BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 20th, '18, 23:38

OPENING SEGMENT- fine
The new babyface singles champion with the initials “R.R.” comes out to start the show. Sorry. I guess that’s not specific enough, is it? It’s the one people hate.
The announcers are talking about how Roman has overcome three years of adversity and finally beaten Brock to become the champion, as if he hasn’t been world champion three times between now and then.

Roman comes out and says he’s going to rectify the wrong of Balor never getting a rematch by giving Balor a title shot tonight. That’s nice of him, and I do like the idea of guys actually getting their rematches. Maybe he’ll give Owens his rematch next week, then give Goldberg his the week after that. And the finish of the Goldberg match can be them both going for the spear at the same time and bonking heads, resulting in a double TKO, necessitating a rematch inside Hell in a Cell where that finish can’t happen so there must be a winner!
The crowd also loves the idea of Balor getting a title shot tonight. You guys do realize he’s just going to job to Roman, right?
Balor comes out and they shake hands and agree to have the match, but Baron Corbin came out and said that Balor wouldn’t get a title shot because he was “in breach of contact” last night when showed up as “Finn Balor The Demon” instead of “Finn Balor The Man.” HE’S THE SAME DUDE! It’s not even like this is a Mankind/Cactus Jack/Dude Love situations where they are supposed to be split personalities.
Corbin had some both BS excuses as well. If this was someone like Miz then maybe his claims to not have heard the bell would work, but it’s Baron Corbin, whose voice sounds like a monotonous while, so it’s just annoying. Roman gets to speak up for Balor and make fun of Corbin, even though Balor is right there and holding a microphone. This, of course, is because WWE has figured out that literally every single fan hates Corbin, and thus Roman will be cheered for making fun of him.
Corbin retorts by saying that the only reason Roman beat Brock last night was because Brock was too distracted by Braun Strowman, and that’s certainly a plausible argument. Kurt Angle then came out to yell at Corbin for overstepping his bounds. I think Angle and Corbin are the two people in WWE I dream seeing the most right now. Every facet of them if terrible, from the scripting to their deliveries to the way they are booked to come off just makes me hate the show.
Kurt asks the fans if they want to see Balor vs. Roman for the title. They say yes, so Kurt books it as the main event. He then tells Corbin that he has a match tonight as well, which is against Lashley, and starts right now. Meanwhile, someone in the audience (they were far enough away that I couldn’t determine gender, but they did look to be at the very least a young adult, size-wise), has a sign that reads “Alexa, be my stepmom” with a heart on it. Am I the only one who finds that pretty creepy?

BARON CORBIN vs. BOBBY LASHLEY- 5/10
Lashley won clean. Not much else to say.

KURT ANGLE & PAUL HEYMAN BACKSTAGE- bad
Heyman says that Brock would like to “invoke his contractually-obligated rematch clause,” to which Kurt responds with this almost outraged disbelief, saying “are you kidding me? A rematch?” as if this was somehow unreasonable. First of all, if it was unreasonable then Angle shouldn’t have let Heyman put it on the contract, and if Brock insisted on it being in there then too bad for you, Kurt. You agreed to the contract. And why does Kurt think this request is so outrageous? Wasn’t “Balor never got his rematch” the exact reason that Roman said he wanted to defend the title against Balor tonight and Angle completely supported it?
Kurt admits that the contract sasy that Brock gets a rematch, but points out that it doesn’t say when he gets one, so Kurt vows that it will be a very long time before Brock gets his rematch. Since we’re in Brooklyn tonight, I’ll note that this is exactly the same thing that heel commissioner Jim Cornette tried to do to babyface hero Homicide in ROH in 2006. Once again, WWE has unwittingly had their babyface authority figure come off as a total heel under the guise of trying to make the babyface authority figure sound righteous. How ar ehtye so bad at this?!
Paul proposes that the title rematch happen in a few weeks at Hell in a Cell, but Angle tells him to f*ck off.

BARON CORBIN YELLS AT KURT ANGLE BACKSTAGE- annoying
Corbin was whiny and bratty, Kurt engaged in some obnoxiously pat speechifying, then Corbin stormed off and said he was going to go complain to Steph, who is in the building tonight (doubtlessly for the Ronda championship celebration, where she will make that even less bearable than WWE’s catchphrases will already be making it).

TAKER/HUNTER VIDEO PACKAGE- I guess I should be happy that they’re going to have a proper final match, without Shawn Michaels’ overacting and terrible refereeing ruining it.

THE RIOTT SQUAD vs. SASHA BANKS, BAYLEY, & EMBER MOON- 5.5/10
So does three straight dives mean this commercial will be three times as long?
The Riott Squad won the match. This feud just keeps going around in circles.

TRIPLE H PROMO- There were lots of “NXT!” chants when Hunter came out. He then cut an awesome promo to build up his match with The Undertaker.

DEAN AMBROSE (w/Seth Rollins) vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER (w/Drew McIntyre)- 6.75/10
That still-shot they showed of Ambrose about to hit Dirty Deeds on McIntyre looked so goofy.
Why in Dean’s entrance did his second come out first, then they walked to the ring to Dean’s music, but for Ziggler’s entrance it was him who came out first and they walked to the ring to his second’s music.
They had a good match that made good use of the seconds. A tag team match seems inevitable.

STROWMAN & BALOR BACKSTAGE- Braun’s new thing is that he “does things face to face” and not in a cowardly manner like past MITB cashers-in. Okay… but isn’t waiting until the champion has just finished a match still unfair, even if you tell him/her the cash-in is coming?

THE DRIFTER GETS INTERRUPTED BY CURT HAWKINS- How rude!
Hawkins wants a match with The Drifter. Drifter makes the factual statement that “Curt Hawkins is a loser.” More insulting of the crowd commenced, as well as The Drifter telling Hawkins that he isn’t a star (which is also true). The Drifter dismissed Hawkins, who started to leave, then came back and demanded a match, so we got…

“THE DRIFTER” ELIAS SAMPSON vs. CURT HAWKINS- 1/10 (but great for the time it got.

TITUS O’NEIL COMES UPON APOLLO CREWS & DANA BROOKE CAVORTING BACKSTAGE- fine
Titus has been looking all over for them because their match is next. From the way Dana was pawing at Apollo, it looks like we’re going to be getting a romance angle here. From both Apollo and Dana’s reactions to Titus, it seems like they don’t want him to know about it.

THE AUTHORS OF PAIN vs. TITUS WORLDWIDE (w/Dana Brooke)- 1/10
This was extremely weird. First Titus was the babyface in peril, but he was able to make a hot tag… and then Titus was never seen again while Crews was immediately cut off and got dominated for the majority of the remainder of the match. The announcers pushed that this was due to Titus and Apollo “not being on the same page” but it seemed a lot more to me like AOP just kicked their asses.

RONDA ROUSEY WOMEN’S TITLE CELEBRATION/PRESNETATION/WHATEVER- unbearable
We start with all of the other Raw women standing around the ring and having to watch this. Maybe next week for Ronda’s entrance they can have all of the women lie down head-to-feet from the stage all the way down to the ring and have Ronda walk on them down to the ring, just in case there is anyone left who doesn’t understand that from now on ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ABOUT RONDA ROUSEY.
Anyone remember two months ago when Alexa asked for the authority figure to present the championship belt to her on Raw the night after she won it and we were supposed to take this as a sign of her extreme arrogance?
Steph comes out and gives us one of her grand speeches. After talking about how proud she was on the Women’s Evolution and plugging the first-ever all-women’s PPV in WWE history, Evolution, she then told us that she was “so proud of the Raw Women’s Championship match last night.”
OH COME ON! IT WAS A F*CKING SQUASH MATCH!
Steph then showed us a video package with Ronda’s win, plus all of the magazine headlines that people apparently wrote about it and blah blah blah. Because everything that happens in WWE must always make history (and especially so when the Women’s Evolution is involved), their new thing is to tout Ronda as the first person to ever win the Raw Women’s Championship as well as a championship in UFC… although I guess they don’t know about the weight classes, because they keep phrasing it as Ronda becoming “the first ever UFC and Raw Women’s Champion” as if UFC only has one “women’s championship.”
While this is factually true, it is, for all practical purposes in WWE, completely irrelevant. The fact that Ronda is a former UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion doesn’t mean sh*t as an actual accolade in WWE, but they’re treating it just like they do when they tell us that Alexa Bliss! was the first women to hold both the Raw and SD women’s championships. The only thing that should matter for WWE’s purposes is that Ronda was a big star in UFC.
We finally get to the self-aggrandizing heel part where Steph takes all of the credit for Ronda’s success. Steph then brought Ronda out, and Ronda was all happy smiles on her way to the ring as if this corporate asshole didn’t just take credit for all of her hard work. At least she snubbed Steph on the handshake.
Ronda then launched into this big speech about how “it’s not all about you. It’s about every single one of these women standing around this ring and in the WWE.” She asked “what are you trying to do, Steph? Put yourself above them?” which prompted me to scream at the TV because of how bad it makes Ronda sound to have her point out the kayfabe optics of the situation when that just rubs in that the non-kayfabe reason for those same optics being crafted is to put Ronda herself above all of the others.
Ronda then invites all of the other women into the ring like a good friend. Oh. The Bellas are out here. Isn’t Nikki on Smackdown?
Steph told Ronda off for doing this. Then a big sign lowered down from the rafters explaining to us that Steph was being mean but Ronda was being nice. Ronda then gave the big rah-rah yay team hooray for the Women’s Evolution speech which WWE loves so much and I so despise because the way WWE does this- as eerily poetically exemplified by the segment where Steph announced the women’s Royal Rumble last December- tells me that I’m now supposed to temporarily ignore the fact that most of these characters hate a large chunk of the others. That now I’m supposed to be proud of everyone’s hard work even though they’ve spent the past two months emphasizing to me that Alexa took a cheap shortcut to win the title; that despite everything she said about how she wanted to beat the sh*t out of Alexa Bliss! over the past month, the real Ronda Rousey would never her hurt her friend and teammate Alexis Kaufman. They might as well have Alexa just take that sling off of her arm here, too, because Ronda didn’t really hurt her last night because it’s all a work. Don’t ever tell me it’s all a work in the middle of my wrestling show. It’s the ultimate form of emersion-breaking.
Ronda starts putting everyone over on their own, saying things like if Sasha and Bayley hadn’t had their awesome Takeover match, “this whole movement may have never even got off the ground” despite the fact that that match happened AFTER Steph randomly showed up on Raw and declared the beginning of the Divas’ Revolution, and that it was more than a year after the NXT women’s division caught fire with that Nattie vs. Charlotte tournament final, and we’d had a whole bunch of awesome title match from that division in the intervening months.
Now that Ronda is done talking, Steph wants me to think that Alexa’s arm really is injured now. I guess shooting time is over.
Steph insisted that Ronda was planning on breaking the arms of everyone woman in the division just like she did to Alexa (so is Alexa’s arm kayfabe broken? If so, it should be in a cast, not a sling! Maybe CM Punk was right about WWE’s medical staff). The only good part of this whole segment was the reactions to this statement by Alexa (who nodded along sadly) and Liv Morgan, (whose eyes grew wide with terror and she leaned back slightly).
Then Ronda took Steph down and put her in an armbar, trying to break her arm. This would mean a lot more if Ronda hadn’t randomly done this for no reason the night after WrestleMania. Steph rolled out of the ring and the heels all checked on her while the babyfaces all hug in the ring. This was just as obnoxiously heavy-handed as I feared it would be.

B-TEAM PROMO- fine for what it was

SCOTT DAWSON (w/Dash Wilder) vs. BO DALLAS (w/Curtis Axel)- 2.25/10
Dawson won. Afterwards Axel challenged Dash to a match right nbow as if it was impromptu but the announcers had already told us that they were supposed to wrestle. The announcers were laughing openly laughing at Axel for f*cking up. We went to a commercial, and when we came back, we did, in fact, get…

DASH WILDER (w/Scott Dawson) vs. CURTIS AXEL (w/Bo Dallas)- 2/10
Dash Wilder won with a Gory Bomb. I kind of assumed Dash & Dawson would have submission finishers. After the match, Bo cut a promo in which he basically said “we’re losers, but we don’t care because we’re the champions.”

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS ROMAN REIGNS- good babyface promo by Roman.

STEPH, ALEXA, KURT, & CORBIN IN THE TRAINER’S ROOM- FINALLY!
Kurt was yelled at for being a bad GM, and then ordered on a “vacation,” with Corbin now installed as Acting General Manager. NO MORE BICKERING! HOORAY! It was made clear that this was not permanent (unfortunately), but I’ll take what I can get.

WWE UNIVERSAL TITLE MATCH: Roman Reigns(c) vs. Finn Balor- 8/10
During Balor’s entrance alone, I’m pretty sure that at least two of the announcers gave us the entire story about Balor winning the Universal Title in this building two years ago and then having to relinquish it due to injury the next night. This almost felt like WWE announcing engaging in self-parody, but there is o way anyone in WWE is aware enough to come up with such an idea.
The announcers also told us that Roman’s mission has been to “promote respect throughout the locker room” and to turn WWE into a “place of opportunity for everyone.”
1. When has he ever said this?
2. And the only way he thinks he can do this is if he is the Universal Champion? Looks like someone has a giant ego, doesn’t it?

Anyway, these guys had an awesome match which Roman won. Braun came out right towards the end and went to cash in but…
AMBROSE & ROLLINS COME OUT TO STOP BRAUN- good
This was all after JoJo made the announcement but the bell never rang (which is growing to be one of my most hated WWE phrases. The Shield beat Braun up. He got in a few hope spots but eventually got Triple Powerbombed through an announcers’ table.
I liked the idea here. I don’t think it counts as a Shield heel turn because, as I mentioned before, cashing in when the champion just had a grueling match is still unsporting, even if you want to argue that it’s not cowardly. If Braun comes out at the beginning of next week’s show and wants to cash in but Dean and Seth show up to help Roman, then that would be problematic.

This certainly wasn’t a good episode of Raw, but the end at least has me intrigued. I think the main weakness of the show this weak was their inability to do things without being ridiculously heavy-handed (the Roman and Brock stuff was the worst of it, but it also showed up in the Raw Women’s Title, and in other places as well), rather than their usual weakness of storytelling. Plus, Kurt’s gone for a while so at least I know there will be a lot fewer annoying office segments on next week’s show.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by XIV » Aug 21st, '18, 10:30

The logical thing to book now for next Raw would be Ziggler, McIntyre & Braun vs The SHIELD. However, Braun has been operating as a babyface so they may not... but at the same time I'd be okay with Braun teaming with anyone just because he wants to "Braun-Smash" everything.

But if you do that then the finish would have to be Braun, Ziggler & McIntyre winning (probably with a little naughtiness) with McIntyre and Ziggler assuming that Braun's now their buddy and raise his arms and go for high fives or whatever and Braun attacks them both to remind them that he just likes to fight and fuck people up.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by XIV » Aug 21st, '18, 10:31

I have a severe dislike for Ronda Rousey.

I loved her in UFC. In WWE she's just awful. And she still looks so green and it probably won't be long before she pops someone's shoulder socket doing one of her horrible looking judo throws.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 21st, '18, 10:44

XIV wrote: Aug 21st, '18, 10:30 The logical thing to book now for next Raw would be Ziggler, McIntyre & Braun vs The SHIELD. However, Braun has been operating as a babyface so they may not... but at the same time I'd be okay with Braun teaming with anyone just because he wants to "Braun-Smash" everything.

But if you do that then the finish would have to be Braun, Ziggler & McIntyre winning (probably with a little naughtiness) with McIntyre and Ziggler assuming that Braun's now their buddy and raise his arms and go for high fives or whatever and Braun attacks them both to remind them that he just likes to fight and fuck people up.
Hmm... I do like the idea of a pure tweener Braun going around smashing everyone... which would actually just make him a babyface nowadays, but maybe you can use those first few weeks of oddness to also work out The Shield's oddness and fully turn them? Nothing would get Seth & Dean booed more than willing becoming Roman's lackey, right?
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by cero2k » Aug 21st, '18, 13:17

XIV wrote: Aug 21st, '18, 10:30 The logical thing to book now for next Raw would be Ziggler, McIntyre & Braun vs The SHIELD. However, Braun has been operating as a babyface so they may not... but at the same time I'd be okay with Braun teaming with anyone just because he wants to "Braun-Smash" everything.
Last time this happened, Nicholas became a World Tag Team Champion.

The more I think about this whole thing, it seems like they didn't fully thought out how they were gonna play this MITB thing with Reigns finally getting his coronation. Even though he still does it like all the other MITB cash ins, Strowman is not a man that needs to pick his spots, so he is someone that should just come out, challenge at any moment, and win the title. HOWEVER, with Reigns' finally getting the title, I can't see any way that he can stay a babyface running away from Strowman or using lackeys to help him get out of defending the title, and I want to assume that this reign's reign is going long.

If I may book this. WWE should just copy what LU is doing with Azteca Jr. Let Braun fail some more attempts, not just because of the Shield, but also Galloway/Ziggler/Owens/Elias/etc, say something like too many pesky flies coming and going every time I try to cash this in and it's getting annoying. I'm going to instead wait and cash in at WM, and fuck it, make it a cage match or something, and then have Braun defend the briefcase until then. You can even make the Rumble for the briefcase which is the same shit anyway, and since the 'main event' is Charlotte vs Rousey, you can make the Universal title picture have more shenanigans like cage matches and a rumble for a briefcase. This way you can keep the title on reigns until WM, keep Reigns and Strowman away from each other, build them up both.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 21st, '18, 13:55

cero2k wrote: Aug 21st, '18, 13:17
XIV wrote: Aug 21st, '18, 10:30 The logical thing to book now for next Raw would be Ziggler, McIntyre & Braun vs The SHIELD. However, Braun has been operating as a babyface so they may not... but at the same time I'd be okay with Braun teaming with anyone just because he wants to "Braun-Smash" everything.
Last time this happened, Nicholas became a World Tag Team Champion.

The more I think about this whole thing, it seems like they didn't fully thought out how they were gonna play this MITB thing with Reigns finally getting his coronation. Even though he still does it like all the other MITB cash ins, Strowman is not a man that needs to pick his spots, so he is someone that should just come out, challenge at any moment, and win the title. HOWEVER, with Reigns' finally getting the title, I can't see any way that he can stay a babyface running away from Strowman or using lackeys to help him get out of defending the title, and I want to assume that this reign's reign is going long.

If I may book this. WWE should just copy what LU is doing with Azteca Jr. Let Braun fail some more attempts, not just because of the Shield, but also Galloway/Ziggler/Owens/Elias/etc, say something like too many pesky flies coming and going every time I try to cash this in and it's getting annoying. I'm going to instead wait and cash in at WM, and fuck it, make it a cage match or something, and then have Braun defend the briefcase until then. You can even make the Rumble for the briefcase which is the same shit anyway, and since the 'main event' is Charlotte vs Rousey, you can make the Universal title picture have more shenanigans like cage matches and a rumble for a briefcase. This way you can keep the title on reigns until WM, keep Reigns and Strowman away from each other, build them up both.
The more I think about it, the more I think you're right in that they really had no exit strategy with this Braun/Shield thing. HIAC is the obvious answer... but then you've got to give us a real finish or else you kill HIAC.

The flaw with your booking scenario is that there is no reason to wait until Mania for a cage match with HIAC coming up this month.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by cero2k » Aug 22nd, '18, 21:04

Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 20th, '18, 23:38 OPENING SEGMENT- fine

Roman comes out and says he’s going to rectify the wrong of Balor never getting a rematch by giving Balor a title shot tonight. That’s nice of him, and I do like the idea of guys actually getting their rematches. Maybe he’ll give Owens his rematch next week, then give Goldberg his the week after that. And the finish of the Goldberg match can be them both going for the spear at the same time and bonking heads, resulting in a double TKO, necessitating a rematch inside Hell in a Cell where that finish can’t happen so there must be a winner!
Barely realized that indeed, Balor is the first ever former Universal champion to actually get his rematch clause match
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 25th, '18, 10:37

There's actually a fb post on WWE of literally nothing but the belt and the plates saying "Rowdy Ronda Rousey".
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 25th, '18, 12:13

Why is Corbin so horrible and what happened to Angle's Mic skills lol.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 25th, '18, 12:38

Who cares if there's a new women's champion? Lol do we do this every time?

Actually, we didn't we do th4 exact same thing with Reigns' and Rollins' new title wins?

Lmao WHY IS THIS BEING DONE LIKE IT'S NOT SOME STRANGE THING BUT...completely normal?
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 25th, '18, 12:49

Oh...I get it, it was all about Stephanie trying to take credit for the super important Ronda Rousey who's done absolutely nothing! Lol
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 26th, '18, 19:34

Oh my goodness...I just noticed that Ronda Rousey holding the belt with Natalya is the WWE cover photo on fb lmao.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/20/2018 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 26th, '18, 19:34

All of you should definitely follow them if you don't...all sorts of interesting stuff like that on there.
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