Hello and thanks for showing up to rant, rave and reflect on the latest episode of Monday Night Raw Live. Here is your host, hailing from a dark corner in the North East of England, it’s Danny Damage.
Last Week on Raw Live:
Rollins jumps Owens, Reigns gets distracted by Rusev and then pinned by Owens and then crushed by Rusev.
#RAW Live
We start the show with everyone’s favourite wrestler.
Stephanie McMahon comes out and before she can say anything, Mick Foley charges down and instantly takes control of the conversation.
He makes a match between Seth Rollins vs. Rusev and also a rematch tonight between Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns. This lures Kevin Owens out onto the ramp.
Owens points out that this is more evidence of Foley trying to screw with him, so Foley makes the main event match involving Owens, a steel cage match.
Seth Rollins wastes no time and enters the arena for his match against Rusev next.
Foley has already sprinted backstage to find another camera to face-hug. Luckily for him, there was one near Rusev and Lana.
Rusev demands answers from Foley, he sends him to his match instead. They also managed to plug Lana’s new film in the process.
#RollinsVsRusev
Rusev (w/Lana) vs. Seth Rollins
After a few minutes they take a stroll up the ramp and get counted out.
Rusev tries to powerbomb Rollins off the ramp, but Rollins counters and nudges Rusev onto the lower floor.
He continues by leaping off the announce table beside him, laying out Rusev.
Dana Brooke tries to help Charlotte out by showing Mick Foley footage from last week’s triple threat match. Dana appeals that both sets of shoulders were down and that Sasha and Bayley should fight again tonight to decide which of them gets to lose to Charlotte on Sunday.
Foley agrees with the shoulders being down, but decides instead of Dana’s idea, that both Sasha and Bayley will be facing Charlotte at Clash of Champions Live in a triple threat match for the title. Charlotte spits her dummy out and cops a feel whilst pushing Dana onto her arse.
Yes, that was a bad touch.
Corey Graves and company promote the debut of the Cruiserweights tonight on Raw.
Promos for Cedric Alexander and Brian Kendrick.
Then what felt like an hour of this graphic.
Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho are discussing MICK FOLEY screwing around with them both.
Jericho thinks he has a way to deal with the matter. He grabs paper and pen and hastily leaves.
HHHUUUUUURRRRRRRRGGGHHHH!
#StrowmanSmash
Braun Strowman vs. Sin Cara
Sin Cara has a go, but is dominated and then demolished with a running powerslam.
Bayley and Sasha waffle on like they’re both seventy years old and are re-living memories from events that weren’t merely a couple of years ago. They also chat Clash of Champions Live and their tag team match against Dana and Charlotte that’s on next.
Bayley & Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte & Dana Brooke
Dana creates a diversion which allows Charlotte to drop Bayley for the three count with a big boot, of all things.
Meanwhile, somewhere backstage.
Seth asks Stephanie why she backed the little Kevin Owens horsey instead of himself, Seth the Stallion. Steph reiterates that she had no idea of Triple H’s intentions or actions, but is fed up of Seth’s whining, so she tells him how Triple H hypothetically, may have gotten sick of Seth ruining his reputation over the last few months.
Amongst other things, Seth lost the WWE Title to Dean Ambrose/Smackdown and then failed to defeat Finn Balor for the Universal Championship.
Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that one time that Seth shat on the carpet at three in the morning and Steph cleaned it up for him and hid it from Triple H and Vince.
Rollins responds by flat-out threatening Steph and declaring war on her regime.
Steph don’t take kindly to Seth’s types around here and suggests he just get out.
#BolieveInBo
Bo tries to rhyme “learned” and “burn” before beating the piss out of Jobby McMuttonChops.
More Cruiserweight shizzle. A quick little package of T.J. Perkins vs. Gran Metalik .
#BestOf7
Cesaro (2 points) vs. Sheamus (3 points)
Mick Foley makes sure he doesn’t miss a segment without being on camera.
At least people in the WWE TV world have stopped looking at screens from a side on angle for the moment. You know, the shot so they’re completely facing the camera themselves, but not the thing they’re trying to be shown focusing on.
Aaaaaaanyway, Cesaro evens things up with a slightly sloppy Neutraliser.
A moment’s respite and then…….
AAAARRRRGGGGG!
HE’S EVERYWHERE!
GO……..
AWAY….
YOU……
CHRISTMAS….
LOVING…….
CUNT!
Foley flashes up again to announce that the final match of the best of seven series will be at Clash of Champions Live.
Chris Jericho approaches Mick Foley and introduces “The List of Jericho” and reads a couple of items from it before Foley ignores him and leaves.
AND THEN RUNS BACK IN FOR YET ANOTHER CHEAP FUCKING POP!
#TheListofJericho
Jericho runs down Mick Foley and Sami Zayn until Scooby and Scrappy cut him off.
Yawn.
Then The Shining Stars peddle their wares.
The New Day join in.
And finally.
Jericho storms out of the ring and creates a new list.
A list of stupid idiots and everyone that came down to the ring is on it.
Sami Zayn’s music hits and Jericho is knocked around a little bit.
Zayn throws him into the ring and everyone starts brawling.
After the advert break, I can only imagine that Teddy Long is violently masturbating somewhere.
#10ManTag
Big E, Cass, Enzo, Kofi & Sami Zayn (w/Xavier Woods) vs. Anderson, Epico, Gallows, Jericho & Primo
Team face win. Epico deep-throats a Helluva kick and then Enzo and Cass finish him with their stupid double-team move.
A preview of two more Cruiserweights now; Gran Metalik and Rich Swann will be in action tonight.
#Cruiserweights
Foley stumbles into the spotlight once again and he brings out four of the guys from the Cruiserweight Classic competition.
He eventually gets around to mentioning that there’s a fatal four way match up next and it will determine the new number one contender.
Brian Kendrick vs. Cedric Alexander vs. Gran Metalik vs. Rich Swann
A fantastic match with a beautiful spinning hook-kick from Rich Swann that caught my eye too. In the end, Brian Kendrick showcased his veteran guile and made Cedric Alexander tap out to The Captain’s Hook.
Kendrick will now face T.J. Perkins at Clash of Champions Live.
Flashback to last week and Nia Jax bulldozing Alicia Fox into a fine paste. The two women will square off at the Clash of Champions Live pre-show.
#SteelCageMatch
Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns
Reigns wins by escaping the cage. It was mostly a decent cage match, but why on earth Reigns would pick the fruit of victory from that particular tree, I don’t know. The whole point of adding the steel cage element was to forcefully punish Kevin Owens and prevent him from running away.
Reigns even highlights this fact during the match with his tough-guy dialogue. So why wouldn’t he go for the pinfall or submission win? Troll much?
Reigns managed to fend off an ambush from Rusev, but once Owens had gathered himself, he swung the cage door into Reigns’ face, allowing them to drag him back and lock him into the cage.
The chain that Rusev brought was redundant though as THERE’S STILL A GIANT FUCKING HOLE IN YOUR LOGIC AND IN THE TOP OF WHAT YOU THINK IS A SOLID BUILDING DESPITE YOU PURPOSEFULLY KEEPING THE CAMERA SHOT LOW ENOUGH TO TRY AND IGNORE THIS SIMPLE FUCKING FACT!
Seth Rollins storms down and pokes holes in their logic as he scrambles up the side of the cage.
Rollins escalates things on his evening of jumping off of stuff and lands on top of Rusev (again) and Owens.
Thus saving Roman Reigns from any additional harm.
Afterthoughts:
Although I guessed they’d be feuding against Triple H directly, I still called the unsettling alliance of Rollins and Reigns the other week.
Having them both chasing different titles and almost being on the same page will be more interesting to me. This means that I’d like to see them both fail in their respective matches, but to keep on trying whilst needing the occasional bit of backup from and old ally that also happens to be the enemy of an enemy at the time.
I’m looking forward to seeing where it’s going and I’m looking forward to Clash of Champions Live on Sunday.
Good Shit:
- Chris Jericho. Although his list routine was heavily recycled, I feel Jericho is still making more effort than most week in and week out and is still great at what he does.
- Kevin Owens. Ever the entertaining weasel. Shouting “Machka something!” at Rusev was gold, as was him just sitting back effortlessly and watching Reigns suffer by Rusev’s hand.
- Cruiserweights. They’re finally here and the lads put on a great match tonight. I’m hoping that they continue to be showcased as fondly as they are now and that they don’t become Raw Live’s new go-to pre-show match in the near future.
- Bo Dallas/Braun Strowman. Liking their short squash matches. I’m hoping these two end up shoulder to shoulder and killing people as part of the Raw Live Wyatt Family very soon.
- Corey Graves. The SECOND that Dana Brooke redeemed herself and made the comments made by Corey during the match incorrect, he flip/reversed the whole damn thing and made out like Cole and Saxton were they ones saying that she’d never do anything right for the entire match. Sophistry at its finest, good show.
- Great matches. Deep, dynamic talent pool; there wouldn’t be any excuse for any less.
Bad Shit:
- Mick Foley. TOO FUCKING MUCH AGAIN!
- Michael Cole. “We have breaking news, we heard about this moments ago.” DUUUUH. It’s not breaking if someone already broke the cunt moments ago. Continued quality entertainment from the love-child of Eugene and Matt Striker. I know he pelts verbal diarrhoea everywhere, every week, but sometimes he just tickles me more than usual.
- Steel Cage Logic. Mentioned before. Enough said.
- Roman Reigns. Not necessarily Roman’s fault, but I called bullshit when he easily kicked out of Owens’ Pop-up Powerbomb. I envision Vince McMahon jumping around backstage with his “Roman Remote” like a child that has the cheats for infinite kick-outs, health and finishers to beat the last boss of the game, yet still needs to escape the cage instead. It’s one thing to make the guy look strong, but it’s making other people that need to also look strong look incredibly weak. A fresh Rusev wasn’t enough to take out Reigns, Owens had to boot the cage door into his face for TWO champions to get the advantage over him.
Until Next Time:
Fuck sake. Let’s do this then.
Why am I being forced to dislike Mick Foley by having him rammed down my throat, rubbed in my eyes and flossed between my ears? I like the guy, always have; as well as the many faces he’s portrayed over the years.
IF
(and that’s a big fucking “if”!)
If they’re using their heads and applying some logic to this, I suspect that they’re turning Mr. Foley at some point soon, hopefully. He’s been getting frustrated, angry, short-tempered, snipey, pointy and downright power-mad with all the control, air time and focus he’s had. In comparison, he’s making Steph look like the most modest of performers in all of entertainment.
If this is the way they’re going, I’d be interested in seeing where it went. Having Foley and Steph clash, but opposite their usual sides of the fence, would AT LEAST mix things up slightly if they are going to insist on being key members of the plot week after week. I’ve already enjoyed a lot of “Fun Time GM Foley” back in the day with all his cheap pops and thumbs ups and so on, give me something at least a little different please.
If they really wanted to do something with it, they could have him crack under the pressure and go down a Corporate/Demon Kane and Abyss/Joseph Park style of metamorphosis and have him claim no memory of the dastardly deeds he carries out/unfair matches he books as Mankind or as Dude Love for arranging The Godfather and The Ho’ Train to entertain him for twenty minutes while he’s dry-humping them and even more screen time.
I’d like to see someone at Raw with a “Everyone loves Roman Reigns, but nobody likes him!” sign.