THE VIP LOUNGE WITH SPECIAL GUESTS ALEISTER BLACK, APOLLO CREWS, & REY MYSTERIO JR.-
I thought that MVP saying that Aleister didn’t “look like the type of person so who spends a lot of time in VIP lounges” and then nervously asking to him to “please don’t break anything” was pretty funny. I also thought that MVP did a tremendous job of being a dick, but not in the usual, overly antagonistic way we normally see in these types of segments where the heel either feels like a total cartoon character or like he or she is just making trouble because the script requires that to happen to provoke a confrontation. What MVP did was pose a question to them, then pull the mic away from Rey, saying that he knew Rey so well that he could answer for him, and the proceeded to answer for the other two as well. This is something that I can believe that MVP thinks is him being a good host rather than being a dick, because he’s the host so he gets to monologue.
This was quickly interrupted by Zelina Vega and her crew. At this point they need a name. I badly want to call them Zelina’s Angels, but one of them is actually named Angel so I can’t use that for the sake of avoiding confusion. If anyone has any good ideas, post them in this thread.
Zelina said that her guys were the future of Monday Night Raw, unlike the other three who were all deemed Raw’s future at one point but failed (I’m pretty sure that Rey in particular was never deemed Raw’s future because he was well into his thirties by the time he first became a member of the Raw roster but whatever). She said that if they represented Raw, then someone from SD would win Money in the Bank, and that they should do what was best for Raw and give her guys their spots. I’m not sure why any of these guys would care about the MITB winner being from Raw if they’re not the winner, but Zelina is a heel, so let’s just try she’s trying to use dumb WWE buzzwords to trick them.
Fortunately, our babyfaces are too smart for this. Rey snatched the mic away from MVP (some nice little revenge there for him) declined the offer, and said the heels looked like they wanted a fight. Everyone charged and started punching, and the babyfaces won a quick brawl. We went to a commercial, and predictably returned to see…
ALEISTER BLACK, APOLLO CREWS, & REY MYSTERIO JR. vs. ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS, AUSTIN THEORY, & ANGEL GARZA (w/Zelina Vega)- 7.25/10
The babyfaces won. I’m not going to lie… this was disappointing for these six guys in a tag match that went over twenty-five minutes. Crews pins Andrade, continuing the story of him being on “the biggest roll of his career” (or whatever they said).
Tonight we
CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS ZELINA VEGA & ANDRADE- decent
Or maybe I don’t need a name for Zelina’s stable, as both Zelina and Andrade blamed the other two for his loss. Andrade insisted that Crews could never beat him one on one for a title. They left, but Crews came up to Charly Caruso and said he overheard what Andrade said and he thinks he can beat Andrade in a title match because he just proved he can beat him tonight. Crews was very hyper here and came off as kind of annoying. Andrade came back and they exchanged words. Andrade shoved Crews so Crews slapped Andrade, which outraged Zelina (even though her guy got physical first, which is why she’s such a great heel). She told Crews that they would give him a title shot tonight.
ASUKA PROMO- bad
The announcer all tell me that this match is very personal for Asuka because Nia beat her best friend Kairi Sane last week… and then Asuka comes out here all smiles and acting cartoonish.
ASUKA vs. SHAYNA BASZLER vs. NIA JAX- no rating, bad segment
Asuka finishes her promo and the other two come out and Baszler pullers Asuka out of the ring and they start fighting. They immediately start to hit each other with the ladders so that they announcers can tells us that this is just a taste of what we’ll see in the ladder match at the PPV (“but just a taste, because we’ve never had a ladder match like this before! It will be the most unique ladder match in WWE history!”). The announcers reminded us of one of my least favorite rules, which is that there are no DQs in a three-way match. Nia eventually had the advantage with the other two down on the outside and Nia in the ring and she lifted a ladder up high over her head and I was expecting her to throw it at the other two, but instead she threw it behind her and her music randomly started to play. Then, when we came back from the commercial, we were looking at Lashley and some woman backstage.
Did I miss a finish? I rewound it and didn’t see one, so I rewound it all the way to beginning before I figured out what actually happened: The match never officially got started… BECAUSE THERE WAS NEVER A REFEREE. How the hell do you not have a referee? The announcers were acting like this was the scheduled time for this match, and the referee always comes out before the wrestlers, so why the hell wasn’t there a referee in the ring this time?
If I had to guess, the reason that this went down the way it did was because they wanted to have the women hit each other with ladders to build up the ladder match, but didn’t want to actually beat anyone, so they just the pretext of a match to explain why they were all in a place with a bunch of ladders at the same time, and then they could have a brawl without a finish. This bothers me for two reasons:
1. If you don’t want to beat any of the wrestlers, don’t book the match in the first place.
2. What kind of diseased mind cares enough about logic to say “we have to come up with a reason for all three of them to be in the same place at the same time with a bunch of ladders,” but then answers the question of “how can we get out of doing a finish in a match with no count-outs or DQs?” by saying “Eureka! We’ll just have the referee never show up!”
LASHLEY & SOME WOMAN BACKSTAGE- wait… is that a brunette Lana?
Lashley says that he doesn’t want Lana to be at ringside for his match because Lana is too distracting. Lana didn’t understand what she was doing to distract Lashley, so Lashley thought fast and told her she was so beautiful that she was distracting him.
BOBBY LASHLEY vs. DENZEL DEJOURNETTE- no rating, good segment
Shockingly, it was heel announcer Samoa Joe who pointed out that Lashley has never been distracted by Lana before so he must not be telling the truth when he says that he is distracted by Lana’s beauty.
Without Lana at ringside, Lashley squashed young Mr. Dejournette with ease.
RUBY RIOTT vs. LIV MORGAN- 4/10
Liv beat Ruby cleanly last week. They even made a point of showing us a video package of that match before the commercial break that proceeded this one. So why the hell are they wrestling again? At least have Ruby cut a promo demanding a rematch first or something.
Liv won clean for the second week in a row. Now that the match is over, I’m pretty sure the only reason they did this match again was because they came up with a new name for her finisher at some point in the past six days and they wanted Tom Phillips to be able to tell us that “She calls this ‘Oblivion!’”
BYRON SAXTON INTERVIEWS LIV MORGAN- decent
Byron asked her if this was a “new chapter” for her. She talked about how “like a lot of people my age, I’m still trying to figure out who I am.” This came off a lot better than you would expect something like this to from WWE.
CHARLY CARUSO INTERVIEWS NIA JAX- good heel stuff from Nia
VIKING RAIDERS PROMO- AWESOME!
The key point here was that every time the Street Profits have been tag champions, the Viking Raiders haven’t been around. Then, for extra heat, they stole the Street Profits catchphrase. Hopefully this means WWE has realized that last week’s car ride bullsh*t was a colossal mistake.
AKIRA TOZAWA vs. JINDER MAHAL- squash
Just in case you weren’t sure if the guy they advertised as “returning, next!” was going to beat the guy who had to make his entrance during a commercial, they made sure to introduce Jinder as “former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal.”
1. We don’t need the ring announcer to tell us that Jinder is a former WWE Champion because even if you had forgotten Jinder’s title run (and I don’t blame you for trying), Tom Phillips hyped him up as a “former WWE Champion” before the break.
2. They don’t announce anyone else as “former WWE Champion *INSERT NAME HERE*,” so doing it for Jinder just makes the show feel even more scripted and contrived. Why not have Jinder go over to the ring announcer and insist on being introduced as “former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal.” It would give Jinder something heelish to do before the match so any new fans will know they’re not supposed to like him, and you don’t have to make the show feel more contrived by giving him this special accolade in his introduction that no one has gotten despite the many people in the company who fit the bill.
Jinder squashed Tozawa like a bug. I don’t think Tozawa got more than two moves in. They have all of these NXT guys running around backstage that Jinder could have squashed, so why the hell are you using Tozawa as a jobber. Is anyone else on the main roster being treated this way? And it’s even worse because Tozawa is in the Interim Cruiserweight Title tournament, so burning him like this hurts the entire division.
CHARLY CARUSO TRIES TO INTERVIEW ANDRADE- great
Charly tries to get another interview with Andrade but is scolded by Vega. Vega’s promos are always great, but my favorite ones are the ones where her Brooklyn accent pokes out, and it was on full display here.
After Andrade and Zelina left, Angel Garza came up to Charly and complemented her on her professionalism, then asked her if they could find a time to get better acquainted. Then he gave her a rose. Charly said yes. I have no idea where this story could possibly be going, but I know I’m going to love it.
WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Andrade “Cien” Almas(c) (w/Zelina Vega) vs. Apollo Crews- 7.5/10
The story of the match was that Crews was on a roll until he tweaked his knee. Andrade worked the knee over and Crews tried valiantly to fight through the pain but eventually the referee stopped the match. Hopefully this actually goes somewhere for Crews rather than this match just being a thing they did to fill time and the finish being done just so a babyface doesn’t have to get beaten by the heel. If that’s all this was then they would have been better off giving Andrade a clean win.
STREET PROFITS PROMO- great!
This is how you have the Street Profits be serious while still being themselves.
EVER-RISE vs. CEDRIC ALEXANDER & RICOCHET- 3/10
Short, but not a squash
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
MVP appeared on the TitanTron. He is now going to be managing Shane Thorne & Brendan Vink. They want a rematch against Cedric Alexander & Ricochet next week to prove their Cedric Alexander & Ricochet beating them last week was a fluke.
CHARLY CARUSO ATTEMPTS TO INTERVIEW APOLLO CREWS- GREAT!
Crews was on crutches and on the verge of tears. He said nothing. The announcers teased that he would likely miss MITB. Yeah… they’re definitely going somewhere with this.
WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH CONTRACT SIGNING- decent
Jerry Lawler is officiating. Silly me for thinking they’d told the old man who has been dead once before to stay at home in the middle of a pandemic. In a WWE thing that is bad on a completely different axis, despite the fact that he is officiating a contract signing for the Rollins vs. McIntyre WWE World Heavyweight Title, they decided that Lawler should first plug the MITB matches, giving us the entire “climb the corporate ladder, start on the ground level of headquarters and fight all the way to the roof” spiel. Lawler teased they “might even fight in Mr. McMahon’s office,” as if this was something they thought fans at home would be extremely excited by the prospect of.
They both cut very good promos. I wasn’t very fond of Drew starting the fight. Murphy eventually ran out to help Seth but got taken out with a Claymore. Rollins was able to escape, but it’s yet another instance of Drew always coming out on top. Part of me wants to stop being so critical of that because he’s Drew McIntyre and he’s a badass and I want the champion to be a badass whose enemies rarely get the best of him, but with this company’s track record with Cena and Roman, I do see this as a cause for concern.
This was a decent episode of Raw. There were some great promos and two matches that were worth the time I spent watching them, but there was a lot of other stuff that felt like filler (and that’s not even counting the actual filler like the Hunter countdown or large chunk of the Becky Lynch documentary).
