WWE Raw 8-1-16 Recap (Heyman and Brock Return)

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Show starts with a recap of last week’s show – which is fantastic and something they’ve needed to do for quite some time. The rise of Balor was showcased alongside Sasha’s title win. Sasha comes out wearing her title belt and it looks great on her – despite being gigantic on her tiny frame and not matching her gear. Sasha cuts a heelish promo about how she and Bayley stole the show at last year’s Summerslam weekend and now this year, she’ll defend her title. Charlotte insults her and says Sasha’s just a one night stand, while Sasha tells her that without a one night stand, Charlotte wouldn’t be here.

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Chris Jericho then interrupts with a “quiet, quiet…!” promo. He insults Sasha for not being a boss of anything but purple-haired teeny boppers. Then Enzo comes out in a bizarre outfit even for him, and he says he’s a G, she’s a boss and she’s more like a boss and he’s got the hot sauce. He would like to make a Certified G deposit in her bank. Subtle. Charlotte and Jeircho say that SAWFT is the one word you can use to describe his love life. Enzo says that Jericho’s promos are like typing on an iPhone with an ellipse that never ends. I have no idea what this is logically building to, but everyone in here is strangely making it work. So now we’ve got Enzo singing Bon Jovi and Enzo says that he can’t go back in time – but if he could, he would go back to when Jericho bought that scarf.

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Then Mick Foley came out down at 8:18 to hopefully recite his entire article about Sasha Banks. Nope – he just plugs Enzo and Sasha appearing on Holy Foley and says that Sasha and Charlotte will wrestle tonight in a mixed tag team match. Sasha and Enzo vs. Jericho and Charlotte is up next. But first, Kevin Owens comes down to do commentary wearing Byron’s tie. Jericho eats armdrags before running to the corner on his knees to tag in Charlotte. Glorious. Faces double dive onto the heels for an ad break. We see Jericho beating up Enzo during the break while Owens buries Byron for observing that. Jericho distracts Sasha and the Natural Selection ends it. Jericho hits a codebreaker on Enzo, but Casss saves to no reaction.

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Braun Strowman comes out to face another jobber – Evan Anderholm, who says he gets $1,000 and if he wins, he gets $5,000. This guy is a 3 on the James Elssworth scale of jobbers. Braun dominates with ’80s big man offense and wins with the amaze impact reverse chokeslam. Steph is dressed in a bizarre outfit, while Mick and Stephanie talk to Mark about how he’s now an ambassador. He says he’s a former World Champion, a two time Olympian and you can’t take that away from him – he wants one more run. Foley makes Rusev vs. Henry tonight and Henry says he’ll win it cuz that’s what he does! Henry was glorious here and it only took one promo to make the US Title seem important again. The Golden Truth plays Pokemon Go.

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After a commercial break, The Golden Truth comes out to face the Shining Stars. The heels double team Goldust because Truth is distracted by Pokemon Go, or “pokaman” as Cole calls it. Truth drops his phone and goes off the apron, leading to a sunset flip victory for the heels. Cole’s interview with Finn Balor is next, and we get a hype video for American Alpha debuting on SD tomorrow night.

Finn comes out, but gets interrupted by Seth. Seth says that Finn may have been the longest-reigning NXT Champion, but he was the first – and he’ll do the same for the Universal Title. Finn says that he thought Seth’s laugh was annoying on TV, but it’s even worse in-person. They banter back and forth for ages before Finn says he’ll kick his ass. Seth goes for a cheapshot, but Balor hits the Pele and sends Seth packing.

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Lana comes out in a faux-wedding dress to introduce Rusev. Henry comes out in his USA singlet. Henry tosses him around a bit, but it becomes every Henry vs. Rusev match ever with Henry getting out of the camel clutch once. Henry eats a superkick and loses to the Accolade. Rusev cuts a promo on the Olympics being rigged, before challenging anyone. Roman comes down for a big staredown. Roman beats him up a bit and goes for the Superman punch, but Rusev ducks and goes to the floor. Roman hits the Superman punch off the steps.

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We see something on the pre-show with Titus and D-Young arguing about Young never being great. Titus vs. Darren Young is up. Darren plays face in peril while Titus just powers him around the ring and talks trash. Young lands a kick but loses via a schoolboy using the tights. Steph gives Mick his own Raw-branded tablet. Sheamus is upset over not being in the US Title match, as is Cesaro. Stephanie talks about Cesaro said he wanted to go to SmackDown and then Mick says that Cesaro was a top five pick – until Steph showed him a medical report showing that his shoulder was up for debate. Mick says that these guys should channel their anger towards Raw against each other, and the winner gets a future title shot. Nia Jax walks backstage.

Nia beats up a jobber in short order with a new finisher – a Samoan drop into a World’s Strongest Slam. Byron asks her what it’s like to compete on Raw, but she doesn’t answer and beats up the jobber. Tom welcomes His Guest at This Time Sami, who will face Seth later and says nothing of note. New Day faces Gallows and Anderson next.

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New Day comes out and Big E tosses Booty-Os cereal into the crowd. Given how expensive that stuff is, that’s a heck of a freebie. Woods talks about how the New Day played a fruit bag game to determine who wouldn’t team up tonight, and he plays with the banana a bit. Kofi’s dancing here is great. Gallows and Anderson come down, and E hits Karl with a belly to belly. Gallows gets low-bridged and Karl comes back and hits E with a kick to the back of the head. E gets a schoolboy cradle win out of nowhere. This is the third distraction cradle finish, and the second with a schoolboy cradle. Boot of Doom from the heels to Kofi and then Big E. Woods comes down and Luke holds him by his hair while Karl hits a running knee or boot of doom. Well, everyone looked like a geek there.

Big E acts cartoonishly injured and the announcers throw to Cesaro vs. Sheamus, in the latest of their best of 5,000 series. Stiff back and forth uppercuts. Sheamus posts Cesaro’s shoulder and then hits a tilt a whirl on the apron. Sheamus goes for a suplex, but Cesaro turns around and does a dead weight suplex to Sheamus. Nice, but not even this got a reaction from the crowd. Sheamus gets a schoolboy, but it only gets 2. Sheamus goes for another powerslam, but Cesaro transitions into a smooth Neutralizer for the win.

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After a break, we get a post-brawl pull-apart between Sheamus and Cesaro. Heath Slater and Jinder Mahal are mid-ring and Slater says 2MB is gonna set Raw on fire. Jinder appeared to just get off the set of Miami Vice playing a coke dealer. Mick comes out and issues a battle of the band for a match between them. Heath says they can’t break up the band, but Mick dangles a contract and Jinder yakuza kicks Heath to beat him. This was amusing. Recap of the mixed tag match. Tom welcomes His Guest at This Time Chris Jericho about attacking Enzo. Jericho says he has someone to watch his back, leading to a who bit. Jericho reveals Jimmen Luden as his ally, but KO says that’s BS – he’s his ally here. Tom objects and Jericho calls him Tim and a stupid idiot. This KO/Jericho team has the potential to be amazing. Seth vs. Sami is next.

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A Shield recap video is sponsored by Suicide Squad. Facemask-era Shield ruled. Roman should bring that back to give him an edge. Seth vs. Sami is up. Seth cheapshots Sami and stomps him in the corner. Both Cole and Byron use the goofy “underdog of the underground” moniker for Sami a bunch. Sami hits a moonsault off the apron, but gets tossed into the barricade while fans yell ‘Jesus, THAT HAD TO HURT” and “lay it in stiff!” Sami goes up top, but gets crotched and sent to the floor with a running forearm for an ad break. They plug Legends With JBL on Booker T tonight.

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Seth has a post-break chinlock on and Sami gets 2 off a flash cradle. Seth goes for the pedigree, but Sami avoids it and nearly eats a buckle bomb. He nixes that and avoids a superkick and hits a lariat. Sami hits a Michinoku driver for 2 and goes for the blue thunder bomb, but Seth elbows him. Sami lands it and gets 2.5. Sami lands the run-up tornado DDT, but the helluva kick misses. The flip dive hits, but a helluva kick does and the Pedigree gets the win. Heyman walks out of Brock’s locker room.

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They plug P Piddy on Raw next week before Heyman comes down and hypes up the biggest box office attraction in combat sports history comes down. The Beast of the Brocktogan and the Viper-Slayer Brock Lesnar comes down. Heyman is the only guy who actually hypes up PPV dates as if they matter. He says that Brock will entertain you at Summerslam, but it’s not the same kind of entertainment WWE likes to promote – Brock’s form of entertainment is violent! He says he shouldn’t use the word “violent”, but he’s standing next to Brock, so he can say whatever he wants.

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Heyman hypes up the RKO and that while Randy might be one RKO away from victory against everyone, Brock isn’t everyone. Heyman says that Brock ended the streak, and if you’re still upset about it, get over it. Heyman mocks Orton’s theme and asks “How many of these voices tell you that Brock Lesnar is gonna beat your ass at Summerslam and drag you down to Suplex City!?” “Randy – take it from the wise old Jew, Brock is gonna beat your ass at Summerslam and drag you down to Suplex City!” Heyman is astonishing and Orton runs down and hits an RKO out of nowhere and leaves through the crowd while Steph screeches about getting him out of here since he’s on SmackDown. Oh yeah, I forgot about that part. Well, they killed the whole brand extension thing in a week – but they kind of had to once they announced this match. Of course, they could have actually planned things better, but let’s not go crazy.

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Screenshot Gallery –

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