I’ve enjoyed Raw in recent weeks but this one was a definite step down and I can give you 9.99 reasons why. In the 3 hour show the Network, along with the $9.99 price tag was mentioned a total of 41 times! I get that they have to sell their products but it got a very tedious this week and really took away from an otherwise very average show.
The show began (and ended) with The Authority and when he wasn’t mentioning that $9.99 Network he was announcing matches – lots and lots of matches. Summer opponents Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins were each given a Beat The Clock match to determine the stipulation for their match at the PPV; Ambrose was to take on Alberto Del Rio while Rollins would be facing Rob Van Dam (because Trips likes to keep things fair for both competitors…or so he says). Ambrose v Alberto went first and an entertaining and far longer than expected match saw Ambrose pick up the win with the Dirty Deeds in 9:99…sorry 15:42, certainly a huge advantage for Rollins even with RVD as his opponent. In true Authority style however, Van Dam was replaced at the last minute by the One Man Three Man Band (not sure why he’s still using that theme) Heath Slater. No prizes for predicting Ambrose would distract Rollins leading to a shock Heath Slater roll-up victory (a lethal manoeuvre which has also taken out the likes of Edge & Jericho) but the means of distraction were classic Ambrose, mocking Seth with his Money In The Bank briefcase, tearing up the contract inside and filling it with soda, popcorn and for some reason, JBL’s hat. The stipulation announcement won’t be made until Smackdown this Friday but with the ‘Lunatic Fringe’ Dean Ambrose, anything could happen!
In other Authority news, Roman Reigns fully recovered from last week’s brutal beating from Orton had another physical Monday night in store with a Last Man Standing match against Kane to kick off the show. A strong way indeed to start the show but being a non-PPV match expectations were low. Reigns looked to be out for the count after a Chokeslam through a table but managed to just make it up and take Kane out for the 10 count with a single spear (he must’ve learned a thing or two from tagging with Cena a few weeks ago). While Reigns looked impressive as always, the match really didn’t help Kane who I thought came out of the match looking very week. If he’d got up at 7 or 8 only to receive a second Spear or even one into a table set up in the corner then I would have been fine with it but just the one Spear made for an anticlimactic finish. Kane then took his mask off and gave it to Stephanie for some reason. Speaking of Stephanie, she continued her feud with Brie Bella with a good ol’ contract signing for their match at Summerslam. The build up for the match has been great, particularly on Stephanie’s part but I really don’t know what to expect from this one, Steph has never been particularly well known for her in-ring work (she won the Women’s Title without even hitting a single move) and Brie has never been amazing herself. Stephanie did however show what she’s capable of with a Triple H quality (maybe even slightly better) Pedigree on both Nikki & Brie to close the show.
This should be the part where I write all about the huge upcoming WWE World Heavyweight Title match at Summerslam between John Cena and Brock Lesnar but well…neither of them actually showed up this week, not even Paul Heyman. This is supposed to be the big match at one of the major PPVs of the WWE calendar yet with constant no-showing competitors it’s really hard to get excited about it. I’m sure at the final Raw before it we’ll see Cena take an F5 but there really needs to be more than that, the best we got this week was multiple recaps of Cena & Lesnar talking about the match, goofy-grinning Cena with his ‘never give up’ spiel while Brock doesn’t give a fuck and just wants to hurt people (what a nice man).
Other than that it was a fairly standard Raw, Fandango’s weekly job was to Diego (still no idea where they’re going with this & I’m not sure they even know), Sandow’s weekly job was to Mark Henry (also still no idea where they’re going with this) & Bo Dallas got his bovenge on the streak conquering R-Truth (see previous brackets). Rusev also beat Sin Cara but we didn’t get to watch that one as the entire match happened during the break on the app but we did get to see Rusev attack Swagger with a flag at least. Chris Jericho also defeated Luke Harper with a Codebreaker, banning him from ringside at Summerslam and making it a 1v1 match with Bray Wyatt, Bray really needs the win here but with Fozzy doing the official theme the odds are certainly against him. Dolph Ziggler got the win over Cesaro ahead of his Intercontinental title match with The Miz which would’ve been great if it hadn’t devalued Cesaro even further. After winning the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal at Wrestlemania it seemed Cesaro would be getting a huge push but WWE have done an amazing job of killing his momentum, we can only hope this changes soon as Cesaro is far too good for this. The bizarre brothers Goldust and Stardust also returned to in ring action with a victory over Rybaxel, hopefully they’ll be challenging for the titles once the Usos return from wherever they’ve gone.
Final grade: 9.99
Final Thoughts:
- How much was the WWE Network again?
- Where have the Usos gone?
- At least stardust & Goldust are out of Kane’s basement now
- Why did JBL let Ambrose steal his hat so easily?
- What was with that Adam Rose magic mirror segment? Seriously, why? (The mirror segment was promoting the WWE movie “Oculus”, though we are deeply disappointed that the mirror showed simply a suited Adam Rose and not Leo Kruger – ed.)
- Rusev has an adorable smile and needs a face run just so I can see him smile more.
- It’s Hulk Hogan’s birthday show next week, maybe he’ll get a WWE Network subscription or a WWE 15 preorder as presents, if not I’m sure he’ll spend at least half the show talking about them.
- Only $9.99 you say?
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