Last Night's RAW Had Some Pay Per View Quality Matches And A Horrendous Main Event
Welcome to this week’s special edition of the RAW Recap! Why is it special, you ask? Because it’s a live edition! Yep, I was at RAW last night in Newark, so all of my takes will be from the perspective of an audience member, not a television viewer. Let’s do it!
Kurt Angle opened the show with a massive announcement: at Extreme Rules, the main event will be a Fatal 5 Way Extreme Rules match to determine the #1 Contender to Brock Lesnar’s Universal Title. The participants? Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Bray Wyatt, Finn Bálor and Samoa Joe. So yeah, that’ll fucking rule. Instant potential to be a match of the year. There was a melee between the five involved in the match, ending with a……dive. Which there were A LOT of during this show. It’s almost like the roster planned it out that way.
Also, I have to mention how refreshing it is to have a face General Manager taking charge on RAW. I know we had Foley, but he was always playing lackey to Stephanie McMahon. Angle’s music hitting just kicks off the show on such a positive note.
Jeff Hardy had a singles match with Sheamus, and didn’t get his tooth kicked into the stratosphere this time, so that’s a positive. Really solid TV match though, and it ended in a…
Alicia Fox and Sasha Banks may have had the stiffest match of the night ( ?° ?? ?°). No, but really, they beat the shit out of each other. Fox winning clean was bold, but as I’ve mentioned in the past, the RAW Women’s Roster appears to be under a rebuilding process, so decisions like this need time to pan out.
The first true “pay per view quality” match of the night was The Miz vs Dean Ambrose, and it even had the Intercontinental Championship on the line. These two have had a number of matches in the past, but I think this was their best, and Ambrose really shone with his babyface offense, which he’s struggled with before. The finish was very unique, where Miz went for a low blow, Dean caught him, and delivered a low blow of his own, getting disqualified. Now at Extreme Rules, they’re working the stipulation where the title will change hands on a DQ.
Alexa Bliss cut a good promo on Newark, New Jersey, which was funny because 90% of the people at the show last night certainly didn’t live in Newark. It got the reaction of, “Yeah, probably sucks to live here!” Bayley came out to interrupt, and struggled with talking, then got caned by Bliss. It must be so genuinely terrible for Alexa Bliss to hit you with a cane. I would not want that to happen. Sounds horrific. I hope that never happens to me.
(That was a sex joke, thanks.)
The highlight of the night was undoubtably Finn Bálor vs Roman Reigns. It was the second singles match between these two, the first taking place almost a year ago, and Reigns tied the series. This was my favorite WWE match in quite some time, better than a lot of pay per view matches. Reigns and Bálor just seem to click in the ring, and have some of the best chemistry in the company based on what I saw last night. I’d save their third encounter in a singles match for a massive pay per view, like maybe put it off until Summerslam, which I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. Basically just thinking about the Universal Title picture in general. Right now, if I had to book it through Mania, I’d have Braun beat Brock at Summerslam in a pretty dominant fashion. Keep the belt on him until Hell in a Cell, where Reigns gets his match, and reform the Shield to beat him. I’ve been super anti-reforming the Shield, but I think it’d be the right time/place. Then, you build to Brock/Reigns II at WrestleMania, where Reigns is forced to defend his championship and prove he has what it takes to beat Brock. I think that’d be a great story to tell, and I’d love to see the rematch of the WrestleMania 31 main event 3 years later. One more thing on this Bálor match, though, and maybe I’m just a mark, but I thought his ribs were legit fucked after the spinning powerbomb. Phenomenal selling.
Goldust turned heel!
Not much happened in this segment, but I had to mention it for two reasons:
1. Enzo and Cass were yet again the most over people at the entire show, and an old man was even wearing an Enzo wig hilariously.
2. Criticize me all you want, I’m really digging this Titus O’Neil/Apollo Crews pairing.
This main event was horrendous and proved me right about both of these guys. They can be good. Both of them. IF they’re in the ring with someone 10x better than they are. If not, we get this: Bray puts on boring moves, Seth does !MOVEZ!, there is no psychology. Fans were literally filing out of the building during this match, and if I didn’t have to cover the event for this blog, I’d also file out. It was bad.
BUT, RAW was really great overall, and one of the better red shows in a while…and as long as everyone has fun I’m happy!