with the Roman Reigns Wellness Violation that I should do an extra section on the end to discuss goings on beyond that of what happened on RAW last night. So here we are, and I'm just going to jump right in.

Brock Lesnar's Drug Test Failure
There's been a lot of talk about the negatives of Brock's failure, and I'll talk about them as well. However, what some people seem to be missing is that there is actually an upside for the WWE in this situation. Especially with the statement from the state of New York that came out yesterday basically saying that they won't stand in the way of Brock doing Summerslam, there's actually a bit of an upside to this whole thing for WWE.

My immediate reaction (and you can see this on Twitter) wasn't one of surprise, because to be blunt I think most people knew Brock was on something. I was more surprised that Brock got caught than by the fact that Brock was on something. The good things for WWE start with the fact that Brock's not been on WWE TV for around about 3 Months. So they can basically wash their hands of the situation and provided there's not an overwhelming amount of scrutiny on them and the Wellness Policy they'll get away relatively unscathed in my opinion.

The biggest positive for WWE, at least in my opinion is that a ban (which is about 99.9% likely to happen) all but ends Brock's MMA career. Depending on what Brock actually got caught for, the ban will either be for 6 Months or 2 Years. If it's 6 Months, Brock could fight again hypothetically but even if he tested positive for cough medicine there'll be a cloud over him because of his test failure that could make him "undesirable" to the UFC given how many of their guys are being caught at the moment. Then if it's 2 Years Brock's "done done", end of discussion.

With Brock's WWE Contract coming up in less than a year now, a ban for Brock massively weakens his bargaining power- because he can't use the threat of him going back to UFC as leverage. That is obviously dependent on Brock having the appetite to still continue in Wrestling, and given I'm not in Brock's head it's impossible for me to say one way or the other. From an outsiders perspective, it looks like Brock's got a pretty sweet gig. He shows up, throws guys around for a given length of time and gets paid millions of dollars to do it.

The biggest negative in my opinion is 2K17, and Brock being on the cover of 2K17. We've got the big "Suplex City" advert for the game and all of that stuff. That's one area where WWE will have some problems, however in the grand scheme of things- I definitely don't think it's as bad as it realistically could have been.

The Draft
Depending on when you're reading this, the Draft could be 7 Hours away from starting, 4 Hours, 1 Hour or it may have already happened. I'm so happy I held off on properly discussing the Draft, because I had a big blog thought out in my head that I was going to put up on Sunday- which would have been made completely moot within hours by the "official rules" for the Draft coming out.

I feel like the best way to do this is to simply go rule-by-rule so;

RAW has first overall pick
To me at least this makes sense. I'm not really sure what people were expecting, hypothetically they're putting Smackdown on the same level- but Vince even explicitly called RAW the "flagship" in his Promo last week. Therefore of course they'd be getting first pick.

RAW gets 3 picks for every 2 Smackdown do
I saw some complaints about this, which to be quite honest I mainly found stupid. Talking outside of kayfabe, RAW does need more people than Smackdown. I've made a specific point of talking about Roster Depth in almost every single on my Reviews since the split was announced. This may shock some of you, but Shane and Stephanie aren't actually drafting people. It's in fact not real, which now I've typed out is shocking to me. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO PUT ALL OF THE GOOD TALENTS ON RAW. The whole point of this split is that the USA Network were unhappy with the numbers Smackdown was doing so this was the response.

Then, within kayfabe they could explain it as Vince favouring Stephanie- do I need to explain why?

Tag Teams counts as one pick, unless a Commissioner/General Manager specifically only wants one member of the team
This can be viewed in too different ways, and it's entirely dependant on your "mindset" toward to the product. You can either see it as the member of the Tag Team who's picked individually being given a bit of a push right off the bat- or you can see it as the member "left behind" getting buried. I'll leave it entirely up to you folks to work out which side of that fence you're on.

Six draft picks will be made off the NXT roster
This is where I've seen most of the debate, as far as who people think will be called up. There will be NXT spoilers in this, so if you want to avoid them I'd advise this next section. To me, there's a few call-ups that are basically locked in. Those call-ups are;
- Finn Balor
- American Alpha
- Bayley

That's half of the picks gone, and I don't think I really need to explain any of them. The next three are bit more "up in the air", although the most likely of the ones not already mentioned is Samoa Joe. This is where the debate comes into play, because to me- I think Samoa Joe is called up tonight, drops the Title in Brooklyn to Nakamura and then becomes a full-time Main Roster guy. However, in this process, dropping the Title to Nakamura means Nakamura stays in NXT for a little while longer. So I'm not really sure how they can explain Nakamura NOT being called-up, but that's up to WWE to figure out.

Working on the basis of the 4th pick being Joe, we're left with two more- and there's a handful of people fighting it out for the two spots. Namely; Mojo Rawley, Austin Aries, Nia Jax, Alexa Bliss, Asuka and Tye Dillinger.

Nia Jax is the most likely, especially with them splitting the Women up- having someone like Nia in the mix as someone different to what every other women offers would be a smart move on WWE's part in my opinion. Mojo Rawley would be called up to get a run out of the Hype Bros, and I've had the thought that they're building Zack up a bit with this in mind. Bliss and Asuka are in the mix for obvious reasons, but similar to Nakamura- the fact Asuka's likely to have a Title coming out of Brooklyn means her chances go down a bit in my opinion. Then Tye Dillinger could be called up, simply because he's got an "easy" gimmick and is probably one of the most trusted wrestlers in the whole company given the fact that seemingly every injured guy works with him while they're recovering.

If I had to pick two in-terms of the likeliness of them happening it'd be;
- Nia Jax
- Tye Dillinger

So there you have my NXT pick predictions, so the only thing left is for me to give you two things to look out for and one prediction for tonight.
- Finn Balor ending up on the same show as Gallows and Anderson
- Where The Wyatts end up, what with them not being classed as a Faction/Tag Team
- Stephanie takes all three Shield guys to guarantee the WWE Title stays on RAW

In the meantime, thanks again for reading. I've got really high hopes for tonight, so hopefully it's not a complete letdown. Just remember, DRAFT D'LO!

Tuesday 12 July 2016

RAW Review: 11th July

Yes! Hello! The Reviews are back! Just briefly, for those perhaps unaware, I ended up skipping last weeks RAW Review because I was ill and to be blunt- aside from a few segments last week was one of the most "skippable" of all time. But we're back this week, and just in time because fuck me there's a lot of stuff that's going to take place in the next 10 days or so. But I'll talk about that more at the end, for now let's just dive straight into this Review.

IC Title #1 Contender Battle Royal
This whole segment felt weird to me right from the start. When we had Apollo Crews make his Entrance, I thought they would be building toward a "surprise" entrant like Neville- but no, Crews was the only one who got an entrance. Then about 2 Minutes into the match, Cole just says "Oh Yeah, by the way Bob Backlund's out here with Darren Young". This was his TV re-debut, not even getting a fucking entrance. Also, Aiden English was eliminated BEFORE Konnor. Aiden English was eliminated before the member of The Ascension that's just come back from a wellness violation. Things really aren't looking good for the Vaudevillains.

The Battle Royal was about as fun as a fairly meaningless Battle Royal can be, I'm not sure how much the "win by default" will help Darren going forward- but there was Darren Young chants to end this segment. He got over. So all-in-all it's a job done for this segment. However stupid it may have been to make Darren a #1 Contender for a Title without even getting an entrance on TV.

We also had The Usos be the most interesting they've been in about 2 and a half years when one of them tried to eliminate the other one. Those were a glorious 5 seconds.

Rollins, Shane & Stephanie Backstage Promo
This was what it was. I've got semi-high hopes that after next week we'll be getting minimal McMahon segments- at least for a while, so I'll just take these and move on quickly at present.

Brock's UFC 200 Win Recap
I found this absolutely hilarious. They showed Brock's win, fair enough- and once Heyman's back on TV fuck me are they going to milk it heading into Summerslam. But it was hilarious because they showed a thing from Brock's Press-Conference where he acknowledged he had a match with Orton next month. He literally just said "I've got Orton at Summerslam" or words to that effect, and they felt this was worthy of highlighting. If anything it made them look stupid, because he seemed so uninterested in it (which is fair enough given the timing), it completely buried the match.

Sheamus v Zack Ryder
At least Zack was selling the backstage attack (hey that rhymes) from Sheamus prior to the match. After the Apollo Crews debacle last month I really wasn't sure he would. The match was fairly "meh", Sheamus won, SHEAMUS WON and Rusev came out after and very graciously accepted Zack's proposal of a US Title match. There may have also been an Accolade involved.

I've also got a weird feeling that Zack'll be winning the Title for another "underdog win", which would be so fucking stupid WWE are almost certainly going to do it.

Fabreeze v The Lucha Dragons
I can only assume the Lucha Dragons lost because they're being split next week. Although me assuming that they've actually thought about where Sin Cara and Kalisto will end up a week out may be giving them too much credit.

I do have to question how Fabreeze and the Lucha Dragons both got full entrances, but Darren Young couldn't in the opening segment. The match was the definition of filler, but it wasn't "bad" apart from the one botch from Kalisto and overall it was fine. Fabreeze may actually have one of the best Win/Loss records in the company as well. Counting RAW, Smackdown and PPV's (the things that actually matter to the company) I'm fairly certain they've only lost 1 match and won 4 or 5. So yeah, why aren't Fabreeze getting a Title shot?!

The Rollins Report w/ Dean Ambrose
This segment was just absolute gold. I wasn't laughing out loud when they were doing the Rollins/Reigns "interview" that was basically Angle and The Rock but it did make me smile a bit and it was funny up to a point. Then Ambrose came out, and without thinking too much about it- most likely gave the promo of his (WWE) life. Fucking hell was it great, and that's really all that I can say about it. When something is really fucking good, there's not much else to say other than it was really fucking good.

One thing that does have to be said, after the initial part of the segment where they did the Roman "Interview" the Promos setting up the Rollins/Ambrose match next week was the first time Roman hasn't been mentioned since his wellness violation. Which does make me laugh, because Roman has officially become Poochie in the last month.

Vince Backstage Promo
This was pretty much what you'd expect from Vince. If I'm honest when I saw Vince's return I had no reaction, when he showed up in this segment I had no reaction, and I had absolutely no reaction to anything he said. So this went well.

Kevin Owens v Cesaro
I've got mixed feelings about this match. From an actual match perspective, you can't really go wrong with Kevin Owens v Cesaro. However, the stuff with Sami getting ejected I thought was a missed opportunity.

This is something I often criticise other people for, in that they build up an unrealistic picture of what they want to happen in their heads and when it doesn't meet those unrealistic expectations they bitch. But, when Sami got ejected I thought he'd be coming out in either a Sin Cara or Kalisto Mask to do the whole elbow nudging "past life" type joke and he'd join the Spanish Announce Desk. The end to the segment annoyed me as well. Because with the split around the corner, you couldn't really afford to make someone like Cesaro look weak. So, they beat him- and then they had him swing Owens after so he isn't completely killed before the draft. Which does beg the question, if they wanted to put Owens over without hurting Cesaro- why have a match between Kevin Owens and Cesaro?

The Club Backstage Promo
I liked this little promo a lot. These three are really getting their legs under them now from a promo perspective and just in general after a weird few months- and that can only be a good thing for both them and the people watching.

Titus O'Neil v Heath Slater
Let me just remind you, the Social Outcasts were in the Battle Royal earlier on in the show (Titus wasn't despite JBL saying otherwise). This is before the Draft, where everyone (healthy) is available to be on the show- and the Social Outcasts are having to do a double shift. If that wasn't a clear indicator that WWE really need to get some more depth to their roster with NXT call-ups and returning guys- I don't know what is. It's also what my main concern was for the Draft right from the start. I do think there'll be call-ups etc. but especially for RAW- it's a 3 Hour Show that likely won't have the star power of at least half of the "top guys". I can't see a scenario where they don't struggle to fill time on some episodes.

Sasha Banks Backstage Promo
This was a fairly standard promo from Sasha. It got the job done, and that's all that can really be said about it.

New Day & The Wyatts: The Concluding Termination
Right, this is probably the segment that'll be talked about most off the back of last nights episode. I've seen so many varying opinions on this already, so it's only right that I offer my own one. That is the point of these Reviews after all.

Firstly, it was no Final Deletion. That's not really saying much though, because aside from the fact it took place in a field in the middle of nowhere and it being shot like a film/tv scene- there isn't really much in the way of comparisons between the two. The Final Deletion was primarily "fun", and just intentionally wacky. Whereas the segment last night was much more serious and focused on being almost a sort of horror film-esque segment. Which is funny considering none of New Day died. I also had to laugh at Reby Sky going off on one about this segment. Yes, this segment wouldn't have happened without the Final Deletion. I'm not disputing that. But can she honestly say that they wouldn't have gone down this route with the Matt & Jeff feud without Lucha Underground? It's Wrestling, everyone copies everyone.

I liked this a lot more than I thought I would if I'm honest. I loved the Final Deletion, so when this was a thing I groaned. But thankfully they didn't go down the Final Deletion route too much really, and the segment was all the better for it.

The best part of this segment by far was Braun Strowman. That's probably been the first time that sentence has ever been said. People talk about people being "made for roles", Strowman was literally made for the role he played last night of a horror film type monster. I will say that this segment felt like it could and should have been longer. It felt like they shot about an hours worth of stuff that they had to cut into about 5 minutes. Like the stuff with Xavier just hiding behind a tree out of nowhere. It just seemed weird.

With these types of segments, I'll never say someone's wrong for their opinion on it- because it's entirely subjective. But, if someone didn't like this segment, when they were talking about Bray/The Wyatts needing their fear factor back- then I don't know what to say. Especially for kids, seeing Bray LITERALLY trying to kill Xavier with an Axe would've (hopefully) terrified them. This segment did a lot for The Wyatts in-terms of their perception and aura to the fan in my opinion.

Overall I did really like this segment, and the ending in particular was absolutely great with all the people in sheep masks and the fireflies with New Day running off. I did see some people (including Lance Storm) talk about how with New Day running off at the end there wasn't a "point" to it like the Final Deletion which of course had a Ref who would record the Pin or a Simishon and ended in a 3 Count. This wasn't intended to be the final part of a chapter of a feud like the Final Deletion, it was just meant to be an alternative fight type segment which I for one was happy with.

Enzo & Big Cass v The Club w/ AJ Styles
This match was fine, if a bit too long for my liking. I really like Enzo & Cass, but from a purely in-ring perspective they're lacking a bit still to me- so giving them a lot of time for a match isn't the best idea in my opinion. However, the match was fine mostly- and the DQ finish was quite well done in my opinion.

Cena's run-in was good. I'm not sure if people weren't expecting Cena to show up, because I was as soon as Styles talked about and made fun of Cena for not being there in the earlier backstage segment but he got a good pop from the crowd. Cena looked a bit lost on his run-in actually, and it seemed like AJ rolled out too soon because Cena ended up running around a bit aimlessly while Enzo & Cass dealt with their respective opponents.

Sasha Banks v Dana Brooke
I said when Sasha returned that now the crowd(s) actually have Sasha they'd better be as loud as they were with the "We Want Sasha" chants. Granted, this being on so late wouldn't have helped- but the crowd were completely dead for this match. The match was quite "meh", Sasha continued her run with the most predictable segments on TV and that was that for the match.

Charlotte's Promo after was weird. It was Return of the King, in that her Promo could (and should) have ended about 5 times before it actually did and the way she kept pausing and then just carrying on was just odd. They ended up setting up another Sasha/Dana match on Smackdown, because apparently Sasha making Dana tap out every week as it is wasn't enough.

Vince, Shane & Stephanie Promo Segment
There's honestly not much you can say about this segment. Shane's got Smackdown, Stephanie's got RAW, General Managers announced next week, Stephanie is going to bury the Steel Steps next week and that's that. I know they've supposedly spoiled the Smackdown GM Announcement as Daniel Bryan, but I really want Triple H to be Smackdown GM and use him as the actual "godfather" of NXT and make NXT call-ups and the "new era" the focus of Smackdown with the Draft. The GM announcements should be infinitely more interesting than this segment, so that's something to look forward to at least.

I will say I don't know what peoples complaints are about there being multiple levels of authority figures. Especially coming off the Brock fight I saw a lot of people saying they wished the product would be more focused on sports. I don't really know, and this knowledge just comes from the system we've got at Fulham and it being called an "american structure"- but at Fulham we've got a Director of Football and a Head Coach and I know it's the same for Baseball at least because I've seen Moneyball. So basically, don't ask for something and then bitch about getting it. I actually like the dynamic with this, because it means Shane & Stephanie will be on  TV sparingly while we get different authority figures on TV every week for the first time in god knows how long and at least one Babyface authority figure for the first time in god knows how long (Shane these last few months doesn't really count).

This RAW was a mixed bag for me. They did a lot to put the Draft over next week, talking about the value of basically every single wrestler on show and where they should be drafted- which does beg the question of why they weren't doing it for the last month. I'm just looking forward to the product getting out of the holding pattern it's been in since Payback next week to be honest. I've got high hopes when it comes to call-ups and returns and I'm just generally building up how great this split will be in my head to make the disappointment and subsequent rants all the better for you lot.

Thanks for reading as always. This is the last week we can read Smackdown Spoilers, and less importantly the last week on here with just RAW Reviews. The Smackdown Reviews will be a thing starting next week, so hopefully you'll be back here two times every week (and more for PPV weeks) from next week onward and enjoy these Reviews all the same. Thanks again for reading, and if either Shane or Stephanie happen to be reading this- DRAFT D'LO BROWN!