"MAKE DARREN YOUNG GREAT AGAIN!": Monday Night RAW (7/11/16)

Last week's Monday Night RAW was considered a throwaway episode. Even though it got one of its lowest TV ratings, it was still the most watched show on cable, even though there wasn't much progression with the storylines. This would be somewhat considered a go-home show for Smack Down (as far as tapings go) because next week it goes live. The results can be found here.

This was a surprisingly solid episode of RAW (except for the main event and final segment in the third hour). There was a lot of wrestling matches that actually featured a lot of the talent, a few in-promos and segments, and best of all, there was progress with the brand extension. Long story short, Stephanie will be the commissioner for RAW and Shane will be the commissioner for Smack Down (sadly relieving Shane from co-running RAW). Both have to choose their respective General Managers next week or else Vince will choose for them.

RAW kicked off with immediately with the Battle Royal, where strangely most of the contenders were made of tag teams like The Golden Truth, The Vaudevillains, The Usos, The Ascension, etc. The final 3 ended up being Darren Young, Apollo Crews and Baron Corbin. Crews clotheslined Corbin and both ended up going over the the top rope, leaving Young as the accidental winner of the Battle Royal. Young's win was such a wonderful surprise that he got a crowd chant, plus it was a treat to see Bob Backlund lift him up like he was nothing!

One interesting segment was The New Day's anticipated visit to the Wyatt Family compound. It was heavily inspired by Broken Matt and Brother Nero's "Final Deletion" match, drawing more on the idea of having an all out battle outside the ring and arena. It was a serious and thrilling displa, to see the New Day drop their positive act to take on Wyatt, Rowan, and Strowman, who legit looked threatening and monstrous without his tank top. Obviously, the Wyatt Family overwhelmed the New Day but that was beside the point. Bray Wyatt is finally believable as a cult leader and the "Wyatt Family" is not just Rowan, Strowman, and Harper (who was not included). They are truly a threat and it will be interesting to see how this visit affects the bond of The New Day.

The best match of the night goes to Cesaro and Kevin Owens, where Owens refused to even come into the ring unless Sami Zayn (who was on commentary) is kicked out. Stephanie listed to Owens' request and orders the referees to escort Zayn out. Their match was spectacular and there was also storytelling in the moves they were using. Owens was working on Cesaro's neck for nearly the whole match, so instead of using his signature Pop-Up Powerbomb to take Cesaro out, he uses a rarely used move to win the match. As Owens was angrily ranting in Byron Saxton's headphone about being the best, out comes Zayn from out of nowhere to jump him. He throws Owens into the ring and signals Cesaro to do his swing, which he happily obliges. Knowing that Owens and Zayn will be separated, they're really making the most of this feud.

The best segment of the night goes to Seth Rollins: Investigative Reporter, who debuted his new talk show, The Rollins Report, with an exclusive sit-down interview with Roman Reigns. I feared that Rollins was going to do the same bit where he interviews a picture of Reigns on the Titantron with Rollins mouth superimposed and speaking with his voice. Instead, it was Rollins in a suit asking questions with Reigns' answers taken out of context from his various sit-down interviews with Michael Cole. It was fantastic and funny. It was a new take on Rollins' campaign to remove Reigns and have a one-on-one match with Ambrose, which prompted the champ himself to show up and praise Rollins for having fun for once. He immediately calls Ambrose and his title reign a joke, and goes on to reiterate that he's the best member of The Shield. This is admittedly one of Rollins' best promos since his return and he's far away from being the chickenshit heel he once was last year. His rant sparked something in Ambrose, leading to what would be hands down the best promo of the night and the best promo of his career.

This was not goofy Ambrose. No, this was Dean "Fighting Champion" Ambrose and he gave 2 distinctly different promos. The first is addressing that he does like to have fun because he's the top man, and no matter who comes and leaves, who gets suspended, who "chases fantasies in some other sport," at the end of the day, he's the guy still standing there. If you want to see how easily Ambrose can command the audience, listen to how he got the arena to stop chanting as soon as he switched gears and focused on Rollins, leading to his second promo where he gets dark about how far he's come and how far he'll go to keep the title. Rollins is visibly shaken, even taking a few steps back as he went on. Ambrose basically accepted Rollins' challenge to have a one-on-one match and it will take place next week in the go-home show.

A lot of matches were set for Battleground and it's already looking quite promising. The one thing I'm worried about is what they're doing with Ambrose again. They're giving him his first title defense on RAW against Rollins, and they're already hinting that he may or may not be champion heading into Battleground. Here's the thing; if Ambrose retains, then he's most likely staying on RAW. They can't draft him to Smack Down if he's carrying what's basically RAW's title. So if he's going to Smack Down, Ambrose has to drop the title. I'm a little sad by this possible scenario, because of the fact that he cut an incredible promo and then he's going to lose, which has been a consistent pattern with Ambrose (MITB being the exception). The positive note is that Ambrose got to be a champ and fittingly, he's the last sole WWE champion before they introduce a second title belt. The last few champion have been a heel and most recently, in the sad case for Reigns, a tweener, as a reaction to the fans not accepting him as a champion, even though he's been putting on decent matches. The fact that they plan to cut short the first true babyface's championship reign is troubling.

"RESET: Electric Boogaloo": Monday Night RAW (4/11/16)

Just hours before Monday Night RAW went live, it was announced that "due to overwhelming social media support," Shane McMahon would be hosting RAW again. This is one thing to nitpick regarding Shane's storyline but I'll let it slide. If last week's episode was good, last night's episode was great. The results can be found here.

All 3 hours of RAW, which normally feels like a weekly chore to sit through, was consistently entertaining. Shane McMahon kicked off the show by announcing upcoming matches on tonight's card and giving opportunities to other people. It has been such a long time since the show has had a mostly neutral GM who not only made sure the audience would enjoy the show, he also made sure to look out for the talent. He gave Sami Zayn another chance to be another possible contender for the WWE WHC title by going up against AJ Styles, and Zayn and Styles put on a great hardhitting match. He sets up Kevin Owens and Cesaro in a match, where the winner will face off against the Miz for the IC title. He also kicks out Owens for threatening to harm Zayn again and cost him his match. He announces a tag team tournament where the winners will face off against New Day for the Tag Team Championship title. And in one small hilarious in-ring segment, Shane (via a crumpled memo from Ambrose's pocket) cancelled Jericho's "Highlight Reel" and replaced it with "Ambrose Asylum."

On top of well booked matches were a few surprises. First was Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows taking out The Usos. While WWE didn't officially acknowledge them as Bullet Club, that didn't stop the audience from chanting their name. The Tag Team division looks promising with 2 new NXT call ups (sorry Lucha Dragons and Ascension) and now these new "Outsiders." Another surprise was Dr. Phil, whom the audience feared would be a throwaway celebrity guest, who actually tried to reach out to Charlotte and implored her to stop using Ric Flair to cheat her way to the top. This might be the start of a much needed split between Charlotte and Flair since she's turned heel.

Shane even set up the main event match that saw Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt teaming up against Sheamus and Alberto Del Rio. It was a baffling set up, considering Reigns and Wyatt's drawn out feud from last year. The crowd reaction basically changed Wyatt into a babyface while Reigns was continuing to get the boos. This was a refreshing change from the last time Reigns and Wyatt closed out RAW. As tweeners (the champ being more of a dick and the cult leader being more of babyface), they had good chemistry, even though Reigns remained cautiously adamant after they won.

Overall, this was another feel good RAW following WrestleMania and it really seems to reflect that they're taking extra steps to improve their product. The main story is not about Authority vs Reigns anymore. Now we're seeing other talents getting the spotlight. We're seeing storyline progression. And most importantly, the show ended on such a good note and renewed excitement for their upcoming shows. I'm just happy that 3 of my current favorite wrestlers (Ambrose, Cesaro, and Owens) got TV time.

So I mentioned last week how worried I was that WWE killed Ambrose's momentum (again), especially after WrestleMania. I honestly didn't expect him to appear on RAW at all until Jericho's Highlight Reel segment was announced. I'm excited at the fact that they're quickly moving Ambrose and Jericho into a feud. This doesn't appear to callback Jericho's shoulder check to Ambrose from Night of Champions or when Ambrose eliminatied Jericho from the Royal Rumble. Instead, this is a cocky Jericho saying he's untouchable after beating AJ Styles at WrestleMania and Ambrose simply stepping up. He's back in TV mode, where he's being goofy instead of intense, which is fine for him. At least he'll get a believable win this time.

"RESET": Monday Night RAW (4/4/16)

WrestleMania 32, for the most part, had great moments and wrestling matches with some undesirable results. As I mentioned yesterday, a lot of favorites - such as AJ Styles, The New Day, Dean Ambrose, Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks, Shane McMahon, and yes, even Triple H - lost. Post-WrestleMania RAW was anticipated to be the most important show and it certainly proved it last night. The results can be found here.

There were some major highlights:

• Shane McMahon took over RAW just for tonight, just so Vince can prove that Shane running RAW would be a disaster, which made his whole match and that HIAC spot pointless. It was, however, refreshing to have a neutral General Manager greeting the talent backstage and setting up matches.
• The League of Nations kicked out Wade Barrett for being their weakest link. All of a sudden, the Wyatt Family (sans Luke Harper) appeared and took them out. Is this a new direction for them, to slowly become babyfaces?
• Zack Ryder, who surprised the WrestleMania crowd and won the IC Ladder match, lost his IC title 24 hours later to The Miz (with former Diva and real life wife, Maryse). It was the most shocking and infuriating moment of the night, which made me recall how angry I felt when Christian lost the title to Randy Orton 2 days later.
• Roman Reigns was acting quite heel-ish and I liked it. He was not affected by the crowd booing at him and he smugly issued a challenge to anyone who wants his title. Out came Chris Jericho, AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, and Sami Zayn, who can't enter a ring without punching each other. Shane would later set the main event to be a fatal 4-way to determine a #1 contender.
• The newly created Women's Championship title had a presentation with all of the Divas Women out in the ring as Charlotte gave an unusually babyface promo about how far they've come to make this happen before taking all the credit. Natalya challenged Charlotte for the title, which means these 2 will be feuding for a bit while Becky and Sasha take on the rest of the Women's division.
• As Wredditor insider FalconArrow pointed out, a lot of NXT call-ups happened. The first was Baron Corbin, who actually won the ATGMBR at WrestleMania. He wrestled and won his first match against Dolph Ziggler (eesh, poor guy). Apollo Crews won against Tyler Breeze (ugh), and tag team favorites Enzo and Cass made their debut to take on The Dudleyz. To cap it off, NXT Tag Team Champions The VaudeVillains will also be making their main roster debut on Smack Down.
• Kevin Owens took out Sami Zayn prior to the main event. Per Shane McMahon, a new 4th contender was added, and it was none other than Cesaro. This match was exciting. Cesaro looked incredible and was fantastic in the ring. There were so many nearfalls that it made it look like anybody - excluding Jericho - could win. In the end, Styles emerged victorious. This means that Reigns will definitely be a heel by WWE's next PPV, Payback, on May 1st.

There's another thing to note here. HHH and Stephanie were absent. US Champ Kalisto and rival Ryback were absent as well. And although they were both scheduled for RAW, neither Brock Lesnar or Dean Ambrose appeared. Looking at how "full" RAW was, I guess it makes sense that they didn't have room for them.

Ambrose's absence may be explained as him trying to "recover" from his disappointingly tame match with Lesnar, but it still drew a lot of concern. WWE has once again dropped the ball on Ambrose for the 3rd straight year in a row and his WrestleMania match effectively killed his momentum. I was worried that he lost his chance to be made into a top star with credibility and he was going back to the midcard again. My coworkers offered their take: Ambrose is taking a much deserved break for carrying his feud - and for a brief moment, Roman's feud with HHH - up until WrestleMania.

I can't help but feel bad; I've been rooting for this guy to be successful and finally capture the WWE WHC for 2 years. Rollins had a lengthy title run up until his injury and Reigns is now a 3-time champ, which is ridiculous. It would be a shame to see him booked the same way as Bray Wyatt, or worse, as Ziggler. He'll be the guy to put the star over but never be a star himself. Hopefully he's on Smack Down tonight.

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On a more positive note, I went and bought tickets for WWE's Money In The Bank. I accidentally found out the pre-sale was happening today and, thanks to some nice people on r/SC, I was able to get a promo code to buy the tickets. I did tell Vince that I didn't care how expensive it was, I was going to get us floor seats. It wasn't ringside tickets but it would be the closest we've ever been to the ring for a WWE event. I'm just excited at the fact that we'll get to see Owens, Zayn, Styles, and other favorites live. Oh, and Ambrose since he freaking lives here.

What the..? (Updated)

Ambrose, Cesaro, Rusev, and Ziggler are on Main Event with the regular jobbers.

Ambrose only appeared in a backstage segment on RAW, while Cesaro didn't appear at all. Rusev barely had a match against Kevin Owens, and Ziggler only appeared via run-in to save Ryback. Barrett just came back from filming a movie!

And I just found out that Ambrose and Barrett was the dark match between Main Event and Smack Down.

A DARK MATCH. It didn't even air for this week's Main Event. What are they doing with these guys?

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Well, if there's anything for me to take comfort in, there's another piece of Ambrose merchandise that was added to WWEShop!

Late June, during the "Summer of Ambrose", WWEShop released 5 new shirt designs. Since then, they've added several more shirt designs and tank tops. Today, WWEShop added their most expensive apparel to date: a Dean Ambrose Replica Jacket. This is a really smart move on WWE's part and also damn gutsy. T-shirts are easier and faster to mass-produce. Faux-leather jackets obviously aren't. They must have a lot of faith on Ambrose's bankability to make an official jacket of his. I'm not sure why he started wearing a leather jacket over a thick sweater but it's a new look for him, at least for backstage segments. And they added a pretty sweet header image of Ambrose looking like he crawled out of bed badass.

"#SeasonPremiere": Monday Night RAW (9/15/15)

After the horrible season finale from last week, which I didn't bother with making my usual post, Monday Night RAW returned with a SEASON PREMIERE, kicked off by The Authority in best-for-business mode. They made a historic announcement for tonight; for the first time ever, Sting was going to have a match against... Big Show! They started things off with a tag team title match with The New Day vs Prime Time Players. Seriously, what a way to kickstart the show with The New Day getting HHH and Stephanie to dance alongside with them... before going to a commercial break. Godammit.

The New Day vs Primetime Players - Winners: The New Day 

The New Day have been so ridiculously entertaining ever since their heel turn that the rest of the tag team division literally pales in comparison. The fans are now cheering for them as they use both "New Day Rocks" and "New Day Sucks" chants. The PTP put on a good match but it seemed obvious that New Day would retain their title just so they could have a match against the Dudley Boyz at Night of Champions.

Paige vs Sasha Banks - Winner: Sasha Banks

This was actually a very brutal match to watch between 2 former NXT Women's Champs. They weren't just wrestling for the sake of being in a match; it felt like they had a grudge with each other and it really showed. At one point, I thought Sasha might've gotten injured and thankfully she wasn't, she does a good job of selling it. The one thing that irks me is that Charlotte is being made as the face of the Divas Revolution when Sasha Banks was responsible for the best NXT Women's Championship matches with Charlotte, Becky Lynch, and Bayley in the specials. Yeah, Charlotte is the daughter of Ric Flair. Sasha has been a wrestler much longer than she has, and she didn't use Snoop Dogg to help get her name out there.

MizTV segment with The Wyatt Family

Miz kicked off the season premiere for his show as he called out the Wyatt Family to be his guests. Wyatt was somewhat kind enough to warn Miz about doing this segment with them. Miz assured him that he was not Ambrose and Reigns' mysterious partner for this Sunday's Hell in A Cell. That's right, he said Hell In A Cell. The segment was cut short when the Ambrose and Reigns appeared and entered through the crowd (SHIELD FEELS). Ambrose immediately took out Miz (I loved how Ambrose randomly did this instead of simply scaring Miz off) while Reigns talked down Wyatt. Reigns confirms that they have found a third partner but they won't reveal it til Sunday.

This is probably the most talked about aspect of this feud since Strowman's debut. Who did Ambrose and Reigns choose and how did they convince him to join them in their war? Last week, the Wyatt Family targeted Orton for simply being seen talking to them, and on Smack Down, they went after Jimmy Uso (who was delightful in a backstage segment). I'm glad they're holding off on revealing it this week, although Ambrose might've accidentally spilled the beans to Jojo and said Savio Vega.

I skipped the Cena vs Sheamus match. Guess who won? LOLCENAWINS

Kevin Owens and Ryback Promo

Oh Ryback. He's one of the wrestlers that I can like or dislike, depending on how he presents himself. Last week, in a backstage segment with Renee Young, he did a bad promo where he was clearly reading off of cue cards. This week, he did a bad Elvis impersonation (ironic considering he's from Vegas). Kevin Owens came out holding the book that Ryback has constantly attributed to his newfound positive attitude and said he was pathetic for relying on the book. I'm not really happy with the buildup for this feud, especially since they separated Owens and Cesaro, and I'm not convinced that Ryback and Owens have beef with each other. Still, seeing Owens going for another title looks and being a condescending jerk about it is the only good thing coming out of their match for Sunday.

Stardust and The Cosmic Wasteland briefly brawled with Neville and the Lucha Dragons. Then it was revealed that they were going to be the kickoff match before Night of Champions. Godammit.

Charlotte vs Nikki Bella - Winner: Charlotte (via DQ) 

Charlotte put on an amazing match against Nikki until Alicia Fox interfered. Charlotte went and pinned Nikki and was declared a Divas champion. Even her father came down the ramp to congratulate her, until the camera cut away to what was happening outside the ring. Charlotte pinned Brie, not Nikki. GODAMMIT NOT THIS TWIN MAGIC SHIT AGAIN. And then Stephanie had the fucking balls to come out and said that she had to uphold the integrity of the Divas division and confirm that Charlotte only won via disqualification and the title can't change hands due to that. Charlotte has a rematch for Night of Champions and Stephanie affirmed that if Nikki loses in any way, even via disqualification, Charlotte will be the Divas champ. So Nikki got to beat AJ Lee's record and retained her title. The crowd was very pissed with this outcome but it was clearly an incentive to watch this Sunday.

Rusev vs Cesaro - Winner: Cesaro

This felt like a throwaway, at least storyline wise, but these two put on an impressive match. It was nice to see CESARO SECTION signs though, and Cesaro was happy to see it too. The match ended quickly when Dolph Ziggler showed up and tried to give Summer Rae a small gift box, which she kept refusing. This distracted Rusev long enough for Cesaro to pin him and win... then Ziggler comes in and superkicks Rusev in the head. Seriously, who's the heel or face in this feud? Also, worth noting was Summer Rae secretly holding the gift box behind her as she walked Rusev back up the ramp. I don't know where they're going with this storyline and I want this to end already.

Big Show and Seth Rollins vs Sting and John Cena - Winners: LOLCENASTINGWINS

The main event match was Sting vs Big Show, which turned into tag team match when Seth Rollins interfered and ganged up on Sting, and then John Cena ran out to help Sting. I skipped watching the match because I knew how this was going to play out. At almost every go home show, Rollins is made to look stupid, bad, or weak before his PPV match. And that is exactly what happened as John Cena and Sting won the match. Of course, they need the crowd to go home happy.

Overall, despite a few great matches for the go-home show, I'm still not really excited for Night of Champions. I'm not even excited for either of Rollins' matches; I wouldn't care if he won or lost because it'll never be a clean for him. There will be shenanigans, someone interfering, or worse, fucking Sheamus cashing in.

Actually, I take that back; Rollins matches are actually depending on the outcome of ROH's Jay Lethal matches with Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reily, respectively, at the All Star Extravaganza VII PPV this Friday. Yes, he is also doing both matches with both titles on the line, a mere 2 days before Night of Champions. It's an unfortunate coincidence and WWE is rumored to have different plans for the finish to make sure they don't appear to be copying their ending.

"This is a PRELUDE TO WAR": Monday Night RAW (8/17/15)

It's the go home show as well as the homecoming of Minnesota's own Beast, Brock Lesnar. What should've been an exciting show was simply nothing more than a hype machine. Literally. All of the matches were just teases on what to expect this Sunday, so basically everyone that has a match this Sunday is fighting or confronting their respective opponents tonight. There are now 10 matches confirmed for the 4-hour Summerslam. Oh boy.

HHH and Steph opened up RAW! and they were in "Best for Business" mode, as they talked about Summerslam being so big that it had to be 4 hours. And you can get it all on the WWE Network for - wait for it - $9.99. What made it irritating was that they were blasting the official theme song for Summerslam, which was Demi Lovato's single "Cool For The Summer" as they were talking. Another big big news they wanted to talk about was that former Daily Show host, Jon Stewart, will be hosting Summerslam. The road to Summerslam kicked off with Randy Orton and Cesaro vs Kevin Owens and Sheamus.

The most exciting part of any matches involving Cesaro is seeing him smile at the "CESARO SECTION" signs (again, also organized on r/SC). This tag team match was... okay. All 4 of these guys have a singles match this Sunday so this team up didn't really add anything to it. There were also a few botches at the end. Cesaro almost fell over the ropes until Kevin grabbed his foot to save him, which they played off as Owens interrupting him. And then Orton was about to do his RKO on Owens but due to some miscommunication, Orton was actually following through with his RKO as Owens was pushing him off, resulting in Orton appearing to slip down. Cesaro tried to cover Owens by grabbing his leg and pulling him off the ring, leading Orton to do the RKO on Sheamus and take the pin.

Next up was Roman Reigns vs Luke Harper. Dean Ambrose showed up and went to do commentary alongside JBL, Michael Cole, and Byron Saxton. Bray Wyatt waited on ringside. It has been a LONG time since Ambrose was on commentary and he was doing a great job hyping up everyone, even Harper and Wyatt. He even grabbed Saxton's chair and gave it to Wyatt! To be honest, this match was like a fucking replay from Smackdown. Harper is so diverse and brutal with his moves while Reigns does the same power moves over and over. Everyone gripes on Ambrose's rebound clothesline but no one bitches on Reigns constantly using a clotheslines and Superman punches. Reigns won clean at the end with a weak spear on Harper. Meanwhile, everyone is talking about how they're looking forward to seeing Ambrose or Reigns turn heel on Sunday.

Becky Lynch defeated Tamina, getting another singles win under her belt. I don't have anything more to say about this match except that it seemed pretty obvious that Tamina would take the pin. And we get another reminder that Nikki Bella's reign will go on for another month until she beats AJ Lee's reign. Jesus christ.

Next up is Rusev vs Patriotic Mark Henry again but this time, eh actually defeated him with The Accolade. Lana called back Hot Summer back into the ring and challenged her. She slapped Hot Summer and then challenged Rusev to come into the ring. As Rusev edged closer to Lana, Ziggler's theme song played. Lana did a superkick to Hot Summer and Ziggler did a DDT and superkick to Rusev. Ziggler's return made him and Rusev the (hopefully) final match added to Summerslam.

Seth Rollins and The Authority arranged to have a contract signing with him and John Cena, making their title vs title match official for Summerslam. Cocky Rollins even asked if they would make a statue of him (like the ones they made of Andre The Giant, Bruno Sammartino, and Ultimate Warrior) when he wins both titles this Sunday. HHH and Stephanie agreed that it would be done IF he wins. Rollins did a long opening monologue about Cena being the disease and that he was the cure. Cena came out and basically emasculated him, saying that even though the crowd was cheering "Let's go Cena! Cena sucks!" they were not chanting for Rollins. The real champ was here. And he even called out that Rollins was becoming HHH's legacy, as HHH calmly looks on. When Cena's fired up and not being silly, damn, he can be on point with his promos. The most surprising part? Cena signed the contract and walked away unscathed.

Ryback defeated Miz while Big Show was on commentary. Big Show was promoting his movie "Vendetta" that he filmed with Dean Cain and he had JBL holding the DVD. Makes me a little worried on how Ambrose will handle promoting his movie next month. Nothing really exciting here. I'll be fine if Miz wins or Ryback retains.


I want to point out how awesome this message from Stardust and King Barrett was. What you have to understand is how long this has been building up and how it's making all the players involved, notably King Barrett and Neville, look good. Cody Stardust has been pushing for this storyline for the last few months and it's becoming more than just a tribute to his father, Dusty Rhodes. We're seeing something new and exciting happening here, and with a celebrity element (Stephen Amell) that doesn't feel tacked on. Barrett and Neville, who've been floundering around with no direction, are back to feuding with each other, not as a heel and face, but as a villain and a hero! Amell is introducing his fans and "Arrow" fans to his love for wrestling. And the best part is how much FUN this storyline is shaping up to be. I honestly don't care if the heroes or villains wins, the payoff is finally seeing this match happen at Summerslam.

Then there was an 8 man tag team match with Prime Time Players and Lucha Dragons vs New Day and Los Matadores. The New Day was great, as usual, but otherwise it was another uninteresting match. A few months ago, that tag team division was starting to shape up after the Usos were out of the picture. There was Tyson Kidd and Cesaro, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan as "The Reapers" until Rowan got injured, The Ascension was getting some TV time, and Macho Mandow and Axelmania had... something. Ok, moving on.

The last match of the night was Sasha Banks vs Nikki Bella. One would think how awesome it was to see that the main even match was ending with Divas. Sasha was hard-hitting and taunting Nikki the whole time (even mocking her doing jumping jacks and push ups!) Unfortunately, the match went downhill when Nikki missed kicking Sasha as she jumped off the ropes (and Sasha still had to sell it), and the audience started chanting "WE WANT LESNAR!" While it was really infuriating to hear them chant that through their match, it was understandable why they would. Paul Heyman and Lesnar appeared in the last 15 minutes of a 3 hour show, whereas Undertaker appeared earlier in the first hour. This was another setback for the Divas Revolution.

Lesnar got a heroes welcome with confetti and streamers raining over him as the crowd chanted "SUPLEX CITY." Seriously, is Lesnar suppose to be the face or heel in this feud? Heyman was on fire once again as he hyped up Lesnar and mentioned his accomplishments, including from his hometown university. He even sang a glorious song, "GLORY, GLORY, BROCK LESNAR!" Undertaker's bell gong and blackout happened but Taker was nowhere to be seen, leading Heyman to do more of his promo, including pointing out that Taker doing a low blow is a desperate move (and for kayfabe reason, something only heels do, not faces). When it rang again, Taker appeared. And he did the low blow again. He tombstoned Lesnar and was greeted with a deafening boos from the fans. Anywhere else, Taker would've gotten cheers for doing this.

So, all in all, aside from a few good parts, this whole RAW was just a tease for Sunday. There's still Smack Down! this Tuesday Thursday with this ridiculously huge main event happening. Maybe there's a bit more breathing room for one last Stardust or Cosmic King vs Neville match, or Ziggler vs Rusev? Not to mention there's also NXT Takeover Brooklyn happening the night before Summerslam, so this week is all WWE. This is gonna be an exhausting weekend for wrestling fans.

Oh, also...

  
I DON'T WANT THIS BROMANCE TO END ON SUNDAY :(

"SEA! HAWKS!": Monday Night RAW (8/11/15)

It's 2 weeks til the Summerslam and a bunch of matches were added to the card, now justifying WWE extending the PPV to 4 hours. Last night's RAW was thoroughly enjoyable, and it also marked the return of Daniel Bryan in his home state of Washington.

Seth Rollins opened up RAW with a really silly segment where he was talking to a picture of John Cena with his broken nose via titantron with Rollins' mouth and terrible accent. Cena has still not officially accepted Rollins' challenge. Cesaro (who was so happy to see more Cesaro Section signs), Kevin Owens (who called out "the idiot on the internet" for printing said signs for the sheeps), and Randy Orton (who sheeply asked if Owens gained weight) came out, much to Rollins' dismay as he confirmed that he was not going to do the weekly open challenge. HHH came out and created a triple threat match amongst the 3 challengers and the winner will fight Rollins for the title as tonight's main event.

Team Bella defeated Team B.A.D. while Submission Sorority PCB was on commentary. While all 3 Diva groups went into the ring and started wailing on each other, this moment stood out at the end; look at the stare down between the 2 former champs! Sadly, the Divas Revolution will remain on its holding pattern for another month. They were added to Summerslam as a Three Team Elimination match.

The New Day fought (and defeated) Los Matadores. These guys have been on FIRE these last few weeks. Their matches have been so entertaining to watch, and regardless of whether they win or lose, they still win the crowd over every single time. They were added to Summerslam as a Fatal 4-Way Match against Los Matadores (ugh), Lucha Dragons (yay), and Tag Team Champions Prime Time Players. When The New Day first won, it was a complete surprise. Now I want them to be the 2-Time Tag Team Champions.

The Triple Threat match with Orton, Owens, and Cesaro was incredible. It's so damn impressive to see Owens keep up with Cesaro and Owens. Orton and Cesaro teamed up to do a double suplex on Owens off the turnbuckle. And Orton did a double rope DDT on Owens and Cesaro. I was not happy to see Cesaro getting the pin from Orton, which meant it was another match for the 13-time former champ against Rollins again. Come on, Cesaro or Owens would've been great.

There was a Miz TV segment with Daniel Bryan, who was there to plug his book. Miz once again complained that he should be the IC champ and Big Show came out. And then... The Ryback came out! He looks well! He didn't do his signature Shell Shock but he did a good spear on Miz and on Big Show. Bryan has been really supportive of The Ryback, so it was nice to see his continued endorsement.

Next up was Ambrose vs Harper with Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt, respectively on their side outside the ring. Harper and Ambrose put on a decent match (though Vince pointed out that they were on auto-pilot) but in the end, Ambrose lost (UGH AS USUAL) to Harper. This whole "Family vs Family" feud, especially for Ambreigns, is once again bringing up rumors that one of them will turn heel, or worse, join the Wyatt Family. Their bromance over the last few months has been consistently endearing, and it's going to suck when it happens. Wonder how that will affect Ambrose's merchandise on the WWEShop.

There was a match with Rusev defeated Mark Henry while Lana was on commentary. The match was a no decision when Lana intervened. Something remarkable happened here; Rusev ordered Summer to "CRUSH" Lana and she performed Rusev's Accolade on her! And then the Bulgarian flag came down with Rusev's face on it and it was fucking glorious. I actually liking this love triangle better without Ziggler's involvement.

Neville defeated King Barrett but was jumped but was jumped by Stardust in the ring. Stardust notices "Arrow" actor Stephen Amell in the front row and smacks him before getting back in the ring. Amell jumps over the barricade and SPEARS Stardust in the middle of the ring! The crowd pop here was great! Backstage, he demanded HHH to put him and Neville in a match against Stardust and King Barrett for Summerslam. This is the match I'm looking forward to the most. It was an unusual concept to begin with but I'm glad WWE allowed this story line to develop. I read that Stardust is doing this match in tribute to his father, Dusty Rhodes, so that he can finish what he started.

The main event match with Rollins and Orton was also decent but it was looking like it was falling apart towards the end. To be honest, I wasn't really watching the match because it would seem obvious that Rollins would retain. Sheamus interfered and tried to cash in his MITB briefcase after throwing Orton over the barricade. And then this happened:

Sheamus and John Cone (Office Rep! Dammit, I miss the JBL & Renee show) were clearly stalling for a few seconds before Orton came back into the ring and RKO'd Sheamus. This was predictably disappointing. Majot title changes only seem to happen in PPV events. I get that they want to make the title prestigious and the title change significant but a little unpredictability goes a long way. This is clearly hinting that Sheamus is going to cash in again at Summerslam but for which title? The World Heavyweight Championship or the US Championship?

Next week is the Go Home show with Lesnar and Undertaker returning to Raw for one last time before Summerslam.

"Hot Rod!": Monday Night RAW (8/4/15)

This was a nice way to honor Roddy Piper, although the silent 10-bell salute was ruined by some asshole in the audience who yelled out "Roddy!" towards the end, prompting the rest of the crowd to join in on the cheering before it ended. Considering the weird events Roddy was involved in the last few weeks (him getting fired from Podcast One, him uploading his podcasts to Soundcloud, and getting dropped from his WWE Legends contract), this was still nice of WWE to put this together. It was too damn soon to lose another wrestling legend.

Bad news: Rollins has issued a title vs title match with Cena for Summerslam, taking a page from ROH's recent PPV event with Jay Lethal and Jay Briscoe. Rollins also issued a WWE World Heavyweight Championship Open Challenge for tonight with 2 caveats: that the challenger was under 6 feet tall and under 200 lbs. The first to accept the challenge was was El Torito Neville. So awesome to see 2 former NXT champs go at it and Neville got to showcase more of his moves from NXT. The most damning part was that Rollins got a clean win and there was no interference from Stardust.

Paul Heyman was there just to showcase and hype up Brock Lesnar. Brock didn't do his signature ring jump. He just grabbed one of the metal steps from the corner and threw it in the middle of the ring, just so he can stand on it. And Heyman cut a promo so damn good that it even got Lesnar to smile.

This beautiful moment was organized on r/SC a week ago. It was the work of one wredittor passing out 7000 copies of card stock with "CESARO SECTION" before the event and during the breaks. Cesaro was clearly moved by it (this was posted on his instagram) as he made his way to respond to Kevin Owens for Miz TV.

Miz thanked Piper and Piper's Pit as the originator for his segment. Miz said he should be Intercontinental Champion since Ryback was out (he's still recovering from his staph infection on his knee). When Ryback won the belt at the Elimination Chamber, I wasn't happy, not because he won but it's the fact that the last few champions who held the title were injured to an extent that they had to vacate the title (like Daniel Bryan recently). Anyways, Miz was the moderator for Owens and Cesaro. Owens now recognizes Cesaro as a legit threat after Cena and Cesaro is still getting his push, so this is good for them. The C-Section is working!

Paige, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte have an official stable name: Submission Sorority. This is a horribly confusing name, and it would be a nightmare to search for in Google. Team Paige would've been fine! And I hate to admit it but I'm starting to get Divas Revolution fatigue, since it features the same 3 groups (Submission Sorority, Team B.A.D., and Team Bella) in weekly matches. We know what they can do now, I just want to see them in a story line, especially after Nikki Bella's reign ends.

Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper are cutting a promo as they warn Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose, when all of a sudden Sheamus walks into the frame. This was unintentionally funny.

Reigns and Ambrose also responds (with Ambrose repeating Roddy's iconic quote on how they're here to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and they're all out of bubble gum.) Orton walks in saying that they can do whatever they want, just leave Sheamus to him. Dean's delayed reaction upon realizing Reigns called him "crazy" was also funny.

The main event was a 6-man tag team match with Randy Orton, a returning Roman Reigns, and Dean "Crazy" Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, and Erick Rowan Sheamus. For a good minute or so, Reigns looked crazy strong as he took out the Wyatts and Sheamus. Pairing him up with Ambrose really takes off the heat he got last year, but it's still obvious that WWE is going to push Reigns again. The match felt a bit rushed because of the Stone Cold's Podcast with Paige. It looked like a house show event and it made the smarky San Jose crowd go home happy. 

2ND WEEK OF SHIRTLESS AMBROSE AGAIN?!