Last week’s recap makes the Balor-Rollins segment seem intense, so WWE’s editing team truly is amazing. The Roman-Rusev stuff being thrown in her makes the US Title feel top-tier again, too. Orton’s sneak attack on Raw was shown, followed by the SD attack by Brock to Orton. Enzo and Cass start the show and Enzo is blown up just from doing his usual spiel. Amazing. The never-ending stuff about Sasha is Foley-level creepy. Enzo insults Jericho’s scarves, bringing Jericho out again. Jericho yammers on a bit before saying that he has someone watching his back, leading to KO! Faces make anti-gay jokes here in 2016 and KO mispronounces rhetorical. Jericho and Cass yammer, and then they go back and forth a bit. Enzo wins that war and all of this leads to Jericho vs. Enzo next.
Jericho dominates with heel antics and a snap suplex gets 1 with the cocky cover. Enzo skins the cat and backdrops him to the floor before Enzo lands a baseball slide. After a break, Enzo gets 2 off a flying forearm. Enzo goes for a rana, but Jericho turns it into the Walls. Enzo gets to the ropes and Jericho gets 2 off a flying crossbody off the top. Jericho hits a codebreaker off an Owens distract, so Cass boots Jericho and Enzo gets DQed. Cass makes a challenge for a tag match at Summerslam and it’s accepted. “WE ARE WINNERS, YOU GOT IT!” KO rules.
Cole hypes up the Lana/Rusev stuff tonight and then Mick talks to Stephanie over the phone and lies about using his tablet. Sasha comes in and he tells her “The Boss is here!” and he agrees to Sasha’s terms – a match tonight against Dana and a handicap match at Summerslam if she wins. On one hand, it makes sense to give her what she wants as a reward for winning, and on the other, he is giving her an unfair match in theory as a babyface.
Braun comes out and Byron interviews his opponent Jerrell Nelson, who says nothing. Nelson tries to leave, but eats a bodyblock on the apron and a big lariat mid-ring. Reverse chokeslam leads to Nelson spinning to take a back bump for it and Braun wins. Well, that sure was a by the numbers deal there. Jobber wasn’t nearly pathetic enough. Foley chats with Puff Daddy about his suede jacket and then Diddy invites Mick’s family to see the whole Bad Boy Family live again. New Day comes in and Woods congratulates Diddy on being the soundtrack producer to WWE 2K17. Puffy extends his condolences to Big E’s balls and Mick wishes them all a nice day.
Titus is mid-ring to face Darren, and neither guy gets an intro. We get a recap of last week’s match. Titus bullies him out of the ring and then clubs away in the corner. Darren rolls him up with a schoolboy and pins him with the tights – so babyfaces can do exactly what the heels do and not hold themselves to a higher standard. Seth talks about Balor next and we get a hype video for Bayley vs. Asuka on NXT this Wednesday. CWC hype video masquerades as a cruiserweight hype video for Raw.
Seth says that he has followed Finn since his debut and he always thought Finn was a second-rate version of himself. Hopefully Balor responds to this with a LEGO fight instead of a promo. Seth stops making declarations to throw to a highlight reel of last week’s show. Seth buries Finn for Finn Balor not even being his real name – it’s a nod to a famous warrior and a demon king. Seth rambles on a while longer. This is so much less useful than just re-using the exact Finn Balor personality packages they already have in the can from NXT. Another recap of the Brock-Orton stuff from last week.
The announcers plug the newest WWE/Scooby-Doo movie and Cole mentions Sheamus being in it to segue into his match. Cesaro comes out for yet another match between them. I’m sensing a return to the 50/50 club once again here. Three weeks into the split rosters and we’re already having two mid-card rematches. Cesaro gains an early edge with a dropkick and a torpedo dive, but Sheamus knees him in the head to turn the tide. Sheamus crotches him up top and hits the Finlay roll for an ad break.
Cesaro hits a bunch of uppercuts and blocks the chest clubbering on the apron. Crossbody off the top gets 2 for Cesaro. Sheamus gets 2 off a schoolboy and avoids the Neutralizer. Cesaro avoids the brogue kick with a cradle for 2 and an Irish Curse gets 2. White Noise gets 2 and Sheamus goes up and gets crotched. Cesaro hits an Okada dropkick and an uppercut on the barricade. Ref ducks being bumped, but Sheamus blocks his view and Sheamus tries to cheat to win, but Cesaro cradles him and wins because Sheamus got up to yell at the ref. Brock’s attack on Orton is shown again.
Orton vs. Brock is hyped up with OVW footage and Orton talks about being close with Brock when they got called up and how they each won World Titles. We get some film footage of Brock flipping off fans at WM XX and he says that Brock leaving made him lose respect for him. Brock talks about not giving a shit about Orton and Heyman says they had no real history in OVW. Brock says that his accomplishments outweight Orton’s easily. “I became a megastar and he became a star”. Orton says he gave him the RKO to prove that he is the true conqueror and Brock says Orton can’t beat him. Heyman says that Orton is the best surfer on the beach, but he meets a shark who digs his teeth into him and takes him down. Brock says he eats, breathes, and shits opponents and has since he was 5 while Orton says this is the biggest Summerslam match ever.
Dudleys vs. Neville and a mystery partner is next. Devon is now wearing an even bigger shirt to hide his physique. Sin Cara comes out to team with Neville and gets a brief lu-cha chant. From afar, this all-black getup is really boring to look at. Sin Cara eats some slow, plodding offense from the Dudleys. I like Bubba’s standing punches to a grounded opponent though. Heels hit a wishbone and Devon lands a flying elbow for 2. Neville gets the lukewarm tag and runs wild with kicks to Devon. Jumping enzuiguri hits and gets 2. Neville hits a springboard dropkick and Devon slowly lurches over to the complete opposite side of the ring to get into position for the Red Arrow and the victory for Neville. Rusev poses in a mirror in a sleeveless vest looking amazing.
Rusev comes down and then Lana joins him while Byron talks about how great the wedding of Miss Piggy and Kermit was. Lana calls herself a princess. We need King Rusev so she can be Princess Lana, and then Xavier can make a reference to Captain N: The Game Master. Rusev flexes and Lana kisses his bicep. This is glorious. The horrible crowd boos their wedding photos and Lana brags about renting a private beach.
Rusev brags about their cakes. “THREE CAKES. EVERY CAKE COSTS MORE THAN YOU MAKE IN A MONTH!” Roman Reigns interrupts this loving couple because he’s a jerk. Roman wants a US Title match at Summerslam and Roman says that Rusev married a mail order bride. Roman says that he was expecting more, and so was Lana, leading to a brawl. Roman knocks Rusev into Lana, who goes face-first into cake. Sasha vs. Dana Brooke is next. I do not sense this being a highlight for Raw.
Recap of Roman being an asshole and Lana goes nuts backstage. Rusev tells Mick to do something about this – so Mick makes Rusev vs. Roman at Summerslam for the US Title. The announcers plug how the WWE Network has over 6,000 hours of content on it. Dana’s ’60s-era women’s wresting getup is baffling. Dana gets some awful ground and pound punches before going for a chinlock. Dana eats offense and clumsily gets into position for a knee to the face and then the double knees to the gut for the win. Nia Jax video package stating that she isn’t like most girls. Finn responds to Seth next.
Ben Hur presents a Raw clip of 1-2-3 Kid beating Razor Ramon in 1993. That was a star-making match there. We get a calm, brooding promo from Finn saying that he knows Seth’s history, but Seth doesn’t really know his. We hear about the history of Finn MacCool, mythical creatures, and the Eye of Balor. Finn says that Seth has his demons, but he’s never seen a demon like this and he will meet the Demon King at Summerslam. Corey puts over The Demon marvelously – this feels like a special match with buildup like this, and just another match with the rambling back and forth formula.
Recap of The Club crushing Big E’s little Es. Luke and Karl do a skit as doctors saying that they’ll collect a sample from Kofi tonight. Kofi comes out to face Luke, so the heel must be winning here because Karl’s job is to seemingly just lose all the time. Sadly, no “Doc Gallows” references here. Gallows dominates and wins quickly. Boy did the New Day look like afterthoughts here. Xavier comes out and saves Kofi’s balls. Good friend. Golden Truth meets with Scooby-Doo in the Mystery Machine. So on a show with an awesome Brock-Orton hype video, we get shit like Scooby meeting with Goldust and Truth. Raw is Tonal Whiplash.
Mick comes down in a Frosty the Snowman tie to bring out Daniel Bryan. Mick and Bryan compliment each other for a while, which is true to their characters in one sense – but not for the warring GMs part of them. Bryan hypes up Orton attacking Brock first and then Mick tells him to stop BSing and plays a clip of Bryan burying the Universal title name. Rusev comes out to say that Raw already has a champion – Rusev, and he will crush them for the greatest GM in the history of Mankind, Mick Foley. Cesaro is out to I guess make a claim to face Rusev for the US Title at some point or something – well, he did beat Sheamus last week to do just that. Cesaro buries Mick for not being a man of his word and giving him a title match. Bryan says that Cesaro is completely mis-used on Raw. Wow is Foley being booked horribly as a babyface, and Foley makes Rusev vs. Cesaro for the title tonight. #USTitleMatchOuttaNowhere
At 11 PM, the match begins. Cesaro dominates with uppercuts, sends him to the floor and hits the cannonball off the apron. Crossbody gets 2. Rusev recovers and lands a ton of strikes in the corner. Rusev hits shoulderblocks in the corner while the crowd does nothing. Rusev locks on a standing Kimura, but Cesaro slams him. Chain of uppercuts by Cesaro and a tornado DDT gets 2. Rusev goes for an Accolade, but Cesaro hits an electric chair drop. Springboard uppercut hits and he lands the Swing! Cesaro locks on the Sharpshooter, but Sheamus runs down and Rusev superkicks Cesaro for 2. Ref bump, but Cesaro hits the Neutralizer and there’s no ref. Finally, he gets there, but it only gets 2. Rusev pokes him in the eye, Sheamus kicks him from the floor and Rusev hits the Cro Cop high kick for the win. Rusev being made to look REALLY strong before Roman beats him…or just spears him in the post-match. The show ends with Rusev laying flat on the floor.
Screenshot Gallery –
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