RAW Review: August 8th

Hello! We're back for another week of good ol' fashioned wrasslin reviews. It's funny I decide to use that as my opening sentence after the RAW we've just had last night. I said it at the time, the RAW we had just after Battleground chances are won't be topped this year. There was too much stuff that all came together on that one show to make it a truly great one. So, this isn't me having unrealistic expectations when it comes to shows and the general standard of them. With all that said, I'm just going to jump right into the Review- because I'm a bit short on time and this RAW wasn't exactly one I want to relive.

Enzo, Big Cass, Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens Opening Segment
Jericho had a whole week to reconsider Owens and go back to Jimmin Marvenluder as his tag partner, and yet here he was with Owens in the opening segment. That's a massive mistake on Jericho's part. Aside from the idiocy on show from Jericho, this was a fine opening segment. It was basically a theme of this show that we had segments going too long for their own good, and this wasn't an exception. However, I can't remember the last time an opening segment didn't go "too long" and that's just the nature of having 3 Hour RAW's. Jericho was doing the wacky comedy we've come to expect from him as of late, Enzo was great as always just by being Enzo and overall I was fine with this segment.

One thing I did have to laugh at was Owens saying he "liked Cass in NXT" in his promo, when coming down the ramp Michael Cole had said something to the effect of "Owens hasn't liked Enzo and Cass since NXT". So either Cole tried to take some initiative with that line, or Owens went off script. I'll let you be the judge of that one.

Chris Jericho v Enzo Amore
I don't have a problem with the finish, in the sense that it's good they decided to protect Enzo a bit. My problem with that however, is there's not really much to protect now. Enzo on his own has lost the majority of the matches he's been in, and just last month he was getting pinned by AJ at least once a week. While I wouldn't say Jericho's on the same level as AJ, it's just something that annoyed me a bit with how he's been booked now. The match was fine. Jericho's great at what he does, and Enzo will only get better by being in the ring with guys like Jericho who he can learn from. So overall I thought this was a fine opening match, to match a fine opening segment.

We of course got the announcement of the Enzo & Cass/Jericho & Owens match for Summerslam as well, because Summerslam's less than two weeks away believe it or not. As I said last week, Owens would've probably hoped to be higher up the card- but being in a Tag Match in Brooklyn against Enzo & Cass isn't a bad spot to be in.

Sasha Banks & Mick Foley Backstage Segment
We had the stipulation made that it was going to be Sasha against Dana, and if Dana won it'd be a handicap match- and if she lost she'd be banned from ringside at Summerslam. My problem with these stipulations, is the person who stands to lose their person at ringside could just get a DQ finish and the Handicap match in an instant. I know "suspension of disbelief" and all that, but to me this is just so obvious it annoys me. Especially when considering Charlotte's the daughter of the "dirtiest player in the game".

Braun Strowman v Jorel Nelson
Firstly, the fact they didn't call Strowman's jobber "Jimmin Marvenluder" or take a shot at Conor McGregor by calling him "Greg Connors" or something like that genuinely surprised me. Secondly, and this is relevant for something later on- Strowman's jobber got an actual entrance. Strowman came out first, and Jorel Nelson got a ring entrance complete with generic theme music. This was how much they needed to fill time on the show last night. The match was what you've come to expect from Strowman's squash matches at this point.

I do want them to start adding to them after Summerslam, ideally by using by booking idea for him last week- combined with giving him a "fight promoter" type manager. Weirdly Sylvester LeFort would've been good in my opinion, for those of you who watched NXT before it went on the Network you'll know who I mean.

Puffy Daddy meets Mick Foley & The New Day
I wasn't expecting much from Puff Daddy's appearance last night, but this was actually a pretty good way to use him. He got all of his plugs in, and then we just had a fun little 2 minute segment with New Day- which included the now immortal quote "How's Big E's nuts?". The one thing I was surprised about is that we didn't at any point last night get a reference to Big E "busting a nut".

Darren Young v Titus O'Neil
This was the point of the show where it just felt like the writers went "You know what, everyone's gonna be watching the Olympics so who really gives a fuck?". Last week's match wasn't exactly anything to write home about, so you know what they did? They did it again, and by "did it again" I mean they did exactly the same match. The only difference was the roles were reversed for the finish. Isn't this build great though? They've got Darren and Titus wrestling each other every week, to build up to them wrestling on the PPV.

Rambo Apocalypse Promo Segment
If you take away all of the stuff Rollins said, the point of his promo was Rollins saying how good Rollins is and how Balor was disrespectful. Basically, standard heel stuff. This Promo took approximately 15 minutes. It may have been shorter, and I didn't have a stopwatch- but that's my rough estimate. Again, this is the problem with 3 hour RAW's in general- it's nothing new. But this promo just felt so ridiculously dragged out to me it was stupid. The problem really is, there's not much of a story that Seth can play off in his promos. Balor just showed up two weeks ago, won the two matches and now he's there. There's not much of an angle, and at this point of the show- Balor didn't even have much of an established character.

Cesaro v Sheamus
I believe when talking about their match last week I said something to the effect of "one of the reasons it was good, is because it's a match we haven't seen that often". So of course they went and did it again the next week. The match was pretty good, but it suffered from the fact we'd just seen it the previous week- and the finish turned into a bit of a clusterfuck. I'm not sure why, after openly acknowledging Sheamus hit him, the Ref wouldn't DQ Sheamus as a start. If I start pulling thread at this finish, chances are I'll be here for a while, so I'll just leave it there.

Brock Lesnar & Randy Orton Video Package
I actually thought this was really good. The one area where WWE really excel at all times is their video packages, so after last week where we actually got them on the same show plus all of the OVW stuff- they got a really good video package out of very limited resources. The two interviews with Orton and Brock were good, and it was actually quite fun to get Brock talking a bit more- especially in the environment he was in where he could do re-takes and just generally get his delivery right.

Neville & Sin Cara v The Dudleys
If there was ever evidence of the fact they didn't really give a fuck about this RAW, the fact Neville's mystery partner ended up being Sin Cara is top of the list. I wasn't expecting a return or anything, but I at least thought it would be Sami Zayn given the fact chances are both Neville and Sami will be in the Cruiserweight Division when it comes around in just over a months time if my theory is correct in that it'll start as soon as the CWC is over.

The match was pretty much what you'd expect. Neville in particular is just treading water until the Cruiserweight Division does start. At least it seems like Bubba will be turning on D-Von based on the looks he was giving D-Von after, presumably after Summerslam. So that's something to look forward to at least, because a Heel Bubba can be really good as he showed in his TNA run. Whether they allow him to be the type of character he was in TNA remains to be seen, but for now it's a good thing.

Rusev & Lana's Wedding Celebration
The thing some people don't seem to realise, is that this segment was intentionally way too long and drawn out- specifically so when Roman interrupted the crowd would go "Thank fuck for that". This isn't one of the segments that I had a problem with length wise, because they knew exactly what they were doing when they planned it out.

As soon as you saw a Cake, you knew exactly what was going to happen. It goes back to the New Day segment they did a few months ago where they said Weddings never end well, and Cakes will always end up on someones face. So why not find the perfect hybrid of both? I will say, last night was the best promo Roman's done in a while. You could tell he was just being a bit more like himself in the promo, and in this day and age authenticity rules all when it comes to promos. He was just having some fun with it, and while I doubt many of the "hardcore smarks" will accept him any time soon because it's the "cool" thing to boo him- it's a good start for a rebuilding process that'll take at least a year in my opinion.

Also, fair play to Lana for basically hugging the cake after Rusev had knocked her into it for maximum effect.

Sasha Banks v Dana Brooke
This match was back to the women's booking we were getting around this time last year. A 2 minute match, in the 3rd hour, when the crowd was already dead and nobody could really give a fuck. I actually thought when Charlotte slapped Dana we'd get the DQ finish I was talking about earlier, but no, the Ref just looked at it and decided against it. If they were on both shows I'd have expected them to make something of that on Smackdown, and then repeat the match next week- but obviously now they don't have the time so I doubt they will.

Nia Jax Vignette
This was one thing that annoyed me, especially coming a week after saying that they need to be "all in" on Nia if she's to succeed. On a show where Strowman's jobber got an entrance, we had god knows how many 10+ minute promo segments and some of the matches featured included Neville and Sin Cara v The Dudleys and Darren Young v Titus O'Neil- they couldn't find time for Nia to kill someone in a minute. I know they went over, but this whole RAW was an exercise in how much time they could fill by doing the absolute bare minimum. Yet, one person who can actually benefit from being featured while doing the bare minimum wasn't on the show last night. So this really annoyed me.

It also seems like they're teasing her getting involved with the title picture after Summerslam, so that's another mistake already. I know Charlotte's requested time off, but they've got the easiest angle in the world at their doorstep after Summerslam when Bayley's called up with Bayley and Sasha.

Finn Balor Vignette
This is a better environment for Finn to cut promos, for the same reason it is for Brock. They can just keep doing it until they get that one take that "works". I actually really liked this, and I do wish I was Irish for this- just because it would've been hilarious to have Finn telling a story you presumably grew up with. Anyway, this was a good tease of Finn bring the demon out at Summerslam and will presumably have people who don't know about the demon curious and looking up some of his NXT stuff. So this really worked on all levels.

The one thing that does have to be said, if Finn's bringing the demon out at Summerslam- he'd better be winning. Even if they do a double turn and have The Club interfere and help Finn win, Finn needs to win with his debut of the demon- because otherwise they're leaving money on the table.

Gallows & Anderson Promo
I'm convinced this whole angle was just someone on the writing team wanting to do a "hint hint nudge nudge" to Gallows' former persona and working backwards from there. I was pretty sick of the show by this point, but I'll acknowledge a fun segment when I see one- and this was one.

Luke Gallows v Kofi Kingston
Can someone explain the logic to me of having the matches in the build up to this match at Summerslam being no more than 2 minutes? There's a difference between "leaving the audience wanting more" and "making the audience lose interest", and the booking of these two teams is very close to crossing that line- if they haven't already. Gallows beat Kofi in about 2 minutes, and then Xavier stopped them from "ringposting" Kofi. That was literally that.

Goldust, R-Truth & Scooby Doo Segment
It was like they were actively trying to make people watch the Olympics.

Rusev v Cesaro
The stuff with Foley and Bryan was fun. The problem was they didn't really have much to work with, because they're both Babyface GM's- so they couldn't really take digs and generally be dicks to each other. I was surprised to see Rusev come out, and the same can be said with Cesaro- but it did highlight a point I was making for basically a month building up the Draft about Roster Depth or lack thereof. So at least I can say the three sweetest words in the english language "I was right".

I was surprised by the reaction I saw from many people when it comes to Rusev winning, because I don't know what people were expecting to be honest. Before the finish, one person said that this wouldn't have been the Main Event unless Cesaro was winning the title- to which I said my earlier point that last night's RAW was an exercise in trying to fill as much time as possible. The fact is, Cesaro wrestled twice last night, including in the Main Event- and he only lost said Main Event by being fucked over by Sheamus. I don't really know what else you could ask for within reasonable expectations.

The only real criticism I have of this, is the Main Event of RAW less than two weeks away from Summerslam featured Sheamus, Rusev, Cesaro and Roman Reigns- all of whom had been on the show already. I doubt they're turning the US Title match into a 4-Way unless they feel the need to protect Rusev by having Roman pin Sheamus- so I just don't really "get" why they did this as the main event to be blunt.

I think it's safe to say that there's been better RAW's in recent times. I won't actually go as far as saying it was a "bad' show last night, it was just ridiculously average. The problem with it being ridiculously average, is that when it's average it sometimes feels worse just because it's 3 fucking hours long. The only real issues I had was with the people not featured on the show in Nia Jax and Sami Zayn, also what happened to Jinder? But anyway, we can only move on to Smackdown where if it isn't better than RAW we may as well give up on this brand split now.

Thanks for reading as always, you may notice this is up an hour earlier than usual- it's not going to become a regular thing but I'll be on the Tube when I usually put them up tonight. As I said, we can only pray to god Smackdown's better for the sake of our sanity- and I'll look at whether it was or not tomorrow in the Smackdown Review so hopefully you'll be back for that. Thanks again for reading, and let's look forward to Smackdown and Heath Slater winning that contract baybay!