Monday Night RAW kicked off with the most unique opening segment I've ever seen in a long time. Rather than the usual shot of the venue with the pyro going off, it started with Dean Ambrose walking towards the ring, where all 5 of the MITB entrants are perched upon 6 tall ladders, surrounding the MITB briefcase. They all had a funny banter on who was going to win, with Jericho reminding everybody who created this match before it devolved with everyone getting down from the ladders and beating each other up. This lead to a surprise appearance by the infamous former Smack Down general manager, Teddy Long. He tossed out interesting ideas for tag team matches before Stephanie McMahon interrupted him to get all entrants in 3 singles matches (Jericho vs Cesaro, Alberto Del Rio vs Sami Zayn, and Ambrose vs Kevin Owens). The results can be found here.
The other best segment of the night was the banter between AJ Styles, and John Cena. It was not just a typical heel talking down a face. There was a sense of truth in their promo, such as Cena calling Styles a dud for coming to WWE despite being heralded as the "hero of sports entertainment" and Styles flat out saying to Cena that "guys like you bury guys like me." Cena has somehow enlisted the help of The New Day to help him out, which makes sense considering Gallows and Anderson started feuding with them. Speaking of tag teams, thanks to a wonderful idea by Teddy Long, Stephanie added another match for MITB. There will a Fatal 4 Way for the title with The New Day, The Club, Enzo and Cass, and The Vaudevillains.
The absolute worst segment of the night goes to, no surprise, the women's division. Charlotte uncharacteristically issued an apology to the WWE Universe on how she treated her father but still maintained why she had to do it. She mentions that she took in Dana Brooke to be her protege, which saddens me that they had to go this route with her since Emma is still injured. Natalya and Becky came out to try to sway Dana from siding with Charlotte and of course, it doesn't work. There was dead silence for this segment and it pretty much showed that this whole Charlotte and Natalya feud is quickly getting stale. In a 3 hour show, there was no room for any women's wrestling. Not even for freaking Sasha Banks.
Neither Reigns or Rollins made an appearance tonight, which meant the world title was taking a break this week in favor of the MITB feud and Cena vs Styles. They ran 2 lengthy video packages that revisted their history together as The Shield as well as the beginning of their feud from their perspective. Rollins' video package incorporated some segments from his WWE: 24 documentary, which actually made Rollins come off a little different now than his chickenshit heel persona before his injury. No longer backed by The Authority, Rollins wants to prove that he can beat Reigns and he's been waiting 2 years to do it. Reigns video package, on the other hand, conveniently skipped his first 2 title reigns and his reliance on Ambrose and The Usos, despite him saying that he now stands alone. They even showed his WM 32 moment where he holds up the title to a thunderous applause that was clearly edited in. This was a great to build up their feud (and prevent Reigns from getting booed for cutting another promo) than that silly silent treatment they did last week.
To be honest, despite how this episode got mixed reactions by AV Club, I personally enjoyed it. Well, most of it anyways. I do want to note that Ambrose is being heavily featured again. He had a quick backstage segment with Owens, where he noted that Ambrose seems to be going off at the deep end more than usual. In addition to making another appearance on Sports Center with Coach, he has a scheduled match with Jericho on Smack Down. And the previous cancelled Ambrose Asylum (the talk show, not the cage match) returns for the go-home show with 2 very special guests. Once again, Ambrose is being positioned as the favorite to win MITB and they're making it obvious. It's funny that everyone wants to see this happen and knowing WWE, they'll go in a completely different direction and delay pulling the trigger on Ambrose. If he doesn't win, I'm fine with Owens, Zayn or Cesaro walking away with the briefcase.
No comments:
Post a Comment