BRM Reviews the 4/20/2020 Raw

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 4/20/2020 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 20th, '20, 23:56

OPENING SEGMENT- didn’t like
Tonight’s main event will be Drew McIntyre vs. Angel Garza. Well… I guess Garza did make it possible for Seth to attack Drew by taking his knee out, but the angle was with Seth, so them not booking Seth vs. Drew with no explanation for it is weird. The reason appears to be that Drew wants to challenge Seth to a title match at MITB. That’s fine I guess, but I think they could have made things a little tighter by having the announcers tell us that Drew specifically requested the match against Garza tonight and that he would address Seth tonight, and then have Drew come out and cut this same promo. It would give Drew a little more agency and would make things make a little but more sense.
Zelina Vega comes out with Angel Garza and Austin Theory and cuts a promo Drew, which is really a distraction so that Andrade can attack Drew from behind. Despite getting the jump on Drew, Andrade was laid out with a Claymore in less than fifteen seconds. Vega orders the other two to go attack Drew but they won’t because they’re scared. Drew then hit Andrade with another Claymore. Wow. They sure made Zelina’s entire group look like sh*t here.
I don’t want to say it because it’s only been three weeks, but I’m definitely getting a little worried that they’re just going to Superman Drew all over everyone and it’s going to be yet another Cena or Roman push (I don’t think the fans will reject him lie they have those other two, but the push will get on people’s nerves and be quite damaging to others, I think).

TOM PHILLIPS EXPLAINS HOW MONEY IN THE BANK IS GOING TO WORK THIS YEAR- Oh no. No. This has to be a joke. Please, G-d, let this be some sort of belated April Fool’s Day thing.
Tom told us that this year “WWE Superstars™ will be climbing the corporate ladder,” because they’re going to “start on the ground floor of WWE headquarters and fight their way up to where the briefcases will be,” which will be “on the roof of the corporate tower.”
Oh my G-d they’re doing the f*cking Ready to Rumble Cage match, but in an office building instead of a cage.

So do you even need to climb a physical ladder to win this ladder match? And are the rest of matches going to be held in WWE headquarters, too? Otherwise, how can the MITB winner cash in on the night of MITB like they’ve been teasing will happen?

MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFIER: Austin Theory vs. Aleister Black- 7/10
Zelina Vega was on commentary. They kept cutting away from the action to show her. That was bad. What was good was her reaction to Black finally hitting Theory with the Black Mass after Theory managed to avoid it several previous times. Vega bickered with the announcers (particularly Byron) a lot, but it wasn’t annoying because it felt natural and not forced.

BYRON SAXTON INTERVIEWS ALEISTER BLACK- meh
In case you haven’t guessed yet, the phrase you will be hearing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again from the commentators will be “climb the corporate ladder.” The secondary one will be “most unique Money in the Bank ladder match in history.”

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS SHAYNA BASZLER ON SHAYNA’S WAY TO THE RING FOR A MATCH- Has WWE ever done this before? It’s a totally logical thing to do (although, unlike Charly here, usually a question from an interviewer right before a match is actually about that match), but I don’t recall WWE ever doing it.
Charly’s question was if Baszler thought she had gone to far last week. Shayna correctly pointed out that she hadn’t broken a single rule, so I don’t see how anyone can be upset with her. Sure, she was pretty douchy about breaking Sarah Logan’s arm in this interview here, but the storyline that WWE is pushing is not “Shayna broke Sarah Logan’s arm and was a douche about it.” It’s “Shayna Baszler went too far by breaking Sarah Logan’s arm,” and I just don’t see any evidence that that’s the case.
Lawler is disgusted and says that “Shayna Baslzer has been trained to hurt people her entire career.” Well duh. She’s a professional combat athlete. Just like all of the other WWE Superstars™. Or are you telling that the other moves don’t hurt?

SHAYNA BASZLER vs. INDI HARTWELL- no rating, good segment
Baszler tried to do the same thing to Hartwell but Hartwell avoided it… and Baszler had this AMAZING look on her face like she was offended that Indi had the gall to try to avoid getting her arm stomped to pieces. Shayna went off on Hartwell and broke her arm the same way for the stoppage win.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Shayna got a ladder and used it and the steps to crush Hartwell’s arm.
I didn’t like this for a few reasons.
1. Is no one going to coming out to stop Shayna from doing this? Are all of the babyfaces afraid of her?
2. Indi Hartwell is a jobber. Sarah Logan is (or, rather, was) a member of the main roster. It shouldn’t take more to debilitate Hartwell than it did to debilitate Logan.
3. It felt like the entire reason this post-match attack happened was because the ladder match PPV is coming up so we need to have a heel beat someone up with a ladder to show the audience that ladders can be dangerous weapons rather than because Shayna had any reason to be angry or want to beat this poor woman up more.

CEDRIC ALEXANDER & RICOCHET vs. BRENDAN VINK & SHANE THORNE- 4/10
Fine for the time it got.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS THE KABUKI WARRIORS- terrible
Apparently someone decided that we need to see Kairi Sane vs. Nia Jax again, so that’s happening. Charly asks Kairi why we should think the outcome will be any different this time, which is the correct question to ask in this situation. Unfortunately, we didn’t get an answer to it, because the Kabuki Warriors are just here to be goofs and kill TV time, so they did their usual making of noises and yelling in Japanese and some broken English, and saying Asuka’s catchphrase.

BOBBY LASHLEY PREPARES FOR A TEST OF STRENGTH- He’s going to flip a giant tire. Lana fawned over him.

So apparently WWE and Netflix have teamed up to make a movie where a kid gets a Lucha mask that give shim superpowers and enters an open tournament to get a WWE contract and WWE DOES NOT NOTICE THAT THEY ARE DEALING WITH AN EVELEN YEAR OLD KID.

KAIRI SANE vs. NIA JAX- 4/10
Early on this was no different than last week. After a scary moment where Kairi almost hit the back of her head on the turnbuckle in a scary, whiplash-y fashion because Nia didn’t throw her far enough, Kairi made a short comeback working over Nia’s surgically repaired knees, but Nia won clean.

SETH ROLLINS PROMO- very good
This felt like Seth’s gimmick getting back on track, remembering that “Monday Night Messiah” is just a nickname, not the full scope of the gimmick.

THE VIKING RAIDERS CAR RIDE- This was the worst thing ever. In one segment they have completely killed these characters. I don’t even know how to describe this other than to say that they were dirving down the road in street clothes plus their goofy headgear, chanting rhyming couplets about how they’re “men with beards whom all should fear” and stuff like that, and chanting “VI-KING RAY-DERS!” between each line. Whoever came up with this should have been fired on the spot the moment he or she suggested it.
Also, didn’t Raymond Rowe get released last week?

MVP PROMO- GREAT!

MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFIER: Apollo Crews vs. MVP- 6/10
This was solid for what it was. MVP’s trash-talking did a great job of giving the match some color. Crews won clean. Tom Phillips loudly declared this to be “THE BIGGEST VICTORY OF APOLLO CREWS’ CAREER,” which is both unfortunately true and very sad.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS RUBY RIOTT- GREAT!
And just like that, Ruby gave us a reason to give a sh*t about this random match between herself and Liv Morgan.

RUBY RIOTT vs. LIV MORGAN- 3.5/10
Liv won clean because Ruby let her guard down to talk trash.

LASHLEY FLIPS THE TIRE- but now he’s going to flip an even bigger one. Lana wants to bone, but Lashley is annoyed that she is getting in his way.

MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFIER: Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Buddy Murphy- 7.75/10
Murphy worked over the hand. Rey won clean.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS ZELINA VEGA & ANGEL GARZA- Once again, Vega was great. More importantly, I’m curious to see if this clear mutual attraction between Angel Garza and Charly Caruso goes anywhere.

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. KAYDEN CARTER- 4/10
This was short, but they told their story of Charlotte being the overconfident bully very well.

LASHLEY TRIES TO FLIP THE COMICALLY LARGE TIRE- He struggles, but eventually succeeds. Lana fawned on him. I don’t see what the point of any of this was.

AKIRA TOZAWA vs. ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS (w/Zelina Vega)- 7/10
They did a great job of making you think that Tozawa really had a chance here. Even the commentary helped, with all of their comments about how everything has gone wrong for Vega and her crew tonight. Unfortunately, Tozawa lost, failing to get his revenge and shaming the Interim Cruiserweight Title tournament. If I were booking this, Tozawa would have won his match, then use the momentum of this win to start portraying him as the juggernaut in his block of the Interim Cruiserweight Title tournament, have him come up just short in the finals of the tournament, then challenge Andrade for the US Title at MITB and lose.

BIANCA BELAIR vs. SANTANA GARRETT- 1.25/10
Before the commercial break, while Andrade and Vega were on their way up the ramp, the Street Profits came out. Their music played into the break as they danced on the announcers’ table. When we got back from the break they were still dancing on the announcers’ table and their music was still playing. This is all clearly done to give the impression that their music played the whole way through the break. And yet, after Montez introduced Bianca, there was an opponent waiting for her in the ring. When did this woman come out?
Look… I know what actually happened. I’ve been to Smackdown. They shut the music off during the commercial, the jobber makes his/her entrance, and they start the music up again five seconds before they go back on the air. I’m just baffled that it doesn’t occur to them that having this woman appear seemingly out of nowhere doesn’t betray the very impression they are going out of their way to try to create by having the Street Profits’ music “still” be playing when we return from the break.
The Street Profits were on commentary. They yelled a lot and were very annoying.

DREW MCINTYRE vs. ANGEL GARZA (w/Zelina Vega, Austin Theory, & Andrade “Cien” Almas)- 6/10
Well… it was better than last week’s main event. The story of the match was Drew having to overcome the numbers game.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Drew gave Garza another Claymore for no reason. Theory stumbled into the ring, trying to attack Drew, but he ate a Claymore as well. At this point this does nothing for Drew, but it does hurt Zelina and her squad.


This was a very mixed bag episode of Raw. There was some very good stuff, some very bad stuff, and a lot of stuff that served its purpose but didn’t get enough time to be too good, either.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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Thelone
Posts: 430
Joined: Jul 9th, '19, 16:22

Re: BRM Reviews the 4/20/2020 Raw

Post by Thelone » Apr 21st, '20, 14:50

Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 20th, '20, 23:56Also, didn’t Raymond Rowe get released last week?
Because all guys named Eric(k) look the same to you, huh? HUH?

In all seriousness, they dumped Eric Young and Not-Erick Rowan, not good ol' Erik.

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Big Red Machine
Posts: 27378
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

Re: BRM Reviews the 4/20/2020 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 21st, '20, 18:19

Thelone wrote: Apr 21st, '20, 14:50
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 20th, '20, 23:56Also, didn’t Raymond Rowe get released last week?
Because all guys named Eric(k) look the same to you, huh? HUH?

In all seriousness, they dumped Eric Young and Not-Erick Rowan, not good ol' Erik.
If they all have beards, then yes. They all look the same to me.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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KILLdozer
Posts: 5930
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 22:54

Re: BRM Reviews the 4/20/2020 Raw

Post by KILLdozer » Apr 22nd, '20, 14:43

Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 21st, '20, 18:19
Thelone wrote: Apr 21st, '20, 14:50
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 20th, '20, 23:56Also, didn’t Raymond Rowe get released last week?
Because all guys named Eric(k) look the same to you, huh? HUH?

In all seriousness, they dumped Eric Young and Not-Erick Rowan, not good ol' Erik.
If they all have beards, then yes. They all look the same to me.
That explains why I keep seeing in your posts "they let both of a married couple go", in regards to Sarah Logan...
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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