WWE Monday Night Raw 8/28/17 Recap – Samoa Joe vs. John Cena

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Jerry Lawler returns to replace Booker T as he deals with Hurricane Harvey. The show starts off with Miz in the ring while King gets a brief intro. The card is run down and it’s PPV-worthy, with Sasha vs. Alexa and John Cena facing Samoa Joe. John Cena will also make his match with Roman Reigns at No Mercy official. Miz is interrupted by Kurt’s theme and Kurt tells him he’ll defend the IC Title at SummeSlam, but Miz interrupts him and says Kurt doesn’t respect him.

Kurt announces a battle royal tonight to determine who faces Miz next week, leading to a beardless Big Show coming down and then the Hardys before Balor. Mae Young Classic hype video airs. Jason Jordan’s theme has lyrics now – no one cares. The roster is in and Hawkins is tossed out and has a nasty landing on the barricade. Karl looks like a Basham brother with tattoos in this gear. Show beats up dudes. The Club eliminates Big Show. Goldust is eliminated by Anderson. Matt tosses Luke out, but Matt avoids being taken out by Karl. Miz prevents a Bo elimination. Finn hits a basement dropkick to Bo and a slingblade to Jordan. The lights go weird and Balor is eliminated by Bray, which is somehow legal. JJ eliminates Miz’s goons and then Jeff eliminates Jordan – so he’ll face Miz next week. We see Braun destroy Brock last week, and Brock returns tonight. Enzo’s first cruiserweight match is up next – and it’s also possibly the first time a cruiserweight match has been hyped up on Raw.

Alexa is asked about her strategy tonight and she says her strategy is to win. Alexa says that Sasha has never actually successfully defended the title, so she has no chance to lose this match. Enzo comes out with kids going crazy for him. Enzo buries lumbering giants AND CRUISERWEIGHTS in one promo. Amazing. Enzo does this wacky dance while also introducing Noam Dar and messing his name up as Gnome Dar. Dar works on the hair and we see Neville watching the match backstage. Enzo wins it and Neville says he’ll be champion forever if Enzo’s his competition.

WWE brags about having more social media followers than the NHL and UFC. Brock comes out and Paul puts over Braun as someone who made history at Summerslam and powerslammed him through numerous announce tables. He is the most worthy contender of anyone in the company. Heyman says that monsters aren’t real, but Braun is one while Brock says he’ll take him to suplex city. Roman is put over as an icon battling Cena at No Mercy. Seth comes down for a singles match with the title slung over his shoulder.

Cena’s return last week is recapped. Why not show this before the singles match? It’s impossible to care about Seth when he’s got to complete with a handful of bigger stars in a video package. Seth faces Cesaro here. Seth lands some corner body blows, but gets hot shotted into the buckle. They hype Seth and Dean going at it with the Usos on social media – so maybe that will be a Mania match. Seth hits a jawjacker out of a tieup, but Cesaro takes him down and hits a gigantic legdrop. Lots of back and forth strike exchanges. Cesaro gets a win and Sheamus starts bragging – so they’re going to eat a beating and the match won’t matter at all.

Or rather, now it’s Sheamus vs. Dean – so Dean should win this. Sheamus bullies him down and we go to a break. Sheamus catches him off an axehandle and hits the Irish curse. Sheamus locks on a stretch muffler and then Dean comes up and gets powerbombed for 2. Dean avoids the chest clubs before eating them briefly. Sheamus hits the Finlay roll off the top for 2. Brogue misses, but the dirty deeds misses too – so Dean hits the lunatic lariat. The faces cheat to win and Seth hits a big flying knee before the dirty deeds finishes it. Great, the faces cheat to win and lower themselves to the heels’ level and 50/50 reigns supreme.

Emma talks about the VMAs with Mickie, who buries her while Emma demands a new hashtag trend. Emma has a new terrible theme and they have a paint by numbers match. Emma reverses a sunset flip to win and then cuts a promo saying nothing but that she started the women’s revolution. We get Kurt Angle highlights set to a Burger King ad before he comes out for the Reigns-Cena contract signing.

Cena cuts this bizarre promo saying that Roman isn’t the guy until he beats him and that Roman has been protected from fighting him until now. Cena says that Roman is a corporate puppet who can’t fill his shoes and is nothing but a John Cena bootleg. He says he isn’t the Undertaker – an old guy at the end of his run with a bad hip. Roman stumbles and Cena says that if you’re gonna be the big dog, you’ve got to learn to cut a promo before Cena says goodbye to the fourth wall. Roman insults him for being a part-time bitch, which gets muted again. Roman says Cena will get his “shuffle”, but Cena can’t tough him – or see him. They have turned the Rock vs. Cena narrative that drew the biggest box office in history five years ago into a B show main event. This is Cena doing to Roman what Hogan did to Rock at WM X8 – only Roman can’t recover from this because he isn’t a made man yet.

Cena talks about how he hasn’t main evented WrestleMania in five years, opened SummerSlam and took the US Title and made it better while Roman took the US Title as a demotion. Cena says that he’s still here because Roman can’t do his job. Holy shit is this death for Roman. “You should be ashamed I’m a part-timer – because I can do this part-time better than you can do it full-time!” The Club comes down to beat up NERDS, which should lead to Cena and Roman, and Kurt makes this match. CAN ROMAN REIGNS AND JOHN CENA BEAT THE TWO GUYS WOULDN’T WIN AN IC TITLE SHOT TONIGHT!?

Good of WWE to find a way to take a crowd from nuclear to dead in five minutes. Cena beats up Karl before Luke boots him. Cole rattling of WWE Accomplishments for Roman only makes Cena’s case for him. Double finishers and the faces win. So now they are actually redoing ALL OF THE ROCK-CENA STORY for WM with them as partners – only doing it for a B-show. Wow. Elias walks backstage. Elias sings about losing in the battle royal and blaming the fans before Dusty called him the Elvis of WWE and buries Memphis. KING IS STANDING UP FOR HIS TOWN. YES! First time this has happened since his heart attack. He brings out Southpaw Wrestling’s own Pelvis Wesley. PELVIS WESLEY HAS ARRIVED! Pelvis and Elias dance and then Elias beats him up.

The battle royal is recapped and Miz complains to Renee about his treatment. Charly the robot talks to Sasha about Alexa. Alexa comes down to face Sasha in the main event. Cesaro mocking Sheamus for 1-800-FELLA in a Burger King ad is outstanding. The ref holds the title upside-down and Alexa gets 2 off a series of cradles before Sasha works on the arm and Alexa takes a breather backstage. Sasha hits the shotgun knees off the apron to the floor for an ad break.

 

After the break, Alexa has an armbar on and we see it’s due to Sasha eating offense on the floor during the break. Alexa locks on a unique surfboard on the mat. Alexa hits a big right Blissawa forearm and a Code Red for 2.5. Sasha hits a corner knee and then the shotgun knees. She goes up top, but gets stopped by Bliss. Sasha eats a big superplex off the top. Sasha gets the crossface, which Bliss forces a break on by getting a cradle. Lights Out DDT hits and Alexa wins it! Nia comes down and bulldozes Sasha before attacking Alexa with an electric chair drop.