I traveled to New York this week for a business meeting and in between the action items and KPIs I kept asking myself:
What is going on over at Monday Night RAW RAW?
How great is this right now? I know WWE tends to up the ante in July, but usually that gets only a few things hot. This is a show where almost everything is clicking. You’ve got legitimate superstars being made (Braun, Joe), hot babyfaces (Rollins, Ambrose), hot heels (Miz, Roman), Balor waiting in the wings, Tozawa just running around with an actual story. The angles are better, guys seem to be having more fun, there are roles for more people, things seem LOOSER~!!!!, stuff makes sense. Everybody can’t get HEAT at once, but at least make it fun – they’re making it fun!!
SmackDown meanwhile doing is doing what’s usually expected of RAW in that they are throwing out very cut-and-paste wrestling segments and feuds (Cena/AJ vs. Owens/Rusev yawn, New Day vs. Usos yawn, Orton vs. Jinder yawn), de-emphasizing lower card guys to the point of irrelevance (did you hear that silence for Tye!?). Can there just be one good WWE show at a time? Is that what is happening here?
RAW (7/10/17)
Caught up on ALLLLL the wrestling at the LaGuardia Plaza Hotel after getting stuck in New York overnight due to bad Chicago weather, and I can tell you that I legit LOL’d in my hotel room at The Big Show getting a MASSIVE FUCKING POP as he confronted Big Cass. The BIG SHOW CHANTS! This was AMAZING!! Then the little brawl they had was half realish, half silly as all hell looking. But man… the re-introduction of Big Cass as a bad guy at Great Balls of Fire was questionable, but it seems like they are running with it and I am intrigued. And the BIG SHOW is super over again and it rules.
The crowd booing Elias Samson’s performance and clapping when he told them to hold their applause – WWE is a HOT product right now. How many times is Finn Balor going to interrupt the poor guy’s song though? This match ruled. Bodyslam and shit talk by Samson, tight headlock by Finn, Samson beatdown, Let’s Go Balor chants, Samson wildly swinging at Balor as he elbowed at him, Balor selling the shoulder, Samson’s wild slop bump off the running dropkick, big Coup de Grace finish – everything here worked.
Balor/Samson was the first match of the night where everything just clicked One of the strong points of RAW lately, outside of all the above stuff, is that matches feel like the agents are modifying the work and having guys actually tell the story they need to be telling in the ring vs. Standard WWE Wrestling Match. Guys are working their character in the confinements of a squared circle and that is awesome. Lots of matches tonight followed that trend.
Hardy Boyz stuff was fun, way to use a couple vets to get over a buncha young fellers! Plus we got our first legit BROKEN reference on WWE TV. Hardys vs. Gallows & Anderson was good TV wrestling. Jeff starts taking a beating off Karl countering a jawbreaker with a knee, then Jeff gets the hot tag by hitting the jawbreaker (and selling his head, which I thought was cool) – MWAH! Gallows & Anderson go over the banged up Hardys – MWAH!! This win used as mis-direction for the Hardys to get to The Revival – MWAH!!! That’s how you do it.
The Mizzies presentation was tremendous stuff – a fun segment that turned into an incredible TV wrestling angle. Loved so much about this: The Miz’ theme playing for the award announcements, the APPLAUSE sign on the Titan Tron, YOU DESERVE IT chants, Bo’s “let’s change the world!,” Maryse crying, Corey’s feigned shock at Maryse winning (“I don’t think anyone was expecting this!”), Miz’ delivery on “Dean Ambrose? JUST KIDDING! The greatest man is… THE MIZ!” Miz also actually brought up other feuds going on within WWE, which I always assumed was a strict no-no handed down by Big Vince himself. Then Ambrose ran out and started brawling with everybody and his former brother-in-arms Seth Rollins made the save like this was some god damn babyface territory. It was like the Rock & Roll Express were fending off the Horsemen, and the crowd popped accordingly. Amazing.
ALL THE FEELS for Ambrose’s “I know you. I don’t trust you. …You screwed that up.” WOW.
This crowd was amazing all night, how about those LADY SCREAMS for Sasha’s music!? Sasha/Bayley vs. Alexa/Nia Part 2 wasn’t amazing but it all worked – Bayley beatdown, Alexa/Sasha shit-talking each other, Nia being Nia, Bayley roll-up win over Alexa. 4-Way at SummerSlam?
R-Truth vs. Goldust was a fine inoffensive come-down match, on a typical RAW it would’ve been a dead segment but this was completely acceptable filler on a better RAW.
WHAT A MOTHERFUCKING BUNDLE OF SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT THAT LESNAR/ROMAN/JOE THING WAS. Oh my GOD. Absolutely loved these three STARS looking like absolute beasts having words with each other, and the essence of BRAUN is just looming over everybody. I’m still not quite sure how it all happened but WWE has struck gold here. Samoa Joe is on a god damn tear and easily got all his heat back from losing to Brock by just being a badass motherfucker. So many great one-liners here, all delivered with such CONVICTION:
“You didn’t know how to handle Braun Strowman, and you’re never around to.” – Roman Reigns to Brock Lesnar
“Reality is I kicked your ass last night, that’s the reality.” – Brock Lesnar to Samoa Joe
“You look at me when I’m talkin’ to you, or we can straighten this out right now” – Samoa Joe to Brock Lesnar
“Wait wait wait wait – hey, you’re real mouthy for a man who got beat down by Braun Strowman last night.”
Angle nervously standing between Joe and Brock put everything over the top. Joe vs. Roman next week for the right to face Brock, Strowman unaccounted for – things are HOT.
And seriously, again, this was the BEST crowd. They chanted for ROMAN REIGNS.
Tozawa/Cedric vs. Neville/Dar served its purpose, I guess – Tozawa gets beat up, Neville is a dick then gets his dick wrecked on the ropes, Tozawa gets some temporary revenge.
Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt hit all the right notes, liked it better than the Great Balls match – Bray hits big, Seth bumps around, Seth fights back and goes after Wyatt’s hurt hand, Let’s Go Rollins chants (this CROWD), Bray goes after Seth’s eye leading to the Sister Abigail, Seth bumps big for Abigail and loses again. And the crowd wasn’t dead for another Bray Wyatt RAW match. How did this happen!?
Awesome story follow-up with Miz-Tourage coming out of the crowd to surround Seth, only for Dean Ambrose to make the save. I mean Dean BEAT Miz with that chair. Incredible.
And it all ended with a fucking CLIFFHANGER~! WHO DOES KURT ANGLE LOVE!?!?!?!?! Besides his wife and children and Vince McMahon of course. I mean, WWE is usually real shit at blowing off angles, but after all these years I still find myself intrigued.
Just the best RAW. Fun angles, good wrestling, great classic wrestling shit. The main event scene is clicking and they are actually finding interesting stuff for everybody outside of it.
SMACKDOWN (7/11/17)
This wasn’t a terrible show or anything, just nothing must-see. In the long game of pro wrestling an underwhelming show, in the long game of WWE since like 2002 a big step up.
John Cena interrupting AJ Styles’ first U.S. Title Open Challenge was SUCH A HUGE THING TO DO!!! Was digging the match tease, but then they kept going with it to the point where it became a lame bait-and-switch. Kevin Owens continues to be a legitimately unlikable heel, but also a very un-interesting heel. Once AJ and Cena were done trading fire, this became a pretty cut-and-paste wrestling segment – Owens interrupt, Rusev attack, faces laid out. They did the exact same “Rusev puts guy in Accolade and Owens taunts him” thing with Reigns last year and it was kinda lame then too.
How gorgeously basic and decent was the Jinder Mahal vs. Tye Dillinger match? Totally worked for what it had to be, but what a lack of reaction for poor Tye Dillinger. Some of the crowd doing the “TEN” chants looked less like excited fans and more like people doing their contractually obligated job.
The New Day/Usos stuff with Xavier Woods vs. Jey Uso mostly worked, too. They did the “everybody gets thrown out spot,” yes they did. Ya don’t always get to see Xavier and Jey work singles. It’s very possible at this point in time that Xavier is the best singles guy in New Day.
Shane McMahon is exactly like how Paul Reiser would be in the same role.
First Shinsuke Nakamura was Jimmy Valiant, then he was Junkyard Dog, now he’s Manny Fernandez. Still waiting for a role to really click for him. I like the fella but he needs a hot angle sooner rather than later.
Cedric reading a script for that 205 Live promo NOOOOOOOOOO!
Charlotte/Becky vs. Natalya/Tamina was a basic-ass tag and then Tamina beat Charlotte – OK. The finish was kinda creative – Charlotte gets distracted by Lana outside, Natalya tags Tamina then lays down to fool Charlotte, Tamina strikes Charlotte to win – but they didn’t sell it well enough for anyone to realize what was going on.
Hey! Gable’s getting to do funny stuff! Is Jason Jordan suspended or something?
The Sami Zayn/Maria & Mike thing backstage was very good, though it’s quite the stretch to go from getting interrupted by a man to smashing a vase over said man’s head. Did like the “what do you even do here?” line by Sami – SERIOUSLY. Sami can even sell a vase shot better than anybody – the little aggressive rub of the back of his head, amazing.
Loved everything about Runway Walker Texas Ranger. Best part of the show. SmackDown is stale SNL circa 2005 and Fashion Files are like if the SNL Digital Shorts just showed up. So proud of ol’ Johnny Curtis finally finding a god damn role. GHOST ALIENS.
Cena/Styles vs. Owens/Rusev – good talent, basic match. The match could’ve been Rollins/Ambrose vs. Axel/Bo though and it would’ve been 10x more interesting, so fuckin’ A, SmackDown. Really did feel like pre-draft SmackDown where they’d just throw all the guys in a midcard RAW angle into a tag main event and nobody would really care.
Cena/Styles tease was something, and these guys rule vs. each other but to be honest is it really necessary right now? Many different interesting directions to go for either guy.
TALKING SMACK (7/11/17)
Rest in Peace, Talking Smack. A few days after this show it was announced that it had been cancelled, which made a lot of folks on the Internet mad but let’s be honest – this show stopped being great as soon as SmackDown stopped being great. I liked the outlet it gave different guys, and LOVED seeing Daniel Bryan be Daniel Bryan for 20 minutes every week, but nobody was taking full advantage of this thing since The Miz went to RAW, and Bryan was only on once every few weeks anyways.
Shane McMahon doing a half-hearted rundown at the start of the show was kind of hilarious in a sad way. There were a few good promos here – Usos on New Day, Zayn on Mike, Cena on his return, but god damnit this needed Bryan interacting with everybody.
Talking Smack ends with Big Match John bein’ funny – “I will now do what I do best — ANDBECOMEINVISIBLE — YOU CAN’T SEE ME” – and he disappears off-screen, along with the hopes and dreams that Talking Smack once caused us all to have.
Godspeed.
205 LIVE (7/11/17)
This was, weirdly enough, a good night of promos. Gulak, Kendrick, and Noam freakin’ Dar all brought it.
WWE really needs a Polycom SoundStation phone or something, something with an omni-mic. A speakerphone on standard IP phone is shit and unbecoming of a professionally run operation like Titus Worldwide. Felt embarrassed for poor Tozawa, getting shouted at by Titus over static. Treat your boys with respect, Titus.
Tozawa vs. Ariya Daivari was fun Tozawa stuff for a bit and then NEVILLE ATTACK~!
Loved the Drew Gulak political apology thing for the flying. First ya thing WWE is parodying creepy Republicans and then ya realize they’re probably just parodying Anthony Weiner.
I can with 99% certainty state that Rich Swann reminds Vince of Junkyard Dog right now and that is why all this embarrassing dancing shit is going to stay the same. Swann vs. Mario Connors sure was interesting, a squash match with some kickouts and offense from Connors to set up TJP saying he can beat him in half the time and wrestling him next. To be honest, a Triple Threat Match between Swann/TJP/Connors as opposed to just Swann vs. TJP might be more interesting.
Never a big fan of a feud where the bad guy rants about fans “laughing along” with a guy just as the guy’s charm is running out, but DAMN did Kendrick and Gallagher get somewhere. Kendrick did the Gallagher dress-up bit briefly then got real serious and it was pretty awesome. And in between all the 205 Live apathy you forget that Jack Gallagher can get serious sometimes too. Really liked Kendrick looking like a crazy man as he beat down Jack – long stringy hair, white shirt brown pants crazy socks cheap black shoes. Nice.
The Cedric Alexander/Noam Dar match was kind of fascinating to watch. What do you do when you are instructed to do a brutal I Quit Match while nobody is invested in your goofy-ass feud? Welp. These two just WENT FOR IT. A really solid, gritty I Quit Match to deafening silence. Appreciated all the efforts of being straight nasty – Cedric trying to break Dar’s fingers in the ring post, Dar repeatedly smashing Cedric’s leg on the floor. Classic I Quit finish too, Cedric just stomping Dar’s arm while it was tied up in a chair until he quit. Not sure the actual Cedric vs. Dar feud itself deserved to get here, but the meta-story of Cedric willing to go to brutal lengths just to get out of this stupid feud might be one for the record books.
Dar promo with a boog in his nose to close the show was kinda amazing. “Do you really think I don’t have a woman in every continent? Do you really think I don’t have a woman in any city?”
NXT (7/12/17)
A good promo, a fun debut, kind of average show overall though.
Bobby Fish is here now! Fish does fun stuff but he has always been very unimpressive to me in a WWE sense, just not sure I see how his shit works in context of WWE. Maybe I’ll be wrong. Maybe ReDragon will team up and kick ass. Maybe. Fish vs. Black was a good stiff empty match. Did like the spot of Fish trying to out-man him early and Black just looking at him like “who the fuck are you?” Think Mauro called Fish “Roderick” at some point.
Street Profits. Jesus. We basically just saw a Cryme Tyme reboot with a Buddy Rogers poster in the background.
Vanessa Borne vs. Jayme Hachey in the MYC Qualifier sure was nothing special but that it is happening at all is a good step forward. Gotta build the new kids up and see what happens.
The return of Johnny Wrestling was an AWESOME babyface promo. It’s been a slow burn but Gargano is ready for a run. I assume Drew beats Bobby Roode at TakeOver Brooklyn but uber-good guy Johnny is really the right fella to do it.
Authors of Pain vs. Heavy Machinery for the NXT Tag Titles was an OK formula tag but rarely clicked and wasn’t FUN!! like it should’ve been. Love the idea of the Heavies, love the idea of Heavies vs. AoP, but neither team is ready to handle shit by themselves just yet. And now SAnitY wants AoP? GOD DAMNIT.
MAIN EVENT (7/12/17)
I think they continued an angle on Main Event this week. Opener was Mickie James vs. Emma, and they cut to Dana Brooke watching backstage. My god. Does the Monday Night RAW booking office have their shit so together that the creativity is spilling out to Main Event? Incredible.
Mickie vs. Emma and TJP vs. Lince Dorado were both basic matches, perfectly fine professional wrestling. They happened. I watched.
WWE TV Match of the Week: I think Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt or even the I Quit Match was the better “star rating” match but I preferred Balor vs. Samson over both. They got in, did some cool subtle shit, got over, got out. Good stuff.
WWE TV MVP of the Week: SAMOA JOE!!!!!!
RAW ruled this week, everything else was perfectly decent with some good spots but nothing world-changing. Battleground is looking to be a Very Special Episode of SmackDown en route to SummerSlam.
RAW: 9/10
SmackDown: 6/10
205 Live: 6/10
NXT: 5/10
