INT. BACKSTAGE AT THE TARGET CENTER
BOB BACKLUND
(excited)
Darren, Darren! How did ya think RAW went?
DARREN YOUNG
(exhausted)
NOT GREAT, BOB.
Coming up with a premise or a punchline is easy. It’s fleshing out that premise, or getting to that punchline, that’s hard. RAW, in theory, has a place they know they need to get to. But it’s becoming clear week by week that they have zero idea how to get there in any interesting way. It reminds me of the last couple seasons of The Office – if the Office were 3 hours every single week. I don’t really care about anything, I’m no longer really laughing – but I still kinda want to see where all these cooky folks end up.
This was the show where Mick Foley yelled at women and Paul Heyman lost a crowd. Not a good day at the office for anybody on the Red Team. Lame insults, uninspired mind games, laughable threats, forced history-making, overkilled gimmicks, mansplaining, stretching for time, a restless crowd, and fucking “momentum-building.” It was like Crappy Wrestling’s Greatest Hits. They had so many different ways to go with Seth Rollins getting his revenge on and feuding with Kevin Owens – and they just decided to copy and paste them into every other lame WWE main event feud. They’re doing Seth zero favors but he is so bad in this role – it’s basically Sheamus playing John Cena playing The Rock. The de-evolution just continues.
Poor Charlotte and Sasha. What a bad segment. Foley’s “You have no idea what’s IN STORE FOR YOU!!!” might become a legendary meme someday. Tonight it was just a part of the suck. I don’t need to provide a think piece on how forced this was, or how lame it was that Foley was trying to warn them out of it like a concerned father despite booking them in it a couple weeks ago. This whole show should’ve had that South Park Mormon song “dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb” playing throughout it.
My mind turned to Wikipedia doing this thing. And despite the ridiculously shit build to Hell in a Cell this year – in canon, the actual Cell gimmick clearly does quite a bit of damage. Let’s break it down, shall we?
20 people (MEN! HUMAN MEN) have competed in a Hell in a Cell match since they began centering annual PPV’s around them.
Three are the Shield – Ambrose is still nuts, Rollins has regressed, and Reigns continues to not work in the slot they want him to work in. But they may be the best case scenario.
John Cena, Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker, Triple H, and Mark Henry all barely wrestle anymore. Daniel Bryan and Shawn Michaels are retired. CM Punk, Ryback, Alberto del Rio, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase all quit. Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt are playing hide-and-seek with each other on SmackDown. Shane McMahon is catatonic. And Paul Heyman can’t cut promos anymore. Meanwhile, motherfuckin’ Kane is still kicking.
I guess there were highlights. Enzo & Big Cass doing their promo with no mic was fun. The Enzo/Karl match had a couple solid boots to the face. The New Day vs. Cesaro/Sheamus match was decent – fun Cesaro/Kofi exchanges and a nice finish. Shining Stars vs. Golden Truth really wasn’t bad and was would’ve probably been in the top 3 Superstars matches since the split. Axel vs. Bo was kinda fun with Axel doing a Hennig tribute act. Rich Swann did some cool stuff against Kendrick. The Braun/Jericho interaction was money. Sami slapping Braun was cool. Think that’s it.
Otherwise, outside of every major thing on the show not working – The New Day vs. Cesaro/Sheamus tag just happening to “build momentum” when the same match is happening for the Tag Titles was stupid, and though it was an okay match the whole feud has no heat. Dana/Bayley stuff was terrible – the absolute apathy to the arm wrestling announcement was hilarious. Jericho’s great right now, but like with everything they are overkilling The List gimmick. The Brock/Heyman promo along with the contract signing might go down in the annals of awful – an amazing example of how out of touch WWE can be, and an incredibly bad follow-up to the amazing Goldberg promo – with Heyman desperately trying to get Goldberg chants going and even saying they were happening when Brock’s hometown crowd was not having it. Triple Threat wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t good. Here’s a list of ten guys I’d be more into going after Owens’ title than this incarnation of Rollins – Big Cass, Mark Henry, Jericho, Cesaro, Big E, Kofi, Braun, Brock, Sami, and a Seth Rollins that actually had motivation and was likable.
SmackDown, meanwhile, continues to be an awesome wrestling show. They’ve taken the initial concerns when matching them up against RAW and made them strengths. With a smaller roster and 2 hours versus 3, they do less time-killing and overkill, and are able to get away with guys not appearing on every show. With RAW I have zero goodwill – if American Alpha or Curt Hawkins don’t show up for a week or two, I’ll miss them and will assume that whatever they are doing has been dropped. With Smackdown, I know that a) they don’t need them to fill out the show, b) it’ll feel fresh when they’re back, and c) there’s probably a good reason they’re not being used right now. When stuff happens that RAW will usually just brush under the rug (i.e.: Nattie being the only gal on the roster not being on the Survivor Series team) – SmackDown finds a reason for it and makes a semi-compelling match and angle out of it.
Bray Wyatt vs. Kane opened the show and had some great camera shots and Bray reactions … Kane setting up the chokeslam out of the Sister Abigail, and of course the zoom-in on Bray for the Randy turn. It was an okay brawl to set up the RKO on Kane. I LOVED this – the crowd and I was genuinely shocked and you don’t always hear a reaction like that. Doubt it’s a full heel turn – are they trying to re-create the Daniel Wyatt thing, taking Randy/Bray to Mania? You’ve got to think they want to do AJ/Randy at some point. Or maybe he’s just a damn heel now because the Blue Team isn’t afraid to fuck with your expectations. THE POSSIBILITIES!!! Although – Randy’s explanation … “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” – didn’t he and Kane get the better of the Wyatt’s last week? Why join ’em? Is the story that he just wants to be cool like the Wyatt’s and disappear whenever he wants to? Whatever. I’m fine with it.
Becky’s return felt like a big deal. Liked the segment with her and Alexa – it was solid, logical, and didn’t have Mick Foley screaming at them. The yellow stripe is such an old school goofy wrestling thing and I was all in on it. Alexa laying Becky out with a DDT will endear her to Stone Cold Steve Austin. Enjoy her now before Total Divas gets a hold of her and it all goes to shit. Hype Bros vs. The Ascension was a fun little sprint and ideal TV match. Viktor seemed super fired up with big time intensity and bumps all over the place. Would regret not mentioning Konnor’s garbage bump off the apron though – you’re on TV you putz. Nikki vs. Nattie was a decent match – Nattie did an alright job as the heel in control, though it wasn’t always very interesting and never got into any second gear. Nikki countering the surfboard to the STF was an AWESOME finish though. Loved her pulling out the Big Match John shoulderblock too. Carmella immediately pouncing was great too – hope the payoff is pregnant Brie slapping the shit out of her.
I dream of a world where AJ Styles (Flair), Miz (Tully) and The Revival (Andersons) re-create the Four Horsemen. Can you imagine what pricks they’d be with all the belts? Or the vignettes of AJ and Revival taking Miz to a Bulldogs game?? The Miz/Spirit Squad/Maryse vs. Ziggler/Rhyno/Slater segment sure was neat. I like that Miz doesn’t even fuck around with MizTV anymore – this shit is real now. Blessed with this same feud, RAW would probably run some Heath vs. Mikey 2-minute match or something. On SmackDown we got a solid tag titles match with a fun finish.
A few fellas in the crowd finishing Ambrose’s “you know what they say, karma’s a…” line was so wrestling. The match with AJ was good stuff. It wasn’t as epic as the Backlash match and didn’t really click with me early, but for a TV main event this was top shelf stuff. AJ continues to bet he most impressive guy to watch in Vince McMahon’s playground. I like how he just pulls out the springboard reverse DDT and makes it seem like a legitimate offensive maneuver. Dean always gets brought up another notch with him too. Great freakin’ last few minutes. Dean and Mike Chioda’s dumbfounded reaction to Ellsworth getting Dean DQ’d and costing him a title shot was tremendous. With all the talk about AJ’s soccer mom talk and Dean’s ever-receding hairline, this thing should end Hair vs. Hair.
Talking Smack continues to be a love letter to pro wrestling geeks. You’ve got Daniel Bryan name-dropping Don Trump and shooting on RAW’s booking, Heath Slater going on about the Puerto Rican stock market, Bryan not admitting he helps his sister-in-law Nikki train as it would create a conflict of interest with him being GM, and of course Bryan bewilderedly asking Heath: “You have been with WWE for as long as I have. What did you do with your money?”
NXT wasn’t much this week, but at least stuff mostly had a purpose as we head to Toronto. Helped that they played Dusty Rhodes’ theme like fifty times. Was interesting to see DIY work with a couple of awkward lads, clearly carrying them through stuff. Not very good but interesting, and sometimes that’s better. Billie/Aliyah wasn’t bad, just really short. Nice bumps by Aliyah. The Billie/Peyton vs. Liv Morgan/Aliyah angle was the best thing the NXT women have done in ages. Good for Tye getting a straight-up squash. Neat little squash by Asuka too – Thea looked good. Mickie James showing up is a nice idea – sad they have no real competition for Asuka, but love when NXT does cool stuff like this. I wish the Authors of Pain Pain screamed more and weren’t made to sound like straight-up terrorists. The main event – TJ Perkins (replacing Itami) & Kota Ibushi vs. Lince Dorado & Mustafa Ali was a fun Saturday morning cartoon of a match. Nothing epic, but some neat stuff by all these guys. Love this Mustafa fella every time I see him.
What is the deal with Main Event? I mean it’s not canon… but WTF. First you have Chad Gable’s return from a big injury angle and heel turn by The Usos a month ago, and now it’s Curt Hawkins’ in-ring debut against Apollo Crews. All the smart moves SmackDown makes seem to go away on Hulu on Wednesday nights. I mean Curt was always headed for Main Event, just didn’t realize it’d be so early. I wish SmackDown did more with their aimless tag teams too – give Alpha or Breezango some vignettes on the big show. American Alpha vs. The Vaudevillains was a decent little tag match… love Aiden English, and the running Grand Amplitude is always sweet.
Of course the first cruiserweight match on Superstars would be disappointing. Of course. They worked this shit Superstars style. IF you want to see the most purest form of souless modern day WWE-style professional wrestling, Superstars is your show. Witness six lightweight grapplers pull out a few fun moves, have a couple timing issues, and work a match so basic that none of the things that make them unique even stand out. This was a fine match, but SOOOOO Superstars. Also on the show – Neville at this point is starting to look a little depressed coming out on this show every week. He faced Titus in a wee fine little Superstars match and did some pretty neat stuff.
WWE TV Match of the Week: As far as a standalone great match, AJ vs. Dean from SmackDown is your best bet. As far as a standard TV match, Hype Bros vs. Vaudevillains really impressed me for the few minutes it lasted.
WWE TV MVP of the Week: I don’t know – Miz? Can it just be Miz again? He made Ziggler relevant again, he’s getting the Spirit Squad over, and by feuding with him Rhyno & Heath are back to being awesome after a few weeks off. Great promo, great suit, great commentary, great wrestling. Give him an Emmy.
