Hello and thanks for showing up to rant, rave and reflect on the latest episode of Monday Night Raw.
During the week.
Well, it appears that I was wrong. I know, it’s a shocking state of affairs and all that, but it does happen from time to time.
I’m yet to discover any news regarding Vince McMahon passing away after a solid three hours of old-man-meat-beating, speeding his tits off and being stuffed full of euphoric elation after he got everyone but the Chinese that work for him to say something ridiculous as “Great Balls of Fire” in front of a worldwide audience.
Fingers crossed that something, anything happens in the next year that makes WWE look back at the PPV and decide to revive the “Bad Blood” name instead, it would have been perfect.
Yet another trick missed by the WWE.
#RAW
Recap of Roman spitting his dummy out, trying to kill Braun Strowman and Braun crawling away from the wreckage last night.
‘Kin hell! We start the show with no fireworks AGAIN.
Bad times.
The Second Test swaggers out and shows us stills of him ruining Enzo Amore last night.
Cass cuts a pretty good promo (considering his previous work at least) where he mentions nobody else being able to look him in the eye.
Obviously, The Big Show marches down to the ring to prove him wrong.
Cass gets in his face and tries to whisper something to him, Show sticks nut on him and knocks him around the ring.
Before things get too serious, Cass slides out of the ring and runs away.
Elias Samson puts on a great show while winding up the Houston crowd, this is before Finn Balor interrupts him to hurry along their scheduled match.
Good stuff.
Elias Samson vs. Finn Balor
Despite Balor winning the match with his finishing manoeuvre, the real Coup de Grace in this match was Corey Graves putting Booker T in his place by stopping him mid-sentence to point out that he is literally making up words.
Does anyone have an address that I can send chocolates and flowers to this fantastic man?!?!
The Hardy Boyz give us just the tip of their Broken personas and they’re stopped in their tracks by Gallows and Anderson.
The Hardy Boyz vs. Gallows & Anderson
Matt’s in action for about five seconds before he rips his own stitches out when headbutting Anderson.
It didn’t take long for the wear and tear from their match last night to show, causing Gallows and Anderson to take out Matt with The Magic Killer.
The Revival return to further punish the Hardy Boyz and remind everyone that they’re heels in hopes that folk stop cheering for them.
#TheMizzies
The Miz and his Miztourage fill the ring.
He proceeds to present the first Mizzie to Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel; he does a wonderful job putting them over and shooting about how under utilised they are and awards them greater than anyone else has so far.
Well, okay, maybe this is the first bit of mantle piece decoration for Dallas and not Axel, but you get my point; I commented last week how great Miz is for sneaking little bits like this into his work, continuing to prove my point again and again.
He furnishes Maryse with a trophy next and finishes off the ceremony by patting himself on the back too.
He runs through a few of the losers from Grey Balls of Fuck-all, ranging from Seth Rollins, to The Hardy Boyz and obviously, Dean Ambrose.
This brings Ambrose out, who has a go even though he’s outnumbered and overpowered. Seth Rollins swoops in to make the save and The Miztourage cheese it to the back.
We get another sneak peak at The WWE Network’s Kurt Angle documentary. I’ll probably give it a watch, even though there may be a bit too much Vince McMahon for my liking.
An Irate Dean Ambrose catches up with Seth Rollins and tells him to stay out of his business and that he doesn’t trust him.
Perfect!
That’s the sort of line you needed Dean (or someone the fans actually care about *cough* not Roman *cough*) to throw out there way back when WWE turned Seth face. He tried to get the Universe on his side by saying he’s proving to himself that he’s a better man nowadays, he also tried to say he’s doing it for the WWE Universe and that everything that he gets, they get too.
Both of these approaches failed miserably.
If however, Seth were to work towards rebuilding a bond/re-earning Dean’s trust, maybe he would finally get over as the super baby face that WWE want him to be if the fans can see Seth’s efforts with their Wacky Uncle Dean.
Nice move!
Bayley & Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss & Nia “STOP FUCKING SMILING!!!” Jax
While Nia crashed and burned on the outside in an attempt to flatten Sasha, Bayley rolled up an over confident Bliss.
Amidst a Smackdown advert, we’re reminded that the US Title changed hands at a house show and we have our noses rubbed in the fact that un-televised/non WWE Network shows are the only place ANYTHING FUCKING HAPPENS and I still have no clue why I used a paid Network account.
Grey balls of fuck-all.
Goldust tells us that “The Shattered Truth Part 2” is on the way.
We get the same highlight package of Strowman vs. Roman as we started the show with.
Part two of the WWE 2K18 teasers. This time we see a hooded figure rummaging through the results of Seth Rollin’s arson attack.
After an American coloured boot is found by the figure, it’s revealed to be a pissed off Kurt Angle and you can get him as a playable character……if you’re gullible enough to pay for a game before it’s been finished, yet alone released!
Goldust vs. R-Truth
Not a bad little match. Goldust won with the CURTAIN CALL(?).
GM Kurt Angle discusses Grape-like Balls of Desire last night and then introduces Brock Lesnar.
Lesnar and Paul Heyman strut down to the ring.
Kurt says he has some ideas for Brock’s opponent at Summerslam. Heyman states that their services are not available for brainstorming sessions and to get in touch when he knows something more solid.
Before they have the chance to leave the ring, Roman Reigns shows up.
Reigns wants a shot at Brock. He tries to make his actions from last night seem like nothing compared to the attitude era and all the shenanigans that they got up to.
Oh, so he’s a face again tonight then, okay.
Heyman is about to accept the challenge, but Brock grabs the stick and scoffs at Roman’s proposal.
This brings out Samoa Joe; he is just petrol on the fire at this point.
Everyone has a dig at each other and they all get a go having Kurt hold them back. The segment was great and I really didn’t know where it was going to go, but in a good way.
Eventually, Kurt calmed it down by making a number one contender’s match next week. The winner of that match will get Brock at Summerslam and if they come to blows beforehand, Kurt will cancel said match.
Corey’s back to getting dodgy messages on his phone and he excuses himself from the table……..either that or he’s finally had enough of Booker T’s abhorrent use of the English language and his verbal cock-slap earlier on wasn’t enough to manage a full three hours worth of the rotten, minced tripe that is Booker T’s commentary.
Another Smackdown promo, this time we follow the continuing America vs. Another Dirty Foreigner / John Cena vs. Rusev saga.
Kurt and Corey discuss a text they’ve both just received. Kurt is at an utter loss as what to do other than to go public with whatever it is next week. Corey assures Kurt he has every faith in him and leaves.
Cedric Alexander & Akira Tozawa (w/Titus O’Neil) vs. Neville & Noam Dar (w/Alicia Fox)
Tozawa earned himself another title shot by pinning Neville after hitting his Floating Senton.
Fantastic work from all, it’s just a shame WWE are booking the Cruiserweights/205 Live into an early grave with all the juvenile relationship crap and by drawing focus onto everything but the unique style the Cruiserweights were meant to be bringing to the table in the first place.
No wonder Austin Aries has fucked off.
Charles the Dwarf gets a few nasal words from Seth Rollins before the main event.
Bray retorts with another video from within a dark cupboard in the back.
#NoOneCaredTheFirstTime
Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt
The crowd love the match so much that they get a Mexican wave going a few times.
Again, there was nothing wrong with the match workwise. The booking just seemed a little lazy/sloppy to me by giving us a rematch from last night. I also think they could have picked a better pairing to give a repeat performance.
Much like last night, Bray took advantage of blinding Rollins before striking oil with Rollin’s head via a Sister Abigail.
Bray teleports out of the arena and The Miztourage make their way through the crowd and into the ring. This is probably the closest we’re going to get to Bray working with Bo, to be honest.
</weeping>
Before Seth suffers too much of a pummelling, Dean Ambrose gifts The Miztourage the hard end of a steel chair and he sends them packing. Seth looks puzzled as he understood that Dean had no interest in helping him whatsoever.
The last scene of the night shows Kurt Angle on his phone trying to calm someone down. He says that they should both come clean together next week on Raw, that they have nothing to be ashamed of and that he loves them.
I’m calling it right now, Dixie Carter. They’ve gone and given her a job, haven’t they?
That’s one saggy, sad, nut-sack of a face I don’t want to see on a regular basis, thank you very much!
Afterthoughts.
So we’re just ignoring the attempted murder then?
I guess that’s the thing to do in the WWE considering the two similar acts that occurred on Smackdown with Randy Orton and Baron Corbin earlier in the year.
Reigns looked so out of place when he was in the ring with Joe and Brock tonight. Hell, Kurt and Heyman aren’t active in-ring talent and they were twice as critical to the scenario than Roman was. He even tried to have a little dig at Joe after Brock screamed something and that comment just fell flat on its face.
I don’t want to see Roman vs. Brock again.
I want to see Joe be the one to take out Brock.
Digest and discuss! Feel free to do so below or via Twitter.
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