WWE had another new Raw on Monday, what did the Pulse Wrestling crew think of the show?
CB
Terrible Raw save for Cena-Ziggler. Thank God baseball and football were on.
Darren Paltrowitz
This is the first Raw I’ve turned off mid-episode in years.
WWE is pretty out of touch with what the audience wants, when you note that Sasha Banks didn’t wrestle tonight, Roman Reigns had the mic to cut a promo, Kevin Owens is working heel, Dean Ambrose is without a feud, Dolph Ziggler jobs to Cena, and Cesaro is working in a consequence-free tag match.
New Day was excellent as always.
Kane smiling excessively is also fantastic.
If I could do tonight over again, I would have watched the first 30 minutes of Raw and then used the next 2 1/2 hours to watch the Mets game and exercise.
I’m getting fairly close to not watching Raw at all…
Brittney Soban
Orton and Ambrose Open/ New Day Interruption: Opening Raw with Orton and Ambrose will always get my approval. The back and forth was okay but it honestly could have been better. If corporate and creative would let these guys just GO then we’d be entertained. They talked about their match with the remaining Wyatt family members for Hell In A Cell but soon The New Day interrupted and I have to admit, they’re growing on me. Their references to Orton’s and Ambrose’s past “failures” as part of teams was entertaining enough. Still, when Kane announced a “surprise” tag match between Orton & Ambrose v. The New Day no one was surprised.
Check out my full 10 Thoughts on Raw!!
JT
1. Kicking off with New Day vs Ambrose and Orton is all well and good, but did we really need 15 minutes of pointless jabber to get there? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; three hours of Raw is too damn long.
2. How many more times is the Undertaker going to step into Hell In A Cell before he suffers a career ending injury? There is no way he can physically match his best, and despite recent shenanigans he is no match for Brock Lesnar.
3. Preceding Naomi vs Brie with a recap of one of the best Divas matches of the year is not going to make them look good in comparison. I do not care about either of these wrestlers, although the match didn’t look too painful at 30x speed.
4. Cena vs Ziggler match 76 was pretty much like all of their other matches. If they’re not going to use the open challenge to set up new and interesting matches, what is the point exactly? Oh, and proposing at a wrestling show is pretty classy…
5. Now that Samoa Joe is working for the WWE, maybe Cena can ask him how to transition into a submission hold without looking like a teenage boy trying to unhook a bra.
6. Sorry, I just can’t take the Ascension seriously as a threat, against the Dudleys or anyone else. This is why building up a tag team with squash victories is not a good idea. Not a terrible match but nothing remarkable.
7. On the other hand, the team of Neville and Cesaro has potential, particularly if they don’t get stuck in an extended program with Shamus. That gorilla press over the top rope was awesome, but it’s a shame about the screwjob finish and short running time. Couldn’t they have had five minutes from Cena vs Ziggler?
8. Braun Strowman vs Roman Reigns was about as good as you would expect, which is to say not very. So Roman can Samoan Drop the Big Show but not Creepy Steroid Baby? Why? Because wrestling.
9. Owens vs Kallisto was an enjoyable match, with the teased plancha from KO showing he knows how to play a crowd. Little more than a squash in the end, Owens knows how to take a short match and make the most of it.
10. The Divas tag match was good, but Paige isn’t great on commentary and her feud with Natalya distracted from the in-ring action more often than it should. Either way, it was better than the Lumberjacks match, which didn’t do much for Rollins or Kane.
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