BRM Reviews the 5/18/2020 Raw (one must-see match, and perhaps the worst first half of a show I've ever seen)

[Big Red Machine]

TOM PHILLIPS EXPLAINS THE “BRAND TO BRAND INVITATIONAL”-
“Four times a year, a Superstar™ from Raw and a Superstar™ from Smackdown will be allowed to travel to the other brand and challenge the Superstar™ of their choice.”
Only four times a year, huh? To come up with a number that specific over such a long period of time means one of two things:
1. WWE has meticulously planned all four of these things out over the course of the year, which would require them to have at least set directions for everything else necessary to get the involved wrestlers (both the invitees and the wrestlers they will be challenging) where they need to be.
2. They just picked a number that they thought sounded reasonable and haven’t actually planned anything out, and they’ll wind up changing at the drop of a hat based on whatever they feel like doing that particular day.
As much as we’d all love it to be option one, I think past experiences have taught us all to expect option two. Hell, you don’t even need to rely on past experience to come to the conclusion that option two is more likely. All you need to do is look at the title of thing and see that they couldn’t even pick a name that made sense. An “invitational” is a type of tournament.
Further dashing what little hope I had was Tom’s next sentence, which was that “Smackdown’s King Corbin will be the first Superstar™ to take advantage of this opportunity.” Look at the language there Corbin will “take advantage of this opportunity.” It’s proactive, when it really should be passive. Corbin was invited by someone else, but WWE’s phrasing makes it sound like it’s something he has chosen to do (yes, I suppose he could have declined the invitation and thus does have agency here, but what reason would he have to not do so?)

I know this all sounds like a major nit-pick, but I think it’s an important clue into WWE’s mindset. We all know how scripted WWE’s announcers are. Even if they’re not reading directly from scripts like would happen in companies where Vince Russo was in charge, so much of their verbiage is mandated buzzwords that there is no doubt in my mind that that particular sentence of Tom’s, as well as pretty much anything you hear about this Brand to Brand Invitational that uses any of those words tonight was scripted out for him. The fact that WWE chose those words for Tom to say- and didn’t have him say other things- gives us a glimpse into how they want and expect us to think about this gimmick.
WWE’s use of proactive language here almost certainly stems from their desire to make their wrestlers seem like they have agency. And as I’ve said in other places, that is important to making us care about things. The fact that WWE has a specific set of words they like to use undermines this point by making it all feel scripted, but that’s not actually the major problem here. The major problem here, as I said above, phrasing this as Corbin being proactive doesn’t make much sense.
Just as important as what WWE chose for Tom to say is what they chose for him to not say. The task they had Tom perform was give us an explanation of what this Brand to Brand Invitational is. You’d think that this would include explaining who is doing the inviting. That person/people/committee is/are being just as proactive (if not more so) than the invited wrestler. Of course I realize that I have already answered this question myself. It’s “the McMahons” or whatever invisible cabal or people runs the different shows, and the truth is that the specific answer to the question doesn’t necessarily matter. What does matter, though, is the fact that they never thought to ask it (or at least thought that they didn’t need to give us an answer).
The biggest source of frustration for me in the handling of the current brand split has been the lack of explanation put into the decision-making process any time there is some sort of shake-up in the roster or its governing rules. In the Superstar Shake-up, the moves seem to be made with no traceable kayfabe reason. The premise of two separate rosters on shows that are theoretically competing with each other to be the better show or whatever they tell us at Survivor Series would seem to imply that they are trades or perhaps free agent signings, but they’re not portrayed that way. There is never any talk of negotiations or any record of who was traded for who, and 205 Live seems to only be able to lose people and not gain any. When someone is called up from NXT, there is never any talk of negotiation or a draft or anything like that. People just appear on one show or the other, and that’s it. There is also no attempt to explain why undercard jamokes will sometimes get called up while top names stay in NXT. When they added the Wildcard Rule last year, they stumbled around trying to figure out if the wrestlers were invited by the other GM or if they were showing up of their own volition, and when they settled on the latter, never explained why every wrestler didn’t just show up on both shows every week. Even if they had actually kept to their stated limit of four per show, it still begs the question of who is making the decision as to which four get to show up. Is it just whoever shows up in the parking lot first? It there a sign-up sheet backstage for each week?
These might seem like minor quibbles, but it illustrates the mindset with which WWE has handled similar things over the past few years, which is that they either don’t need to explain any of that, or they’re not smart enough to even come up with the questions. The result of this lack of explanation is that the right people just happen to show up for whatever storyline they’re trying to advance that week, or when people are just assigned to a new show seemingly based on Creative’s needs (anything from increasing the diversity on a certain show to moving a top babyface to a show that needs help on that side of the depth chart) rather than something that had an storyline reason to explain it, it just makes everything feel even more scripted and forced.

OPENING SEGMENT- very bad
They’re really pushing this idea that Edge vs. Orton will be “the greatest wrestling match ever.” I’m sorry, but I don’t think that even the biggest Edge or Randy Orton mark out there thinks that this is true. Then again, maybe Charly’s just an idiot. She said that Randy’s challenge “left the WWE Universe™ with a lot of questions,” and then asked Randy what he meant when he issued the challenge. Randy’s response to this was exactly the same as mine: “Is the phrase ‘straight-up wrestling match’ really that hard to understand?”
Orton goes on to tell us that “WWE stands for World Wrestling Entertainment,” and gives the speech that Matt Striker tried to give on commentary every week without actually saying the then-banned W-word, talking about how “wrestling is the basis of what we do. Of everything we do.”
Then I started thinking more about this, and I honestly started to wonder if they really thought fans wouldn’t understand what they meant by “wrestling match” because of how much they’ve avoided the term everywhere outside of NXT and 205 Live (including in all of their marketing). When Randy said that WWE stood for World Wrestling Entertainment, I actually started to type a sentence pointing out that this technically wasn’t true since WWE officially made it an orphan acronym. I could have sworn there was a story like that sometime back in 2011, so I checked the internet and while they have only been marketing themselves as “WWE” and never “World Wrestling Entertainment” since 2011, they never did change the name of the company. But either way, the point is that they honestly had me wondering whether this segment was designed to explain to fans that the thing WWE Superstars™ “perform” in the ring every week for them is called “professional wrestling.”
Randy said that he was a better wrestler than Edge, or anyone else on the roster. His promo was the only good part of this segment.
Edge came out and said that he didn’t answer Randy’s challenge last week because everything with Randy Orton was a game of chess. That might be true, but you’re a professional wrestler and Randy challenged you to a professional wrestling match. No stips, no promises about watching your back or a referee who he swears will be impartial but you’re not sure. Just a regular wrestling match. And it’s not even like the match was going to take place right then and there. He named a date over a month away! You should have just accepted the damn match right then and there because you would have had almost five weeks to figure out what Randy is planning!
Edge then started to cut this absolutely annoying, melodramatic promo about how Randy didn’t grow up loving the business and wanting to be a wrestler and was basically handed his career because he new he had it as a “back-up plan,” and didn’t grow up dreaming of being champion or see the IC Title as a commendation for his work-rate and whatever. Randy did not want to hear any of this crap, and quite frankly, neither did I. Basically, Edge got all pissy because Randy is claiming to be the “better wrestler” and Edge has apparently taken this mean that Randy means this in some sort of non-kayfabe way and that Randy’s passion for the business was greater than his. I don’t know where Edge was getting any of this from, but he came off as an overdramatic goof. Randy finally goaded Edge into accepting the match. This whole segment was stupid.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this one line, but the shot at someone who had things “handed to him” and for whom wrestling was a “back-up plan” seemed interesting because it describes three people who were recently prominent faces in WWE. The first two are Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg, and the third one- although unlike the first two, this hasn’t ever really been mentioned or even hinted at on the air with him- is Roman Reigns. Then again, I think that describes Charlotte pretty accurately, too, so maybe I’m reading too much into this.

SETH ROLLINS & BUDDY MURPHY BACKSTAGE- weird
Seth is in a suit. He was acting all catatonic, then smiled and told Murphy he had had a “revelation” that he wanted to “share with the world.”

The announcers told us that Rey’s eye might have nerve damage. The injury is “critical,” and doctors will have to wait until the swelling does down to reassess it. It’s still swelling after a whole week? Is that normal?

SETH ROLLINS PROMO- terrible
Silly me for hoping that what we saw last week would be a move away from the version of the “Monday Night Messiah” that had been floundering so badly over the past few months. Seth is back in full-on preacher-mode, talking about having received a vision and how Rey will realize that what happened to him was a “blessing” and how Rey had to be a “sacrifice.” I know I shouldn’t be by now, but I am still baffled at just how dumb the people writing this show are. Seth’s “Monday Night Messiah” character was working well when he was just a douchebag who thought it was his job to be the “locker room leader” and he had a few guys who backed him up because they agreed with him. That was the first two months or so. Then they decided that if the announcers are going to call him a “messiah,” he’s got to start using religious verbiage and give a “sermon” and we’ve got to change his TitanTron to include a picture of him that looks like a stained-glass window because that’s what you’d see in a church. After they make this switch, the gimmick starts to suck, and yet even when given a natural excuse to do so, they don’t pivot away from it!
And it’s not like it’s the first time they’ve made this mistake, either! Look at King of the Ring! Do you know when winning King of the Ring stopped getting people over? When they decided that instead of people just walking around saying “I’m the best wrestler because I won King of the Ring!” and go back to the winner dressing in goofy robes and a crown, carrying a scepter, sitting on a throne, and demanding to be addressed as if he were an actual monarch!
Anyway, Humberto Carrillo interrupts Seth. Seth gives the whole “I understand what you’re doing” speech but says he won’t fight tonight because he isn’t dressed. Murphy, on the other hand, does happen to be wearing his gear, so Seth suggests that Carrillo wrestle Murphy right now, even though- as Seth acknowledges- Murphy is booked again Aleister Black later tonight. Isn’t there some sort of authority figure who can come out and tell Seth to go get changed and booked Seth vs. Carrillo for later? Because that seems like a much fairer and more obvious solution to this problem that Murphy having to wrestle twice. The powers that be had an entire commercial break to think of something that took me three seconds to think of, but apparently they weren’t able to, because when we came back from the commercial we got…

HUMBERTO CARRILLO vs. BUDDY MURPHY (w/Seth Rollins)- 5/10
They had a match that was good for the time it got. Murphy won because Carrillo got distracted by Seth at ringside. The announcers hammered home the idea that Carrillo would have won if not for Seth. Obviously the point of a dirty finish is to have the babyface lose but still look good. The problem is that if you go that hard with it, and then have Murphy lose to Aleister Black later in the night, it kind of removes any cover Murphy has for losing because he wrestled twice because you’re telling me that he’s not very good in the first place, but Aleister still doesn’t get that much credit for the win because he is still beating someone who already wrestled tonight (and who is also such a chump).

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Murphy attacks Carrillo after the match for no reason. Aleister Black comes out to make the save. He and Murphy brawl while Seth bails. Murphy barely avoids getting hit with Black Mass and scampers up the ramp. This didn’t serve any purpose other than to have the villains do something mean just to be mean. Aleister making the save is nice, but we already know he’s a babyface, and having him and Murphy fight now only makes the fight feel less interesting later.

BARON CORBIN YELLS AT PEOPLE BACKSTAGE- ATROCIOUS!
He’s whining that he doesn’t have his own locker room, that people don’t hold the door for him, fetch him food, and bow down to him. These are all actual things he said. The fact that he would expect them here on Raw means that one of the following must be true:
1. These things actually do happen backstage on Smackdown, in which case what the f*ck does that say about everyone backstage that they think they’re supposed to be Corbin’s royal subjects because he on a tournament for a metaphorical kingship? And what does that say about WWE management and all of the babyfaces for letting it go on? (Or maybe they have told the backstage crew that but the backstage crew are even dumber than the above implies and won’t even realize how stupid this is when someone explains it to them).
2. These things don’t happen on Smackdown and he’s a delusional idiot for expecting them.
This is not “good” heat. This doesn’t make me want to see him get beaten up and lose a wrestling match. It makes me want to fast forward through his segment, and makes me dread his match because I’m afraid he’ll grab a microphone at some point before, during, or after and start talking again.
And just in case there actually is anyone out there for whom his does get the right kind of heat, the ending of this segment was Corbin instructing the referee he had summoned hat he was going to “make it up” to him during the match with Drew, and the referee nodded along, so that person has now been told that there is no point in getting excited to see someone put Baron Corbin in his place because Corbin is going to conspire with this idiot crooked referee to screw the babyface champion in tonight’s big match.

LIV MORGAN PROMO- She’s on the verge of tears talking about how her mother is her hero because her mother was often unemployed but always got back up. After her loss to Charlotte two weeks ago, Liv has realized that she is a lot like her mother because she, too, is getting back up.
Maybe this is a weird question to be asking, but why is she having this revelation now? She’s been wrestling matches (and losing most of them) for several years now. According to cagematch.net, Liv lost FORTY-FOUR matches in 2019… and won a grand total of TWO. And I spelled those numbers out so you know that there’s no typo. And in 2018 she wasn’t much better (10-98-1). But you’re telling me that at no point in those two years of ending her night staring at the lights more than nine times out of every ten, she didn’t notice that she was getting back up and trying again the next day every time, just like her mother? Really?
Maybe if the rest of the show hadn’t put me in such a bad mood I would have liked this more, but after Edge’s promo earlier, this felt like it came out of nowhere and thus felt way too over the top.

CHARLOTTE FLAIR PROMO- fine
Tom tells me that Charlotte “accepted the Brand to Brand Invitational” this past Friday on Smackdown. So then what makes Corbin’s visit tonight so “historic” or whatever they said earlier if it’s not even the first one?
Also, they’ve only got four of these for the year and they’ve now already burned through two of them.
The clips they showed of Sasha, Charlotte, and Bayley on Smackdown immediately made me sick because they’re having a conversation while all standing next to each other, lined up shoulder to shoulder, because G-d forbid they not be facing the f*cking hard-cam. Then I listed to what they were saying and I got even more sick. Guess what the storyline is. Hint: It’s the only one they ever do when Sasha and Bayley are involved. That’s right. They’re teasing dissension between Sasha and Bayley. Because I’m sure the 974th time will be the one that gets people interested and starts drawing ratings.
Charlotte starts cutting a total heel promo. She’s building up to a champion vs. champion match with heel Bayley, who has a heel buddy in Sasha Banks. She then calls out heel Ruby Riott. Are there no babyfaces at all?

CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. RUBY RIOTT- 5/10
This was for the time it got. Charlotte won clean. She directed a comment or two at Liv Morgan during the match.

CHARLY CARUSO’S INTERVIEW WITH LASHLEY IS INTERRUPTED BY MVP- good
MVP shoos Charly away so he can once again try to convince Lashley that he is a better career guide than Lana. He did a great job of making legitimate points, and doing so in a way where the only gain in this for MVP is if it convinces Lashley to listen to him in the future (meaning that Lashley could conceivably take MVP’s advice about going after the champion and then not ask MVP to manage him, and MVP would gain nothing. There is no immediate ulterior motive for MVP).

DUMB SH*T WITH THE VIKING RAIDERS AND THE STREET PROFITS- dumb
The Street Profits arrive in a clearing where the Viking Raiders and their cosplaying friends have set up some targets, as well as a campfire. They offer the campfire to the Street Profits as a gift of the “smoke” the Street Profits have been seeking, because they’re too dumb to understand metaphors. Angelo Dawkins tries to explain that the smoke they are referring to is metaphorical, but Montez cuts him off because he’s worried that if they don’t accept this gift, the Viking Raiders and their friends will murder them with their axes. The Viking Raiders demonstrate their axe-throwing skill. Montez wants to forfeit, but Dawkins insists that they go down swinging.

ASUKA’S CHAMPIONSHIP CELEBRATION- very bad
This was a lot of Asuka and Kairi acting like hyper cartoon children. It was terrible, just like it is every week. I recently reread an old review of mine where I mentioned that I was terrified that if Vince ever heard the “Pirate Princess” nickname, he’d have Kairi coming out in an eye patch with a parrot on her shoulder. That would be a million times more tolerable than this. This is the kind of stuff that makes you terrified that someone will walk into the room and see you watching. This was so bad that it would probably be less shameful to have someone walk in and see you masturbating to it than for them to walk in and see you watching it without your hand in your underwear, because at least then they could understand why you were willing to subject yourself to something this awful. This was so bad I was actually happy when NIA JAX interrupted them.
Nia cut a promo calling Asuka an unworthy champion who lucked into her title. She also did the standard I’m bigger than you so I’m better than you” shtick. Asuka attacked her without any real physical provocation and quickly disposed of her. Neither of them came off like babyfaces.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS KING CORBIN- shockingly good
Charly calls tonight’s match “the inaugural Brand to Brand Invitational,” but less than half an hour ago they told me that Charlotte was on Smackdown via this same mechanism just last week. Which is it?
Corbin cut a competent promo saying that as good as Drew McIntyre is, Drew still makes mistakes, and Corbin will capitalize on every one of them and beat him, then take his title in the main event of WrestleMania.

R-TRUTH PROMO- the usual stupidity

R-TRUTH vs. BOBBY LASHLEY- 0.25/10
Truth got in a bit too much offense for this to be a squash, but it wasn’t competitive, and it’s a match-up I already feel like I’ve seen a million times. MVP came out and clapped for Lashley. This made Lana so angry that she started throwing backstage equipment. Her temper tantrum was comically bad.

THE KABUKI WARRIOS MEET BACKSTAGE- thankfully there was no sound this time. They each walked off in separate directions, at which point Nia Jax stepped out of the background. I guess she’s going to attack one of them or something. You could have just had her jump one of them backstage without airing this pointless segment to tease a backstage attack for us.

WWE WOMEN’S TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Alexa Bliss! & Nikki Cross(c) vs. the IIconics- 3.75/10
Finally! Someone I give a sh*t about! We’ll see if Alexa Bliss! is enough to make me not completely hate this show. Making me sit through an IIconics promo before her match starts is not a good start. They had a short match with a simple story, which was that Alexa & Nikki have learned from the IIconic’s dirty tricks last week and countered all of the tactics that worked last week. Alexa had the match won with Twisted Bliss but Peyton made the save. Then she kept ramming Alexa into the post and eventually the referee disqualified her for not going back to the apron, because I guess we’re DQing being for that in this case. Peyton was angry at herself forgetting DQed. This was a frustrating finish, but everyone needs to go check out the spot leading up to Twisted Bliss. Alexa threw her big punch and Billie Kay took a FANTASTIC flop for it. It has to be by far the best thing I’ve ever seen Billie Kay do.

MORE OF KAIRI SANE PLAYING HER RECORDER BACKSTAGE- Yup. Nia Jax jumped her. That recording was really annoying, though, so I’m not yet ready to call Nia the heel in this feud.

IICONICS BACKSTAGE- Billie was angry and Payton for getting DQed in this title match, and, in a fit of rage, slapped her best friend and tag team partner. Both of them were shocked by this and were on the verge of tears and then hugged. This actually felt like a big moment and like something that might have piqued my interest if not for two important factors. 1) The IIconics are EXTREMELY annoying, and thus I don’t ever want to see them on my TV, and 2) Sasha and Bayley had a moment like this once. That was about three years ago, and they’ve been doing a “will these best friends and tag team partners break up?” angle ever since.

PLUG FOR KAYFABE-BREAKING UNDERTAKER WWE NETWORK SPECIAL- get this non-kayfabe sh*t off of my TV during the show.

ASUKA AND A TRAINER CHECK ON KAIRI- Anything that might have made me feel sympathy for Asuka and Kairi here was lost when Asuka ran off screaming and rambling, and you could still here her rambling in Japanese well after she left. She doesn’t come off like a badass. She comes off like she’s the Tasmanian Devil.

ASUKA CONFRONTS NIX JAX BACKSTAGE- Almost good
After a commercial break, Asuka has tracked Nia down. She ranted at Nia in Japanese, a language that Nia doesn’t speak, so I’m not sure what she hoped to accomplish. Nia went to leave, but Asuka yanked her back by her braids and kicked her in the head. Asuka left, and Nia started at her back angrily.

SUBMISSION MATCH: Natalya vs. Shayna Baszler- 4.75/10
This is probably the highest you’ll ever see me rate a match that went less than four minutes. This was GREAT grapplef*ck with a little bit of pro wrestling thrown in in spots that worked perfectly. Why these two are not doing this for twenty minutes on every PPV for the championship I have no idea.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Nattie was despondent after her loss. She started off kicking the ropes, then starting throwing and breaking the set-pieces and chairs for the KO Show, which they had started to set up for.

ZELINA VEGA’S STABLE ARGUE BACKSTAGE- Zelina shows up and scream at them to quiet them down. She tells them that they had better all be on the same page on the KO Show. She asks each of them in turn if they understand. Each answers while staring and smirking at one of the others instead of looking at Vega. From Garza and Andrade’s answers it was clear that they weren’t taking her too seriously, but for some reason it’s Theory that she was much harder on and insisted that he answer “yes ma’am” instead of just yes. Zelina’s seemingly arbitrary favoritism aside, the execution of this was good, but the direction they’re teasing is not. In what world would you ever make Austin Theory the babyface coming out of this, especially with Angel Garza as the other option (there is no way they’re breaking up Zelina and Andrade).

THE KO SHOW WITH SPECIAL GUESTS ZELINA VEGA & HER CREW-
Owens starts off by announcing that he has fully recovered from the injuries he sustained in his WrestleMania match against Seth Rollins. Zelina and her crew came out, and she and Owens cut EXCELLENT promos back and forth. Owens revealed that he has also booked Apollo Crews as a guest. Crews then charged out, speared Andrade, and started pounding on him. The other two heels went after Crews so Owens joined in on Crews’ side. When we got back from a commercial, we were about to start…

APOLLO CREWS & KEVIN OWENS vs. ANGEL GARZA & ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS (w/Zelina Vega & Austin Theory)- 4.25/10
This only went three minutes, but was also fantastic for the time it got. Crews won when Theory’s attempt to interfere backfired and he wound up punching Garza in the face because Crews ducked.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good execution, but, again, wrong direction
Theory tried to apologize but Andrade attacked him from behind. Garza joined in, and Zelina watched, approvingly. Like I said, the execution was good, but they have been f*cking Austin Theory up since day one on the main roster. He is the perfect guy to give the slow but steady push to where he feuds with and keeps beating undercard babyfaces, all the while talking about he’s so damn good that he was only in NXT for a few months before getting called up and now he’s beating guys on the main roster with no problem. He should not ever be a babyface. Ever.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS DREW MCINTYRE- great promo by Drew to build up to his match with Baron Corbin

They’re advertising Charlotte vs. Bayley for this week’s Smackdown, so that’s three of their four Brand to Brand Invitationals that they’re burning in the first week and a half.

MORE DUMB SH*T WITH THE STREET PROFITS AND VIKING RAIDERS- still dumb
Ivar is apparently such a cosplay fanatic that he pays no attention to anything else, so when Montez made a comment about Tiger Woods, Ivar got concerned because he thought Montez was warning them all that there was a tiger in the woods.
Montez took his first warm-up throw. A joke about “performance anxiety” was made. Montez threw the axe way off target, and all of the Viking cosplayers laughed at him.
After a commercial break, Dawkins gets to take a warm-up throw. After more dumb jokes are made, Dawkins throws his axe… which misses the target by miles and hits the Viking’s cask off… wine? Mead? Whatever. The Vikings get very angry about this, but Erik and Ivar back them down. We’re supposed to be laughing at this, but someone could be very seriously injured by an axe, and if the Street Profits are missing this badly, the Vikings are right to be angry and fearing for their safety.

ALEISTER BLACK vs. BUDDY MURPHY (w/Seth Rollins)- 4/10
Apparently that dumb sh*t was more important than not making Murphy look like a jobber by cutting his entrance.
Austin Theory is still at ringside, injured. Isn’t there some sort of medical personnel who should be tending to him? Rollins went over to him a few times and they focused on this. It would play into the finish, which was Seth helping Theory up, then directing him to attack Aleister, which he did for the DQ. Said DQ came just as Aleister was about to hit Murphy with his finisher, so Murphy is shown to be a chump yet again. On the bright side, at least Austin Theory isn’t going to be a babyface.

The match itself was also very short but fantastic for the time it got. Seeing all of these matches that were so great but so short has me very annoyed that I had to sit through so much bullsh*t earlier on.

BIANCA BELAIR VIDEO PACKAGE- So they’ve promoted her to the main roster… and then managed to not do anything with her for a month. Why did you even call her up yet, then?

AXE-THROWING CONTEST: Viking Raiders vs. the Street Profits- dumb
Remember earlier tonight when Randy Orton explained to us that “wrestling is the basis of everything we do?” Well then why the f*ck are you making me watch this?
The Viking Raiders won a million to one, with the Street Profits only making their last shot. Then some cops showed up demanding to know who had put an axe through their windshield. Yeah. We’re supposed to believe that one of these axes travelled all the way to a highway with enough force to get embedded in a windshield. Either that, or the cops were randomly driving through the woods. F*ck off.
Then Dawkins was randomly able to hit a bullseye without even looking, because that’s supposed to be funny, I guess? F*ck this company for wasting so much time on this while giving Aleister Black vs. Buddy Murphy, Nattie vs. Baszler, and Owens & Crews vs. Garza & Andrade a combined total of barely ten minutes.

CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS APOLLO CREWS- good babyface stuff. He says he’s getting a US Title shot next week. Vega showed up to try to scare him out of it by claiming that Andrade will destroy his injured knee and end his career, but Crews wouldn’t back down.

OH COME ON! THERE’S MORE OF THIS SH*T?!- Just to piss me off, they had to place this in the middle of Drew’s entrance. The cops had everyone lined up and lectured them that throwing axes was reckless and someone could have gotten seriously hurt. I figured that these responsible WWE Superstars™ had used the proper safety precautions and gotten a license or went to an axe-throwing range or whatever, but apparently not.
Then, just to make this even dumber, the female cop said she would let them off with a warning because Ivar was cute… and then she angrily told Erik that he was not cute. These segments tonight were among the worst things I have ever seen on a wrestling show. Anyone involved in writing them deserves to be thrown off the roof of Titan Towers (chill out. There’s a secondary roof six feet below. They’re not going to die).

DREW MCINTYRE vs. BARON CORBIN- 6.5/10
Tom Phillips now told us that Drew was the one who got to extend the invitation to Corbin, which I think sounds like something they might have said last week. Okay… now I want to know who made the decision to let Drew be the one to pick. Why not Andrade or Lashley or Rollins or Asuka?

Every time throughout the night, they’ve made sure to call Corbin “Smackdown’s King Corbin,” including in graphics and in the official introduction for the main event. This was taking things too far on its own, but it was made even worse by the fact that they did the same thing for Alexa Bliss! & Nikki Cross, even though those two are allowed to be on Raw because the Women’s Tag Team Champions are allowed to be defended across all three brands.
After Corbin’s entrance, MVP and Lashley came out and Lashley cut a great promo saying he was coming for the Universal Title, Then we went to a commercial break, so we got an entire commercial to commercial segment with Drew already in the ring, during which all we saw was a dumb comedy sketch, Corbin’s entrance, and a promo.
We finally start the match… and Tom Phillips is telling me that this match is about “brand pride.” F*ck off. If this match had anything to do with “brand pride,” you’d think that either one of these guys would have mentioned that in at least one of the three different promos they cut between them on this week’s and last week’s shows, but they didn’t. Get that “brand pride/supremacy” bullsh*t out of here. It’s dumb at Survivor Series, and it’s even dumber now.
The match was fine, but not main event level. There were some good twists and turns, and I actually really like this thing they’re doing with Drew where he kicks out at one sometimes.
Lashley and MVP watched the whole match from the stage. Drew cut a promo on him after the match, saying he wanted to fight. That is a match I’m looking forward to.


This was a bad show from WWE, and that’s astounding for me to say about a show that actually had a significant period where I was really enjoying things. The first half of this, though, was just the f*cking dirt worst. I was seriously considering giving up and shutting the show off. I’m glad I didn’t because then I would have missed out on Nattie vs. Baszler, but I was pretty damn close to doing it. Things got better from there, with the notable exception of the wretched Street Profits vs. Viking Raiders bullsh*t, but by the end of the show, the stuff that was good only served to make me more frustrated that all of those matches got so little time while all of the crap I had to sit through earlier on got so much.

[KILLdozer]

It's almost like they think Corbin is DESTINED TO GUARANTEED become the next, early -late 2000s, Edge or Randy Orton style heel. Explains why he's the heel version of Roman Reigns. Who does this guy know? Who backs him up? He has no physique, so that's not it, I mean he's under 7 feet so he doesn't really have much size...no charisma...no promos...he's had at least 3 different looks since coming to the main roster...I mean just come on already.

He's NOT going to become ANYTHING. The best this guy could ever hope for is an easy midcard heel who's a basic antagonist to the top face who always get run over with no problem after talking shit like crazy. That's his ceiling. And it's ridiculously evident but they won't accept it. Just have him get wiped out in the first match a new champion has after winning the belt, and have him get his ass kicked by a freshly turned face...that's this guy's role.

That's perfectly fine because "everyone isn't going to become WWE champion. "

[Big Red Machine]

It's almost like they think Corbin is DESTINED TO GUARANTEED become the next, early -late 2000s, Edge or Randy Orton style heel. Explains why he's the heel version of Roman Reigns. Who does this guy know? Who backs him up? He has no physique, so that's not it, I mean he's under 7 feet so he doesn't really have much size...no charisma...no promos...he's had at least 3 different looks since coming to the main roster...I mean just come on already.

He's NOT going to become ANYTHING. The best this guy could ever hope for is an easy midcard heel who's a basic antagonist to the top face who always get run over with no problem after talking shit like crazy. That's his ceiling. And it's ridiculously evident but they won't accept it. Just have him get wiped out in the first match a new champion has after winning the belt, and have him get his ass kicked by a freshly turned face...that's this guy's role.

That's perfectly fine because "everyone isn't going to become WWE champion. "

Agreed.

[KILLdozer]

It's almost like they think Corbin is DESTINED TO GUARANTEED become the next, early -late 2000s, Edge or Randy Orton style heel. Explains why he's the heel version of Roman Reigns. Who does this guy know? Who backs him up? He has no physique, so that's not it, I mean he's under 7 feet so he doesn't really have much size...no charisma...no promos...he's had at least 3 different looks since coming to the main roster...I mean just come on already.

He's NOT going to become ANYTHING. The best this guy could ever hope for is an easy midcard heel who's a basic antagonist to the top face who always get run over with no problem after talking shit like crazy. That's his ceiling. And it's ridiculously evident but they won't accept it. Just have him get wiped out in the first match a new champion has after winning the belt, and have him get his ass kicked by a freshly turned face...that's this guy's role.

That's perfectly fine because "everyone isn't going to become WWE champion. "

Agreed.

All those releases and the most no-talent guy stays...

[Thelone]

The weird thing about Corbin is that I think deep down, Vince genuinely thinks he's pushing him as this generic midcard heel who talks big but always gets his ass handed to him at the end. The issue of course is that he's been on TV non-stop for almost FOUR YEARS at this point and always put in main event storylines. It's not like Corbin has been hogging world titles or won anything major, but he's there every single week and you have no idea why because he ticks almost none of Vince's usual boxes.

[KILLdozer]

The weird thing about Corbin is that I think deep down, Vince genuinely thinks he's pushing him as this generic midcard heel who talks big but always gets his ass handed to him at the end. The issue of course is that he's been on TV non-stop for almost FOUR YEARS at this point and always put in main event storylines. It's not like Corbin has been hogging world titles or won anything major, but he's there every single week and you have no idea why because he ticks almost none of Vince's usual boxes.

Which is why I said just turn him into the perpetual midcard heel shitass loser that constantly gets stomped out quickly when the time comes. Then all that endless shit talking would be fine but they wouldn't have him punching him above his weight.

No charisma. No promos. No build. (He wrestles with a shirt on.) No tan. No beard. Barely above passable in the ring. Quite below 7 foot. He's literally nothing but a WORSE Heath Slater in many ways.

[KILLdozer]

Then again, it's been well stated that Vince Mcmahon puts some shit on the shows just because he personally finds it amusing and hilarious and for no other reason...maybe Corbin is just an inside joke.

He never actually legitimately played professional NFL Football btw.