BRM Reviews the 6/16/2014

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- they stick the whole roster on the stage so Hunter and Steph can get heat by saying that Dragon isn't good enough. Then they book some matches for MITB spots, including a battle royale, but they specify that Reigns and Ambrose won't be getting the chance to earn MITB spots. They are angry at Cena, too, but decide to give him a chance to earn an MITB spot if he beats Kane in a Stretcher Match tonight. So Cena's punishment for standing up the Authority is that he gets a 1-on-1 qualifier instead of a chaotic, perilous, 20 man battle royale? That doesn't seem like much of a punishment. I know he is facing Kane, but he is also John Cena, who always overcomes challenges like this. It seems to me like the battle royale would have been a better way to try t ensure that he doesn't get into the match (I'm assuming that they think that not giving him a shot at all would expose their heelishness and thus not be best for business).

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. SETH ROLLINS- 7.25/10
Match was great. Rollins was about to pin Dolph when Ambrose attacked, causing a DQ. Rollins went scampering, so Ambrose cut a good promo challenging Seth to fight him like a man. Hunter showed up on the Tron and booked...

DEAN AMBROSE vs. BAD NEWS BARRETT- 6.5/10
The match was going great, with Barrett working on Ambrose's shoulder, which was apparently injured already from his match with Bray on Smackdown. Then the finish came and ruined things. I think it was a good finish in theory, but I didn't like doing the count-out right after the DQ (more on this in a second), but more importantly, I didn't like the execution on Ambrose's' part or the booking of the stuff immediately after the match. Rollins wound up coming out to ringside to distract Dean. Dean punched him in the face, then dove onto both Barrett and Rollins (injured shoulder and all, which he definitely could have sold better after this spot). Seth tried to run away through the crowd, but Dean chased after him and started punching him. Meanwhile, Barrett got back in the ring and picked up the count-out victory. That was all good. What wasn't good was the fact that once the bell rung, Dean stopped punching his mortal enemy who stabbed him in the back a few weeks ago, in order to go back to the ring and jump Barrett, with whom he has no quarrel, from behind.

I think doing the count-out after the DQ was also a mistake. It definitely flowed well from the previous match, but doing two cheap finishes in a row to start off the show (especially when the matches in question were so good until the finish) is never a good idea. I get that they don't want Wade to lose. He is the IC Champion after all, so doing the cheap finish in that match makes sense: Wade gets a cheap win that he didn't deserve and Rollins gets heat for costing Dean the match while they also put over that this feud is so important to Dean that he will give up the chance to beat the IC Champion (and thus likely earn a title shot) in order to go after Seth. Having him then leave Seth to go beat Wade up both buries the Rollins-Ambrose feud and takes away Wade's heat (and also babyfaces shouldn't jump people from behind under most circumstances).
I also really don't get why they did the DQ finish in the first match. Does Dolph really need to be protected? If Ambrose hates Rollins so much, why did he wait so long before coming out and attacking him. The only reason that would remotely make babyface sense would be that he didn't want to interfere in a match... but that is exactly what happened! They should have either done the DQ very early on (then you can book Rollins and Dolph in a rematch in a cage, too), or let Rollins get the clean win over Ziggler and have Ambrose come after him once the match was over.

REIGNS & VICKIE BACKSTAGE- crap!
Reigns, a top babyface, was SUCKING UP TO A HEEL AUTHORITY FIGURE. WHAT THE F*CK?! He tries to plant the seeds in Vickie's mind that she should stand up to Hunter and Steph by saying "you're a Guerrero! You deserve better than that (getting Hunter & Steph's coffee)" and while it is true that Vickie is a Guerrero, she is a Guerrero the same way that Arnold Schwarzenegger was a Kennedy.
Then it got worse. Vickie forgot to get Hunter the sweetener for the Authority's coffee, so while she is off doing that, Roman Reigns puts something in their drinks... so the babyfaces are DRUGGING the heels. WHAT THE F*CK IS THIS SH*T?!
Vickie then sneezes on the coffee, because apparently her new gimmick is that she sneezes on drinks.

BRAY WYATT PROMO- good
He says he wants to win the WWE World Heavyweight Title so that he can have the power to change the world or whatever. It was much better than my recap makes it sound.
Sheamus then cut out and cut a short but sweet promo, so we got...

SHEAMUS vs. BRAY WYATT (w/the Wyatt Family)- 5.75/10
They brawled for a while until all three Wyatts cornered Sheamus on the outside, but the Usos came out to back Sheamus up. Then they brawled some more until Sheamus was about to go for the Brogue Kick, but Harper and Rowan attacked him, causing ANOTHER disqualification. This was the third match on this show, and all three have had cheap finishes. With this match in particular, I am reminded of a very important and basic concept in booking: If you don't want either guy to lose, then DON'T BOOK THE MATCH. And if for some reason, this particular match with this particular finish is crucial to your future plans, then don't do it on this show, where you have already had two cheap finishes.

POST-MATCH BRAWL- Harper and Roawn attack Sheamus, the Usos made the save, but the Wyatts got the advantage and went to use a ladder. The Usos superkicked it into them while Sheamus hit Bray with a Finlay Roll on the floor. Sheamus then used the ladder to knock Harper and Rowan to the floor. then held the ladder in place against the ropes like a ramp so the Usos could dive onto the heels at the same time. This sounds cool, but there really wasn't enough room for both of them on the ladder, so they had to slow down at the rop and it just looked a lot worse than it would have if they had just taken a running start and dove over the ropes .

Lawler told a story that happened over the weekend in "Metropolis, Illinois." THAT must be the "Metropolis" that Chris Hero is from. The point of Lawler's story was that he met a little four year old girl who said that her favorite wrestler is Bray Wyatt, and that is bad, but in telling this story, Lawler said that he had expected the little girl's favorite superstar to be "John Cena or Daniel Bryan." Big props to Lawler for putting Dragon right up there on that level with Cena, and for doing it so casually, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary for Dragon to be that popular. He didn't say that maybe she was part of the "Yes Movement" or anything else that made it sound like an angle.

Cole and Lawler try to argue that it is unfair that Randy just got handed a spot in MITB instead of earning one. JBL tries to defend this choice by saying that Orton was the first WWE World Heavyweight Champion, but never once does he bring up the best argument to support his point: Randy never got his championship rematch.

VICKIE GIVES HUNTER & STEPH THEIR COFFEE- they are dicks to her. Hunter accidentally spills his on her and yells at her. Where did this whole "let's be mean to Vickie" thing even come from? And why VICKIE GUERRERO of all people. She makes a great stooge but is a terrible babyface, and the people love to boo her.
Anyway the (likely) important bit of this is that Steph drank the coffee but Hunter didn't because his got spilled.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS STEPH- Whatever Reigns put in her drink is making her cry. Steph ran off and Paul Heyman stepped out of the background, saying "where there's chaos, there is opportunity." Heyman is awesome. He then cut a good promo saying that Cesaro would win the WWE World Heavyweight Title at Money in the Bank.

HEATH SLATER vs. RUSEV (w/Lana)- squash
Rusev actually spoke English here, so that's some progression of some sort. Slater is now a pro-American babyface. He got murderized.

JBL wonders if Putin watched the USA beat Ghana in the World Cup tonight. That's a silly question. Of course he didn't. He was too busy watching Raw to catch the end of the game.

DISGUSTING HUNTER, VICKIE, & STEPH SEGMENT- a painful reminder of why we all hated WWE for so long.
Steph is sick and puking in the bathroom. Hunter is standing outside the door. He yells at Vickie for making Steph sick. Vickie swears her innocence. Hunter orders Vickie to go check on Steph because he doesn't want to go in there. So this couple has been portrayed for five years now as loving husband and wife... but he wont go in the bathroom to check on her?
The "punchline" of this segment was Vickie getting a facefull not even close to realistic projectile vomit. So we have had heels being dicks to other heels for no reason, character assassination, and a babyface POISONING the heels... all to lead up to a some slapstick that is much, much, much more likely to make people puke than laugh. Who the hell thought this was a good idea?! (the answer, apparently, was Vince McMahon.
Dave Meltzer said it best on last night's Wrestling Observer Radio: "You see firsthand why WWE is where it is when it comes to things like ad rates and its reputation with the public."
Hunter takes Steph to the doctor, leaving Vickie in charge.

VICKIE & ROMAN REIGNS BACKSTAGE- Reigns convinces Vickie that she is about to be fired, but he asks her to do something good for the WWE Audience before she leaves, so he asks her to put him in the battle royale. All of this was annoying and stupid. And if Reigns is going to do this, why wouldn't he also try to get Ambrose in the battle royale?

THE EXOTIC EXPRESS INTERACTS WITH THE GUEST STAR- Rose is kind of a dick, but Kevin Hart makes fun of them so it's all good. Apparently Kevin hart will be on commentary right now.

SUMMER RAE PROMO FROM MAIN EVENT- she sounded like such a heel in this promo. Then she called Layla a "catty little catfish." Then Layla dumped her and dumped litterbox filler and milk on her. This was all terrible. Maybe it would have been okay if Summer hadn't come off like such a heel.

FANDANGO & LAYLA vs. ADAM ROSE & SUMMER RAE- DUD!
Kevin Hart was on commentary. He had absolutely no idea what was going on. WWE should really test these guys for knowledge of the product before giving them a live mic on commentary, or at least give them a briefing about stuff they will need to know for their segment, because this big movie star having no idea what was going on made the WWE look like marginal fifth-rate entertainment (he didn't even understand why Fandango was dancing).
Summer chased Layla to the back almost immediately after the match started. A few seconds later, Rose pinned Fandango. Kevin Hart then danced in the ring, and he and Rose did Rose's hand-surfing thing. This would be the same Kevin Hart who was talking about how weird the Rosebuds were just a few seconds ago and was creeped out by them backstage IN THE PREVIOUS SEGMENT.

BATTLE ROYALE IN WHICH THE WINNER GETS ENTERED INTO THE MITB MATCH- 7/10
Everyone gangs up to eliminate Sandow first because he is dressed like Lebron and this is Cleveland. Between this, the basketball thing Sandow did a few weeks ago, the PPV in Chicago where everyone dumped on the Blackhawks, and TNA Slammiversary where everyone got cheap heat by dissing the Cowboys, I'm just completely and totally sick of people getting cheap heat by dissing sports teams.

DUDE! How awesome was the Reigns vs. Rusev stuff?! GREAT battle royale with an awesome finish.

Props to Michael Cole for actually remembering that there is history between Bo and Barrett in Battle Royales.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS JOHN CENA- the crowd loved it. I didn't. It was the standard Cena comedy, which was disturbingly out of place in the build up to a Stretcher Match.

PAIGE vs. CAMERON (w/Naomi)- 3.5/10
This match apparently happened because of sounds like a pretty good angle they did on the app. So good, in fact, that it really should have been done on the show. If I find out that this angle got cut for the vomit segment or anything building it up, I will be extremely unhappy.
The match was short, but they did a very good job with the time they had. Cameron turned heel here by being disrespectful to Paige and then using a lot of heel tactics. Paige still got the win, and combined with the fact that Naomi seemed to disapprove of her partner's stuff means that we might actually get an undercard feud in the women's division.

BYRON SAXTON INTERVIEWS GOLDUST ABOUT HIS NEW TAG TEAM PARTNER- He says his new partner is "super-galactic." What was does that mean? Is he teaming with Max Moon or something?

CURTIS AXEL & RYBACK vs. GOLDUST & "STAR-DUST"- squash.
"Star-dust" is Cody Rhodes with Goldust-style face-paint shaped like a star. It also might be name of the substance that Cody smoked when had this idea. The fans booed it.
The babyaces jumped the heels from behind. That's always a good way to start a match. The match was a squash. Neither Goldust nor Ryback were ever legal, and Cody put Axel away very quickly with the Diamond Dust (all amongst loud chants of "LET'S GO AXEL!")

STRETCHER MATCH TO QUALIFYING FOR MITB: John Cena vs. Kane- 6.75/10
Cena was about to win, but Orton and Rollins attacked him. Ambrose came out to help him. Reigns did not, which seems very odd because that would have made things 3-on-3. Cena does the stair-throwing spot again. He finally put Kane away by giving him an AA... on a padded stretcher. The match was very good, but I hated that finish. You should also take my rating with a grain of salt because I really dislike stretcher matches.

A productive episode of Raw with some good wrestling, but there was a lot of frustrating stuff, too.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. After Bray did an (admittedly sloppy-looking) takedown, then mounted Sheamus and started to punch him, Michael Cole uttered the following phrase:
"The unorthodox style of Bray Wyatt, wrestling Sheamus to the ground, and now hammering away with the right hands."
A) the "wrestling [anyone] to the ground" should NEVER be described as "unorthodox." That's practically the definition of orthodoxy.
B) since when is a ground-and-pound unconventional in pro wrestling?

[cero2k]

but there was a lot of frustrating stuff, too.

most annoying being that out of nowhere and with no explanation whatsoever, now Reigns and Ambrose are no more either. Reigns seems to be pretty cool now and completely forgot his beef with Rollins. By gawd i hope they're not thinking of makeing Reigns vs Triple H at Summerslam for the title, i will vomit as much as Steph did.

good wrestling, crap the rest of the show. Except for Ambrose, he did good.

[Big Red Machine]

most annoying being that out of nowhere and with no explanation whatsoever, now Reigns and Ambrose are no more either. Reigns seems to be pretty cool now and completely forgot his beef with Rollins.

This really annoyed me, too, but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt for now (like maybe they decided to split duties). It's dumb, I know, but I have hope.