BRM Reviews the 10/5/2020 Raw (a bad show with important news)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 10/5/2020 Raw (a bad show with important news)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 6th, '20, 00:47

RANDY ORTON BACKSTAGE PROMO- meh
Holy f*ck they’re not starting the show odd with someone talking in the ring!
That being said, this did not need to be a multi-camera shoot. I did like the interspersed clips of the things Randy was talking about, but if you’re going to do that, you can’t have Drew show up at the end. Or maybe you can, but you need to make it clear that this was pre-taped and Drew heard that Randy was cutting a promo and marched around demanding to know where he was. But that didn’t happen, so this was the truck somehow knowing exactly what Randy would say.
I really liked Randy painting a picture for us of what we weren’t able to see last week, but it doesn’t make what happened last week not lame. It also dragged on a little too long. Randy said that if Drew wants to cement his legacy as champion, he’ll put the title on the line against Randy in a Hell in a Cell match. Coincidentally, just after Randy finished delivering the big concluding note of his message, Drew barged in with a chair and they began to brawl. Referees and road agents showed up to pull them apart. This came off as incredibly scripted.

ZELINA VEGA, NATALYA, & LANA vs. MANDY ROSE, DANA BROOKE, & ASUKA- 4/10
This was fine. Lana got pinned by Mandy for the second week in a row.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler came out and beat Nattie & Lana up and Nia put Lana through the announcers’ table for what the announcers told us was the third time in recent weeks, so that’s another story not moving forward.

24/7 TITLE CRAP- bad
In addition to the usual stupidity, this featured a referee get hit in the head with a broom, but be up and able to count a pin moments later. Why doesn’t this guy referee every match instead of the usually referees who will be down for a full minute after getting bumped into by someone who weighs 120lbs?

MVP APPROACHES THE ANTI-HURT BUSINESS BABYFACES BACKSTAGE- bad
MVP first put over the draft, then buried it by saying that “it doesn’t matter if you’re drafted to the red or blue. If you’re drafted to the black and gold, business is booming.” That sure was an interesting way to phrase that, wasn’t it? He told them that for this one night, he is offering any one of them who want it a spot in the Hurt Business. Apollo and Ali dismissed this as just MVP trying to get in their heads. Ricochet looked like he was seriously considering the offer.

SETH ROLLINS & BUDDY MURPHY TALKING SEGMENT- fine
Murphy demands that Seth apologize to Aalyah for revealing their private messages last week. Seth gets angry and yells at Murphy for questioning him. He says that he went easy on Aalyah last week. If he had wanted to go hard on her, he would have revealed all of her DMs to Murphy, including the ones where she feels like Dominik is the one who gets all of the attention from her parents and they don’t pay any attention to her accomplishments. That right there should tell you that this whole argument- and thus, all of the stuff with Aalyah- is going to turn out to be an evil plan that Seth has concocted.

SETH ROLLINS & BUDDY MURPHY vs. HUMBERTO CARRILLO & DOMINIK MYSTERIO- 5/10
The babyfaces rushed the heels and they did about a minute of spots in the ring but the referee didn’t ring the bell, seemingly just so that we could wait until after the commercial break to start this match.
Murphy and Rollins argued a lot. Rollins told Murphy he didn’t knee him. Murphy got the win, pinning Carrillo cleanly.

BRAUN STROWMAN & ADAM PEARCE BACKSTAGE- HORRENDOUS!
Braun says that Raw Underground is happening tonight, but he’s here anyway and wants to beat someone up. I guess technically this doesn’t violate the Quarterly Brand to Brand Invitational rule, as this show is technically in a different quarter than Braun’s appearance two weeks ago, but it’s still silly to have him show and not even mention that stupid rule the week before the draft if you’re trying to make people think that getting drafted to one show means you can’t show up on the other all willy-nilly.
I guess Adam Pearce doesn’t remember about the Brand to Brand Invitational, either, because he told Braun that he couldn’t give him a match tonight because he’s not a Raw wrestler. Or maybe you actually do have to be invited for the Invitational? Who knows? They’ve done such a sh*tty job explaining it.
Either way, what Pearce said next was probably the single worst thing they could have had him say that didn’t include some sort of slur. He told Braun that he can’t book him in a match… but he can give him an “exhibition.” Braun demanded to know what that meant, so Pearce explained that it’s just like a match except that it’s “unsanctioned.” Well in a promotion that does gimmick matches all the time and where wins and losses don’t mean sh*t, what’s the difference between that a gimmick match? And that’s assuming that they stick to the usual meaning of “unsanctioned” in wrestling whereby the usual rules don’t apply (spoiler alert: they dind’t).
Basically, what they did here is tell us that wrestlers from one brand can’t wrestle on the other brand… but they can be booked in something that is completely identical to a wrestling match but we’re calling it something else. It’s like booking Rey Mysterio in a match where his mask is on the line but telling us that it only applies to the mask he wears that night, and Rey can just show up in any other of his masks. It’s f*cking useless, and undermines the thing you’re trying to sell!
After Braun left, Keith Lee walked up to Pearce and said he wanted the match.

SETH THREATENS MURPHY BACKSTAGE- Seth says that Murphy should apologize to him and tells him that if he doesn’t do so by 10:00 pm, “there will be hell to pay.” This would be fine, except that I’m certain this whole argument will be revealed to be a ruse, and thus one must wonder who they’re playing to here if we’re supposed to pretend that the cameras aren’t there.

THE K.O. SHOW WITH SPECIAL GUEST BRAY WYATT- PAINFUL!
Owens waxed on about being in the presence of The Fiend and crap like that. Bray showed up on the TitanTron and sang a song with the puppets, then warned Owens that The Fiend would make him sorry on Friday. Owens went to go find Bray but got jumped on the ramp by Aleister Black because they’re feuding and WWE doesn’t know how to book a program without the wrestlers interacting every week.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS DREW MCINTYRE- good
He accepts Randy Orton’s challenge to put the WWE World Heavyweight Title on the line in a Hell in a Cell match at Hell in a Cell.

EXHIBITION MATCH: Keith Lee vs. Braun Strowman- DUD!
In this match “normal rules apply. It just won’t count towards a Superstar™’s win-loss record.” So what makes this different from every other match, then?
And they are giving away an absolute clash of the titans on FREE TV with HALF AN HOUR’S WORTH OF BUILD.
They went seventy-two seconds before we got a double-count-out. After the match, Braun tackled Lee through the front row. Lee was able to get up and they fought some more. Lee tackled Braun off the stage and both guys were down.
I realize that this is probably a segment building up to something on a PPV with these two on the same brad after the draft, but as I’ve said many times, if you keep doing f*ck finishes, then ANY f*ck finish, no matter how well it fits your story, is going to annoy people.

BIANCA BELAIR VINGETTE- bad
She and three friends are playing some generic trivia game that I’m sure you can’t find in stores. In addition to being an excellent athlete, Bianca now apparently knows everything there is to know about science and history. This crossed her into the realm of cartoonishness.
Then it got worst, as at the end of the game, she was a total asshole to her friends, all of whom were quite taken aback by her rudeness.

MORE DUMB 24/7 TITLE CRAP- Gulak, Truth and Tozawa all wound up in a dumpster. The referee counted pin he could not possibly have seen. Unfortunately, the belt did not remain in the dumpster at the end of the segment.

HURT BUSINESS VS. BABYFACES PRE-MATCH PROMO- bad
MVP cut a great promo on Retribution, blaming them for his loss to Mustafa Ali last week. The babyfaces came out and Ali and Crews said that MVP was always making excuses. Ricochet then pretended like he was considering joining the hurt business but then turned MVP down and started laughing. He came off like a middle school boy who thinks the height of humor is to say something you don’t really mean and then yell “PSYCH!” MVP, being a f*cking adult, completely no-sold this buffoonery. He then told Lashley and Shelton to put “special emphasis on this one” and pointed to… one of the babyfaces, but we couldn’t tell which one because they were using a camera shot where the babyfaces were cropped out (Joe would clarify that MVO meant Ricochet).

THE HURT BUSINESS (Bobby Lashley & Shelton Benjamin) (w/MVP) vs. RICOCHET & APOLLO CREWS (w/Mustafa Ali)- 5/10
Lashley beats Apollo Crews clean yet again. What a loser Apollo has turned into!

BUDDY MURPHY & AALYAH MYSTERIO BACKSTAGE- Murphy apologizes to her. She warns him about Seth.

THE HURT BUSINESS & MUSTAFA ALI BACKSTAGE- bad
Ali comes up the heels and challenges MVP to a match. He says that after he’s done with MVP, he’ll kick Shelton and Lashley’s asses, too. MVP and Shelton laughed this off. Lashley got angry but MVP calmed him down. I LOVE Mustafa Ali, but I am SOOOOO sick of this feud that when I heard Ali make his challenge my reaction was “NOOOO! No more of this tonight!”

WILL BUDDY MURPHY APOLOGIZE TO SETH ROLLINS- GREAT, but…
Seth yelled at Murphy to apologize but Murphy finally snapped and attacked him. Murphy eventually got a Kendo stick and beat Seth until he apologized to Aalyah. That calmed things down, and Seth took advantage of the lull to go after Murphy’s eye. Rollins then beat the sh*t out of Murphy with the Kendo stick. It broke, so he went to get a chair. Aalyah came out to protect Murphy. Dominik came out to keep Seth at bay, and he left. Rey and Angie came out, too. The Mysterios left, with Aalyah looking back and Murphy and Dominik shepherding her away. He was clearly unhappy that she came out to protect Murphy.
At face value, this was a really great segment. I just hope I’m wrong in my suspicion that this will all be part of an evil plan at the end, because I think this sort of beating is too far for someone to go just to get in their enemies head by breaking his teenage daughter’s heart.
They showed us Seth backstage laughing.

WWE WOMEN’S TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax(c) vs. the Riott Squad- 3.25/10
The heels dominated the babyfaces and won clean. This culminates a feud where the Riott Squad have looked like they’re nowhere close to being in the league of this makeshift team. They’re very much the female versions of Crews and Ricochet right now.

STREET PROFITS PROMO- great. This was the best thing they’ve done in quite a while. Also, Drew McIntyre showed up.

MUSTAFA ALI vs. MVP (w/Shelton Benjamin & Bobby Lashley)- no rating, great segment
Ali got the better of MVP so MVP had his goons come in. Before they could attack Ali, Retribution showed up. MVP asked Ali to fight with them against Retribution. Ali agreed and went to the big guys… and then turned around and ordered them to attack the Hurt Business. This might be the first time we’ve seen the Hurt Business get laid out like this.
The execution here was excellent, but I absolutely DESPISE the choice of Mustafa Ali for this spot. He’s such a great babyface and isn’t damaged (yet) the way guys like Crews, Ricochet, Riott Squad, Dana Brooke, Viking Raiders, and Lucha House Party have been, so turning him heel seems like poor choice. Retribution’s mission statement also doesn’t seem to jive Ali’s, which has pretty consistently been to use WWE’s grand stage to fight stereotypes and make people proud of him.


DREW MCINTYRE & THE STREET PROFITS vs. RANDY ORTON, DOLPH ZIGGLER, & BOBBY ROODE- 6/10
This was fine for ten minutes, but I would have given this a lot more time.
The heels won when Randy pinned Drew clean in the middle of the ring with an RKO, which according to my research is the first time Drew has been pinned in a broadcast match since last year’s Survivor Series, and only the third time he has been on the losing end of a match in any fashion since then (he and Asuka lost to Ziggler and Sasha on 6/29, and he lost a four-way the night after Survivor Series when Rey pinned Ricochet). That seems like something they should have been talking up more.


This was mostly a bad episode of Raw, but the Ali and Murphy turns were at least worth seeing. If you’ve got the time, I guess I’d recommend just watching the third hour.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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