Hello and thanks for showing up to rant, rave and reflect on the latest episode of Monday Night Raw.
During the week.
I don’t have many luxuries in life, but what I do have, I make the most of.
Here at Botchamania HQ I have a modest office/bedsit/cupboard (where I may or may not have two cats secretly living with me), unlimited clean water, access to more old school wrestling on VHS and DVD than the internet itself can offer (yes, that is actually possible) and surprisingly enough, a small garden in the yard out back (which I pride myself on maintaining and relaxing in).
Over a year ago, I was plagued by the Einherjar of slugs and snails. They completely destroyed everything in sight; I’m talking The Nexus’ debut multiplied by Charlotte’s leaked nude pictures levels of carnage! The ecosystem was incredibly one sided and so I began a project to encourage more toads into said garden since they can reportedly eat up to fifty of the buggers on a nightly basis.
Fast forward almost a year and my personal trials of hard work and patience paid off. I was outside smoking the other night and I witnessed something amazing. I spied a not-so-little fella paggering the absolute piss out of a hungry snail.
I was so excited and proud it warmed my heart and brought a tear to my eye.
Ladies and Gentleman, I introduce to you:
Braun Toadman!
He may only have ONE FRIGGIN’ EYE, but he’s shown us all that he can handle his business in the Toad Abode that I built. What a beast!
It’s not much, but I enjoy sitting back and appreciating the smaller things from time to time. We don’t always have to melt our faces staring into screens all day and night.
But, seeing as you’re already here and committed to burning your retinas…………….
#RAW
*groan*
John Cena narrates the intro for the Memorial Day special episode of Raw. To be fair, they didn’t lay it on too much when looking at the whole episode. I don’t recall anything other than a passing reminder of the day by Cole.
I suppose they have to protect their America vs. 1930 vs. Anyone Foreign angle that they’ve got going on over on Smackdown.
Later on in the show:
Bray Wyatt vs. Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor
PLUS
Reigns vs. Seth Rollins
#MizTV
Miz & Maryse start us off tonight and bring out Sheamus and Cesaro. They remind us that the WWE Universe turned on Cesaro as soon as the Hardy Boyz returned at WrestleMania and all three of them take it in turns to slag off The Hardys and Dean Ambrose.
Dean Ambrose heads down as he’s heard enough. He’s about to rush all three of them, but he gets backed up by The Hardy Boyz.
Dean Ambrose & The Hardy Boyz vs. The Miz & Sheasaro (w/Maryse)
Jeff pinned The Miz after a Swanton Bomb. Prior to this, Matt hit a Twist of Fate, but Miz sold a swinging neck-breaker instead for some reason.
Deano managed to do most of the work for his team, which I liked. Matt and Jeff have a finite number of bumps left in their career, it’s making me really sad to see that number dwindle every week with matches on Raw when they don’t necessarily need to wrestle.
Despite this, it was an entertaining match to start the show.
We go to the table team and Corey Graves is visibly distracted with something on his phone and excuses himself.
After the break, Corey is backstage with Kurt Angle who reads the last few words of a message on Corey’s phone. Kurt is obviously upset and says that this information could ruin him.
Corey says he’s on Kurt’s side and that for whatever reason, people confide in him with stuff. He just thought he should give Kurt a heads up.
Oh sweet baby Jesus, they’ve given Corey screen time that doesn’t have to be shared with Michael Cole’s miserable mug!
#EliasSamsonPlaysHisOwnIntroductionTake2
In all fairness, the crowd didn’t hate it as much as they did last week.
Samson then toyed with a young lad for a couple of minutes in a squash match, good call.
Corey rejoins the table and Booker T and Michael Cole try to stick their noses in his business.
Backstage, Samoa Joe tries to act surprised when hearing his name called by a drunk, confused cat and he turns to see Charles the Dwarf instead.
Bray Wyatt hijacks Joe’s promo time/the show and expresses his own feeling about the match at Extreme Rules, the other four competitors and of course, Brock Lesnar.
WWE still haven’t done anything about Finn’s music. He looks like a proper bell-end stood around waiting for his o/ moment!
As I said a little while ago, he should have something simpler when he’s in his civilian gear/persona.
#DearWWE:
STOP FUCKING TALKING DURING BRAY’S ENTRANCE!
Typical fucking Americans needing to be educated in a bit of “The wise man has something to say, the fool has to say something” flavoured wisdom.
I hate it on YouTube when “Uuuuuuurm, here’s me narrating, uuuuuurm, and I’ll say the video’s title again to fill more time in, uuuuuurm” happens and I hate it on my wrestling!
Don’t worry! You’re not the radio. I’m pretty sure it’s not considered “dead air” when my eyes and ears are already engaged in things OTHER THAN TALKING.
Fuck sake.
#1OfTheMainEventsEvenThoughItsNotEvenAnHourIntoTheShowYet
The majority of the match consisted of Finn fending off the two larger dudes until Bray and Joe inevitably turned on each other.
Joe pinned Bray after Finn did all the heavy lifting and got launched out of the ring for his efforts.
I reckon WWE are set to relaunch Finn and his jet-pack push to the moon and back; being the one to take out Brock Lesnar would certainly do that, showing how much power one little fella can really have.
Personally, I believe Bray NEEDS this a hell of a lot more than Finn does. He’s long lost his posse and he beat Bore-ton at Payback with a lot of help from Jinder & Pals, he’s come to Raw now and he needs a big win to support all that stuff he was saying during his feud with Orton about him possessing more power after the cremation of Abigail and so on.
Finn has plenty of time (assuming he avoids further injuries) to build his character back up. He hadn’t been on TV for that long before vanishing and it’s not like Bray’s case where we’ve invested so much time into him over the years and we’re all yearning for that to pay off!
For some reason, Not Tom Philips visits a local bird sanctuary.
Thankfully, I had the subtitles on and the bird squawking like fuck at Not Tom was going on about winning at Extreme Rules on Sunday night and defeating Roman Reigns later on tonight.
We see an awkward backstage shot of Sasha Banks and Rich Swann stood right in front of the camera and for some reason, they’re miming.
#FakeAndPainful
Why would this be muted?
Why would you sneak up and eavesdrop on a conversation with your fingers in your ears?
Why wouldn’t you show their conversation from afar, gently zoom in (to create the idea of sneaking up) AND THEN show the close up of them silently conversing about their dance moves?
Why? Here’s why!
You’re a set of fucking mugs.
That’s why.
Noam Dar (w/Alicia Fox) vs. Rich Swann (w/Sasha Banks)
Banks neutralises Foxy as she attempts to distract Swann.
They did however, manage to distract the TV audience from seeing Swann flatten Dar with a Phoenix Splash.
Ah, I’m going to have to ask.
What the fuck is that?
I’m no fashionista, but it looks like Banks is donning something from the wardrobe/toiletries bag of a horny, incontinent pensioner with a fetish for BDSM.
Charles the Dwarf interviews The Revival and draws attention to them being spotted on Raw last week. They scoff at the accusation of being involved in the attack on Enzo Amore last week and assure us all that they have better things to do.
Corey Graves passes comment on Big Cass being in the know about the culprit that mugged Enzo last week. This brings Cass out to the announce table.
Graves appears to back-peddle a little and claims that Cass has just misunderstood what he said and that he was saying Cass was doing his own investigation and will have a better idea than anyone.
Hmmm, even though I said it last week, I’m not so sure any more. It seems they’re making it a bit too obvious that it was Big Cass!
Hooray for Corey getting involved in even more of the show’s plot nonetheless!
#EVERYONES2ndTopFantasyMatchOfAllTime
Kalisto vs. Titus O’Neil (w/Apollo Crews)
Titus wins with a handful of tights and teaches Apollo that “a win is a win”.
Celebrity Dad of the year.
*URRA-URRA-URRA*
As per usual, Alexa Bliss does not take shit from the dirty marks in attendance.
They try and give her the “What?!” treatment, but she ploughs through and either ignores them or shoots down their futile efforts.
Good lass.
Bliss then takes a shit all over Bayley’s life story with memorabilia and guests from her past.
I think three guests and a table full of nick-nacks to run down was a bit too much just to get the point over that Bayley’s dad follows his daughter around like a bad smell.
Bayley eventually runs out, but is overpowered by Bliss and beaten down with a Kendo stick again. There wasn’t much of a pay-off to that segment considering it took about an hour to reach its climax.
I’m guessing that if one shot with a stick is enough to really hurt Bayley, two in the same night would be the death of her.
So, Enzo Amore got jumped again.
It’s like his new gimmick or something. Reminiscent of last week, Big Cass gets heated in front of medics and Kurt Angle as he swears his revenge.
Was Corey involved? He’s had a notable hatred for Enzo; maybe he convinced Cass to finally wash his hands of the dirty little bastard!
#205Live
Austin Aries & Jack Gallagher vs. Neville & TJP
A nice match with these lads. It’s just a horrible shame that they’re continuously diluted down on Raw with tag team bouts.
Aries makes Neville tap to the Last Chancery.
Roman barks at Not Tom Philips and says he’s going to win tonight and at extreme rules.
Pointless promo as Roman (and Seth earlier) didn’t really say a great deal and they just ran through their catchphrases and got their winkys out to compare size.
Saying that, as far as Roman is concerned, it was short and sweet and that was the right thing to do.
Neville has nothing to say to Charles the Dwarf when asked if he’d comment on what just happened in the ring.
Goldust promo week two.
A serious tone was maintained throughout Goldust’s portion of this package, which I appreciated. Sadly, R-Truth had something to say in response.
The angle has just become a battle of the film quotes now, something that I’d already pencilled in Goldust and The Miz doing at some point.
Kick-off show? I’d reckon/hope so.
#PappyVinceSaysFuckAllYouDirtyShieldMarks
Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins
The match was fine, but nothing new I’m afraid. Roman hit a spear for the win. It seems they ran out of ideas after the triple threat earlier and just chucked the other two guys together at the end of the show.
As per usual, Roman won the crowd over by the end of the contest, which I’m sure will be forgotten about by Extreme Rules.
Afterthoughts.
I would have rather seen the triple threat match close the show. I was intrigued into who was going over in that one. I couldn’t care less about the outcome of another Roman vs. Rollins encounter.
I was expecting some form of cliff-hanger or “ooooh” moment to make me NEED to tune in on Sunday, but that’s WWE for you.
Myself and a shit load of other people are going to tune in and watch the show regardless, so what the hell do the WWE care how I’m feeling at the end of the show?
I’m used to seeing Roman win and the shot fading to black hearing his music, so this show just landed in “same old shit” territory I’m afraid.
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