[ad_1]
WWE Raw returned last night from the Pechanga Arena in San Diego, Calif. This is the fallout show for Slam summer. Check out the full results on the consistently excellent live blog here.
Let’s get right to the point:
The dam burst
Miz and Morrison’s official breakup this week featured Logan Paul… for whatever reason.
Honestly, even though he was forced into that segment for no reason outside to let him promote his brother’s fight, it was fun because of how much the San Diego crowd hated the man. And it really looks like Creative didn’t think that was the reaction Logan would get. The Miz is the heel of that breakup, but they positioned him to upset the YouTube star, setting up big cheers from Miz minutes before he sparked the split with John Morrison.
It doesn’t matter at all. Logan just left while Miz and Morrison argued. It’s just interesting to see where WWE thinks their fans are going to end up when it comes to someone like Paul. And perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised when the answer is more often than not “far from reality”.
After Paul left, Xavier Woods came out for a scheduled match against Miz after spraying water on Miz & Morrison in the middle of the desert two nights ago. Flood Stud mistakenly cost Miz the fight against Xavier Woods. This is what led to the moment when Miz attacked his friend, leaving him lying down with a Skull Crushing Finale.
Honestly, this break-up is at least six months late. Their team was a good way to bring John back to WWE, but Morrison is better than a comedy half-team. He’s good enough to be an upper middle card singles wrestler delivering bangers every week. Hopefully that will finally get us there. Plus, he has a chance for revenge for when Miz Skull smashed him onto the WWE logo on stage ten years ago.
Refresh Title Scene (Until Bill Comes Back)
The widest angle coming out of Slam summer On the Raw side, by far the least intriguing side of Saturday’s PPV, Bobby Lashley injured Bill Goldberg’s leg to the point that the referee had to call the game. This intensified when Goldberg’s son, Gage (who is not To hang up, notice) attacked Lashley from behind, so the champion locked young Goldberg in the Hurt Lock.
The champion and MVP opened Raw, with MVP reminding us once again how good he is cutting a strong promo where he called Goldberg a coward and let it be known that his client had no idea who was attacking him from behind.
Damian Priest interrupted, accusing the WWE Champion of being a coward himself. This led to a brief impromptu match. It wasn’t long before Sheamus cut him off, but what we saw of the fast paced singles fight was a good teaser for what could be a future program for the title.
Drew McIntyre quickly entered the fray, somewhere Teddy Long made a wish, and it was dealt with as a tag. The match went well. Nothing to look for, but it served to refresh the title scene. The best Monday babyfaces are the tag champions, so Raw needs more potential challengers for Bob’s gold. And while it certainly dates back to Goldberg vs. Lashley, a rematch that I don’t think anyone asks for, Bill probably won’t work again for a few months. So they reinserted Drew McIntyre at the scene and added fresh blood to Priest.
It didn’t create any real excitement at the top of the map on the men’s side, but at least it led to a few potential programs for the All Mighty before Bill came back all angry because his son wasn’t. as cool as Hook.
A gift that keeps on giving
RK-Bro remains wildly entertaining.
Riddle’s excessive exuberance combined with Randy Orton’s utter estrangement continues to be an entertaining recipe. (My favorite moment tonight was when Randy couldn’t do his tensioner pose because Riddle decorated them with balloons for their championship celebration.) BS and that makes for multiple laughs.
Across the ring, AJ Styles is pretty good at his role with his utter loathing for Riddle. He plays quite well with him. Also, accessories to store your microphone in the pocket of Omos’ massive jacket. Innovative.
Styles and Riddle faced off again this week, the idea being that now that Riddle finally has Randy in his corner, he has what it takes to take down AJ Styles. This turned out to be correct. Randy Orton managed to neutralize Omos on the outside by beating him forever with the scooter Riddle had given him earlier. This distracted the Phenomenal One, who ate a Bro Derrick for the win.
This segment, which was the show’s main event, felt like the real moment RK-Bro got together as a team. Even more than last week. Even more than when they won the titles. This week, they felt like they were finally connected.
It will be a fun race until they finally quarrel.
Almost a tag team
It looks like WWE is betting on some weird teams.
Rhea Ripley has agreed to team up with Nikki ASH to defeat former women’s team champions Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler. It was a fun game. The strange bedfellows had a pleasant chemistry. So what does this mean? Beating one of the longest-serving female champions should set Rhea and Nikki ready for future title shot. RK-Bro is working. Maybe almost a Tag Team would, too.
The other direction is this rapid evolution to a feud. That would force Ripley to turn on his heel. Not the worst thing, but they really need to choose a path with it.
As for the other side, I’ve long had enough of Shayna Baszler losing a bunch of tag team or singles matches because of the team she’s on. Can we already do something more with it?
What’s in a name?
What is it that babyfaces take with the terrible names heels give them? This week, Doudrop said she liked the random name Eva Maria gave her and that she was going to keep it. It was like when Chad Gable was pretty much like “I’m so cool with people facing my waist, my name is Shorty G?” I mean WTF? If someone I didn’t like always called me “Shit Sandwich”, I wasn’t going to suddenly say “You know what? Everyone should call me that.
Well, Doudrop may have accepted the name Eva gave him, but she rejected the relationship. Eva Marie therefore gave him a suitcase and then slammed his head into it. At least that Lily thing is behind us with these two.
Everything else:
- Real conversation. Charlotte Flair cut a heel promo claiming she was going to do it for people to be proud to watch Monday evening gross again. Then less than two minutes later, they set up a very real possibility that a doll would win the title from her.
- The good news for Karrion Kross fans? He had a dominant victory over Ricochet. The bad news? They dressed him up like He-Man meets Bob Backlund wearing a cheap Party City BDSM mask, something I guess is sold in Party City.
- Mansoor scored a victory over Jinder Mahal, but that’s because Jinder got DQ. Mansoor asked Mustafa Ali not to intervene and Ali did not. Mansoor won anyway, so I guess it all went well in the end, right?
- Looks like the new Elias is wearing a hat! A White hat!
- Once again, Reginald escaped R-Truth and Akira Tozawa to a park to retain his 24/7 title. This time he escaped in an ice cream truck.
I don’t usually cover Raw. But since Marcus was going to cover Slam summer Saturday, Takeover 36 Sunday and NXT tomorrow, I chose to join him to give him a break. Moreover, I never saw again Raw therefore necessary to obtain the recapitulative Grand Slam of Cageside (Raw, SmackDown, NXT … and let’s say Impact).
It’s only when you have to watch every minute of this show that its length really shines. Nick Khan can want raw as long as it can be to maximize profits, but three hours is far too long. This is not new information to anyone. But it feels like it has to be repeated every week.
Look, this show wasn’t bad. There was really nothing offensive about it. And there were a few fun tracks: RK-Bro, the Miz & Morrison breakup, Elias’s new hat (hope that’s not damn). But there was what looked like two hours of filling.
If you have a two hour show with good stuff, meh stuff, and even a little bad stuff, it doesn’t sound like the albatross that three o’clock is. Even if Raw were at the top of their game, and they sure aren’t, it would be difficult to put on an entertaining show that doesn’t seem to hang around every week.
As for tonight, a few good things, but outside of the longtime Miz & Morrison breakup, nothing essential. For a spinoff show on a Big Four PPV, that’s not good.
Rating: C
Ring below.
[ad_2]
Source link