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.