BRM Reviews the 6/24/2019 Raw (TERRIBLE)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 6/24/2019 Raw (TERRIBLE)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 25th, '19, 21:34

OPENING SEGMENT- didn’t like it one bit

First Rollins and Becky coming out here to start off was by far the wrong way to get to this spot. This segment should have opened with the heels complaining and the babyfaces coming out to answer their challenge. Having the babyfaces come out here to start the show made them feel like douchebags taking a totally unnecessary victory lap. But it had to happen this way in order to facilitate Lacey and Corbin not being in the same place so that Corbin wouldn’t try to fight Seth... except that the answer should have been to find another way to do the segment rather than doing it in such a way that you start off with the babyfaces being douchy. Or- even better- DON’T DO THIS SEGMENT AT ALL!
Corbin and Lacey have each lost cleanly twice. They shouldn’t need a f*cking “no more rematches” stipulation. I am sick and tired of these feuds going on and on and on. Shane vs. Roman has been going on since the Superstar Shake-up, Becky vs. Lacey since before that, Drew vs. Roman since before Mania, and that’s not even going into other feuds that feel like they have been going on for months like Ziggler vs. Kofi, Owens vs. New Day, Lars vs. Lucha House Party, etc. A story continuing for a while is fine so long as it moves forward. WWE’s stories rarely feel like they do so.
I also hated the spot where Seth pulled Becky off of Lacey, then let her go beat Lacey up again when Becky got annoyed. If you’re pulling her off it should be because the opponent is more than beaten and the beating Becky is giving is becoming excessive and stepping in is a moral obligation, at which point you don’t let her go just because she shoves you. If the fight isn’t over and thus the beating isn’t excessive, don’t get in your girlfriend’s way! And if it is, don’t let her go just because she shoves you! A hero is not someone who sacrifices morality to facilitate his/her own getting laid!

Oh. And Cole called Seth and Becky a "real-life couple." You know... because everything else on the show is fake and thus you shouldn't care about it.

That crap out of the way, the rest of tonight’s announced card looks pretty great: AJ Styles vs. Ricochet, Sami Zayn vs. Kofi Kingston, and an elimination tag pitting the Usos, Xavier Woods & Big E. against The Revival, Erick Rowan, & Bryan Danielson? Sign me up! (Yeah, I know there is the Roman vs. Shane & Drew match, but I can sit through that to get to the other stuff).

EIGHT-MAN ELIMINATION TAG TEAM MATCH: The New Day (Xavier Woods & Big E.) & the Usos vs. The Revival, Daniel Bryan & Erick Rowan- 4.5/10
So Bryan & Rowan count as one wildcard because they’re a team. Do all three members of New Day count as just one because they’re a stable, or does it matter how they’re booked? There really is no excuse for them not having explained this by now.
Cole explains to us that “this match is historic because never before have the Raw and Smackdown tag team champions teamed up together against their top challengers.
1. The match that you are telling me that this should be a historic occasion but it doesn’t feel at all important betrays how terrible the booking of this division has been.
2. How the hell are New Day the “top challengers” on SD if they just lost to Owens & Zayn cleanly last night?
Oh. And apparently this isn’t a real elimination match, but rather one where elimination one member of a tag team eliminates the whole team. F*ck that sh*t. Either give me a real elimination match or don’t book the stip at all. It’s not like there has been any storyline here to necessitate it.
We start off with the heels not getting along, seemingly in order to give away how WWE will try to “protect” their champions when they inevitably lose this match. The commentary then made a big deal about how “Washington State” is Bryan’s home market... so of course he got pinned less than three minutes later. This pin was set up by some wacky situation where I guess I’m supposed to think that Wilder randomly jumped up on the outside with an uppercut at just the right moment to “inadvertently” (according to Cole) take Bryan out. Cole soon changed his story, but either way, the match this makes me want to see is Revival vs. Bryan & Rowan, not Revival vs. Usos or New Day vs. Bryan & Rowan.
About thirty seconds after that, Revival took Woods out with a Shatter Machine, so the guys who are supposed to be top contenders to the SD tag titles have now been pinned cleanly two nights in a row, and three minutes and twenty seconds after the first lock-up in our elimination match, it’s now down to a regular tag team match.
My best guess is that this happened this way due to Vince’s new “no wrestling during commercials” dictate, which is a perfect example of how such a rule will make the show worse. Real sports don’t action during commercials, yes, but most real sports have time-outs built into them. Sports that don’t (soccer being the preeminent example) get around the “no action during commercials” rule by NOT HAVING COMMERCIALS. If you want to have no wrestling during the commercials while still letting your good workers have quality matches then you need to change around when you do your commercials!
And was this even something anyone was complaining about? I think all fans have pretty much accepted that there will be wrestling during commercials. And of all of the things to take from real sports, Vince chooses “no action during commercials?” DUDE! How about concepts of structure and logic!
Of course, the “no wrestling during commercials” directive was not something that was ever said to the audience, which I’m sure resulted in a lot of people being confused when we came back from commercial and the bell rang to start off a match that had already been going on for several minutes. Cole told us that the match-up had been “officially restarted” but never explained why a restart was necessary.
The Usos and The Revival had a good little match here, but it, too, too was frustratingly short. The finish was very cool, but on the whole this feels like it was a terrible idea. Even without the “no wrestling during commercials” rule this booking would have been dumb for the reasons I described above, but the time constraints now placed on this match by that rule turned what should have been a great match into two disappointing mini-matches.

Cole tells me that tonight we will see a tug of war between Lashley and Strowman, as “Strowman looks for revenge for what Lashely did to him three weeks ago” when Lashley threw the chalk in his face and attacked him after their arm wrestling match. Um... didn’t I already see Braun get revenge on Lashley for that when he beat him at Super Showdown?
MIZ WALKS DOWN THE HALLWAY BECAUSE MIZTV IS UP NEXT... and the Abby the Witch puppet sticks her head out from behind a wall.

BRAUN STROWMAN PRACTICES FOR HIS TUG OF WAR EARLIER TODAY BY PULLING A TRACTOR-TRAILER- is it impressive? Yes. But I’ve seen Braun do this stuff before.

MIZTV WITH SPECIAL GUESTS R-TRUTH & CARMELLA- very bad
Carmella is wildcard wrestler number three tonight (and that’s being generous by assuming that all three New Day members count as one, and that being 24/7 Champion allows Truth to show up on Raw). Truth tells us about wrestlers coming to his house dressed as the police and trying to trick him into letting them in. This is stuff that seems like it could have been a funny segment or two, but we don’t get to see any of it. Instead, Drake Maverick comes out and is a goof who cares more about this comedy title than his marriage. Also, we get the same joke we’ve seen several times already over the past few weeks where Truth thinks Drake Maverick is Hornswoggle. Also the 24/7 Rule has been suspended because apparently this interview with Truth is so important that it warrants ignoring the gimmick of the only reason Truth is being given an interview in the first place. Eventually we got a...

WWE 24/7 TITLE MATCH: R-Truth(c) (w/Carmella) vs. Drake Maverick- DUD!
The 24/7 Rule was suspended for this match, too. The match went thirteen seconds, with Maverick getting some shots in, then Truth hitting a weak-looking STO (which isn’t even his finisher) to pin Maverick, making him look like even more of a loser than before. Then the usual parade of dorks came out and Truth ran away. Charly Caruso tried to interview Drake Maverick but he ignore dher and sulked off.

LACEY EVANS & BARON CORBIN BACKSTAGE- Their evil plan is to take out Becky Lynch and thus make Rollins weak and vulnerable. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe for one second that Lacey Evans wouldn’t consider Baron Corbin a “nasty” and not only put her hand on his shoulder, but also not react to his suggestion that the two of them could become a “power couple” by puking.

HANDICAP MATCH: Shane McMahon & Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns- 0.5/10
Usually in WWE over the past few years, when someone throws a punch before the bell, the referee tries to separate the wrestlers. This time, when Roman threw one to Shane, the referee just called for the bell. This sort of change in behavior needs to be explained.
Brawling happened and Roman got beaten up. Drew hit him with the steps right in front of the referee but the referee didn’t call for a DQ. Shane hit Roman with his own spear and Drew hit some Claymore Kicks. Shane went up for a Coast to Coast... but then The Undertaker appeared and beat up the heels. So I guess now we know what their next scheme to get people to cheer Roman is: Team him up with The Undertaker. This was yet another extremely short match. Also, Roman Reigns now puts us at our wildcard rule limit.

BOBBY LASHLEY PRACTICES FOR HIS TUG OF WAR EARLIER TODAY BY TRYING TO PULL DOWN A TELEPHONE POLL- He fails, making him look like an idiot for no reason.

TUG OF WAR: Braun Strowman vs. Bobby Lashley- no rating, bad segment
Braun wins a test of strength, then Lashley beats him up afterwards, using the paraphernalia from the test of strength. If that sounds familiar, it’s because this is the exact same thing they did to build up the PPV match these two had earlier this month.

CHARLY CARSUO INTERVIEWS AJ STYLES- bad
Charly notes that this is AJ’s first match back since his injury so he asks him how he is feeling... and then she interrupts him when he starts to answer her question, saying he should save that for later because now she wants to know why he challenged Ricochet. Well then why didn’t you ask the Ricochet question first? Charly was such a jerk in this segment.
AJ’s next attempt to talk got interrupted by No Way Jose’s conga line passing by... and Gallows & Anderson were part of it. They insist that they’re at the top of their game but AJ asks “what happened to the Anderson & Gallows I met in Japan?!” They vow to prove to AJ that they still are those guys.

THE VIKING RAIDERS vs. LUKE GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON- 3/10
These guys had an excellent match for the time they got... which wasn’t even three and a half minutes. Gallows & Anderson dominated most of it, then lost cleanly.

ALEXA BLISS! & NIKKI CROSS BACKSTAGE- fine
They determine that they need to come up with a plan to get Alexa a rematch.

NIKKI CROSS, NATTIE NEIDHART, & NAOMI BACKSTAGE- terrible
Nattie and Naomi have come up to Nikki and are trying to warn her away from Alexa. This would be a lot more effective if either of these two had done anything to befriend Nikki during her first SIX MONTHS ON THE MAIN ROSTER. Because that is the gimmick, right? That Nikki is “seeing the good in” Alexa because Alexa has been nothing but kind to her and has been her only friend?
Nikki refuses to believe them. Alexa shows up and gets annoyed at Nikki for having this conversation. A forced confrontation occurs, resulting in Naomi telling Alexa “you deserve all this glow, and I’m going to give it to you.”
Whoever wrote this segment should have been flogged, then forced to eat the paper he/she wrote it on. And if he/she actually wrote it on a laptop instead of paper then he/she should have been forced to eat that. (Yes, a BRM-run Creative team would run into some Eighth Amendment issues).

HEATH SLATER vs. MOJO RAWLEY- no rating, jump segment
Truth shows up and hops over the barricade. Then he jogs around ringside in a circle until the gaggle shows up. Stuff happened. Slater won the belt for thirty seconds or so, then got hit with an STO and won it back. Then Cedric Alexa showed up and won the belt from Truth. Then EC III won the title from Cedric. Then Carmella grabbed the belt, which distracted ECIII, allowing Truth to win the belt back. Truth and Carmella ran away, and were chased by the gaggle. So basically there were zero changes to the status quo. It’s actually pretty crazy how much this title is a microcosm for WWE’s booking problems as a whole.

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS RICOCHET- GREAT!
This promo has been the only thing on the show worth watching so far, and we’re over half-way in.

KOFI KINGSTON PREPARES FOR HIS MATCH BACKSTAGE- the internet tells me that Mercy the Buzzard was visible near Kofi’s shoulder, but I didn’t notice him

CHARLY CARSUO TRIES TO INTERVIEW KOFI KINGSTON IN THE RING BUT IS SHOOED OFF BY OWENS & ZAYN- boring
Even worse than being boring, in hindsight it’s pretty clear that the only reason this happened was to stall out an entire segment so that the already scheduled Kofi vs. Sami match could have the top of the hour crossover spot without having to go through a commercial break. In other words, Vince’s new rule means that instead of a long wrestling match between two top talents, we get a pointless talking segment and then a match between top talent that is only half as long as it otherwise would have been.

KOFI KINGSTON vs. SAMI ZAYN (w/Kevin Owens)- 6.75/10
They had a great match for the time they got. Unfortunately, that time was just 8:15. Kofi won clean.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Owens got mad and then challenged Kofi to a match. Kofi accepted, so after a commercial break we got...

KOFI KINGSTON vs. KEVIN OWENS (w/Sami Zayn)- 1.25/10
Kofi gets cut off right away due to a distraction by Zayn. They had an excellent match for the ONE MINUTE AND FORTY SECONDS they got. Kofi won by count-out after an SOS on the ramp. Then, just for good measure, Zayn tried to attack Kofi from behind but got foiled and Kofi dove onto the heels.

Yes, I could have given WWE credit Owens and Zayn being hypocrites by accusing Kofi of not winning by himself then relying on interference or distractions form the other to get the advantage eon Kofk, but I’m not feeling very generous right now.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- decent
Joe attacks Kofi from behind and beats him up. He goes away... but then comes back to do more damage because this is WWE so that pretty much always happens. I’d say this was good if I were in a better mood and if it wasn’t yet another case of a Raw wrestler going for an SD title.

NAOMI vs. ALEXA BLISS! (w/Nikki Cross)- 0.75/10
This went a mere minute and fifteen seconds, but in that time they managed to create a match that actually felt like it built rather than being a sprint of spots. The finish saw Nikki get nailed with a baseball slide meant for Alexa, then Alexa hit Naomi with a DDT for the win.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Alexa attacked Naomi afterwards and held her up for Nikki to do so as well. Nikki seemed reluctant before finally giving Naomi a shove. Nattie’s music hit and she came out to make the save. We went to a commercial, and when we came back we started...

ALEXA BLISS! & NIKKI CROSS vs. NATALYA & NAOMI- 2.5/10
So instead of one longer match we are now getting two shorter ones, and they blew through two shows’ worth of angles in one show because of it. The heels won cleanly. Cole tried to push the idea that Alexa had Nikki do all of the work, but it’s not like Alexa stole a pin or anything. Alexa was already the legal competitor when Nikki hit Nattie with her finisher. This didn’t even make it to the five minute mark.

AJ STYLES vs. RICOCHET- 7/10
The story of this match was the athletic abilities of both men. That and their ability to defy Vince’s efforts to kill this match by not giving it main event time.
New champion Ricochet does a clean job twenty-four hours after winning the title. This was the longest match of the night at ten and a half minutes... which is pretty much a waste for something that could have main evented a f*cking a PPV.
Actually the match was shorter than that because of a spot where Gallows & Anderson came out and tried to interfere but AJ ordered them to go to the back, saying that he wouldn’t continue the match until they left. This led us into our commercial break. I still don’t like the lack of wrestling during commercials, but I can at least acknowledge that this was a more useful and artful way of getting there than we have seen throughout the night. Or at least that’s what I would have said if the first thing was saw when we came back from the commercial was Gallows & Anderson finally heading up the ramp. Instead we just saw AJ and Ricochet pacing, like they were waiting for a cue that we were now back from commercial.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- AJ shows Ricochet respect after the match


This was an absolutely terrible episode of Raw. Most of the time the only thing that keeps Raw watchable is the fact that the length of the show will often result in great workers getting a lot of time to have their matches. Now Vince’s latest whim has even taken that away from us.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:

1. Michael Cole tried to tell us that their idiotic take on elimination rules could result in some “unique situations here.”
Unique how? It can only be four on four, four on two, or two on two, and none of those are “unique!”

2. Corey Graves claims that the Viking Raiders “made a name for themselves in Japan,” which is laughably false. They made their name in ROH. Were they even in New Japan for six months? 
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/24/2019 Raw (TERRIBLE)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 25th, '19, 22:02

Oh. Also, they announced Shane & Drew vs. Roman & Taker for the PPV. In my defense, they announced it during a recap package so I wasn't paying attention.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/24/2019 Raw (TERRIBLE)

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 25th, '19, 23:03

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 25th, '19, 22:02 Oh. Also, they announced Shane & Drew vs. Roman & Taker for the PPV. In my defense, they announced it during a recap package so I wasn't paying attention.
Fuck that shit. Get him out of here or only as a manager. *Keep Undertaker out of the ring*.

I'm sorry but it's just beyond ridiculous at this point.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/24/2019 Raw (TERRIBLE)

Post by Bob-O » Jun 26th, '19, 10:17

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 25th, '19, 21:34 AJ STYLES vs. RICOCHET- 7/10
The story of this match was the athletic abilities of both men. That and their ability to defy Vince’s efforts to kill this match by not giving it main event time.
New champion Ricochet does a clean job twenty-four hours after winning the title. This was the longest match of the night at ten and a half minutes... which is pretty much a waste for something that could have main evented a f*cking a PPV.
Actually the match was shorter than that because of a spot where Gallows & Anderson came out and tried to interfere but AJ ordered them to go to the back, saying that he wouldn’t continue the match until they left. This led us into our commercial break. I still don’t like the lack of wrestling during commercials, but I can at least acknowledge that this was a more useful and artful way of getting there than we have seen throughout the night. Or at least that’s what I would have said if the first thing was saw when we came back from the commercial was Gallows & Anderson finally heading up the ramp. Instead we just saw AJ and Ricochet pacing, like they were waiting for a cue that we were now back from commercial.
Colt Cabana foreshadowed this commercial thing y'all...


I haven't seen this show yet (and most likely won't) but help me out with the AJ/Good Brother's thing... this sounds EXACTLY like how they brought Gallows and Anderson in with the "will he/won't he" with AJ except the Good Bro's won matches back then. Where's Balor at? Is there a chance they finally get it right with these four!?
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/24/2019 Raw (TERRIBLE)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 26th, '19, 10:27

Bob-O wrote: Jun 26th, '19, 10:17
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 25th, '19, 21:34 AJ STYLES vs. RICOCHET- 7/10
The story of this match was the athletic abilities of both men. That and their ability to defy Vince’s efforts to kill this match by not giving it main event time.
New champion Ricochet does a clean job twenty-four hours after winning the title. This was the longest match of the night at ten and a half minutes... which is pretty much a waste for something that could have main evented a f*cking a PPV.
Actually the match was shorter than that because of a spot where Gallows & Anderson came out and tried to interfere but AJ ordered them to go to the back, saying that he wouldn’t continue the match until they left. This led us into our commercial break. I still don’t like the lack of wrestling during commercials, but I can at least acknowledge that this was a more useful and artful way of getting there than we have seen throughout the night. Or at least that’s what I would have said if the first thing was saw when we came back from the commercial was Gallows & Anderson finally heading up the ramp. Instead we just saw AJ and Ricochet pacing, like they were waiting for a cue that we were now back from commercial.
Colt Cabana foreshadowed this commercial thing y'all...


I haven't seen this show yet (and most likely won't) but help me out with the AJ/Good Brother's thing... this sounds EXACTLY like how they brought Gallows and Anderson in with the "will he/won't he" with AJ except the Good Bro's won matches back then. Where's Balor at? Is there a chance they finally get it right with these four!?
Balor is on SD.
It's kind is an inverse of the way they brought him in, with the idea now being "will Gallow & Anderson go with AJ or turn on him?" rather than "will AJ turn fully heel by joining Gallows & Anderson?"
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/24/2019 Raw (TERRIBLE)

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 26th, '19, 10:45

He's not in any top title picture...I kind of thought we had cooled on the whole "ROMAN REIGNS OVER EVERYBODY NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES HAHAHAHA!" thing by now. Then they bring in Hulk Hogan-oh, The Undertaker...lmao it's just becoming similar to that situation now where he just WILL NOT get out of the ring Abe each one is worse than the last.

I could be wrong, the last one I saw was Super Showdown against DX...but I'm not hearing good things at all...at this point I'm literally blown away every time he hear he's going again.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/24/2019 Raw (TERRIBLE)

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 26th, '19, 10:46

Oh btw, I meant to say: I'm pretty sure they never even mentioned the wild card thing actually once at all...
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Re: BRM Reviews the 6/24/2019 Raw (TERRIBLE)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 26th, '19, 17:20

KILLdozer wrote: Jun 26th, '19, 10:46 Oh btw, I meant to say: I'm pretty sure they never even mentioned the wild card thing actually once at all...
This is correct.
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