Hello and thanks for showing up to reflect on the latest episode of Monday Night Raw.
And your host for this event, hailing from a dark corner in the North East of England, it’s Danny Damage.

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Last week on Raw:

• Rusev & Lana’s celebration. Roman Reigns crashes party. Lana cake. Foley makes U.S. Title Match at Summerslam.
• Seth Rollins and Finn Balor talking myths and legends.

Seth Trollins cuts a promo outside the arena.  He puts himself over and says he’s not interested in Finn Balor Tonight.  He says he going to call out The Demon King instead and that he’s going to do that right now.   There’s obviously no response and Rollins puts it down to fear.  He concludes that going to have to go on the search for The Demon King himself.

 

#RAW Live:

Rusev & Lana are in the ring already.   They’re refusing to leave until Roman Reigns comes out and apologises.

Foley comes out and Rusev demands they stop that stupid music.  The crowd chant for Foley, Rusev tells them “Yes, I know it’s Foley!”  Rusev orders Foley to get Stephanie MacMahon to deal with this; Someone that knows what they’re on about.

Steph comes out and shoots Rusev down for not respecting Foley.   Rusev insists that Foley doesn’t deserve any respect at all.   Eventually, Roman Reigns comes out to apologise.   He says he’s sorry that Rusev found the website where he met Lana (HOW THE FUCK IS THAT AN INSULT YOU MORONIC, SAMOAMERICUNT?!?!?! ) and he also hypothesises that “if/when they bump uglies, the kids will be hairy and ugly………….Fuck sake!   Foley makes Reigns vs. Rusev for later, so Rusev can fight for Lana’s honour.

 

Looking ahead to Brock Lesnar vs.  Randy Orton at Summerslam
And then Finn Balor vs. Seth Rollins

 

Sheamus is waiting in the ring.  We’re shown a flashback of Sheamus costing Cesaro the U.S. Title last week.  Byron in the ring too, interviewing Sheamus.  Sheamus says he’s moving onto greener pastures, as in his upcoming match again Sami Zayn because of Zayn gobbing off on social media lately.

Sami Zayn vs. Sheamus
Cesaro joins the team at the commentary table early on and distracts when Sheamus looked like he was ready to end it. Zayn hits The Helluva kick and scores the win.

Once again, Cole miss-called a Michinoku Driver.  Graves corrected him and called it the Blue Thunder Bomb.  You could actually hear the smugness in his voice.  Good times.

 

Tom Philips is backstage with Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens.  They call him ten different names throughout their promo, quality.  Tom almost cracks up, Jericho tries to push him over the edge into histerics with “You find that funny? Ya like that one?”, brilliant.

Owens says he’s going to win tonight in his singles match against Big Cass and that Jeri-KO are going to win at Summerslam.

 

Smackdown advert.

 

Cesaro and Sheamus are being held apart backstage.  Mick Fucking Foley does the unimaginable in a “new era” where we’re being offered “new match-ups” and he makes a BEST OF SEVEN series between them, starting at Summerslam.  That’s ANOTHER seven,  NOT seven including however fucking many they’ve had already!

 

Catch-up clip of The Club trying to injure Kofi last week.  The Scrub Club are back with another video on The ‘Tron and they’re doing the same shit as last week; Straight faced ball puns, yadder yadder.  They chuck an egg in the microwave and we fade back to the ring.

The Dudleyz vs. The New Day
Kofi pins D-von after hitting Trouble in Paradise. The Dudleyz had a bit of a miss-cue and The New Day capitalised.

The Club are back up on the screen and the egg/ball they put in the microwave has now exploded.  They reveal they need new test subjects to continue their research.

Kofi and Xavier cut a promo in response to what we’ve just seen…….and conversing with The Club as if they’re actually stood there live!

 

Up Next: Nia Jax.

 

Seth Rollins is calling out for The Demon King backstage.  He bumps into Neville, who says Rollins isn’t ready for The Demon King.

 

#RobinsonsBlackcurrantSquashMatch
Sigh.  Once a-fucking-gain, Byron Saxton is in the ring ready to interview tonight’s rag-doll.  This time it’s Nia Jax’s entrance that he’s interrupting though.  Jody Jobber says she’s taken America’s Olympic victories as inspiration and thinks she might win tonight.

She doesn’t.  The lass is pretty much dead after Nia pushes her backwards and to the floor from the above position.  Nia drags her back in the ring and FLATTENS her with a Samoan Powerslam!  You could count to nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine, it’s over.  The big, hot monster destroys another one.

 

Mr. Paul E. Heyman is frolicking around backstage and he arrives at Brock Lesnar’s dressing room.

 

WWE’s pat on the back with statistics time:

We beat everyone on TV last week. Fuuuuuuuuck yoooooooou all!  Lots of love, Vince MacMahon.

 

#BrockVsOrton
Heyman and Lesnar march out to the ring.  We’re offered a flashback of Lesnar getting hit with an RKO a couple of weeks ago and then his own invasion of Smackdown and assault on Orton. The SECOND that Heyman starts speaking, Heath Slater’s music hits!

Slater informs them he’s the hottest free agent in the industry. Heyman cuts him off and laughs at the idea of advocating Slater. Slater corrects him and actually asks if he can face Heyman’s beast. Says he’ll be given a Raw contract if he can beat him.

Heyman tells Slater that he’s spent “Too much partying on the Freebird Tourbus” and tries to move on with the promo.  Slater comes back with a hell of a serious promo.  He says he NEEDS it for his kids and that, even the ones that don’t live with him.

Lesnar eventually takes the mic and appears sympathetic.  He calls Slater into the ring aaaaaaand then he just slags off his family for shiggles.  Slater rushes him, gets a couple of Germans and then an F5 for his trouble.

Heyman gets back in and refocuses on Summerslam.  As expected of him, he does a hell of a job selling a match between two guys that I really don’t care for at the moment.

 

Big Cass (w/Enzo Amore) vs. Kevin Owens (w/Chris Jericho)
Owens gets DQ’d when the match spills to the outside and Jericho jumps Cass.  The heels celebrate the beat downs they’ve dished out.

 

Tom Philips ducks down backstage to ask Roman Reigns on his thoughts.  Roman reels off a few lines he stole from “cousin” Dwayne’s “Big Book of Quick Push Jokes & Cheap Pop Chucklers” and then Rusev jumps him from behind.  Reigns gets pummelled until Rusev is dragged away by referees and the sort.

 

Graves, Cole and Saxton plug the Summerslam weekend and all the coverage on the WWE Network, encouraging people to just tape up their curtains and doors and just hide all week long.  Cheers.

 

Huh?!?!  Primetime players are now friends again.  And they have Bob Backlund cheering them both on.

Oh, NOW they fill in the blanks from the pre-show.  Seems to be a one time deal.  Makes no sense.  They didn’t explain why they’re not at each other’s throats anymore.

The Prime Time Players (w/Bob Backlund) vs. The Shining Stars
Young accidentally hits Titus, Titus retaliates with a Clash of the Titus and The Shining Stars jump on the scraps.  Evidently, The Prime Time Players are feuding again now.

 

WWE Game Shows and Tactless Stereotypes Studios presents:

Another mind-boggling, gob-smacking, head-scratching game of….

 

GUESS….

MY…..

ETHNICITY!

Great job, guys.  Seriously.  I’m really glad that I have a calendar in my house because if I didn’t, I’d have NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT YEAR WE WERE LIVING IN! #GuessMyEthnicity

Jinder Mahal vs. Neville
Nice little match. Neville hits The Red Arrow to put Mahal away.

 

Foley and Steph are backstage and discussing that John Stewart is returning to host Summerslam.  Rollins appears, still on his hunt for The Demon King.  He says he’s looked everywhere and may as well take the rest of the night off.  Steph agrees, but Foley suggests that Rollins goes to the ring to call out Finn instead.

 

#SummerSlam
Rollins heads out to the ring and calls out The Demon King.  They stall with the good old no response routine, so Rollins continues putting Balor down.  He says Balor is scared and then the lights go out and Balor’s full entrance begins.

They fight, Balor gets the better of the exchange, Rollins scurries away with his tail between his legs.

 

ANOTHER Flashback to last week and Rusev vs. Reigns vs. Lana vs. Cake.

ANOTHER Smackdown advert.

 

Fuck sake.  Golden Truth are in the ring already.  Actually, scratch that comment.  I think they’re about to get destroyed.

The Club vs. The Golden Truth
Magic Killer, smash, The Club are victorious.  Good times.  That’s all I want to see of the Golden Truth, ever.  After the match, Kofi, Xavier and Francesca appear and send The Club running, not before trying to get a little payback for Big E though.

Gallows managed to pull Anderson out of harm’s way just in the nick of time.

 

The table team whore THE NETWORK some more with the busy build up to Summerslam.

 

Urg, Charlotte is backstage.  Dana Brooke appears and apologises for her loss last week.  Charlotte starts talking.

Owww!

My senses!

All of them.

I can’t make out what’s happening.

I just see a guy in drag doing a Ric Flair impression talking to a overly made up (yet strangely attractive) sex doll.  Charlotte says something about beating Alicia Fox later on.  She called Dana an epic failure. Fuck knows, I’m sure it wasn’t important.  I think it’s time for a smoke break to sort my head out after that din.

 

 

Sasha Banks joins the chaps at the announce table.

Alicia Fox vs. Charlotte
Charlotte makes light work of Alicia, ending it with Natural Selection.  Charlotte goads Sasha into the ring afterwards and Dana appears and jumps her, giving Charlotte an opportunity to stick on The Figure Four for an extensive amount of time.

Sasha sells the damage caused by the mugging convincingly right in the face of Charlotte for a while……..but, by looking at history, I’m guessing that Charlotte “Prince Vajazzle Face” Flair STILL won’t learn anything about selling.  Seriously, please just fuck off, binty chops!

 

Video package of Braun Strowman’s destructive solo run so far.  Looking good, keeping the stigma of him looming without over exposing, like they did with Nia last week.  Good call.

 

“The Russian Princess” is in the ring and introduces the only snout that’s allowed in her trough, Rusev.  Next up, it’s the #RussianPrincessLanaSticksHerHonourOnAPoleMatch!

#ReignsVsRusev
Redman Reigns sold a dead arm for most of the match.  Overdose of “Oh my god, he just did that with ONE ARM!” from Graves and his boys throughout.

ADVERT FOR HOLEY FOLEY MID FUCKING MATCH!

Reigns hits a Spear to get the win after a pretty decent match to be fair.  I’m only really interested in Rusev going over at Summerslam though, so yeah, wasn’t that excited about Lana’s honour being defended going into the match.

Afterthoughts

Good Shit:

• Jericho and Owens AGAIN.
• Slater looking great.
• Graves AGAIN.  Filled in the blanks nicely for Jinder Mahal’s return too!.
• Rusev doing a fantastic job as the main heel.  Rollins is too over for his in-ring work, despite being a heel it’s hard for some people to genuinely try and dislike him.  Rusev is getting SO much grief at the moment.  Plus, Lana’s still doing a hell of a job contributing too and it might actually help in getting Reigns over as a face in the long run.

Bad Shit:

• Scrub Club episode 2.  As I said last week, don’t over do it.  They over did it.
• Enzo & Big Cass are already my piss break. I feel like I’m watching late night Sesame Street with all the counting, singing along, repetition, etc.
• Sloppy set-up for the Prime Time Players reunion.  They could have at least shown the clip from the pre-show BEFORE we saw them coming down the ramp together.  WWE usually fail with live delivery, but don’t care as long their video packages look good afterwards.
• Balor’s entrance.  Someone fucked up.  It looked gash.  As I JUST FUCKING STATED above, for a product that uses live shows as their main platform, they sure like to rely on over produced video packages.  Bad stage choreography messed up Sting’s WWE debut too not so long ago.

 

Until Next Time

Roman Reigns and his The Rock/John Cena jokes have to go.  They’re trying to get him over against Rusev, one of the best heels on Raw. It’s starting to work and a few more people ARE starting to get behind him a bit.

There’s ZERO necessity in resorting to this level of banter.  He could try and rattle Rusev’s cage in by pointing out that Rusev obviously needs a woman to arrange all of his affairs.  That she wears the trousers in the house.  That more people pay to see her than him.  At a push, he could mention that she’s objectified by the thousands of people in the crowd tonight and they’ve all flushed a soggy tissue or two with Lana’s name on.  There are plenty of alternatives to his bland delivery of joke telling here, yet the WWE are still adamant on getting Reigns over in the EXACT that way they’ve fantasised about, one way or another.

Vince WILL get that video clip of Roman Reigns getting an entire WrestleMania crowd Yes Chanting for him.  It’s the final piece for his Wank-Bank before he dies!

Digest and discuss! You can follow me as I work away on Twitter (@BluntDamage) for additional nuggets of wisdom and also on Instagram (@DannyBluntDamage) to see me shoot photographs of my other hobbies and guilty pleasures. Thanks for reading, take care and I’ll see you next week!

Danny Damage