Hello! We're back at it for another review, and I'll just say this now. Smackdown was in fact better than RAW this week. I know that may be shocking after the 10/10 show RAW gave us, but it was in fact the case. The thing with Smackdown is, it's already ahead for most people simply by virtue of it being an hour shorter than RAW. It was a point I made last night, it's not impossible to have a good three hour raw. However, when we get a show like we did on Monday that's painfully average and just generally a "cold" show- the three hours magnifies it and just makes it worse than it really is in the eyes of the viewer. With all that said, Smackdown didn't have much to beat this week- so the only real question that needs to be answered is how much they could beat it by.
Randy Orton & Alberto Del Rio "cold open"
I've avoided reviewing these "cold open" segments since I started doing these Reviews just because they've not really been much other than a way to pop the crowd right off the bat by showing Daniel Bryan. However, we actually had something meaningful happen tonight- so here we are. I'm really curious to see how they book Del Rio in the next few months, because it'll give us a good indicator as to whether he's leaving in October or he's carrying on. I thought he was pretty good in this segment, and we may have had an early indicator with what happened in the match they were setting up here.
Bray Wyatt, Erick Rowan, Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose Opening Segment
I was expecting a show very heavy on these guys, for the simple reason that the only other "big" angle they've got on Smackdown was visiting The Shire while the show was on last night. I do like the fact that Bray's promos are seemingly getting a bit clearer in-terms of what he says in relation to the angle he's in. He's still Bray Wyatt, but he's almost "dumbed it down" a bit- which is hit and miss for me because I like his promos when they're open to interpretation. Ambrose's promo was fine, if a bit generic- and then Dolph came out.
When Dolph hit the ring and we had the standard brawl to set-up a tag match, I was a bit "meh" towards it- which I'm sure you'd all agree is understandable. Then, when Bray had Ambrose set-up for Sister Abigail and he didn't do it I thought "great, they've fucked the timing up". But, this whole segment was worth it for Bray snapping Ambrose back up with the Abigail so he'd eat a Superkick from Dolph. That was a really cool spot, so fair play to whomever thought of doing it. Overall I really liked this segment. It doesn't make up for the complete idiocy that we had last week involving Bray though.
American Alpha v Mike Vega & Mikey O'Shea
We've now had three jobbers featured, and none of them have been plays on Conor McGregor. Call one of them Conor and the other one Greg, it's not that hard. I'm not into this sort of stuff usually, but I'm more interested to see the reaction to it rather than them actually doing it.
This segment accomplished two things. The first, it highlighted just how weak Smackdown's Tag Division is. We had American Alpha in the ring, when The Ascension, The Vaudevillains and The Hype Bros came out to "watch" the match. As I understand it, one of The Usos is injured, and given their lack of appearance I'm assuming Fabreeze were in New Zealand although I don't know. How shit is this Tag Division. It's amazing if you think about it.
The second thing it accomplished, was that it put American Alpha over really strong tonight. Which they needed, just to establish themselves as the "Alphas" of the Tag Division (see what I did there?). The problem American Alpha has, is that simply put- if they lose to any of the teams in the division any time soon they're dead. Because none of the teams, Fabreeze and Usos included have any credibility with the audience.
Miz & Maryse Backstage Interview
This segment was amazing. Miz and Maryse lying on the desk was just great. It amazed me that either Miz, Maryse or Renee didn't start corpsing at any point in the segment. Well, perhaps not Miz- he is an A-List Actor after all.
Eva Marie v Becky Lynch
Ladies & Gentleman, prepare for the review of the segment featuring the most stylish, elegant, bewitching, eternally beguiling, continuously charismatic and fantastically fascinating woman to appear in this or any other segment. Allow yourself to be seduced, enchanted, dazzled and entranced by All Red Everything herself Eva Marie.
I will never get sick of that introduction. If you'd have told me, or pretty much anyone a month ago that Eva Marie would've been one of the highlights of the week every week- chances are you'd be in a mental hospital. Yet here we are, and to borrow from a certain theme song it's glorious. I genuinely look forward to Eva's segments now, and I shall continue to do so for as long as she keeps this run going. I just can't wait for Eva's excuses every week to get wackier and wackier. She can stub her toe on the steps, break a nail, get an eyelash stuck in her eye, she gets lost in the building the possibilities really are endless. It's actually amazing that in an era where nobody is really a heel like they were in the "good ol' days", Eva Marie of all people manages to attract heat that barely anyone can. She's the 21st Century Heel.
I officially love Eva Marie. I have been seduced, enchanted, dazzled and entranced by All Red Everything herself Eva Marie.
Alexa Bliss v Becky Lynch
The match was alright, but that's really the best that can be said about it. I do think Alexa looked pretty good for her first showing on the main roster. The finish came when Eva's music hit, and we had her announcer tease doing her full introduction again- which had me in absolute hysterics. Also, it appears as though Eva's introduction is actually done live on the basis of last night. It's either that or they recorded a load of different sound clips at one time. It allowed Alexa to get the win, and I didn't realise just how happy I was that they stopped calling Alexa's finish the "Sparkle Splash" until she did it last night.
Imagine telling someone when the Draft happened that in a segment with Alexa, Becky and Eva that Eva would be the best thing about it. I said this last night and I'll say it again now, I genuinely think Eva's first match will be one where she wins the Women's Title.
Randy Orton v Alberto Del Rio
The one surprise, at least to me was that they felt the need to protect Del Rio by not having him take the pin. That was what I was referring to earlier when discussing how he's booked and how it may play in to Del Rio's "plans" in October and beyond. The match was pretty good. The only real problem is that neither of these two really go "all out" unless they have to, so you got the feeling that while it was a good match it undoubtedly could have been better.
The stuff with Del Rio working the arm over was good, because hopefully it means Brock going back to using Kimura's and not necessarily "abandoning" Suplex City, but going on a little holiday away- at least for a part of the match. The alternative is just Brock suplexing the fuck out of Randy and they play up how the Suplex's could fuck his shoulders up. Personally, I'm hoping for the former.
Heath Slater & Rhyno Backstage Segment
I didn't really "get" this segment, beyond the stuff with Slater's number of kids magically changing in the space of about 30 seconds. But, the stuff with the pool is apparently because it's one of Rhyno's campaign points in Michigan. Anyway, this was just a fun little segment. I'm not sure how Rhyno showing compassion to someone in need would have affected his political standing with his constituents though.
Rhyno v Heath Slater
The match was pretty much what you'd have expected. It wasn't good or bad, it was just "a match". It was too soon and not in front of the right crowd realistically for Heath to win the contract, and I'd expect to get a similar angle on RAW with someone next week. I maintain that if they build this angle for a while and do the pay-off with the right crowd whether that's in Brooklyn in just over a week, or with one of the usual "smarky" crowds in the near future it should be a really good angle.
We of course had the thing a bit later on with Heath talking himself effectively talking himself out of contract which was fun, and it should be a fun angle next week where he asks for it.
Carmella v Natalya
I still have absolutely no clue how Carmella was called up. It's not even a criticism of her, she just simply wasn't ready for it- and now she's just desperately trying to keep her ahead above water every time she's on TV. In that sense, they were smart to put her in with Nattie who's probably the easiest woman to work with in the company. The match wasn't really much, but that's probably better than I thought Carmella would do to be honest. Carmella got the win, which makes me happy because if nothing else it means Nattie's not likely to be featured prominently on TV like I was afraid she would. I genuinely prefer Eva to Nattie. Come at me.
Baron Corbin attacks Kalisto Backstage
This was fine for what it was. Corbin's usurped Ryback as the "Pre-Show Stopper", and funnily enough he's wrestling Kalisto presumably on said Pre-Show in just over a week's time.
Dolph Ziggler & Dean Ambrose v Bray Wyatt & Erick Rowan
After last week, you may perhaps be expecting another rant when it comes to how The Wyatts were fed to Dolph and Ambrose just to further their angle. I'm not going to do that actually, because as hypocritical as it may be I was fine with this match. Everyone looked pretty good in the match, Bray's Uranage onto the apron looked absolutely brutal- and Dolph pinned Rowan. This was pretty much exactly the booking you'd have expected, because it actually makes sense. I'll never bury booking when it makes sense.
After the match, we had Ambrose hit Dirty Deeds on Dolph. I'm not surprised by it, because it does fit the build. An alternative angle would've been to have Dolph or Ambrose leave the other to Bray, but I do think it was a good angle to end a good show on the whole.
I'm not really the best person to judge, because I was quite tired last night- but it did feel to me like Smackdown did drag a bit last night. Even then, it still didn't drag nearly as much as RAW did this week- and just for that fact alone it was the better show this week. With that said, I do think it was a pretty good show on the whole. Especially when considering the fact Smackdown had two of their "top guys" in New Zealand. They probably beat RAW in the ratings this week what with Slater's 27 Million kids watching as well.
Thanks for reading as always. Hopefully you're looking forward to Summerslam, I know I am considering the fact I'm going. Yup, I'm in New York next week. I actually fly out Tuesday Morning (BST) so I'll arrive in New York early afternoon. I'm not sure how the Reviews will work next week to be honest, so keep an eye out on Twitter starting next Tuesday. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you have a good rest of the week. I'm really looking forward to the CWC tonight, if the Ibushi/Alexander match is as good as it was said to be we've got another MOTY Contender on our hands. They'll all be blown out of the water when Eva finally wrestles though.
Wednesday, 10 August 2016
Leyton Orient v Fulham Review: Keeping It Difficult
It's never easy with Fulham is it? As soon as I saw the team, I thought that the game was going to be a close one- and that's what it ended up being. It didn't need to be one, but through a combination of fatigue, complacency and general inexperience we found ourselves in a proper game with 10 Minutes to go tonight. But, I would've taken going through no matter how we did so as soon as the team came out- so obviously I'm happy with the outcome and the confidence it should give some of our youth players who were on show tonight.
We don't want these goal sections to be talking about 1 goal in a 1-0 win, we want this section to be filled with defensive mistakes and goals galore. The Adeniran goal was actually a really good one. After last season where we were lucky to clear the first man from corners, we've now scored from a corner in both games so far this season- so whatever we've been doing over Pre-Season has definitely worked in that respect. It was a really good delivery, and an equally good header from Adeniran to get his first goal for the club. I tweeted this at the time, two years after we said goodbye to John Arne Riise- we've finally seen a "Riise" Free-Kick go in. Woodrow won't hit a ball better than that one for the rest of his career. It was just an absolutely sublime finish. Then Woodrow showed off some of his other talents with the 3rd goal, with him showing determination to keep pressure on the Orient player, win the ball off him and put it in the bottom right corner. All three goals tonight were good in different ways, and up to around the 60 Minute mark we were looking really good.
Then, I don't know if we got complacent- or the young players who were pressing really well tired but we just completely dropped off and let Orient get back into the game. Even then, we weren't outplayed for either of the Orient goals. The first one was from our old friend the corner, and the second was McCallum being smart and peeling off to the back post where he had the better of Kavanagh ten times out of ten. It was obviously concerning at the time, and it does highlight to me the need to sign a Centre-Back who's a bit taller- but still fits in Slavisa's system in-terms of being mobile and good on the ball. However, none of the back four that started tonight will do so up at Deepdale so it's not concerning enough to start worrying about it yet.
I thought Jesse Joronen had a pretty good game tonight, even with conceding two goals. He couldn't really do much for either goal, and on the whole I thought he was good when called upon- and with one exception he looked good coming out for crosses and generally making himself "big" in the box which was my main criticism of Lonergan last season.
As I've already said, none of the back four tonight will be starting at Deepdale- but for the first 60 Minutes they looked reasonably good up against the limited pressure Orient put on. Kavanagh was ridiculously out of position at Right-Back, but he coped reasonably well I thought. He obviously got caught out for Orient's second goal, but it's more the fault of Stearman for allowing him to peel off and create the mismatch rather than Kavanagh's lack of height that was the problem for said goal. Ryan Sessegnon looks like quite a player it has to be said. You can definitely tell why Arsenal among others are supposedly after him. He made the odd mistake tonight, but he's 16 and he didn't look at all out of place up against an Orient team you'd expect to try and "bully" our generally small team.
If there was one negative to draw from tonight, it was Tim Ream's performance. Orient barely offered anything until they scored. But even with the general lack of anything directly in-front of him, Ream tried his best at times to mess things up for us. There was one moment in the first half where Ream just kicked the air and let the Orient winger get a run on goal, and he just generally looked quite unsure of himself tonight. How did Kit possibly think the Stearman/Ream partnership was good enough to push for Play-Offs last season? I know I've said about Stearman's role in Orient's second goal, but I do think Stearman was alright on the whole. Without trying to disrespect Orient, we were playing Leyton Orient. The fact these two looked as uncertain as they did at times doesn't bode well for a hypothetical scenario where either Madl or Kalas get injured.
It's a shame Denis Adeniran went off really, because he was having a great game up until he went down seemingly with cramp. He obviously got his goal, but he was another like Sessegnon who didn't look at all out of place in the team. I was worried about him when he got his yellow for celebrating in the crowd, but he was smart with how he played and displayed composure way beyond his years with how he played the game on the whole. Someone who was playing to his years of experience was Scott Parker tonight. It was a typical Parker performance in all aspects really. It was remarkably unremarkable, but he was there in the Midfield as a calming influence and he did well in keeping possession and generally keeping our Midfield together- especially as Orient got back into it.
Tayo Edun was another debut tonight, and I thought he looked really good for about 70 or so minutes. His drop off toward the end of the game was actually a contributing factor to Orient's resurgence, just because he wasn't pressing as much as he was at the start of the game. I can only assume his legs started to feel it as the game progressed, which is understandable considering this was his first game at senior level. In the 1st Half, Christensen was the best player on the pitch- and it wasn't even close. He was basically getting free reign down the Right-Hand side and he was playing with the confidence and ability of the Christensen we saw when Kit first came in. Second-Half he just completely disappeared. I'm not even quite sure why, all I know is that he did.
Luca De La Torre was another debut tonight, and similar to Aluko and Ayité on Friday- while he didn't contribute to any goals- he put in a really good shift tonight trying to press from the front. He was another one that dropped off a bit in the later stages, but again it's understandable and at the end of the day it didn't effect the end result. It just made it a bit closer than it had to be. Had we gone to Extra-Time chances are we'd have been completely screwed, but we managed to scrape through.
Cauley Woodrow put in a good case for why he should be starting up at Deepdale with his goals and general performance tonight. Especially considering some of the issues Preston have defensively at the moment, starting Woodrow who's more mobile and able to stretch the defence a bit more than Smith would be my preferred option. With that said, if we sign a Striker before Saturday all of that's moot- so we'll see what happens as the week goes on. I've already had my say on Woodrow's goals, but in general he performed well- and on another day he may have been able to get a Hat-Trick if he'd been able to hit one of his other shots a bit better.
The Tunnicliffe for Adeniran sub was obviously necessary, and I thought Tunnicliffe did alright when he came on. He's another player who, because of his role- it's almost better for him to have an unremarkable game than something happen associated with him. Because chances are if his name comes up, it's not good news for us. The exception being Bristol City last season of course. The Tom Cairney sub was entirely just to bring on a calming influence for the last few minutes of the game, and it obviously worked because we got through it. I'm sure Slavisa wouldn't have wanted to bring him on, and when he went down briefly he was probably thinking many four letter words- but there was seemingly no harm done.
If I had to have one criticism of Slavisa tonight, it was that he only used two subs when it was quite clear- at least to me that we had a few players completely dead on their feet still on the pitch. I understand why he may have been wary of bringing on our First-Teamers, but would it have killed us to bring Ayité on for Edun for the last 10 Minutes? We may have been able to get a fourth and kill the game if we had done so.
As I've already said, at the end of the day we're through and in the Draw for tomorrow. With Cup Football that's all that really matters. We shouldn't have let Orient back in the game, but we still managed to get through- so long-term there was no harm done. The Draw for tomorrow will be an interesting one, and the selection for said game will be interesting as well. The selection we had tonight was exactly what I want us to do in the Carling Cup. Play our young players, if we get through great- and if we don't it's a learning experience for said young players.
Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to review the next round, unless we get moved to Thursday for TV. So I'm hoping we don't get a "good" draw tomorrow. Thanks for reading as always, the Reviews will be back on Saturday where hopefully we can keep our unbeaten run going. We're off to Wembley, folks. Might as well get your tickets now.
We don't want these goal sections to be talking about 1 goal in a 1-0 win, we want this section to be filled with defensive mistakes and goals galore. The Adeniran goal was actually a really good one. After last season where we were lucky to clear the first man from corners, we've now scored from a corner in both games so far this season- so whatever we've been doing over Pre-Season has definitely worked in that respect. It was a really good delivery, and an equally good header from Adeniran to get his first goal for the club. I tweeted this at the time, two years after we said goodbye to John Arne Riise- we've finally seen a "Riise" Free-Kick go in. Woodrow won't hit a ball better than that one for the rest of his career. It was just an absolutely sublime finish. Then Woodrow showed off some of his other talents with the 3rd goal, with him showing determination to keep pressure on the Orient player, win the ball off him and put it in the bottom right corner. All three goals tonight were good in different ways, and up to around the 60 Minute mark we were looking really good.
Then, I don't know if we got complacent- or the young players who were pressing really well tired but we just completely dropped off and let Orient get back into the game. Even then, we weren't outplayed for either of the Orient goals. The first one was from our old friend the corner, and the second was McCallum being smart and peeling off to the back post where he had the better of Kavanagh ten times out of ten. It was obviously concerning at the time, and it does highlight to me the need to sign a Centre-Back who's a bit taller- but still fits in Slavisa's system in-terms of being mobile and good on the ball. However, none of the back four that started tonight will do so up at Deepdale so it's not concerning enough to start worrying about it yet.
I thought Jesse Joronen had a pretty good game tonight, even with conceding two goals. He couldn't really do much for either goal, and on the whole I thought he was good when called upon- and with one exception he looked good coming out for crosses and generally making himself "big" in the box which was my main criticism of Lonergan last season.
As I've already said, none of the back four tonight will be starting at Deepdale- but for the first 60 Minutes they looked reasonably good up against the limited pressure Orient put on. Kavanagh was ridiculously out of position at Right-Back, but he coped reasonably well I thought. He obviously got caught out for Orient's second goal, but it's more the fault of Stearman for allowing him to peel off and create the mismatch rather than Kavanagh's lack of height that was the problem for said goal. Ryan Sessegnon looks like quite a player it has to be said. You can definitely tell why Arsenal among others are supposedly after him. He made the odd mistake tonight, but he's 16 and he didn't look at all out of place up against an Orient team you'd expect to try and "bully" our generally small team.
If there was one negative to draw from tonight, it was Tim Ream's performance. Orient barely offered anything until they scored. But even with the general lack of anything directly in-front of him, Ream tried his best at times to mess things up for us. There was one moment in the first half where Ream just kicked the air and let the Orient winger get a run on goal, and he just generally looked quite unsure of himself tonight. How did Kit possibly think the Stearman/Ream partnership was good enough to push for Play-Offs last season? I know I've said about Stearman's role in Orient's second goal, but I do think Stearman was alright on the whole. Without trying to disrespect Orient, we were playing Leyton Orient. The fact these two looked as uncertain as they did at times doesn't bode well for a hypothetical scenario where either Madl or Kalas get injured.
It's a shame Denis Adeniran went off really, because he was having a great game up until he went down seemingly with cramp. He obviously got his goal, but he was another like Sessegnon who didn't look at all out of place in the team. I was worried about him when he got his yellow for celebrating in the crowd, but he was smart with how he played and displayed composure way beyond his years with how he played the game on the whole. Someone who was playing to his years of experience was Scott Parker tonight. It was a typical Parker performance in all aspects really. It was remarkably unremarkable, but he was there in the Midfield as a calming influence and he did well in keeping possession and generally keeping our Midfield together- especially as Orient got back into it.
Tayo Edun was another debut tonight, and I thought he looked really good for about 70 or so minutes. His drop off toward the end of the game was actually a contributing factor to Orient's resurgence, just because he wasn't pressing as much as he was at the start of the game. I can only assume his legs started to feel it as the game progressed, which is understandable considering this was his first game at senior level. In the 1st Half, Christensen was the best player on the pitch- and it wasn't even close. He was basically getting free reign down the Right-Hand side and he was playing with the confidence and ability of the Christensen we saw when Kit first came in. Second-Half he just completely disappeared. I'm not even quite sure why, all I know is that he did.
Luca De La Torre was another debut tonight, and similar to Aluko and Ayité on Friday- while he didn't contribute to any goals- he put in a really good shift tonight trying to press from the front. He was another one that dropped off a bit in the later stages, but again it's understandable and at the end of the day it didn't effect the end result. It just made it a bit closer than it had to be. Had we gone to Extra-Time chances are we'd have been completely screwed, but we managed to scrape through.
Cauley Woodrow put in a good case for why he should be starting up at Deepdale with his goals and general performance tonight. Especially considering some of the issues Preston have defensively at the moment, starting Woodrow who's more mobile and able to stretch the defence a bit more than Smith would be my preferred option. With that said, if we sign a Striker before Saturday all of that's moot- so we'll see what happens as the week goes on. I've already had my say on Woodrow's goals, but in general he performed well- and on another day he may have been able to get a Hat-Trick if he'd been able to hit one of his other shots a bit better.
The Tunnicliffe for Adeniran sub was obviously necessary, and I thought Tunnicliffe did alright when he came on. He's another player who, because of his role- it's almost better for him to have an unremarkable game than something happen associated with him. Because chances are if his name comes up, it's not good news for us. The exception being Bristol City last season of course. The Tom Cairney sub was entirely just to bring on a calming influence for the last few minutes of the game, and it obviously worked because we got through it. I'm sure Slavisa wouldn't have wanted to bring him on, and when he went down briefly he was probably thinking many four letter words- but there was seemingly no harm done.
If I had to have one criticism of Slavisa tonight, it was that he only used two subs when it was quite clear- at least to me that we had a few players completely dead on their feet still on the pitch. I understand why he may have been wary of bringing on our First-Teamers, but would it have killed us to bring Ayité on for Edun for the last 10 Minutes? We may have been able to get a fourth and kill the game if we had done so.
As I've already said, at the end of the day we're through and in the Draw for tomorrow. With Cup Football that's all that really matters. We shouldn't have let Orient back in the game, but we still managed to get through- so long-term there was no harm done. The Draw for tomorrow will be an interesting one, and the selection for said game will be interesting as well. The selection we had tonight was exactly what I want us to do in the Carling Cup. Play our young players, if we get through great- and if we don't it's a learning experience for said young players.
Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to review the next round, unless we get moved to Thursday for TV. So I'm hoping we don't get a "good" draw tomorrow. Thanks for reading as always, the Reviews will be back on Saturday where hopefully we can keep our unbeaten run going. We're off to Wembley, folks. Might as well get your tickets now.
Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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!
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!
Saturday, 6 August 2016
Fulham v Newcastle Review: The Perfect Start
Well, it doesn't get any better than that does it? No, really, we may as well call it a day now. Was it the absolute perfect performance? No. But, the crucial thing to me to take from tonight is the fact we actually looked like a proper bloody team for the first time in god knows how long. From the first minute we were playing as a cohesive unit, pressing from Smith all of the way back to Madl and Kalas. We dropped off a bit as the game went on, but I think that's more to do with fitness levels at this stage of the season than anything else- and even with that said I was ridiculously impressed by how fit we looked tonight. This is such an alien concept after the last few years, but tonight, we saw what a team looked like when a Manager who has a clue actually has his team. At the end of the day, that means we're already streets ahead in-terms of where we are in comparison to our first two seasons back in the Championship.
The game in many ways was the perfect introduction to Championship life for Newcastle. If any Newcastle fans are reading this, yes, the refereeing is as bad as that every week. To add to that, we scored from a set-piece for what feels like the first time in absolutely ages. It wasn't a pretty goal, but I don't want pretty goals- I want goals that win games regardless of how they come as was the case tonight. Given how scattered the Reviews were last season, I don't think I said this in a Review- but the whole second half of last season I was saying I was desperate for a scrappy 1-0 win. Just to prove we actually could do it. I had to wait until May for one last season, but we've started with one tonight. Hopefully there's many more to come.
Given all of the build up to the game, and talk of how Newcastle were going to walk the league (which they probably still will once they've gelled and got Mitrovic back) David Button didn't actually have that much to do tonight. It was far from the bombardment of Button's goal that I think most people would have been expecting, let's put it that way. He made one really good save in the second half against I believe Ritchie, and apart from that there wasn't really much else he had to do. His distribution looked a bit dodgy, especially in the 1st Half- but I'm hoping that's just a confidence thing and his first Clean Sheet with help to settle him down.
Michael Madl is one of the best defenders I've seen at Fulham. It was fitting in a way that on the day one of our other "best defenders" retired, Madl turned in a performance like that tonight. While Gayle and Perez aren't at their peak fitness-wise, Madl made them look ridiculously average for the most part tonight. I still have my doubts about the Madl and Kalas pairing once we come up against teams with more of an aerial threat (which Mitrovic would've provided) but as I said in my Preview, tonight that wasn't an issue and we got to see them do what they do best. Kalas wasn't as good as Madl tonight, but that's not exactly a criticism. They just defended absolutely immensely, as the whole team did to be honest.
How weird is it to be reading one of these reviews and the section on the defence isn't filled with discussing Dan Burn mistakes and how we conceded our 70th Penalty and 120th goal from a set-piece. It's funny to watch Centre-Backs who can actually defend after the last few years isn't it? To add to that, because we defended properly as a team- it was harder to expose any weakness in our defence that teams did way too often last season.
I don't know who "found" Denis Odoi. Whomever did, make yourself known and I shall personally give you a 6-Pack of Strawberry Ribena. When Odoi brought Perez down around the 10th minute I was worried, but he thankfully stayed on the pitch and he didn't look back after that. Odoi put in a ridiculous shift tonight, and he had Dummett's number all night long down that wing. It was of course all topped off with probably the most ridiculous bit of skill I think I've ever seen from someone in a Fulham shirt. Madl was my MOTM tonight, but Odoi was a very close second.
I was expecting a lot worse than what we got from Scott Malone tonight. I still want us to sign a Left-Back, if only on loan until Fredericks is fit and Odoi can go to Left-Back. But, I thought Malone gave a good account of himself all things considered. Odoi gave what was close to an attacking masterclass down the right, but that isn't really Malone's game. He didn't look very comfortable in possession of the ball, but defensively he did fine I felt. He got a bit busier once Ritchie went to his side, but even then I wasn't really worried by him at any point.
The obvious incident to discuss is that of the Ryan Tunnicliffe handball in the 1st Half. I'll say right now, having watched it back- it is a penalty without a shadow of a doubt. However, at the time, my first reaction when seeing it was that it wasn't. It all happened so quickly that there wasn't really time to react, and I can only assume that was the Ref's opinion because he obviously didn't give it. Aside from that incident, Tunnicliffe gave the performance we've come to expect of him. He never stopped running and pressing, and especially with the way the team's made up now it really suits his style of play.
Kevin McDonald had a really good debut tonight. I was actually surprised by Newcastle's selection in midfield, because while Newcastle don't exactly have "bad" players- the Colback and Hayden pairing in midfield looked ridiculously lightweight next to McDonald in particular. It was quite similar to when McDonald came to the Cottage with Wolves last season in that regard. We need a bit more creativity without a doubt, and really just make it so everyone isn't afraid to shoot like they seemingly were tonight. However, if we can get that level of performance from our Centre-Mids every week, we won't be looking down with the table this season.
We did look a bit toothless up-front, but even with that said- the shifts put in by Ayite and Aluko in particular in our efforts to press Newcastle can't be undersold when talking about the end result. They ran themselves into the ground tonight, and I was just surprised Ayité in particular was actually kept on for the whole 90 Minutes. To add to that, Ayité looked lively up against Janmaat and he had some great moments up against an actual international Right-Back. So that can only bode well for the future. I haven't been able to see it back yet, but the maybe penalty incident in the First-Half with Aluko I felt summed up what he offers the team in that he can be on the ball and pressuring in a flash with his pace.
Tom Cairney was our Captain tonight, and he really did play like one. I will say I'm not quite sure how Sky gave him MOTM, because while he was really good tonight- our defence was by far and a way the best part of the game for either side. With McCormack gone, Cairney's on set-pieces- and on the basis of his delivery for Smith's goal tonight- that's another positive to take from the McCormack leaving situation.
I don't think anyone's under any illusion that we need to sign at least one, ideally two Strikers in the next month. However, Matt Smith put in a really good shift tonight as limited as he is. Smith obviously got the goal, and he nearly got an assist in the second half with his knockdown to Aluko. So overall, while I want a Striker in ASAP- Smith gave me some hope and something positive to think about when talking about Smith and his contributions to the team.
The three subs made by Slavisa were all good ones I thought. With the type of game Tunnicliffe plays,and how early this game was- he couldn't last the 90 Minutes. I was expecting it to be the other way around in that Tunnicliffe would be coming on for Parker, but it obviously worked out alright because we've got those 3 Points on the board. I don't know how it came across on TV, but how the Ref and Linesman missed the most blatant pulling of a shirt to stop someone running onto a ball I think I've ever seen on Parker at around the 88th-89th Minute I have no idea.
The only thing of note from Christensen was him hitting a shot so high it'll probably land in the Olympic Cauldron midway through the Opening Ceremony. But I thought this at the time, at that stage of the game it's better to send it into orbit than give it straight to the keeper. Amazing how a win makes you put a positive spin on things isn't it? It also has to be said that Christensen's style of play fits perfectly with what we saw on show from the team tonight. In that it was a very athletic style of play, and that suits Lasse. I'd expect him to start on Tuesday against Orient where hopefully he can turn in a really good performance. Tim Ream's sub was more about wasting time than anything else, and when he did come on he didn't do anything to cost us the win- and at the end of the day that's all you can really ask for.
While Newcastle on paper are the hardest team we'll play this season, obviously now we've played them I think it's safe to say we'll have harder games. At times it seemed like Benitez had read a book over the summer titled "How To: Play in the Championship", and the book was filled with the philosophies of the (to quote Tony Xia) the failed footballer, failed manager, failed pundit Ian Holloway. They just didn't really look like they had a game-plan to me, and their only opportunities- especially in the 1st Half came from them launching balls up the pitch which didn't really suit Gayle and Perez. With all that said, while tonight's obviously great- we can't afford to get carried away. We can start to get carried away when we've gone 46 unbeaten.
Thanks for reading as always. Hopefully you enjoyed this Review as much as you did the performance on the pitch tonight. I've said this already, but I'll say it again- the Orient Review may not happen depending on travel times. But either way, keep an eye out on Tuesday where hopefully I'll be reviewing an equally positive performance and our progression into the 2nd Round of the Carling Cup where we can hopefully draw Carlisle Away. Thanks again for reading, and tonight just makes enjoying our weekend that much easier doesn't it? Which is a good thing considering Saturday's my Birthday.
The game in many ways was the perfect introduction to Championship life for Newcastle. If any Newcastle fans are reading this, yes, the refereeing is as bad as that every week. To add to that, we scored from a set-piece for what feels like the first time in absolutely ages. It wasn't a pretty goal, but I don't want pretty goals- I want goals that win games regardless of how they come as was the case tonight. Given how scattered the Reviews were last season, I don't think I said this in a Review- but the whole second half of last season I was saying I was desperate for a scrappy 1-0 win. Just to prove we actually could do it. I had to wait until May for one last season, but we've started with one tonight. Hopefully there's many more to come.
Given all of the build up to the game, and talk of how Newcastle were going to walk the league (which they probably still will once they've gelled and got Mitrovic back) David Button didn't actually have that much to do tonight. It was far from the bombardment of Button's goal that I think most people would have been expecting, let's put it that way. He made one really good save in the second half against I believe Ritchie, and apart from that there wasn't really much else he had to do. His distribution looked a bit dodgy, especially in the 1st Half- but I'm hoping that's just a confidence thing and his first Clean Sheet with help to settle him down.
Michael Madl is one of the best defenders I've seen at Fulham. It was fitting in a way that on the day one of our other "best defenders" retired, Madl turned in a performance like that tonight. While Gayle and Perez aren't at their peak fitness-wise, Madl made them look ridiculously average for the most part tonight. I still have my doubts about the Madl and Kalas pairing once we come up against teams with more of an aerial threat (which Mitrovic would've provided) but as I said in my Preview, tonight that wasn't an issue and we got to see them do what they do best. Kalas wasn't as good as Madl tonight, but that's not exactly a criticism. They just defended absolutely immensely, as the whole team did to be honest.
How weird is it to be reading one of these reviews and the section on the defence isn't filled with discussing Dan Burn mistakes and how we conceded our 70th Penalty and 120th goal from a set-piece. It's funny to watch Centre-Backs who can actually defend after the last few years isn't it? To add to that, because we defended properly as a team- it was harder to expose any weakness in our defence that teams did way too often last season.
I don't know who "found" Denis Odoi. Whomever did, make yourself known and I shall personally give you a 6-Pack of Strawberry Ribena. When Odoi brought Perez down around the 10th minute I was worried, but he thankfully stayed on the pitch and he didn't look back after that. Odoi put in a ridiculous shift tonight, and he had Dummett's number all night long down that wing. It was of course all topped off with probably the most ridiculous bit of skill I think I've ever seen from someone in a Fulham shirt. Madl was my MOTM tonight, but Odoi was a very close second.
I was expecting a lot worse than what we got from Scott Malone tonight. I still want us to sign a Left-Back, if only on loan until Fredericks is fit and Odoi can go to Left-Back. But, I thought Malone gave a good account of himself all things considered. Odoi gave what was close to an attacking masterclass down the right, but that isn't really Malone's game. He didn't look very comfortable in possession of the ball, but defensively he did fine I felt. He got a bit busier once Ritchie went to his side, but even then I wasn't really worried by him at any point.
The obvious incident to discuss is that of the Ryan Tunnicliffe handball in the 1st Half. I'll say right now, having watched it back- it is a penalty without a shadow of a doubt. However, at the time, my first reaction when seeing it was that it wasn't. It all happened so quickly that there wasn't really time to react, and I can only assume that was the Ref's opinion because he obviously didn't give it. Aside from that incident, Tunnicliffe gave the performance we've come to expect of him. He never stopped running and pressing, and especially with the way the team's made up now it really suits his style of play.
Kevin McDonald had a really good debut tonight. I was actually surprised by Newcastle's selection in midfield, because while Newcastle don't exactly have "bad" players- the Colback and Hayden pairing in midfield looked ridiculously lightweight next to McDonald in particular. It was quite similar to when McDonald came to the Cottage with Wolves last season in that regard. We need a bit more creativity without a doubt, and really just make it so everyone isn't afraid to shoot like they seemingly were tonight. However, if we can get that level of performance from our Centre-Mids every week, we won't be looking down with the table this season.
We did look a bit toothless up-front, but even with that said- the shifts put in by Ayite and Aluko in particular in our efforts to press Newcastle can't be undersold when talking about the end result. They ran themselves into the ground tonight, and I was just surprised Ayité in particular was actually kept on for the whole 90 Minutes. To add to that, Ayité looked lively up against Janmaat and he had some great moments up against an actual international Right-Back. So that can only bode well for the future. I haven't been able to see it back yet, but the maybe penalty incident in the First-Half with Aluko I felt summed up what he offers the team in that he can be on the ball and pressuring in a flash with his pace.
Tom Cairney was our Captain tonight, and he really did play like one. I will say I'm not quite sure how Sky gave him MOTM, because while he was really good tonight- our defence was by far and a way the best part of the game for either side. With McCormack gone, Cairney's on set-pieces- and on the basis of his delivery for Smith's goal tonight- that's another positive to take from the McCormack leaving situation.
I don't think anyone's under any illusion that we need to sign at least one, ideally two Strikers in the next month. However, Matt Smith put in a really good shift tonight as limited as he is. Smith obviously got the goal, and he nearly got an assist in the second half with his knockdown to Aluko. So overall, while I want a Striker in ASAP- Smith gave me some hope and something positive to think about when talking about Smith and his contributions to the team.
The three subs made by Slavisa were all good ones I thought. With the type of game Tunnicliffe plays,and how early this game was- he couldn't last the 90 Minutes. I was expecting it to be the other way around in that Tunnicliffe would be coming on for Parker, but it obviously worked out alright because we've got those 3 Points on the board. I don't know how it came across on TV, but how the Ref and Linesman missed the most blatant pulling of a shirt to stop someone running onto a ball I think I've ever seen on Parker at around the 88th-89th Minute I have no idea.
The only thing of note from Christensen was him hitting a shot so high it'll probably land in the Olympic Cauldron midway through the Opening Ceremony. But I thought this at the time, at that stage of the game it's better to send it into orbit than give it straight to the keeper. Amazing how a win makes you put a positive spin on things isn't it? It also has to be said that Christensen's style of play fits perfectly with what we saw on show from the team tonight. In that it was a very athletic style of play, and that suits Lasse. I'd expect him to start on Tuesday against Orient where hopefully he can turn in a really good performance. Tim Ream's sub was more about wasting time than anything else, and when he did come on he didn't do anything to cost us the win- and at the end of the day that's all you can really ask for.
While Newcastle on paper are the hardest team we'll play this season, obviously now we've played them I think it's safe to say we'll have harder games. At times it seemed like Benitez had read a book over the summer titled "How To: Play in the Championship", and the book was filled with the philosophies of the (to quote Tony Xia) the failed footballer, failed manager, failed pundit Ian Holloway. They just didn't really look like they had a game-plan to me, and their only opportunities- especially in the 1st Half came from them launching balls up the pitch which didn't really suit Gayle and Perez. With all that said, while tonight's obviously great- we can't afford to get carried away. We can start to get carried away when we've gone 46 unbeaten.
Thanks for reading as always. Hopefully you enjoyed this Review as much as you did the performance on the pitch tonight. I've said this already, but I'll say it again- the Orient Review may not happen depending on travel times. But either way, keep an eye out on Tuesday where hopefully I'll be reviewing an equally positive performance and our progression into the 2nd Round of the Carling Cup where we can hopefully draw Carlisle Away. Thanks again for reading, and tonight just makes enjoying our weekend that much easier doesn't it? Which is a good thing considering Saturday's my Birthday.
Thursday, 4 August 2016
Fulham v Newcastle Preview: Baptism By Fire
Hello! That's right, Football is officially back! It's been an interesting summer from a Fulham, Football and general world perspective- but now all of the talking can stop and we can jump into a new season. I was going to open by saying "there's not going to be a harder game than this", or words to that effect- but I'd be lying if I did so. Because tomorrow night isn't going to be the hardest game we have this season, it's the second hardest- the hardest being Newcastle away in Mid-March when they'll presumably be trying to get themselves over the line in-terms of promotion/the title. I don't think there's a "good" time to be playing Newcastle this season, but playing them tomorrow while they're still working out the kinks in the team and while players aren't at their peak levels in-terms of match fitness can't really be considered a bad time.
Seeing as there's not really much in the way of news from a Fulham perspective, I've had to really dig to try and find something. Not much has been made of it, but we've actually sold one of our fringe players called Ross McCormack to Villa. In all seriousness though, I pretty much covered my general opinion on McCormack in the Season Preview I put up on Monday so if you want my full in-depth thoughts on it you can read them here (https://t.co/B4t1AcOCSI). However, the condensed version is that losing McCormack isn't the end of the world in my opinion. I'd rather take the 12 Million we've got from McCormack and invest the money into players that'll fit Slavisa's system and crucially actually want to be here than keep McCormack and give him his 4th and 5th Fulham contracts this summer and next January. Also, I hope the Club Shop didn't over stock on number 4's for shirt printing.
On the other transfers front, there's not been a lot of stuff- especially with Strikers where the attention will obviously need to be. The news came out yesterday that we're signing Jozabed from Rayo Vallecano, and as with my transfer "analysis" in my Season Preview I'm not going to claim I know stuff about him that I simply don't. I will say, based on his stats last season in a team that didn't exactly perform well- he looks to be a pretty good signing for us.
I'm curious as to where he'd fit in the team, because I thought this season would be Cairney's chance to play in his best role which is that of a #10. From what I can understand, Jozabed's not necessarily a #10- but he's definitely more attack than defence-minded. So we could end up in a situation where we're almost entirely reliant on Kevin McDonald to protect the back four.
I think the Eddy Silvestre deal is meant to be close, so that's another Midfielder being brought in- and I'd assume our Midfield business will be done after these two signings because Midfield isn't exactly an area we need to keep strengthening at this stage. The areas we need to be looking at improving in the next month, for me, is another Centre-Back, ideally two Strikers and a Left-Back.
If you want my general thoughts on all of our confirmed transfers both in and out, I covered them all in-depth in my Season Preview. But for now, let's see how our new signings will fit into the team tomorrow night by discussing our team selection.
The Goalkeeper selection is actually going to be quite interesting, because as I discussed in my Season Preview with Joronen's performance against Palace- we've got 3 Keepers who can all be properly considered for selection. While I don't think Joronen playing will happen, and chances are we'll loan him out- he did himself a world of good with his performance against Palace. It's definitely more likely that Button starts, because to be blunt- we wouldn't have actually spent money on getting a second choice Keeper the way we're doing business. I'd expect Button to start tomorrow, and keep his run going in the league until he gives Slavisa a reason to think otherwise- while Bettinelli starts his season at Brisbane Road next Tuesday.
The Centre-Back situation, at least for tomorrow night is fairly straight-forward in my opinion. If Mitrovic (I nearly typed Mitroglou there) wasn't suspended, I'd have a lot more concern when it comes to the Tomas Kalas/Michael Madl pairing and their physicality and general stature. The only real worry I've got when it comes to the Kalas/Madl pairing for tomorrow's game is if there's a lapse of concentration at any point in the game we will be punished given the quality Newcastle have got going forward even without Mitrovic. But I don't think Kalas and Madl will be overwhelmed from a physical perspective by Dwight Gayle and Ayoze Perez- especially with Perez playing more of a #10 role based on Newcastle's Pre-Season.
The Full-Backs, specifically Left-Back will be one of the more interesting decisions that Slavisa has to make for tomorrow night. Ryan Sessegnon hasn't really put a foot wrong in Pre-Season. I was really interested to see how he coped against Palace, because while Palace are still a bit of a way off from the start of their season- Sessegnon was still put up against Andros Townsend. On the whole I thought he did really well against him, and personally I really hope he starts tomorrow night- where hopefully he can keep Matt Ritchie contained. At least until Fredericks is fit and Odoi can move back over to Left-Back, I'd prefer signing a better Left-Back whether that's a loan or permanent- or just giving Sessegnon a proper chance in the First-Team.
The alternative if Slavisa wants a more "experienced" player is to start Scott Malone- and despite his "reputation" I'm not writing him off. Just in-terms of personal preference I'd rather Sessegnon started tomorrow. The Right-Back spot will be occupied by Denis Odoi as was the case against Palace. Basically, in-terms of the defence keep it the same as with was against Palace.
I'm working on the basis of Slavisa playing a 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1 for tomorrow, because again that's what he played against Palace. I don't think there's a question as to whether Kevin McDonald starts, and it's more about who plays with him in the middle of the pitch. The options are Scott Parker, Ryan Tunnicliffe and Lasse Vigen Christensen. The key to any success or failure we have tomorrow night is likely dependant on the level to which we can contain Jonjo Shelvey. As such, I'd prefer to be starting Parker- and make it his job to just continuously press Shelvey all game long. I wouldn't expect Parker to go 90 Minutes tomorrow in said role, but after 60 Minutes we can bring Tunnicliffe on and have him do the exact same job.
I don't think there's much debate to be had as far as wingers go, for the simple fact that with the George Williams loan we've not really got much in the way of competition. The debate is more about who plays where, as opposed to if someone's going to play. Floyd Ayitè should be starting out on the left, I think that's a settled debate. I'm absolutely desperate for Tom Cairney to be played as a #10 this season. Especially in these early stages of the season where everyone isn't completely match fit, pace can be a big asset.
With that in mind, I say I want Aluko to be played on the right-wing with Tom Cairney playing centrally behind the striker. I know Aluko played as a #10 behind Smith against Palace, and did a good job of it as well- but I want pace on the wings and our most creative player in his preferred position. Surely that's not too much to ask? I'm not saying I want that to be a fixed selection for the entire season, and the introduction to the squad of Jozabed will obviously be another option. But for tomorrow, I think we're best served playing Aluko out wide.
With McCormack's departure confirmed, if he was even in consideration for selection tomorrow given his fitness issues at the start of every season- he's not now. That leaves us with a choice between Matt Smith & Cauley Woodrow (and Aluko of course but he's in another position in my selection). It's not ideal is it? Ideally we'd have had a Striker signing lined up and all but confirmed so when McCormack had left we could instantly get a replacement in- but that's obviously not the case. I'd lean more towards starting Woodrow tomorrow, because despite some of his short-comings he's infinitely more mobile than Smith- and he's actually looked pretty good in Pre-Season. While Pre-Season isn't an indicator as to how someone will perform in a competitive season, he's probably gotten some confidence so we might as well see how he gets on.
Then as with what I was saying for a lot of last season, we can bring Smith on with 15-20 minutes left to change the dynamic of our attacking line if needed. Whether that's a straight swap with Woodrow or changing to something along the lines of a 4-4-2 with Aluko or Ayité making runs in behind for Smith's knock downs.
Team for Newcastle
It's likely a dream, especially with the McCormack sale being announced today- but I'd hope that our fans wouldn't go overboard if we do lose tomorrow. As I've already said, tomorrow night is literally the second hardest game of the season on paper heading into the season. Given the fact we're still making signings and generally trying to gel an almost entirely new squad, I'm willing to be patient up to a point. At least at this stage of the window. If I'm sat here doing my Deadline Day Live Blog and we haven't brought in a Striker then I'll happily start bashing those involved at the club. But to be blunt, there's not really much point in doing so right now.
I talked about my general expectations for the season in my Season Preview, but to add on to what I said in the Preview. I said at the start of last season that I didn't want any excuses when it comes to losing points early on in the season. Which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what I've just said, and I do realise that.
My thing is, I don't think many (if any) people will be expecting us to win tomorrow. But aside from tomorrow night I'd say the vast majority of our first 10 games could be classed as "winnable". So despite what I've said about the team gelling etc. depending on the number of points we pick up between tomorrow night and the end of September I may yet end up ranting like I've seen various members of the posters on Friends of Fulham do already. Just quickly skimming through the games between tomorrow and the end of September I'd estimate we should be picking up roughly 12-13 Points. That points total based on last seasons table will put us roughly where I'd expect us to finish, which is basically as Mid-Table as we could possibly be. So if we exceed that, then I'm happy.
I said it at the start of my Season Preview but I'll repeat it here as well- these Previews aren't going to happen for every game. The simple fact is that they end up becoming quite repetitive, but equally the Previews aren't completely off the table depending on what's going on and who we're playing. The Reviews will continue, although they'll be quite patchy in August. Then I'm also going to try and do some more Fulham posts beyond Previews and Reviews. For those of you who don't know, for weekend games I aim to put the Reviews up at 8pm and for Midweek (or Friday) games I aim for Midnight.
So hopefully you'll keep coming back to these posts throughout the season, starting tomorrow night for the Newcastle Review which will hopefully have some positive stuff contained within it. In the meantime, hopefully you're looking forward to the new season and some degree of success after the last few years. Thanks for reading as always. We've only got 1 more day to wait now.
Seeing as there's not really much in the way of news from a Fulham perspective, I've had to really dig to try and find something. Not much has been made of it, but we've actually sold one of our fringe players called Ross McCormack to Villa. In all seriousness though, I pretty much covered my general opinion on McCormack in the Season Preview I put up on Monday so if you want my full in-depth thoughts on it you can read them here (https://t.co/B4t1AcOCSI). However, the condensed version is that losing McCormack isn't the end of the world in my opinion. I'd rather take the 12 Million we've got from McCormack and invest the money into players that'll fit Slavisa's system and crucially actually want to be here than keep McCormack and give him his 4th and 5th Fulham contracts this summer and next January. Also, I hope the Club Shop didn't over stock on number 4's for shirt printing.
On the other transfers front, there's not been a lot of stuff- especially with Strikers where the attention will obviously need to be. The news came out yesterday that we're signing Jozabed from Rayo Vallecano, and as with my transfer "analysis" in my Season Preview I'm not going to claim I know stuff about him that I simply don't. I will say, based on his stats last season in a team that didn't exactly perform well- he looks to be a pretty good signing for us.
I'm curious as to where he'd fit in the team, because I thought this season would be Cairney's chance to play in his best role which is that of a #10. From what I can understand, Jozabed's not necessarily a #10- but he's definitely more attack than defence-minded. So we could end up in a situation where we're almost entirely reliant on Kevin McDonald to protect the back four.
I think the Eddy Silvestre deal is meant to be close, so that's another Midfielder being brought in- and I'd assume our Midfield business will be done after these two signings because Midfield isn't exactly an area we need to keep strengthening at this stage. The areas we need to be looking at improving in the next month, for me, is another Centre-Back, ideally two Strikers and a Left-Back.
If you want my general thoughts on all of our confirmed transfers both in and out, I covered them all in-depth in my Season Preview. But for now, let's see how our new signings will fit into the team tomorrow night by discussing our team selection.
The Goalkeeper selection is actually going to be quite interesting, because as I discussed in my Season Preview with Joronen's performance against Palace- we've got 3 Keepers who can all be properly considered for selection. While I don't think Joronen playing will happen, and chances are we'll loan him out- he did himself a world of good with his performance against Palace. It's definitely more likely that Button starts, because to be blunt- we wouldn't have actually spent money on getting a second choice Keeper the way we're doing business. I'd expect Button to start tomorrow, and keep his run going in the league until he gives Slavisa a reason to think otherwise- while Bettinelli starts his season at Brisbane Road next Tuesday.
The Centre-Back situation, at least for tomorrow night is fairly straight-forward in my opinion. If Mitrovic (I nearly typed Mitroglou there) wasn't suspended, I'd have a lot more concern when it comes to the Tomas Kalas/Michael Madl pairing and their physicality and general stature. The only real worry I've got when it comes to the Kalas/Madl pairing for tomorrow's game is if there's a lapse of concentration at any point in the game we will be punished given the quality Newcastle have got going forward even without Mitrovic. But I don't think Kalas and Madl will be overwhelmed from a physical perspective by Dwight Gayle and Ayoze Perez- especially with Perez playing more of a #10 role based on Newcastle's Pre-Season.
The Full-Backs, specifically Left-Back will be one of the more interesting decisions that Slavisa has to make for tomorrow night. Ryan Sessegnon hasn't really put a foot wrong in Pre-Season. I was really interested to see how he coped against Palace, because while Palace are still a bit of a way off from the start of their season- Sessegnon was still put up against Andros Townsend. On the whole I thought he did really well against him, and personally I really hope he starts tomorrow night- where hopefully he can keep Matt Ritchie contained. At least until Fredericks is fit and Odoi can move back over to Left-Back, I'd prefer signing a better Left-Back whether that's a loan or permanent- or just giving Sessegnon a proper chance in the First-Team.
The alternative if Slavisa wants a more "experienced" player is to start Scott Malone- and despite his "reputation" I'm not writing him off. Just in-terms of personal preference I'd rather Sessegnon started tomorrow. The Right-Back spot will be occupied by Denis Odoi as was the case against Palace. Basically, in-terms of the defence keep it the same as with was against Palace.
I'm working on the basis of Slavisa playing a 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1 for tomorrow, because again that's what he played against Palace. I don't think there's a question as to whether Kevin McDonald starts, and it's more about who plays with him in the middle of the pitch. The options are Scott Parker, Ryan Tunnicliffe and Lasse Vigen Christensen. The key to any success or failure we have tomorrow night is likely dependant on the level to which we can contain Jonjo Shelvey. As such, I'd prefer to be starting Parker- and make it his job to just continuously press Shelvey all game long. I wouldn't expect Parker to go 90 Minutes tomorrow in said role, but after 60 Minutes we can bring Tunnicliffe on and have him do the exact same job.
I don't think there's much debate to be had as far as wingers go, for the simple fact that with the George Williams loan we've not really got much in the way of competition. The debate is more about who plays where, as opposed to if someone's going to play. Floyd Ayitè should be starting out on the left, I think that's a settled debate. I'm absolutely desperate for Tom Cairney to be played as a #10 this season. Especially in these early stages of the season where everyone isn't completely match fit, pace can be a big asset.
With that in mind, I say I want Aluko to be played on the right-wing with Tom Cairney playing centrally behind the striker. I know Aluko played as a #10 behind Smith against Palace, and did a good job of it as well- but I want pace on the wings and our most creative player in his preferred position. Surely that's not too much to ask? I'm not saying I want that to be a fixed selection for the entire season, and the introduction to the squad of Jozabed will obviously be another option. But for tomorrow, I think we're best served playing Aluko out wide.
With McCormack's departure confirmed, if he was even in consideration for selection tomorrow given his fitness issues at the start of every season- he's not now. That leaves us with a choice between Matt Smith & Cauley Woodrow (and Aluko of course but he's in another position in my selection). It's not ideal is it? Ideally we'd have had a Striker signing lined up and all but confirmed so when McCormack had left we could instantly get a replacement in- but that's obviously not the case. I'd lean more towards starting Woodrow tomorrow, because despite some of his short-comings he's infinitely more mobile than Smith- and he's actually looked pretty good in Pre-Season. While Pre-Season isn't an indicator as to how someone will perform in a competitive season, he's probably gotten some confidence so we might as well see how he gets on.
Then as with what I was saying for a lot of last season, we can bring Smith on with 15-20 minutes left to change the dynamic of our attacking line if needed. Whether that's a straight swap with Woodrow or changing to something along the lines of a 4-4-2 with Aluko or Ayité making runs in behind for Smith's knock downs.
Team for Newcastle
It's likely a dream, especially with the McCormack sale being announced today- but I'd hope that our fans wouldn't go overboard if we do lose tomorrow. As I've already said, tomorrow night is literally the second hardest game of the season on paper heading into the season. Given the fact we're still making signings and generally trying to gel an almost entirely new squad, I'm willing to be patient up to a point. At least at this stage of the window. If I'm sat here doing my Deadline Day Live Blog and we haven't brought in a Striker then I'll happily start bashing those involved at the club. But to be blunt, there's not really much point in doing so right now.
I talked about my general expectations for the season in my Season Preview, but to add on to what I said in the Preview. I said at the start of last season that I didn't want any excuses when it comes to losing points early on in the season. Which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what I've just said, and I do realise that.
My thing is, I don't think many (if any) people will be expecting us to win tomorrow. But aside from tomorrow night I'd say the vast majority of our first 10 games could be classed as "winnable". So despite what I've said about the team gelling etc. depending on the number of points we pick up between tomorrow night and the end of September I may yet end up ranting like I've seen various members of the posters on Friends of Fulham do already. Just quickly skimming through the games between tomorrow and the end of September I'd estimate we should be picking up roughly 12-13 Points. That points total based on last seasons table will put us roughly where I'd expect us to finish, which is basically as Mid-Table as we could possibly be. So if we exceed that, then I'm happy.
I said it at the start of my Season Preview but I'll repeat it here as well- these Previews aren't going to happen for every game. The simple fact is that they end up becoming quite repetitive, but equally the Previews aren't completely off the table depending on what's going on and who we're playing. The Reviews will continue, although they'll be quite patchy in August. Then I'm also going to try and do some more Fulham posts beyond Previews and Reviews. For those of you who don't know, for weekend games I aim to put the Reviews up at 8pm and for Midweek (or Friday) games I aim for Midnight.
So hopefully you'll keep coming back to these posts throughout the season, starting tomorrow night for the Newcastle Review which will hopefully have some positive stuff contained within it. In the meantime, hopefully you're looking forward to the new season and some degree of success after the last few years. Thanks for reading as always. We've only got 1 more day to wait now.
Wednesday, 3 August 2016
Smackdown Live Review: August 2nd
Hello! Based on RAW, I thought things were getting back to the "status quo" a bit in WWE in general- and I think it's safe to say after last night that it is indeed the case. I was actually looking to Smackdown this week, for the simple fact that they weren't dead in the water in-terms of being able to top RAW before they'd even started like they were last week. With that in mind, and the fact basically every main-event guy wasn't going to be in one match as was the case last week I actually had reasonably high expectations for the show. The only thing left to do now is to see whether they were met or not.
Dean Ambrose & Dolph Ziggler Promo Segment
This segment was odd in the sense that I wasn't expecting Ambrose to be the one to be a bit dick-ish. I'm not necessarily against it, but it caught me off guard- as has been the case for the last two weeks where Ziggler and Ambrose have been involved. Ambrose's promo was really good to me, if nothing else than for the fact every word he said when he was talking about Dolph was true. I thought Dolph did a good job playing up the whole "this could be my last chance" "fiery babyface" type promo. So on the whole I thought this whole thing was pretty good.
The Bray attack on Dolph was an interesting way to set-up the Main Event, because as I'll discuss later with what they ended up doing it's definitely not what I would have done. But we got the Main Event out of it- so in that respect the segment did do its job.
Apollo Crews v Kalisto v Baron Corbin- IC Title #1 Contender Match
I talked about this with someone on Twitter last night, and I'll repeat it here for obvious reasons. I just don't understand the logic of having a segment that's designed to set-up Apollo Crews vs The Miz for the IC Title and having Baron Corbin standing tall to end the segment. The person I was talking to last night said they had to do it "to make Baron Corbin look strong". If that was the case, it begs the question why book him in a segment where he wasn't going to win? We could just as easily have had Crews/Kalisto in a singles match where Kalisto did more Lucha things, and then have Corbin squash someone later on in the show.
I thought the actual match was pretty good on the whole. All three guys got their moves in, and Apollo Crews is going to Summerslam. I wouldn't be surprised if this Crews/Miz match ends up on the Pre-Show thought to be honest.
Eva Marie v Becky Lynch
Ladies & Gentleman, prepare for the Review of the segment featuring the most stylish, elegant, bewitching, eternally beguiling, continuously charismatic and fantastically fascinating woman to appear in this or any other segment. Allow yourself to be seduced, enchanted, dazzled and entranced by All Red Everything herself Eva Marie.
I'm sorry, that introduction is officially the best thing in Wrestling. I said it in last week's review, I just wanted Eva to make her entrance and then leave. That's exactly what we got here, and it was absolutely amazing. Genuinely, the only conceivable way this segment could've been better was if we had Corey Graves on commentary marking out for her entrance and then acting like his world was falling apart when Eva got "injured". I simply won't hear a bad word about this segment.
I actually talked about this in one of my Takeover Reviews absolutely ages ago when discussing Baron Corbin. WWE want Heels to be booed, as surprising as that may be. A "good heel" isn't a heel anymore, because the crowd are too intent on cheering the bad guys. That's where guys like Miz, Corbin and indeed Eva come into play- because the crowd doesn't want to cheer for them. They want to boo them, and that's why despite all of her shortcomings- of which there are many there's a spot for Eva in WWE.
Carmella & Natalya Backstage Interview
I like the new backstage set-up they've got for Smackdown, just because it seems more "professional" in a way I suppose. Carmella still has a lot of work to do, in basically every possible aspect of what's needed- but she'll only get that with screen time I suppose. I'm not even going to talk about Nattie's talking ability, I've had my say too many times in that respect.
American Alpha v The Vaudevillains
Two things caught me off guard in this segment. One, Aiden English was the one to take the pin. After Simon Gotch's escapades last week I would have thought he'd be getting pinned for the foreseeable future. Two, the fact this match went as long as it did. That second one isn't necessarily a bad thing, because Alpha need to get over with their ring-work and general in-ring charisma with the "casual" crowd like they did in NXT. The match was good as a showcase, Alpha got all of their moves in- and I can only assume we're getting matches like this until they introduce the Smackdown Tag Titles hopefully by having a Tournament for said Titles.
John Cena & AJ Styles Promo Segment
I'm quite torn on this segment, and especially the Cena promo. It was a really good promo, I don't think anyone will dispute that. However, how many times have we heard Cena do what is in essence this exact same promo? How many feuds has he had since becoming "the guy"? That'll give you a rough estimate. As I've already said, it was a good promo- but if I'd been doing these Reviews for the last 10-12 years or however long it's been since Cena became the guy I could just Copy & Paste my review of said good promo.
I liked the AJ stuff, and his subtle name-drop of The Elite and his not-so-subtle shot at TNA/Dixie. He nearly said Slammiversary instead of Summerslam at one point, so that would've made this segment absolutely hilarious. On the whole it was a good segment though, and I liked it because they didn't do any bullshit build to the match. Both guys wanted the match, so they agreed to have a match. Wrestling can be so simple, and yet so effective at times.
Randy Orton v Fandango
I'd like to open this part of the review by stating that Fandango wasn't in fact pinned, and I can only assume Fandango was going to win before Brock interfered. The actual match wasn't much, although that was to be expected given what was going to happen to end said match. The surprise to me was that Brock showed up to a show unadvertised, which I don't think he's done since he beat the streak. I don't know if that's a response to Brock not necessarily drawing a big rating on RAW or what- but it's definitely an interesting development in the booking of Brock with around about 8 Months left on his current contract.
The one thing I'll say that I loved in this segment was that Brock managed to hop the barrier and get in the ring to immediately hit the F5 on Randy- all in the time it took Randy to hit the RKO on Fandango. The man's just a freak athlete.
Heath Slater & Daniel Bryan Backstage Segment
This was a fun little segment. It's where I'm expecting them to go with Heath, in that he's just going to keep losing "contract matches" for at least a month- and then he gets an upset win over another returning guy who's only doing a one-off appearance. Rhyno's Gore from outta nowhere was quite fun though, I will admit. I'll start the Over/Under on Rhyno's win next week at 1 Minute and 30 Seconds.
Dean Ambrose Backstage Interview
This was fine, and it continued the whole angle with Dolph and his perceived "self-sabotaging" in the eyes of Ambrose so it got the job done.
Natalya v Carmella
Both women's matches on the show last night didn't start. I understand that given the general lack of depth, and really lack of talent with the Smackdown women they have to work really hard to establish the characters and get some feuds going- but both matches not starting was just stupid. Have Nattie DQ herself by just refusing to stop attacking her once the match starts or something. This was just lazy, and exactly the type of booking I thought WWE had gone away from with the women.
Dolph Ziggler v Bray Wyatt
The whole night was building to this match, in the sense that they basically spent the whole night saying how stupid it was of Dolph to put his #1 Contender spot up when he didn't have to. I thought this would give us an angle where Bray won, likely with shenanigans- leaving Dolph with "nothing" and he would then go on a really aggressive and "focused" run through some of the Midcard and actually build his character up to a point where people are invested in him for a match with Dean somewhere down the line.
As it was, Dolph won via the exposed turnbuckle- and that was that. I tweeted just before this match that last night was better than RAW, if nothing else than by virtue of it not being 3 Hours. I'm not necessarily saying that this Main Event changed my opinion of whether Smackdown was better than RAW- but it made it much more of an even contest.
I just can't understand the logic of having Bray Wyatt, who's one of two Heels on Smackdown who would look credible in a Main Event spot losing just to further an angle with Dolph fucking Ziggler. I'm not ruling out Dolph winning at Summerslam, as surprising as that may be. For the simple fact that he's going into the Kent State (?) Wrestling Hall of Fame at around the same time. It goes back to my theory on Mark Henry winning the Title on RAW, WWE may not want to turn down the easy publicity. However, the best Dolph can hope for is him getting a run as a transitional champion and either dropping the Title back to Dean or dropping it to Bray.
To add to that, Dolph pinned Bray- okay if that's what you want to do, fair enough. As with the Corbin case, this segment is designed to put over the Ziggler/Ambrose match. So why must you insist on letting Bray "get his heat back" as soon as the match has finished?! I will say I was happy they did this, for the simple reason that if Bray had gotten properly hurt like I thought he had at one point I doubt they'd have done the ending they did. Take that out of the equation though, and fucking hell is it stupid.
With the end to the show they acknowledged that they need Bray to look decent because they let him "get his heat back" albeit with Rowan's help. That's another thing, why wouldn't Rowan... you know... help Bray win?! What's the use of having him attack Dolph (and Ambrose) after Bray's already lost. The more I think about this the more angry I get about it, so I'm just going to stop before this becomes an completely unintelligible rant.
You may be able to tell that I didn't really like the ending to the show, but on the whole I do think the show was pretty good. I'm interested to see where they go with a few things on the show, especially with the way they book Bray- because I can't help but fear that him and Rowan are just going to be fodder for Ambrose and Dolph in the next few weeks as annoying as that'll be.
Thanks for reading as always, hopefully you've enjoyed the Reviews of the last two nights of wrestling. If you haven't already feel free to read the RAW Review. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you'll be back for the RAW Review next week and then the Smackdown Review as well, where you should have had enough time to be suitably prepared to be seduced, enchanted, dazzled and entranced by the most stylish, elegant, bewitching, eternally beguiling, continuously charismatic and fantastically fascinating woman to appear in WWE.
Dean Ambrose & Dolph Ziggler Promo Segment
This segment was odd in the sense that I wasn't expecting Ambrose to be the one to be a bit dick-ish. I'm not necessarily against it, but it caught me off guard- as has been the case for the last two weeks where Ziggler and Ambrose have been involved. Ambrose's promo was really good to me, if nothing else than for the fact every word he said when he was talking about Dolph was true. I thought Dolph did a good job playing up the whole "this could be my last chance" "fiery babyface" type promo. So on the whole I thought this whole thing was pretty good.
The Bray attack on Dolph was an interesting way to set-up the Main Event, because as I'll discuss later with what they ended up doing it's definitely not what I would have done. But we got the Main Event out of it- so in that respect the segment did do its job.
Apollo Crews v Kalisto v Baron Corbin- IC Title #1 Contender Match
I talked about this with someone on Twitter last night, and I'll repeat it here for obvious reasons. I just don't understand the logic of having a segment that's designed to set-up Apollo Crews vs The Miz for the IC Title and having Baron Corbin standing tall to end the segment. The person I was talking to last night said they had to do it "to make Baron Corbin look strong". If that was the case, it begs the question why book him in a segment where he wasn't going to win? We could just as easily have had Crews/Kalisto in a singles match where Kalisto did more Lucha things, and then have Corbin squash someone later on in the show.
I thought the actual match was pretty good on the whole. All three guys got their moves in, and Apollo Crews is going to Summerslam. I wouldn't be surprised if this Crews/Miz match ends up on the Pre-Show thought to be honest.
Eva Marie v Becky Lynch
Ladies & Gentleman, prepare for the Review of the segment featuring the most stylish, elegant, bewitching, eternally beguiling, continuously charismatic and fantastically fascinating woman to appear in this or any other segment. Allow yourself to be seduced, enchanted, dazzled and entranced by All Red Everything herself Eva Marie.
I'm sorry, that introduction is officially the best thing in Wrestling. I said it in last week's review, I just wanted Eva to make her entrance and then leave. That's exactly what we got here, and it was absolutely amazing. Genuinely, the only conceivable way this segment could've been better was if we had Corey Graves on commentary marking out for her entrance and then acting like his world was falling apart when Eva got "injured". I simply won't hear a bad word about this segment.
I actually talked about this in one of my Takeover Reviews absolutely ages ago when discussing Baron Corbin. WWE want Heels to be booed, as surprising as that may be. A "good heel" isn't a heel anymore, because the crowd are too intent on cheering the bad guys. That's where guys like Miz, Corbin and indeed Eva come into play- because the crowd doesn't want to cheer for them. They want to boo them, and that's why despite all of her shortcomings- of which there are many there's a spot for Eva in WWE.
Carmella & Natalya Backstage Interview
I like the new backstage set-up they've got for Smackdown, just because it seems more "professional" in a way I suppose. Carmella still has a lot of work to do, in basically every possible aspect of what's needed- but she'll only get that with screen time I suppose. I'm not even going to talk about Nattie's talking ability, I've had my say too many times in that respect.
American Alpha v The Vaudevillains
Two things caught me off guard in this segment. One, Aiden English was the one to take the pin. After Simon Gotch's escapades last week I would have thought he'd be getting pinned for the foreseeable future. Two, the fact this match went as long as it did. That second one isn't necessarily a bad thing, because Alpha need to get over with their ring-work and general in-ring charisma with the "casual" crowd like they did in NXT. The match was good as a showcase, Alpha got all of their moves in- and I can only assume we're getting matches like this until they introduce the Smackdown Tag Titles hopefully by having a Tournament for said Titles.
John Cena & AJ Styles Promo Segment
I'm quite torn on this segment, and especially the Cena promo. It was a really good promo, I don't think anyone will dispute that. However, how many times have we heard Cena do what is in essence this exact same promo? How many feuds has he had since becoming "the guy"? That'll give you a rough estimate. As I've already said, it was a good promo- but if I'd been doing these Reviews for the last 10-12 years or however long it's been since Cena became the guy I could just Copy & Paste my review of said good promo.
I liked the AJ stuff, and his subtle name-drop of The Elite and his not-so-subtle shot at TNA/Dixie. He nearly said Slammiversary instead of Summerslam at one point, so that would've made this segment absolutely hilarious. On the whole it was a good segment though, and I liked it because they didn't do any bullshit build to the match. Both guys wanted the match, so they agreed to have a match. Wrestling can be so simple, and yet so effective at times.
Randy Orton v Fandango
I'd like to open this part of the review by stating that Fandango wasn't in fact pinned, and I can only assume Fandango was going to win before Brock interfered. The actual match wasn't much, although that was to be expected given what was going to happen to end said match. The surprise to me was that Brock showed up to a show unadvertised, which I don't think he's done since he beat the streak. I don't know if that's a response to Brock not necessarily drawing a big rating on RAW or what- but it's definitely an interesting development in the booking of Brock with around about 8 Months left on his current contract.
The one thing I'll say that I loved in this segment was that Brock managed to hop the barrier and get in the ring to immediately hit the F5 on Randy- all in the time it took Randy to hit the RKO on Fandango. The man's just a freak athlete.
Heath Slater & Daniel Bryan Backstage Segment
This was a fun little segment. It's where I'm expecting them to go with Heath, in that he's just going to keep losing "contract matches" for at least a month- and then he gets an upset win over another returning guy who's only doing a one-off appearance. Rhyno's Gore from outta nowhere was quite fun though, I will admit. I'll start the Over/Under on Rhyno's win next week at 1 Minute and 30 Seconds.
Dean Ambrose Backstage Interview
This was fine, and it continued the whole angle with Dolph and his perceived "self-sabotaging" in the eyes of Ambrose so it got the job done.
Natalya v Carmella
Both women's matches on the show last night didn't start. I understand that given the general lack of depth, and really lack of talent with the Smackdown women they have to work really hard to establish the characters and get some feuds going- but both matches not starting was just stupid. Have Nattie DQ herself by just refusing to stop attacking her once the match starts or something. This was just lazy, and exactly the type of booking I thought WWE had gone away from with the women.
Dolph Ziggler v Bray Wyatt
The whole night was building to this match, in the sense that they basically spent the whole night saying how stupid it was of Dolph to put his #1 Contender spot up when he didn't have to. I thought this would give us an angle where Bray won, likely with shenanigans- leaving Dolph with "nothing" and he would then go on a really aggressive and "focused" run through some of the Midcard and actually build his character up to a point where people are invested in him for a match with Dean somewhere down the line.
As it was, Dolph won via the exposed turnbuckle- and that was that. I tweeted just before this match that last night was better than RAW, if nothing else than by virtue of it not being 3 Hours. I'm not necessarily saying that this Main Event changed my opinion of whether Smackdown was better than RAW- but it made it much more of an even contest.
I just can't understand the logic of having Bray Wyatt, who's one of two Heels on Smackdown who would look credible in a Main Event spot losing just to further an angle with Dolph fucking Ziggler. I'm not ruling out Dolph winning at Summerslam, as surprising as that may be. For the simple fact that he's going into the Kent State (?) Wrestling Hall of Fame at around the same time. It goes back to my theory on Mark Henry winning the Title on RAW, WWE may not want to turn down the easy publicity. However, the best Dolph can hope for is him getting a run as a transitional champion and either dropping the Title back to Dean or dropping it to Bray.
To add to that, Dolph pinned Bray- okay if that's what you want to do, fair enough. As with the Corbin case, this segment is designed to put over the Ziggler/Ambrose match. So why must you insist on letting Bray "get his heat back" as soon as the match has finished?! I will say I was happy they did this, for the simple reason that if Bray had gotten properly hurt like I thought he had at one point I doubt they'd have done the ending they did. Take that out of the equation though, and fucking hell is it stupid.
With the end to the show they acknowledged that they need Bray to look decent because they let him "get his heat back" albeit with Rowan's help. That's another thing, why wouldn't Rowan... you know... help Bray win?! What's the use of having him attack Dolph (and Ambrose) after Bray's already lost. The more I think about this the more angry I get about it, so I'm just going to stop before this becomes an completely unintelligible rant.
You may be able to tell that I didn't really like the ending to the show, but on the whole I do think the show was pretty good. I'm interested to see where they go with a few things on the show, especially with the way they book Bray- because I can't help but fear that him and Rowan are just going to be fodder for Ambrose and Dolph in the next few weeks as annoying as that'll be.
Thanks for reading as always, hopefully you've enjoyed the Reviews of the last two nights of wrestling. If you haven't already feel free to read the RAW Review. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you'll be back for the RAW Review next week and then the Smackdown Review as well, where you should have had enough time to be suitably prepared to be seduced, enchanted, dazzled and entranced by the most stylish, elegant, bewitching, eternally beguiling, continuously charismatic and fantastically fascinating woman to appear in WWE.
Tuesday, 2 August 2016
RAW Review: August 1st
Hello! We're officially in a little bit of a "come down" period after the last two weeks that have been absolutely mental in wrestling. Between the Draft, Battleground, the CWC, the best RAW in ages and... a Smackdown- the last two weeks have just been absolutely great as a fan. Now however, that's all blown over a bit- and as I'll discuss throughout this Review it would seem as though it's business as usual for the most part. At least on RAW that is. There's nothing wrong with that necessarily, because the chances of last week's RAW being topped this year is slim to none in my opinion- but given the fact we're fast approaching Summerslam I was hoping we'd get another good RAW last night. Whether or not we did, well, you'll have to keep reading.
Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Chris Jericho & Enzo Amore Promo Segment
This was such a wacky way to open the show, but I'll say right off the bat that I really liked it. It wasn't amazing, especially before Jericho and Enzo came out- but Charlotte and Sasha did their best and they had some good lines to make sure the crowd didn't die. When Jericho came out though, this segment just went up another gear. You could just tell Jericho was having so much fun with his role in this segment, and despite how good he is at playing a role it's a feat in and of itself that he didn't start corpsing at any point.
The stuff with Enzo and Sasha was fun. I will say the stuff where they "flirted" with each other was a bit awkward to me- but it did give us Jericho and Charlotte's "SAWFT" line so I'd say it was worth it. On the whole this was a good opening to the show in my opinion, for the simple fact that it was something different and fun. The Authority came into being nearly 3 years ago now, and any combination of them has opened RAW for at least three quarters of the shows we've had since. So just getting a fun little opening segment where nobody told me my life was meaningless was nice.
Charlotte & Chris Jericho v Sasha Banks & Enzo Amore
A Mixed-Tag match can be really fun. A Mixed-Tag in WWE is flawed from the start. I'm not necessarily a fan of Intergender wrestling, but when it's done right it can be really good. Having this match in WWE where it's literally not possible for Jericho and Enzo in this case to do anything to the women hinders the match from the start. With all that said, they did well with what they could actually do- and Charlotte pinning Sasha via distraction was the right move. As an aside, I genuinely don't think Sasha's been pinned clean in the entire year she's been called up.
Braun Strowman v Evan Anderholm
I was disappointed they didn't try and find someone who looked even weaker and more feeble than James Elsworth did last week. This new jobber didn't quite have the same presence (or lack thereof) as James Elsworth did- he just sort of looked like a generic guy. Braun killing these jobbers is going to be one of the highlights of RAW for as long as they do them for me. Speaking of killing though, Braun is going to kill someone with that Reverse Chokeslam. If he fucks it up, there'll legitimately be a death in the ring.
Now, here's my idea to take this Braun stuff to the next level. Especially after Mr. Anderholm here brought up the fact he'd taken the match to earn $1000. You do a gimmick, not dissimilar to Macho Man's in the 2002 Spider-Man where he fights a "fan" every week and if they win the match they get a prize. They could say it's a flat 100k, or build it up by increasing the reward by 10k each week. In that case, once it's reached 100k+ you have someone do a "Santino debut", beat Braun, win the money and you've got a guy who's made on his first night.
Stephanie McMahon, Mick Foley & Mark Henry Backstage
When I first watched this segment, and with Mark getting the US Title match with Rusev I didn't think much of it- because Rusev was obviously winning. However, I pretty much worked myself last night. The more I thought about the fact Mark was going to the Olympics as WWE's representative, added on to the fact Rusev just got married and would presumably like some sort of honeymoon- the more I thought Mark was going to win the Title. WWE are never ones to turn down some cheap publicity, so having Mark in Rio with the Title posing will all the winning US athletes and some of the megastars like Usain Bolt was something I convinced myself they would want to do.
The Shining Stars v Golden Truth
Can I just point out, Golden Truth was the end-game to the whole angle with Fandango & Tyler Breeze. Fabreeze have since gone on to win almost every match they've had, and Golden Truth have won I believe twice. This was fine as a comedy segment, although the fact they gave the Pokemon Go gimmick to two 40+ Year Olds- and not... ya know... the guy with the Gaming Channel on Youtube is stupid to me. All will be forgiven if Goldust brings the wigs back and Golden Truth start dressing as Team Rocket though. Little Jimmy can be Meowth.
Finn Balor & Seth Rollins Promo Segment
As much as I like Finn, I was so happy we didn't get a Promo with him exclusively out there for a length of time. Finn's an alright promo, but he always needs someone to play off- especially as a Babyface. This segment was good, especially in front of the sort of crowd it was last night- they needed to really try and get Finn over by basically saying how great he was. But it did work, and the crowd were into it as much as almost anything else that took place last night.
Rusev v Mark Henry- US Title
So yeah, about that whole Mark Henry winning thing. This was just such a nothing match, and I was waiting for Mark's comeback, and waiting for Mark's comeback, and it just never came.
Rusev's Promo after I thought was so blatantly teasing Kurt Angle's return. As the US Champ, he started going off about Americans, American Olympians and how no member of Team USA deserved a medal. I mean, come on! As it was, we got Roman Reigns- and while it wasn't Angle I'm honestly quite excited by this.
Cena got over with basically everyone who previously hated him because CENAWINSLOL last year by dropping down the card, winning the US Title and putting on a really good match every week with the US Open Challenge. While I'm not necessarily expecting an Open Challenge with Roman, if they book him right he might finally get on track as the Babyface that they're insistent on pushing him as. Added to that, when/if Roman wins the Title at the end of August- Rusev's got the second half of his wedding in September so he can take a bit of time off allowing Roman to hopefully have good matches with some other guys.
Titus O'Neil v Darren Young
This is a match that they could have actually built up a bit. Especially with the split, feuds like this can actually get time to develop now. Instead, there was segment on the RAW Pre-Show where Titus said what we've all been thinking "When was Darren Young ever great?"- and then we had this match. The match was pretty much what you'd expect from Titus O'Neil vs Darren Young. It was a completely nothing match, and they just randomly gave away Darren's first pinfall loss away on a nothing RAW sandwiched between Battleground and Summerslam.
Especially with what we got after with Darren attacking Titus, presumably to put him over- you have to wonder why Darren couldn't have been DQ'd in the match to stop him taking his first pin on a nothing RAW sandwiched between Battleground and Summerslam.
Mick Foley, Stephanie McMahon, Sheamus & Cesaro Backstage Segment
I thought this segment was actually quite well done. Whether or not you bought the explanation, the fact they tried to give an explanation as to why Cesaro was drafted so low- that actually did sort of make sense is at least something.
Nia Jax v Ariel Monroe
I have to believe WWE are all-in on Nia, in the sense that they just need to have her keep killing girls until they either think she's ready or they need her for a Women's Title feud. If they give up on her a month or two into this and give Sasha or Bayley a win over her to further put them over- it'll be beyond stupid in my opinion.
This was a fine squash match, if a bit sloppy. That's another concern of mine, in NXT- Nia was working with people like Bayley & Asuka who'll make her better. I don't know if she's started the Main Roster House Shows yet- but she needs to be put in with someone better than her on them for as long as she's doing these squashes on TV.
I do also sort of wish Nia would've killed Byron after the match. It just would've been quite funny to me, and the thing is Byron can actually bump- so it wouldn't have been a complete impossibility.
New Day v The Club
I just don't know what the point of this all was. The end-game was doing the injury angle with Big E, which long-term is presumably setting up Gallows and Anderson winning the Tag Titles by pinning Xavier. However, did they really need to do this in a segment with a match where Big E pinned Anderson in like 2 Minutes? This crowd was dead for about two thirds of the show, one absolutely guaranteed pop would've been to have Xavier wrestle- or really do anything except get killed in his hometown.
As I've already said, the end-game of this segment was good. But you do have to wonder if there wasn't a better route to get there.
Cesaro v Sheamus
I actually thought this was the best match on the show last night. These two really clicked, and it was a match I don't think we've actually seen that often which is quite rare for these two- so that was an added bonus. These two, simply put, just absolutely beat the shit out of each other for the majority of the match. The ending to the match was really fun, and Cesaro got the win and promised future title shot. It doesn't look like this was a one-off based on them brawling after, and while it's likely to be a feud I can dream that one of them gets traded to Smackdown to avoid them constantly disrupting the show.
Jinder Mahal v Heath Slater
For about a minute and a half, all was right with the world. THE BAND WAS BACK TOGETHER BAYBAY! Then Foley just had to go and ruin it, didn't he? It's funny to me, because Heath is genuinely over with the crowd. So if they keep returning all these guys to kill him, and eventually he wins a contract in an "upset"- if done right it could potentially be a really big deal. While it's not likely he goes on to great things after winning said contract, that moment would be worth it in my book. I'm just looking forward to seeing who else they bring back, presumably with another return tonight.
I've seen some people question why Jinder of all people was brought back, which I do understand. The thing you have to remember is, none of the returning guys except maybe Shelton with the IC Title is going to get a proper push. Jinder is an "easy" worker, in that he works a safe style- and he's got an easy gimmick to work with in that he can just be "foreign heel".
Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens Backstage Segment
If the jobber Strowman kills next week is called Jimin Marvenluter, I shall forgive WWE for everything they've done previously. I actually really liked this segment, and just the general idea of Owens & Jericho as a team. They're two singles guys who've been thrown together, but they actually liked each other prior to this within kayfabe. Jericho's the Goat and Owens is the Donkey! I'm sure both guys will have hoped to be higher up the card at Summerslam, especially Owens. However, being in a Tag match in Brooklyn against Enzo & Cass is a pretty good spot- especially given all of the other matches taking place.
Seth Rollins v Sami Zayn
Sami's someone I'm a bit worried about in the immediate term. He's billed at 205lbs, and I think with the landscape of the WWE at the minute- the Cruiserweight division is the best he can hope for. That's not a bad spot to be in, don't get me wrong- but given the fact he's just delivered one of the best matches of the year and has just won his feud with Owens you do have to be disappointed it's not more.
The match was fine, as I say pretty regularly- you're not going to see a bad match with these two. It did feel like they were holding back a bit, but I won't complain about that because they shouldn't have gone all out. Rollins pinned Sami clean, which was to be expected- but it was still a bit annoying and overall this was a perfectly good match.
Brock Lesnar returns & Randy Orton "invades" RAW
I've seen a lot of people saying how they don't know why people are complaining about Orton showing up on RAW, without seeing any actual complaints. I'm sure there's some, but honestly I think that stuff is being completely blown out of proportion. The fact is, Randy wasn't "meant" to be there- which is why when he attacked Brock every single security guy in the building came out to try and catch him. It's not like he came down the ramp with his entrance music playing and did a 10 Minute Promo.
Speaking of Promos, Heyman was great as usual last night. I've missed Heyman, and I hope his new contract means he's around for the foreseeable future- even if Brock perhaps isn't. We may have actually had a first last night as well, we had an RKO that legitimately came "outta nowhere". The crowd didn't even register Orton's presence in the ring before he hit the RKO it happened so quickly. This was a really well done segment, and crucially to me it sold this as a proper RAW vs Smackdown feud- which I didn't think we'd get properly until Survivor Series.
As for where they go next now Randy's fired the first shot, I'd love it if they had Brock kill Shane to write him off TV for a while.
I wasn't expecting last night to even get close to last week's RAW. However, between a combination of a flat crowd and a show that really dragged at times- this RAW just didn't really do much for me beyond Jericho being by far the best thing from last night. That's perfectly fine, because there's going to be some shows like this- especially at this early stage while both brands are still trying to establish new feuds and new talent. So for now, all I can say is I'm looking forward to Smackdown- with them having an actual chance of topping RAW this week and then seeing how RAW plays out next week.
Thanks for reading as always, the posts have calmed down a bit on the wrestling-front after last week that was a bit mental. With that said, there's a Smackdown Review to look forward to tomorrow- so hopefully you'll be back here for it. Thanks again for reading, and just remember guys- it's only a matter of time before D'lo Brown returns and kills Heath Slater. If that thought doesn't get you through the week, then I don't know what will.
Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Chris Jericho & Enzo Amore Promo Segment
This was such a wacky way to open the show, but I'll say right off the bat that I really liked it. It wasn't amazing, especially before Jericho and Enzo came out- but Charlotte and Sasha did their best and they had some good lines to make sure the crowd didn't die. When Jericho came out though, this segment just went up another gear. You could just tell Jericho was having so much fun with his role in this segment, and despite how good he is at playing a role it's a feat in and of itself that he didn't start corpsing at any point.
The stuff with Enzo and Sasha was fun. I will say the stuff where they "flirted" with each other was a bit awkward to me- but it did give us Jericho and Charlotte's "SAWFT" line so I'd say it was worth it. On the whole this was a good opening to the show in my opinion, for the simple fact that it was something different and fun. The Authority came into being nearly 3 years ago now, and any combination of them has opened RAW for at least three quarters of the shows we've had since. So just getting a fun little opening segment where nobody told me my life was meaningless was nice.
Charlotte & Chris Jericho v Sasha Banks & Enzo Amore
A Mixed-Tag match can be really fun. A Mixed-Tag in WWE is flawed from the start. I'm not necessarily a fan of Intergender wrestling, but when it's done right it can be really good. Having this match in WWE where it's literally not possible for Jericho and Enzo in this case to do anything to the women hinders the match from the start. With all that said, they did well with what they could actually do- and Charlotte pinning Sasha via distraction was the right move. As an aside, I genuinely don't think Sasha's been pinned clean in the entire year she's been called up.
Braun Strowman v Evan Anderholm
I was disappointed they didn't try and find someone who looked even weaker and more feeble than James Elsworth did last week. This new jobber didn't quite have the same presence (or lack thereof) as James Elsworth did- he just sort of looked like a generic guy. Braun killing these jobbers is going to be one of the highlights of RAW for as long as they do them for me. Speaking of killing though, Braun is going to kill someone with that Reverse Chokeslam. If he fucks it up, there'll legitimately be a death in the ring.
Now, here's my idea to take this Braun stuff to the next level. Especially after Mr. Anderholm here brought up the fact he'd taken the match to earn $1000. You do a gimmick, not dissimilar to Macho Man's in the 2002 Spider-Man where he fights a "fan" every week and if they win the match they get a prize. They could say it's a flat 100k, or build it up by increasing the reward by 10k each week. In that case, once it's reached 100k+ you have someone do a "Santino debut", beat Braun, win the money and you've got a guy who's made on his first night.
Stephanie McMahon, Mick Foley & Mark Henry Backstage
When I first watched this segment, and with Mark getting the US Title match with Rusev I didn't think much of it- because Rusev was obviously winning. However, I pretty much worked myself last night. The more I thought about the fact Mark was going to the Olympics as WWE's representative, added on to the fact Rusev just got married and would presumably like some sort of honeymoon- the more I thought Mark was going to win the Title. WWE are never ones to turn down some cheap publicity, so having Mark in Rio with the Title posing will all the winning US athletes and some of the megastars like Usain Bolt was something I convinced myself they would want to do.
The Shining Stars v Golden Truth
Can I just point out, Golden Truth was the end-game to the whole angle with Fandango & Tyler Breeze. Fabreeze have since gone on to win almost every match they've had, and Golden Truth have won I believe twice. This was fine as a comedy segment, although the fact they gave the Pokemon Go gimmick to two 40+ Year Olds- and not... ya know... the guy with the Gaming Channel on Youtube is stupid to me. All will be forgiven if Goldust brings the wigs back and Golden Truth start dressing as Team Rocket though. Little Jimmy can be Meowth.
Finn Balor & Seth Rollins Promo Segment
As much as I like Finn, I was so happy we didn't get a Promo with him exclusively out there for a length of time. Finn's an alright promo, but he always needs someone to play off- especially as a Babyface. This segment was good, especially in front of the sort of crowd it was last night- they needed to really try and get Finn over by basically saying how great he was. But it did work, and the crowd were into it as much as almost anything else that took place last night.
Rusev v Mark Henry- US Title
So yeah, about that whole Mark Henry winning thing. This was just such a nothing match, and I was waiting for Mark's comeback, and waiting for Mark's comeback, and it just never came.
Rusev's Promo after I thought was so blatantly teasing Kurt Angle's return. As the US Champ, he started going off about Americans, American Olympians and how no member of Team USA deserved a medal. I mean, come on! As it was, we got Roman Reigns- and while it wasn't Angle I'm honestly quite excited by this.
Cena got over with basically everyone who previously hated him because CENAWINSLOL last year by dropping down the card, winning the US Title and putting on a really good match every week with the US Open Challenge. While I'm not necessarily expecting an Open Challenge with Roman, if they book him right he might finally get on track as the Babyface that they're insistent on pushing him as. Added to that, when/if Roman wins the Title at the end of August- Rusev's got the second half of his wedding in September so he can take a bit of time off allowing Roman to hopefully have good matches with some other guys.
Titus O'Neil v Darren Young
This is a match that they could have actually built up a bit. Especially with the split, feuds like this can actually get time to develop now. Instead, there was segment on the RAW Pre-Show where Titus said what we've all been thinking "When was Darren Young ever great?"- and then we had this match. The match was pretty much what you'd expect from Titus O'Neil vs Darren Young. It was a completely nothing match, and they just randomly gave away Darren's first pinfall loss away on a nothing RAW sandwiched between Battleground and Summerslam.
Especially with what we got after with Darren attacking Titus, presumably to put him over- you have to wonder why Darren couldn't have been DQ'd in the match to stop him taking his first pin on a nothing RAW sandwiched between Battleground and Summerslam.
Mick Foley, Stephanie McMahon, Sheamus & Cesaro Backstage Segment
I thought this segment was actually quite well done. Whether or not you bought the explanation, the fact they tried to give an explanation as to why Cesaro was drafted so low- that actually did sort of make sense is at least something.
Nia Jax v Ariel Monroe
I have to believe WWE are all-in on Nia, in the sense that they just need to have her keep killing girls until they either think she's ready or they need her for a Women's Title feud. If they give up on her a month or two into this and give Sasha or Bayley a win over her to further put them over- it'll be beyond stupid in my opinion.
This was a fine squash match, if a bit sloppy. That's another concern of mine, in NXT- Nia was working with people like Bayley & Asuka who'll make her better. I don't know if she's started the Main Roster House Shows yet- but she needs to be put in with someone better than her on them for as long as she's doing these squashes on TV.
I do also sort of wish Nia would've killed Byron after the match. It just would've been quite funny to me, and the thing is Byron can actually bump- so it wouldn't have been a complete impossibility.
New Day v The Club
I just don't know what the point of this all was. The end-game was doing the injury angle with Big E, which long-term is presumably setting up Gallows and Anderson winning the Tag Titles by pinning Xavier. However, did they really need to do this in a segment with a match where Big E pinned Anderson in like 2 Minutes? This crowd was dead for about two thirds of the show, one absolutely guaranteed pop would've been to have Xavier wrestle- or really do anything except get killed in his hometown.
As I've already said, the end-game of this segment was good. But you do have to wonder if there wasn't a better route to get there.
Cesaro v Sheamus
I actually thought this was the best match on the show last night. These two really clicked, and it was a match I don't think we've actually seen that often which is quite rare for these two- so that was an added bonus. These two, simply put, just absolutely beat the shit out of each other for the majority of the match. The ending to the match was really fun, and Cesaro got the win and promised future title shot. It doesn't look like this was a one-off based on them brawling after, and while it's likely to be a feud I can dream that one of them gets traded to Smackdown to avoid them constantly disrupting the show.
Jinder Mahal v Heath Slater
For about a minute and a half, all was right with the world. THE BAND WAS BACK TOGETHER BAYBAY! Then Foley just had to go and ruin it, didn't he? It's funny to me, because Heath is genuinely over with the crowd. So if they keep returning all these guys to kill him, and eventually he wins a contract in an "upset"- if done right it could potentially be a really big deal. While it's not likely he goes on to great things after winning said contract, that moment would be worth it in my book. I'm just looking forward to seeing who else they bring back, presumably with another return tonight.
I've seen some people question why Jinder of all people was brought back, which I do understand. The thing you have to remember is, none of the returning guys except maybe Shelton with the IC Title is going to get a proper push. Jinder is an "easy" worker, in that he works a safe style- and he's got an easy gimmick to work with in that he can just be "foreign heel".
Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens Backstage Segment
If the jobber Strowman kills next week is called Jimin Marvenluter, I shall forgive WWE for everything they've done previously. I actually really liked this segment, and just the general idea of Owens & Jericho as a team. They're two singles guys who've been thrown together, but they actually liked each other prior to this within kayfabe. Jericho's the Goat and Owens is the Donkey! I'm sure both guys will have hoped to be higher up the card at Summerslam, especially Owens. However, being in a Tag match in Brooklyn against Enzo & Cass is a pretty good spot- especially given all of the other matches taking place.
Seth Rollins v Sami Zayn
Sami's someone I'm a bit worried about in the immediate term. He's billed at 205lbs, and I think with the landscape of the WWE at the minute- the Cruiserweight division is the best he can hope for. That's not a bad spot to be in, don't get me wrong- but given the fact he's just delivered one of the best matches of the year and has just won his feud with Owens you do have to be disappointed it's not more.
The match was fine, as I say pretty regularly- you're not going to see a bad match with these two. It did feel like they were holding back a bit, but I won't complain about that because they shouldn't have gone all out. Rollins pinned Sami clean, which was to be expected- but it was still a bit annoying and overall this was a perfectly good match.
Brock Lesnar returns & Randy Orton "invades" RAW
I've seen a lot of people saying how they don't know why people are complaining about Orton showing up on RAW, without seeing any actual complaints. I'm sure there's some, but honestly I think that stuff is being completely blown out of proportion. The fact is, Randy wasn't "meant" to be there- which is why when he attacked Brock every single security guy in the building came out to try and catch him. It's not like he came down the ramp with his entrance music playing and did a 10 Minute Promo.
Speaking of Promos, Heyman was great as usual last night. I've missed Heyman, and I hope his new contract means he's around for the foreseeable future- even if Brock perhaps isn't. We may have actually had a first last night as well, we had an RKO that legitimately came "outta nowhere". The crowd didn't even register Orton's presence in the ring before he hit the RKO it happened so quickly. This was a really well done segment, and crucially to me it sold this as a proper RAW vs Smackdown feud- which I didn't think we'd get properly until Survivor Series.
As for where they go next now Randy's fired the first shot, I'd love it if they had Brock kill Shane to write him off TV for a while.
I wasn't expecting last night to even get close to last week's RAW. However, between a combination of a flat crowd and a show that really dragged at times- this RAW just didn't really do much for me beyond Jericho being by far the best thing from last night. That's perfectly fine, because there's going to be some shows like this- especially at this early stage while both brands are still trying to establish new feuds and new talent. So for now, all I can say is I'm looking forward to Smackdown- with them having an actual chance of topping RAW this week and then seeing how RAW plays out next week.
Thanks for reading as always, the posts have calmed down a bit on the wrestling-front after last week that was a bit mental. With that said, there's a Smackdown Review to look forward to tomorrow- so hopefully you'll be back here for it. Thanks again for reading, and just remember guys- it's only a matter of time before D'lo Brown returns and kills Heath Slater. If that thought doesn't get you through the week, then I don't know what will.
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