BRM Reviews the 6/14/2021 Raw

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 6/14/2021 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 16th, '21, 01:32

ALEXA BLISS’ PROMO WITH VIDEO CLIPS IS INTERRUPTED BY NIA JAX- bad
Alexa says she is putting the doll away because it almost killed Shayna. Hooray! No more dumb sh*t!
Wait. Never mind. There are sound effects.
Jax says that Shayna Baszler will see Alexa at the PPV. She then asks Alexa “what happened to you? You and I used to be friends. I know you. The real you,” then tells Alexa to stop messing with her career.
Alexa insists that they “were never friends,” which tracks with the storyline, which was that Alexa was using Nia. I guess Nia still hasn’t figured that out even after Alexa and Mickie made her cry by making fun of her.
Nia challenged Alexa to a match tonight. I’m not looking forward to this at all.

OPENING RUN-DOWN OF THE CARD, COMPLETE WITH CLIPS- This is new and different from what we were getting when I last watched Raw.

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS CHARLOTTE FLAIR- meh
She went on for too long.

NIKKI CROSS vs. CHARLOTTE FLAIR- 4.5/10
This was a decent match that ended when Rhea Ripley distracted Charlotte and Charlotte got counted out.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Nikki celebrated like she had actual done something. Charlotte kicked her ass until Rhea attacked Charlotte from behind and laid her out with the Riptide. Charlotte and Rhea getting their heat back on the other each week doesn’t do anything for the viewer when neither of them are likable and so the viewer doesn’t have an emotional interest in seeing one of them get the better of the other.

MATT RIDDLE & JEFF HARDY, THEN MATT RIDDLE & RANDY ORTON BACKSTAGE- good
Yes, really. Don’t get me, wrong: Riddle was still annoying when he rambled, but instead of just rambling and being obnoxious, he had meaningful and human interactions with other people. First he asked Jeff for advice, then seemed to take Jeff’s advice to heart by listening to Randy’s advice.

JOHN MORRISON vs. JEFF HARDY- 4/10
The wheelchair-bound Miz was on commentary for this match. JoMo beat Jeff clean. Cedric Alexander came out to watch, for reasons that I didn’t understand.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Cedric alleged that Jeff was a sore winner last week. He was yelling a lot and didn’t sound like himself at all. Did they decide that his normal voice isn’t good or something? Anyway, Cedric says he regrets not sending Jeff to a retirement home, so Jeff says that he will retire if Cedric can beat him right now.

IF JEFF HARDY LOSES, HE MUST RETIRE: Jeff Hardy vs. Cedric Alexander- 2/10
Cedric got some offense in on Jeff’s knee, missed a Swanton, ate both of Jeff’s finishers, and got pinned in less than three minutes.

NAOMI vs. PIPER NIVEN (w/Eva Marie)- no rating, bad segment
This was advertised as Naomi vs. Eva Marie, even as we were going to commercial, moments before it started. Eva came out with an unnamed Piper Niven, who none of the announcers recognized, even though she has been a big part of the NXT UK women’s division.
Eva’s music played, but she didn’t get an official introduction. Piper got into the ring, and while both Naomi and the announcers were baffled by this, the referee was not, and just ordered the bell rung. Piper squashed Naomi like a bug. Eva Marie then grabbed the mic and said that that “the winner of this match is Eva Marie!” Piper then ran and hugged Eva.
So WWE just falsely advertised a match and screwed Naomi by lying to her about who her opponent was for seemingly no reason. And no. There are no other options. Trust me. Just as an exercise, I tried to figure out how I could make this make sense, and the best I could do was the following:
Piper Niven has changed her name to Eva Marie and they set this up to fool whoever Eva’s opponent would be, and the heat is that Eva is going to go around talk about how “Eva Marie keeps winning” as if it’s her. But even that fails because in their advertising, they showed Eva’s picture, not Piper’s (and also, the heat for that would work better if the announcers acknowledged Piper Niven as Piper Niven because it would make the bait-and-switch even more brazen).

EARLIER TODAY, A SEGMENT HAPPENED THAT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO REACT TO- This is the first episode of Raw I’ve watched in two months. I’ve tried to keep up with results, but I don’t remember everything I’ve read, so I’m not sure who are supposed to be the babyfaces and who are supposed to be the heels, and as a result I don’t really know how I’m supposed to respond to a lot of what happened and what was said.
Here is what happened:
Dana Brooke and Mandy Rose were doing a photoshoot in the same area that there are some rings set up (I think it’s where they do the interviews). Nattie and Tamina had apparently decided to do some grappling in that ring. I don’t know who was there first, and that’s kind of a key element to this, because if Nattie and Tamina showed up and started wrestling when there was a photoshoot happening nearby, that’s kind of inconsiderate.
Mandy and Dana decided that the noise from the wrestling was distracting them, so they asked the other two to leave. Nattie and Tamina accused them of caring more about their looks than their wrestling, said they should train harder, and alleged that they were hired for their looks rather than their in-ring skills. Mandy and Dana responded that Nattie and Tamina wouldn’t have been hired if it wasn’t for their last names. Two thoughts ran through my head when I heard that line:
1. It’s hilarious to say that about Tamina, whose last name they never use because they think that we can’t separate her from her father’s crime.
2. If you look at the era in which Nattie and Tamina were hired, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that that statement is true. Certainly in Tamina’s case. In Nattie’s case, well… while she is a great worker (which Tamina really isn’t, for the record) if you look at the time Nattie was hired, they weren’t really looking for great workers. Her last name helped get her hired, but she also had something else WWE liked which was… well… her body-type. She’s the same large-chested blonde that Vince, Dunn, and Johnny Ace loved so much. I’m not trying to take anything away from Nattie’s working ability. I just think we should be fair here and remember that six months after WWE signed Nattie, they signed Lacey Von Erich. Even if she were terrible in the ring, Nattie’s last name and looks would have been enough to at least get her signed.
And yes, I know that that’s not kayfabe and we’re not supposed to think about it… but I don’t think we’re supposed to think that, in kayfabe, Mandy and Dana were only signed because they were bikini models, either. So no matter who the babyfaces are here, they’re saying some that really doesn’t line up with what we’re supposed to go with as the kayfabe reality of the situation.
After more trash talk, Nattie dared Dana and Mandy to get into the ring. Mandy turned to Dana and said “let’s go?” and Dana answered “yeah.” Then Mandy got into the ring and Dana didn’t follow. Nattie took Mandy down and started pounding on her, so Dana finally got into the ring and brawled with Tamina until security broke it up. On the one hand, I liked that the verbiage here was a lot more realistic and believable than we usually get in WWE, but on the other hand, it just felt all over the place in terms of who were supposed to be the babyfaces and who were supposed to be the heels.

KEVIN PATRICK INTERVIEWS DREW MCINTYRE- bad
This felt like a John Cena promo with a PG-ified penis joke and a long story told in a goofy manner.

RK-BRO vs. NEW DAY (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods)- 8/10
Just awesome tag team wrestling. Maybe it’s just that this is the first show I’ve watched in a while, but this feels like a really big win for Orton and Riddle.

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS RHEA RIPLEY- good, assuming that Rhea is supposed to be a heel

ASUKA vs. RHEA RIPLEY- 7.25/10
Great stuff! And even better… no interference or distractions from Charlotte!

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Ah. There she is. Charlotte attacked Rhea from behind and they brawled.

KEVIN PATRICK INTERVIEWS MVP/TRIES TO INTERVIEW LASHLEY- fine
If MVP is telling the truth and Kevin Patrick really is coming in without knocking, that’s not cool at all on his part.
Kevin asked MVP if he knew why Drew McIntyre was wrestling AJ Styles tonight. Um… because they’re professional wrestlers and they got booked in a match against each other tonight?
MVP cut a good promo, but Lashley outdid him.

ALEXA BLISS vs. NIA JAX- 4.25/10
During Nia’s entrance, New Guy accidentally said “sh*t.” It’s hard to blame him, though, as he was referring to Alexa’s magical crap, and that’s a pretty accurate description of it.
Alexa wrestled completely cleanly and with no magical bullsh*t of any kind. She overcame a distraction by Reginald and had the match won, but Reginald ran in for a DQ because G-d forbid the woman we are portraying as having supernatural powers get a pinfall on Nia Jax.
Reginald pulled Alexa off of Nia for the DQ, and Alexa responded by hypnotizing him. Yes, really. Then she left.
So close. We came SOOOOOO close to having a segment without dumb magical crap.

MVP TRIES TO BREAK NEW DAY UP- MVP was good, but we all know New Day isn’t going to break up.

JAXSON RYKER PROMO- fine

JAXSON RYKER vs. “THE DRIFTER” ELIAS SAMPSON- no rating, bad segment
They did stuff until Elias got counted out on purpose for the second week in a row.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Adam Pearce came out and booked these two in a rematch for the PPV and warned Elias that on Sunday he wouldn’t be able to run away from Ryker because their match would take place inside Hell in a Cell!



JUST KIDDING! But you probably figured that out already because that’s a logical direction for this story to go in, and that sort of thing doesn’t happen on Raw.

DREW MCINTYRE vs. AJ STYLES (w/Omos)- 7.25/10
Lashley, MVP, and their female friends watched from the stage on couches. Stuff happened and it was good. Drew was ready for a Claymore but Omos pulled AJ out of the ring. Also at this point, MVP and Lashley came down to ringside. All of this caused the Viking Raiders to come out. Naturally, this all happened right before a commercial break.
The match continued, but it REALLY hard to care about what was happening because it was pretty clear that this was going to by DQ and wind up in a six-man tag, just based on the time left in the show. Of course, being WWE, they had the match go a while and get really good, and then took it away from us with a stupid DQ. Why piss people off by doing a DQ in a match that you’ve advertised and that you know people want to see when you could have just booked this six-man tag from the beginning? If you had just announced Drew & the Viking Raiders vs. Bobby Lashley, AJ Styles, & Omos, I guarantee you no one would have been thinking “meh. I’d rather see AJ vs. Drew in a singles match.” People would have said “wow! That sounds great!”

DREW MCINTYRE & THE WAR RAIDERS vs. AJ STYLES, OMOS, & BOBBY LASHLEY (w/MVP)- 7/10
So yeah, after the DQ there was a schmoz, and when we got back from a commercial this match had started… but apparently it was so f*cking important to start this match right away that they had to start it while Lashley was backstage changing into his gear. They couldn’t wait for him.
This, too, was a great match, but with an annoying finish. Said finish saw AJ tag Lashley in, and Lashley didn’t like it for some reason, so he looked down at AJ, and thus distracted himself, allowing Drew to hit him with a Claymore. If you didn’t want to pin any of these six men decisively, just stick two others guys in there. Why did Jeff Hardy have to wrestle twice instead of just sticking him and Cedric in this match? Not only would that mean you don’t have to do the asinine out of nowhere retirement stip, but it would also not make Cedric look like such a geek to lose in three minutes against a guy who just wrestled and lost!


This was a better episode of Raw than when I stopped watching. There is still dumb stuff, but there is just less of it. The wrestling was much better, and it felt like a show that could have been made great with just a few changes. It feels like the product is fixable, as opposed to the hopeless mess it had been before.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/14/2021 Raw

Post by cero2k » Jun 16th, '21, 11:20

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 16th, '21, 01:32 This was a better episode of Raw than when I stopped watching. There is still dumb stuff, but there is just less of it. The wrestling was much better, and it felt like a show that could have been made great with just a few changes. It feels like the product is fixable, as opposed to the hopeless mess it had been before.
I have no reason to expect better from the fed, but from hearing reviews of this episode, it seems that now that they're going back to fans, they're realizing that there is a lot of crap that they were doing because they had control of editing and audience reactions, and now they're starting to pull back, knowing that they can't keep doing that stuff
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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/14/2021 Raw

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 16th, '21, 12:08

cero2k wrote: Jun 16th, '21, 11:20
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 16th, '21, 01:32 This was a better episode of Raw than when I stopped watching. There is still dumb stuff, but there is just less of it. The wrestling was much better, and it felt like a show that could have been made great with just a few changes. It feels like the product is fixable, as opposed to the hopeless mess it had been before.
I have no reason to expect better from the fed, but from hearing reviews of this episode, it seems that now that they're going back to fans, they're realizing that there is a lot of crap that they were doing because they had control of editing and audience reactions, and now they're starting to pull back, knowing that they can't keep doing that stuff
The only time I got the sense that that was the reason for the change was the Bliss thing. The rest of the stuff just felt like WWE either being better or (especially in the case of the Raw Women's Title), the wrestling making a feud between unlikable personalities watchable (at least for this one show).
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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