"Make Roman look strong": Monday Night RAW (10/19/15)

The go-home show of RAW was chocked full of legends and superstars. This was WWE at its most desperate, bringing in the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin doing an intro for Undertaker and getting interrupted by Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman as the opening segment. Unfortunately, the rest of the show couldn't sustain that energy and the rest of the 3 hours was full of 6-man tag team matches and average matches. The main event was originally set to have Dean Ambrose vs Luke Harper and Braun Strowman in a career suicide handicap match because Orton was suddenly MIA. Kayfabe reason is the Wyatt Family injuring Orton (again). Real story is Orton injuring his shoulder (again). Here is a breakdown of the matches, as summed up from /r/SC:

• The New Day def. John Cena, Dudley Boyz
• Nikki Bella and Alicia Fox def. Sasha and Naomi
• Seth Rollins def. Ryback
• Rusev, King Barret, & Sheamus def. Ziggler, Cesaro, & Neville
• Charlotte w/ Becky Lynch def. Brie Bella w/ Nikki Bella
• Kevin Owens def. Mark Henry
• Wyatt Family def. "Not the SHIELD" by DQ

There was one thing I had a major gripe with, and that was the blatant endorsement for ROMAN REIGNS in his match against Bray Wyatt at HIAC. Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair were brought in just to put Reigns over with the crowd and barely acknowledged Wyatt This was a stark contrast from last year's HIAC, where Mick Foley appeared to say hello to an old friend (referring to the caged cell that was looming over the ring) and he put over BOTH Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. Anyways, Reigns had a segment where he wanted to have a sit-down with Wyatt in the ring. He cut a promo that was less scripted was against a somewhat fearful-looking Wyatt. Here's where continuity went out of the window; Wyatt didn't even get to talk about this "prophecy" that he mentioned on Smack Down. He just showed up with Erick Rowan and Braun Strowman in their white sheep and black sheep masks, respectively. That's right, the original Wyatt Family member, Erick Rowan returned with no acknowledgement from the announcers except from the fans. Reigns proceeded to attack Wyatt with his chair and was seemingly surrounded until Ambrose ran into the ring. The main event was now Ambrose and Reigns vs. the Wyatt Family. Like Orton, Harper was also mysteriously MIA.

The Authority and Rollins are shown backstage, commenting on how Reigns is being dumb to jeopardize himself and Ambrose before HIAC. In comes Michaels with a simple solution; if Ambrose and Reigns need a partner, they can send their boy in. HHH and Stephanie were against it, saying Rollins just won a match against Ryback (his second clean win in weeks!) and that they both hate Rollins. Michaels insisted they do it anyways and to stop protecting him. Of course, this riles up Rollins, who said he'll join the 5 world-class athletes and be their partner, which garnered a MASSIVE pop outside. Nevermind that it didn't make any fucking sense for Rollins to join Ambrose and Reigns; for the second time this year since Payback, we were seeing a mini-Shield "reunion."

It was so hilarious to see Rollins and Reigns expressively riling up the crowd as they cheered for Ambrose in the ring. At one point in the match, Strowman took out Reigns, leaving Rollins to be the only one in the corner to make the hot tag from Ambrose. Rollins kept jumping up and down to get tagged in but just as Ambrose was making his way to the corner, Rollins feigns a knee injury, jumps down, and walks back up the ramp. Deja Vu. The match ended in a DQ when Ambrose resorts to using a kendo stick to take out Strowman as he did his death hug on Reigns. Post-match, Reigns came out strong as he took out all 3 of the Wyatt to rescue Ambrose (who, again, takes the most punishment in these matches) and spears Wyatt and Rowan.

Despite RAW being insanely stacked and getting a mini Shield "reunion", the go home show just didn't really do much to hype HIAC, which now fully consists of NoC rematches. Interestingly, 2 major changes were made to the card after last night. First, John Cena's US Open Challenge will be taking place there, which marks Cena's last appearance and hopefully him dropping the title to someone until his return in late December. Second, the kickoff match with Ambrose and Orton vs Harper and Strowman was pulled due to Orton's injury and Harper still being out for personal reasons and replaced with **inhales** Rusev, Sheamus, and Barrett vs Ziggler, Cesaro and Neville in a 6-man tag team match. Which means Ambrose is back to not having a match for HIAC (again!)

Personal post

Well, this was excessive.

A photo posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Oct 15, 2015 at 6:01am PDT

Wednesday night, I was suddenly hit with excruciating belly pain after I came home from work. I tried laying in bed for an hour, putting a pillow on my tummy, eating through the pain (it's cow tongue, I ain't passing that up), and even took some Advil. The pain was there but it was like rolling. It got to a point where I couldn't sleep. Vince then took me to Mountain View hospital around 3:45 am.

On a pain scale of 0-10 (to being the highest), I went with 10. It was hard to move around and walk. I had to get my blood drawn, which is not good because I'm deathly scared of needles. So I had to shut my eyes and deal with the horrible belly pain on top of getting this weird tubey thing sticking out of my arm.

Then the stupidest thing happened when I was waiting on a chair before going into the room: The pain went away. Immediately. I was so damn scared of the needle that my pain vanished.

I was subjected to an EKG and an ultrasound. The nurse said that they needed a urine sample from me (which was bad timing because I went before we got to the hospital) and they won't release me until I did. My blood pressure was low so I had to be put on an IV drip. Actually, my blood pressure was low because I was fucking scared of the needle. Even the nurse said it was just a little below average but the doctor said I needed 2 giant saline bags. My arm was cold O_O

Vince stayed in the room with me for a few hours but I eventually told him that he could go home until I got released-- which was like 20 minutes later. My pain never returned so they chalked it up to acid reflux (even though the pain occurred way before I ate dinner) and they prescribed me some Prilosec. I called up Vince and we were home by 8:00 am. I already called in at work to let them know I won't be coming in.

Just when I thought we could catch up some sleep, our apartment manager knocked on the door to remind us that they are conducting fire alarm inspections (from 8:00 am - 2 pm). That alarm was SO loud and Vince forced himself to sleep through it somehow. After the testing was done, I went to sleep.

I spent the afternoon resting, eating normally (until I saw I was suppose to be on a liquid diet. Oops.), and catching up on shows. My pain never returned. I think it was probably serious menstrual cramps. Or, as I said jokingly to Vince, it was probably because he couldn't let me fart around him. Vince was pretty worried but I'm sure he was relieved that it never got worst. The only bad news I got was that I had a fatty liver.

I can't wait for the bill to show up in the mail.

"This is room temperature saline going into your body temperature arm. It's going to feel cold." O_O This was a few hours ago. I'm home now but extremely sleep deprived.

A photo posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Oct 15, 2015 at 2:34pm PDT

"Nothing happened": Monday Night RAW (10/12/15)

This pretty much summed up the overall reaction to watching RAW last night. What should've been another week to set up storylines leading up to HIAC turned into a rehash of last week. No major story development or story progression. I tuned out for the last hour and just watched the clips online.

There was no "12 Rounds 3: Lockdown" poster sighting this week :/

Ambrose opened up RAW, which got a nice pop from the Chicago (one of the smarkiest cities in the world) and it was so good to hear him on the mic. Then Orton showed up and in one lengthy exposition, told Dean he has a match in HIAC against Luke Harper and Braun Strowman and that his partner is none other than himself. It's sort of weird to hear Orton talk this long and even weirder that he had to acknowledge that he and Ambrose don't get along with others. We already know that. The New Day came in and interrupted them, pointing out how dominant they were last week and that The Shield never did this (which got a great angry reaction from Ambrose) and neither did Evolution, The Authority, or Legacy did this (which actually got a laugh from Orton when they mentioned Legacy). Corporate Kane showed up via Titantron and decided to put the superstars into a match. Throughout the match, the duo are seen clearly trying to one-up each other until a miscommunication caused Orton to accidentally bump Ambrose out of the ring, giving Kingston an opening to pin Orton.

There's one segment I wanted to point out and that was Roman Reigns being sent out to do a very lengthy recap of how his feud with Bray Wyatt began, which was hard to watch. Reigns is great when he talks in short sentences or when he's bouncing off of Ambrose. Having to literally recap everything that has happened since Money in The Bank was too drawn out and boring, and the Chicago crowd was not having it. Sure, it drew "BORING" chants from them and he was quick to shut them down, but when Reigns went back on script, he had already lost his confidence.

I'm one of those people that's still bitter with Reigns being obviously pushed to be the top babyface. I just don't like how WWE puts other people with Reigns to get him over. He's been inseparable from Ambrose for a majority of the year because they know he won't get as much heat when he's paired up with him. I get that Reigns has great chemistry Ambrose, it's something the Shield will always have. WWE just has to stop protecting him so much. Rollins and Ambrose are clearly not protected and their fans are still loyal to them, even with all the loses and bad booking, because they can bounce back from it.

I won't talk about any other matches or segments. AV Club and RollingStone summed up the show and agreed that last night's RAW was just unbearably bad. This is baffling considering that the flagship show has been drawing historically low TV ratings weekly and they're still not doing any major changes. The go home show is next week. About half of the matches on the HIAC PPV card are Night of Champions rematches. That's nothing to get excited about, not even for this:

A fucking kickoff match. That's a spot reserved for tag teams and superstars that they don't have a story for RAW or Smack Down. I guess we'll actually have to watch it. And speaking of Smack Down:

Ambrose is in the main event match in his hometown of Cincinatti, OH! I don't know what to make of this. If he and the Dudleyz win, that would be mighty nice of WWE to let Ambrose win in his hometown. If he loses, then it's no big deal. If it happened on Smack Down, then it didn't happen at all.

"NEW DAY KILLS EVERYONE": Monday Night RAW (10/5/15)

I begrudgingly watched RAW last night but I couldn't stick around for the third hour. The first hour was good with Lesnar and Heyman. His promo was great but at the end, he let everyone know that this will be Taker and Lesnar's last match. This was dumb to have a blow off match in Hell In A Cell instead of building it towards Wrestlemania. They must be planning something bigger. Big Show showed up and was suplexed and F5'd to death. Big Show was actually suppose to be Seth Rollins' partner against the Dudleyz (wha?), so Rollins had to look for another partner.

Also, hey! "12 Rounds 3: Lockdown" poster was spotted again :D I will never stop mentioning this.

Ambreigns and Orton vs The Wyatt Family was actually the first match, which was good. Once again, Ambrose gets beaten up for a good portion of the match so that Orton and Reigns will get the hot tag. It was disappointing to see Harper get the pin because Roman and Strowman need to look strong.

There was a Susan G. Komen segment where the roster stood at the ramp wearing the "RISE ABOVE CANCER" shirts while Reigns and John Cena were in the ring with breast cancer survivors. This was pretty telling; Cena, the top babyface of WWE, and Roman Reigns, the second babyface that WWE is trying to push again, are front and center.

I won't bother recapping the show because the rest of the matches - excluding the weirdly entertaining match with Kevin Owens vs Sin Cara - were not really worth mentioning. We turned out in the last hour and came back to watch the last 10 minutes.

The New Day ending the show was the biggest surprise. They dominated over The Dudleyz, John Cena, and Ziggler. This was a new streak of viciousness for the New Day; now they're truly a heel faction.

Idyllwild Weekend Recap (10/2/15-10/4/15)

Friday (10/2):

On the way to Idyllwild, CA.

A photo posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Oct 2, 2015 at 7:52am PDT

http://vince-sheila.tumblr.com/post/130339984837/847-am-ended-up-getting-sidetracked-when-the

• Requested Friday off! Woke up early to make us some breakfast before heading out! 
• Unfortunately, Vince got a tire pressure sensor thingy as we were heading out, so we had to make a detour at Discount Tires. He did get all the tires replaced on Thursday - it was damn expensive too - so it was most likely the new sensor just reacting to the sudden temperature change.
• After Vince said, "no distractions," he ended up taking the wrong exit.
• Halfway through the trip, we stopped by to get gas at Lenwood. I was pretty hungry so we decided to eat at the Panda Express there. I'm not gonna eat there again for another several months.
• We took the Highway 253, which was a long winding road up the mountain to get to Idyllwild. Vince requested to play the Rad Racer theme as we drove up. I thought the road to Big Bear was worse but this one was fucking scary.
• We finally made it to the cabin! Before Dan and Corinne! 
• We went to nearby Rec center and played pool, shuffleboard, and pong.
• For dinner, we used our little BBQ grill to make some burgers. And beans.
• Watched "The Room" for the first time. What a weird god damn movie.

Saturday (9/5):

• Woke up early to make pancakes, eggs, and bacon for everyone with my grddle. We brought our own pancake mixes so I made 2 sets of Aunt Jemima for Dan and Corinne, and Kodiak Protein pancakes for Vince and I.
• We went to town and explored for a bit. Stopped by a toy and candy shop and a jerky store. Then we headed to Deer Springs Trail, all hyped up for our hike. Until...
• We found out that we needed a permit to hike. TO HIKE. Getting a permit was free but it would require us to go the nature center and pay a fee, which Dan didn't want to do. So we went back to town again to shop for stuff for lunch.
• Vince used the rest of the patties to make a light turkey patty salad. Unfortunately, Vince didn't keep track of the time and the patties came out really charred.
• Played a couple of board games to pass the time before dinner, which was marinated chicken breasts, corns and beans.
• If it weren't for Corinne, the cabin would've burned down. The little trash can where we emptied the ashy charcoal from the grill managed to reignite and burn the old wood that was in there.
• Ended the night with Kindergarten Cop.

Saturday (10/4):

Leaving Idyllwild. Long winding road ahead of us.

A video posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Oct 4, 2015 at 10:22am PDT

It just HAD to rain.

A video posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Oct 4, 2015 at 10:31am PDT

• Woke up early to make breakfast again for everyone with my griddle. So glad I brought that with me.
• We saw some Stellar Jays just as we were getting ready to leave.
• Got on the road by 10. We would've left a lot sooner but it just HAD to rain.
• Stopped by at Berry Blendz for smoothies.
• Watched the MSG event on the WWE Network. It was all right but it was still a house show.
• Watched Vince played games until I feel asleep.

"If you’re really good at doing what you do, good things will come." - Dean Ambrose

Last week, Ambrose only appeared in a backstage segment and had no televised in-ring matches on Raw or Smack Down (which I skipped on watching). He appeared in a dark match with Wade Barrett that was filmed after main Event and before Smack Down. It was noticeably Ambrose-light last week.

And then, all of a sudden, all of these things happened over the weekend:

• WWEShop released a leather jacket replica of his, currently the most expensive apparel item released so far.
  
• Ambrose was featured in a short W2K16 ad for GAME encouraging international customers to preorder the game.
  
• WWE.com featured "Our 13 Favorite Dean Ambrose Quotes" on their homepage.
  
• WWE.com also released a new mini series, "Superstar Ghost Stories," featuring Ambrose retelling his weird ghost encounter in England a few years ago.

And then, this piece of speculation came from WrestlingInc via Wrestling Observer, on the heels of John Cena being granted time off until December for personal reasons:

"According to Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE live events will now feature Dean Ambrose in more headlining roles while Cena is away. It was speculated that WWE officials may be forced to finally push Ambrose to the main event."

It may just be speculation but the sudden Ambrose-heavy content can't be a coincidence, right?

Oh. Look who's being featured in the main event for RAW tonight all of sudden. Despite Reigns and Wyatt's ending brawl from last week, it marked a new low in TV ratings for them. Let's see how desperate WWE is going to get.

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?

----------

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.