Hello and thanks for showing up to rant, rave and reflect on the latest episode of Monday Night Raw.
During the week.
Decent weather has surprised us all and as always, whenever Botchamania HQ is struck with the heat, party fever and chaos are soon to follow, turning this place into something reminiscent of Megadodo Publications over on Ursa Minor Beta and giving me a hell of a lot of cleaning up, explaining to local (and pan-dimensional) authorities and apologising to neighbours to do.
This means I’ve had very little time to myself and I’m rather irritable…..well, more so than usual. So here’s hoping there’s no mention of that horrible, singing, dancing tag team that died last week and nothing else happens that’ll ruffle my feathers.
#RAW
We open the show with a promo for Extreme Rules. Mostly they show footage to set the table for the Fatal Five Way match, mostly.
Bray Wyatt strolls down to the ring while the table team talk SOLIDLY throughout. He cuts his most enjoyable promo for some time as he runs down his opponents at Extreme Rules.
He saves Roman Reigns for last, which obviously brings El Grande Perro himself out.
“Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo” says the crowd.
Bray puts his feet up and converses in a nice change of pace, saying that Roman knows that Bray is the only one that can slay the beast.
Roman just bark bark barks and says he’s going to win everything instead, including kicking Bray out of his yard right now.
This brings out Kurt Angle and the obvious subsequent match between the two being booked.
Bray Wyatt vs. Roman Reigns
Just like I did with Charlotte at Backlash, I’ll happily acknowledge and point out shocking signs of improvement I see with anyone I like/dislike.
It’s evident to me that Roman’s been working on his facial expressions. His reactions to Bray’s madness were a little bit more convincing than his usual derp-face that makes him look like a Simpsons character brought to life.
Samoa Joe ended up crashing the party and attacking Roman. Roman fights back, so Bray jumps him. Joe then decides to extract a little revenge on Bray and starts to choke him out.
That is until Seth Rollins appears and takes out Joe, leaving Roman and Seth stood side by side once again.
Roman and Seth are having a heated tongue-wag backstage. Kurt Angle tells them to put their tackle back in their pants and to go and get ready for their match at the end of the show against Samoa Joe and Bray Wyatt.
A wild Drifter appears and strums Kurt a request to debut on Raw tonight. Kurt falls into his spell and books him in a match against Dean Ambrose later on!
Akira Tozawa vs. Ariya Daivari
THE Brian Kendrick was watching the match live and we kept jumping back to an interview with him DURING THE FUCKING MATCH!
Oi, sexy teeth in the truck, please don’t do that again!
Tozawa finished up with a floating Senton off the top. There was too much other stuff going on, that’s all I remember.
Oh dear.
Samson’s acoustic intro did not go over well with the live crowd.
The Miz and Maryse joined the commentary table and Booker T of all people was the only person to attempt to draw everyone’s attention to the match at hand and the debut of a Superstar onto the main roster and not what they were plugging.
As it looked like Ambrose was getting close to finishing off Samson, The Miz ran down and hit Samson once and left.
This means that Dean was disqualified, Samson gets a win against the I.C. Champion in his debut match and The Miz gets to show how he’s the smuggest cunt of all time!
Good stuff.
We jump to a panicked Big Cass following a referee, one is to assume that Enzo tried to put his dick in something and Cass has to bail him out of trouble again……………………………………………
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Yuuuuuup.
Enzo comes around (conveniently timed with the commercial break, I might add) to medics, Big Cass and Kurt Angle.
They manage to get Enzo onto his feet after he says he didn’t see who jumped him. Kurt promises that he’ll get to the bottom of it and Cass says that Kurt had better find the culprit before he does.
Oh……fuck.
IT WAS BIG CASS!!!!!!
I’m sure of it!
He was sick of Enzo and his shit. We had the Golden Turd finally disband last week and now Enzo’s being sent off on a solo tour of selling tacky merchandise.
Before his match gets underway, Finn Balor cuts a promo regarding Extreme Rules.
Paul Heyman swaggers out. He puts over all five guys in the Fatal Five Way, but says they’d all become Victims at the hands of Brock Lesnar.
While he was putting over Roman Reigns, Heyman referred to him as “the man that laid The Deadman down”………..which I thought sounded a bit kinky. Is Heyman letting us know how Vince McMahon saw that WrestleMania match? I reckon there was a couple of candles burning and some Barry White purring in the background. I hate to be the dude that corrects Paul Heyman, but surely “Laid The Deadman to rest” was what he was going for before his mind was plagued with flashes of Vince greasing his chipolata at ‘Mania.
Anyway, Heyman gets into the ring and puts Finn over so much that he vanishes into the horizon and twinkles out of existence, Team Rocket style. Heyman’s intrigued in the potential of a contest between Lesnar and Balor, he shakes Finn’s hand and wishes him luck.
Finn Balor vs. Karl Anderson (w/Luke Gallows)
Finn fends off both Gallows AND Anderson and ends things with his Coup de Grace.
This match should have perfectly demonstrated how far Finn’s come in his life/career to not only have outgrown his backup, but for him to essentially defeat both of them at once. Sadly, anyone that’s seen as much as a trailer for Finn’s WWE Network Special knows just how tight these lads are and it’s impossible for me to buy into any of that I’m afraid.
#NotThisShiteAgain
Alicia Fox (w/Noam Dar) vs. Sasha Banks
Sasha wins with the non-finisher finish, again.
Sasha slaps Darmire in face and then Foxy pounds her from behind.
Giggidy.
Kalisto accuses Apollo Crews of doing nothing more than carrying out Titus O’Neil’s dirty work. Crews rejects this claim and then Titus shows up and tells Kalisto he’s in a match with Apollo later.
Joy.
More fun and excitement for all now as we get a recap of The Golden Truth’s recent demise presented by a highly entertaining and informative video package.
</sarcasm>
Fuck sake.
I was honestly almost enjoying that Goldust promo until they tried to add humour in there.
Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200.
We get a recap of Roman attacking a one armed Strowman and putting him on the shelf.
What a nice boy he is.
#EVERYONESFantasyMatchOfAllTime
Kalisto vs. Apollo Crews (w/Titus O’Neil)
Titus barks orders a bit too loudly and this distracts Apollo enough so that Kalisto can hit the Salida del Sol.
Matt Hardy (w/Jeff Hardy) vs. Sheamus (w/Cesaro)
The Hardy Boyz are fucked, physically; it pains me to watch them work on a weekly basis, despite their willingness to do so. Good effort.
A Twist of Fate wins it and the titles will be up for grabs in a Steel Cage at Extreme Rules.
Austin Aries vs. Tony Nese (w/Neville)
Aries made Nese tap with the Last Chancery following a beautiful transition after Nese tried to counter a guillotine.
Speaking of which, guillotine chokes hurt like fuck. I wish WWE wouldn’t undersell them like they do.
Post-match, Neville smacked Nese around for a bit because he didn’t take out Aries like they’d arranged earlier.
Alexa Bliss vs. Mickie James
Bliss drops Mickie with her DDT and cracks her with a Kendo stick for funsies afterwards.
Bayley runs down and makes the save before Bliss can hit Mickie a second time.
Bray Wyatt & Samoa Joe vs. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins
A great match to close the show and build anticipation for Extreme Rules. All four guys got their stuff in and the majority of the crowd were well into the contest too!
Ultimately, Bray managed to incapacitate Roman with a Sister Abigail outside the ring. This in turn allowed Joe to squeeze the life out of Rollins, leaving the referee no choice but to call for the bell.
Finn Balor approaches Kurt Angle backstage as he’s watching the main event on the telly. Finn requests that he gets to be in the main event next week since he just missed out.
Kurt makes two main events for next week; Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe vs. Bray Wyatt being one, leaving Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins to be the second.
Kurt then praises himself for his mad GM’ing skillz (yes, with a “z”) and we’ve possibly just seen the start of the road to a heel GM Angle that gets too full of himself and drunk with milk flavoured power!
Afterthoughts.
I wish Finn would stop smiling on televised stuff.
He can do all the cheeky-chappy grinning and whimsical Irish ‘tings on the Dubyah-Dubyah-Eeeee Nedwork, Twitter and Instagram, but leave that out of his main TV persona please.
I’d rather him be quieter and slightly menacing, since he has a demon living inside of him and all that. As great as he is at his job when the bell rings, I’m still not overly convinced of the strength of his microphone work and even more so when a contrast can be made like on this week’s show.
Paul Heyman’s strong promo ability made Balor’s responses seem like that of a scared, detoxing Jack Russell.
I can’t blame either of them though, it’s not their fault. As with a lot of their talent pool, I don’t think WWE play on Balor’s strengths very well.
It was very nice to see Mr. Heyman again though. I’m hoping Lesnar is soon to fuck off for good and Heyman can then associate himself with someone a little more frequent/permanent!
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