WWE had another new Raw on Monday, what did the Pulse Wrestling crew think of the show?
Darren Paltrowitz
Admittedly, I only watched the first hour, which is the first time that’s happened in more than a year.
The opening Seth Rollins promo was great.
Cesaro was made to look like a big star.
Kevin Owens, while in a good spot, got that unnecessary weight jab from Randy Orton.
The New Day was fantastic, as always, and I thought they had a great match with Los Matadores.
The Divas match was better than the average Divas match of a few months back, but they still haven’t established whether the Bellas are heels or faces. The crowd was so behind Sasha Banks that the opposite of what was supposed to happen reaction-wise did.
The Roman Reigns feud with Bray Wyatt hopefully goes away after Sunmerslam, as it isn’t captivating anyone. Both wrestlers deserve better.
Truthfully, I don’t feel like I missed much with only watching Hour 1 — I’d feel differently had I missed Total Divas and/or Tough Enough, which have been more compelling as of late.
John Turnbull
I’m going to be honest and admit I fast forwarded through Seth Rollins talking until Cesaro and Owens came out. I’m glad I did, because I got to hear the champ say something that sounded a lot like ‘fuck you morons.’ I’m on record as not being a fan of the talky opening segment, but this was more entertaining than most.
Slightly above average episode of Raw, but to be fair the average has been pretty dismal lately…
read all my thoughts in this week’s 10 thoughts on raw!
Pat Metalhead
RAW is Blahblahblah to start and our Champion, Seth Rollins, does the honors. Reminding everyone he broke Cena’s nose was fine but that fake video segment with Cena was atrocious. Cesaro and Owens came out and i had no problems seeing them in a Championship match or main event. Then Orton and Triple H joined the party and a triple threat was made between the challengers with the winner taking on Rollins in the Main Event. Ending wasn’t bad, but is there really any doubt at who will win the triple threat?
Team BAD cuts a promo and Tamina utters the words “Beautiful and Dominant”. I hope she checked her porn sites before saying that. The new name for the ex-Submission Sorority is PCB. Which sounds like a drug or something, but maybe that’s simply what WWE creative is taking before writing this stuff. PCB was on commentary, well Paige was, the other two just sat there. Paige was trying to sell Team Freakshow as name. Better. Good match between Team Bella and Team BAD, only downside was Tamina putting the bad in BAD. Big and fun brawl at the end between all factions. Here is my problem with the Diva Revolution. It came out of nowhere. And yes I know, Paige was talking about it, but why is she allied with Charlotte and Becky all of a sudden? Why is The Boss allied with Naomi and Tamina? At least there was some sort of lead-in to Alicia Fox joining Team Bella, but for the rest, it just happened because Steph said so. Simply not good enough WWE.
Fun tag team match between Los Matadores and new Day. That Big E dancing is epic. Backstage, Renée tells team it will be a fatal-four-way between PTP, Los Matadores, new Day and Lucha Dragons. New Day’s reaction was gold. Again not bad, but the formula of just putting all your tag teams in championship matches is getting old fast.
Great Triple Threat match with excellent performances from Cesaro, Owens AND Orton. Orton won of course. Cesaro and Owens have delivered damn good performances time and time again these past months. But, as things stand now, WWE creative has done little to really built on that. You gotta wonder what else Cesaro and Owens have to do to prove themselves to Vince and Co.
Very good match between Ambrose and Harper, designed to further the feud. That can only be applauded.
Fun Miz TV segment with Daniel Bryan who seemed to genuinely enjoy being there. I find it amusing how WWE is using Ambrose to make it seem reigns is getting over and then used Bryan to re-introduce Ryback and make it seem the IC Belt mattered. Whether any of those ploys will work remains to be seen, but it’s a nice try anyway.
More build-up to what I assume will be Rusev/Summer vs Ziggler/Lana at summerslam. Which I wouldn’t even mind that much, except there have been zero chemistry between Ziggler and Lana thus far and I don’t see how that can change in a week or two. Surprisingly, The Rusev/Summer pairing is kinda fun. And Summer putting the Accolade on Lana looked like something out of Submission Sorority… Not that I’m complaining.
Time for the Stephen Amell segment. Which was fine for what it was, but, I got a big issue with something else. Why did they have Neville beat Barrett in a minute or so? I know many thin Barrett is worthless anyway, but part of why he seems worthless is the way he is booked. Wasn’t there some local jobber available? Especially since the whole thing seems to be designed to build towards a Barret/Stardust vs Neville/Armell match at Summerslam. I mean why would Stardust team up with someone who just got beat in under a minute by his nemesis? Anyone? Oh never mind.
Sheamus teasing a cash-in told us what was going to happen before the main event even started.
And it wasn’t a bad main event, but, again, weak booking of the champion. The Sheamus tease was fun I guess, but, like said above, not really a surprise anymore. Then again Rollins is just being prepped to lay down for Cena at this point, so why bother?
Not bad for a 2015 RAW. While at least some efforts are being made to further story-lines and not have too much filler on there, the way some things are booked remains a problem. I would say back to basics, but I don’t think anyone in WWE really knows what the basics are anymore
Michael Buckley
Two weeks out from Summerslam and 3 of the 4 participants in the two biggest matches on the card were absent from last night’s Raw (4 out of 5 of the participants if you count Heyman.) The booking of this show illustrates how reluctant the WWE is to pull the trigger on shooting newer talent to the upper echelon. The highlight of the show was, undoubtedly, Owens/ Cesaro/ Orton and two of those men aren’t officially booked for Summerslam as of yet.
Even Seth Rollins, the reigning WWE champion, is not being treated as an upper echelon performer. Yes, he started the show talking about his match at Summerslam but then his match last night was used to advance a Sheamus/ Randy Orton angle. Orton/Sheamus is maybe the 4th or 5th most important match for Summerslam and its build was used as the climax to Raw because Orton is a “star” and Seth Rollins is just the guy that happens to be facing John Cena at Summerslam.
I actually liked the Stardust/ Neville/ Barrett/ Amell segment. I’m a bit confused as to why you would add Barrett to the angle and then job him in a minute. But I think the tag match at Summerslam will be a good special attraction match and I am glad that the wrestlers involved will get a bit of a rub from the mainstream attention the E should get from the angle.
Love the idea of a mini-Shield vs. mini-Wyatt Family feud but cringed and winced when Ambrose and Reigns got all “I love you, man,” in the promo before the Harper/Ambrose match. One of the first things you are taught in any course or book about dramatic writing is “show don’t tell.” The Harper/ Ambrose match was good and the match at Summerslam will probably have a good deal of heat.
Disappointed they aren’t going with a Triple Threat for the Divas championship at Summerslam (Charlotte/ Banks/ Nikki) but maybe they don’t want to overexpose Banks and Charlotte as a match of interest to the portion of the audience that haven’t seen their NXT awesomeness.
