The Best and Worst of WWE Raw for September 12, 2016

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Raw: Enzo Amore pretended to sarcastically give birth to a pantomime baby, Alicia Fox ran afoul of Nia Jax, Sasha Banks made her return, Stephanie McMahon insisted she wasn’t in cahoots with Triple H and Gallows and Anderson subjected us to possibly the worst segment in the history of Raw.

Remember that With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Hit those share buttons! WWE’s doing two PPVs a month now, so if we’re gonna keep up the combined brain and will power to stay positive and constructive through all of that, we need your help. We also need your help to be jaded and nit-pick sh*t to death.

And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for September 12, 2016.

Best/Worst: The Women’s Division Division

WWE women’s wrestling is the new ’90s WCW cruiserweight division. WWE figured out that they’re the hardest working crop of people on the show right now and most people want to see them succeed despite years of futility, so they put them out there first in front of crowds that haven’t gotten tired of being at a long-ass wrestling show yet and let them go full-tilt. I’m not saying Dana Brooke is Dean Malenko or whatever, but when it comes to putting together a show to maximize everyone’s contributions, it’s a good gameplan.

Backlash showed that it can really work. Like Backlash, I’ll break down this week’s Raw opening segment into notes to make sure I get to it all.

– Not gonna spend too much time dwelling on my dislike of Commissioner Foley this week, but man, he’s not great at making on-the-fly decisions. Bayley pinned Charlotte, so she deserves a title shot. Sasha Banks is the former Women’s Champion, so she deserves a title shot. Having them face one another for a shot at Charlotte is a good call. Dana Brooke gets into the match for the Women’s Championship shot because … she slapped Charlotte? At the end of the segment, after the #1 contender match had been announced? Even though it’s super clear she’s in cahoots with Charlotte and trying to pull some sh*t? Okay.

Granted, you could rationalize it that Foley was putting Brooke into the match because he knew she’d get involved somehow anyway, and getting her in there officially and evening out the playing field would cut down on the chance of interference. To me, though, that’s not what happened. It was, “you want a match with Charlotte, you want a match with Charlotte. Anybody else? Oh, wait, you want one too? Okay, all three of you can have it.”

It makes the face GM’s matchmaking decisions feel like mixed messages when he admonishes people for interfering or not listening to him, then sorta rewards them for doing so. Smackdown does it too. The Usos lost to American Alpha, attacked them after the match and got put back into the tag title tournament they’d just been eliminated from as a reward. I love giving people title opportunities for logical reasons and I can ride with some of the emotional impulse decisions, but doing them side-by-side makes it hard to track your motivations. Also, why would anyone in the company want to take the long way around and earn a shot when they can just show up at the last second and do something rude and get the same opportunities?

(William Regal wouldn’t stand for this.)
(Well, he probably would, but he’d act like he wasn’t gonna before he did.)

– Sasha Banks’ Bret Hart jacket rules. It looks like Bobby Roode’s entrance robe had sex with Porter Wagoner.

– Real quick though, what the hell’s going on with Sasha Banks’ accent? “No need for the introduction, Mick. Allow me-UH.” “The one and only legit boss of the WW-auhhh.” Did someone tell her to study tapes to improve her promos and she accidentally study Michelle Branch videos? Turn it inside out so I can see-AH! The part of you that’s drifting over me-AH!

– Michael Cole’s accent (and or TV-trained total lack of accent) makes it sound like he’s saying “Belly” instead of “Bayley.” Hit that Y, Cole. On a positive note, I think this is the first complaint I’ve had about Cole in like a month, and it’s barely a complaint.

– Bayley vs. Sasha vs. Dana is pretty fun, and like I said, I like starting off the shows with women’s matches, especially the ones where everyone’s working extra hard. I also really liked Sasha selling on offense, even if a missed Backstabber probably shouldn’t hurt any more than one that hit. It should actually hurt less, shouldn’t it? You aren’t landing on your back with somebody else’s weight on your knees. Gonna use the Gordon Solie missed dropkick “anticipated motion” excuse here.

– Giving Sasha the win makes sense, especially if you’re making up for that weird couple of weeks where it looked like Sasha was going to have surgery and be out forever so she lost the belt, and then she was fine. Sasha vs. Charlotte is always a good time, and Bayley just got here, so it’s not like waiting another month or three’s gonna kill her. One thing, though:

– Sasha gets the pin by rolling up Bayley, but her shoulders are down too. Watching wrestling has taught me that this rarely happens by accident, and that it’s supposed to set up some sort of controversy to make the match at Clash of Champions a triple threat (or a fatal four-way). Or at least cause another qualifying match, you know? Instead, everyone ignores it. The ref, the wrestlers, the announce team, even Charlotte. So was it an accident? Did Sasha just not bridge? Is it one of those Natalya figure-four reversals where we’re just supposed to forget about how it works?

– There’s a post-match segment with Charlotte reprimanding Dana for being a f*ck-up again and making her get her bags. Dana’s like, “do you know what I was trying to do out there?” I LOVE that. It’s an acknowledgment of a scheme that didn’t go according to plan, and clarifies a lot of the character motivations from earlier. Anybody paying attention KNOWS Dana’s just sycophantically trying to get Charlotte’s back and Charlotte’s being mean to her to muddle the narrative. Dana’s “standing up for herself” to get into the match, so she can (in theory, I guess) win and just lay down for Charlotte at Clash. At the very least, she’s trying to make it harder for the only two people that have proven they can beat Charlotte on the level.

Dana’s entering that wonderful Arn Anderson territory where she’s forever a henchman heel, but she’s so into theatrical manipulation that she’s accidentally convincing gullible babyfaces and babyface-loving crowds that she’s got good in her, deep down somewhere. So she can keep almost turning on Charlotte only to go running back into her arms as many times as she wants. How many times did WCW crowds fall for Arn being a do-gooder?

And yes, this column features me comparing Dana Brooke to Dean Malenko and Arn Anderson. Dana Brooke is just like Ricky Steamboat, because-

Best: Sami Zayn Gets Paul E. Dangerously’d

Here’s your regularly scheduled, “Chris Jericho is the greatest, every time I see him I get heart eyes, and they float up out of my head and drift into the sky and disappear.”

Sami Zayn is his guest on the Highlight Reel, and Jericho runs him down for not being Kevin Owens. I mean, honestly. Zayn says he’s a top Superstar now because he grew up inspired by guys like Jericho, Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko — and definitely not Chris Benoit, no sir, he doesn’t even know who that is — but now Jericho’s lost the “old” Chris Jericho and is just Kevin Owens’ bitch. I’ve gotta question what Sami’s talking about, unless he’s a fan of Lionheart Chris Jericho and Please Shut The Hell Up garbage WWE babyface Jericho and went into some kind of deaf and blind coma during all of Jericho’s actual best work, which is this. Conspiracy Victim? Millennium Man? Best in the World at What He Does? Drink it in, Sam.

Anyway, Jericho gets fed up with being insulted and blasts him in the face with an iPhone, which makes a surprisingly great sound and evokes great memories of Paul Heyman braining people with his Zack Morris phone. I like the dynamic of a guy who just met Kevin Owens and loves him SO MUCH feuding with the jaded old ex-best friend of Kevin Owens who’s sick of him existing, and negatively affected by everything he does.

Also, not to go off on too much of a tangent (especially since he’s not even a Raw guy anymore), but if you watched that Paul E. clip, how much does post-pubescent Jason Hervey remind you of Dolph Ziggler? They’re basically the same dude. They even cut the same impassioned promos about how they’re the best in the business.

Worst: Cesaro Cheats To Win

Don’t get too upset by me “worsting” Cesaro, I’m just giving this match the thumbs down for the way the announce team handles the ending. Cesaro rolls up Sheamus and puts his foot on the bottom rope for leverage, cheating to get the three. Sheamus is upset, but the announce team writes it off, congratulating Cesaro for “doing whatever he had to do to win.”

Not that I’m bothered by that in any way, but it goes back to the GM mixed messages thing. WWE needs one announcer or authority figure or SOMEBODY who doesn’t base his entire system of moral decision-making on whether or not fans clap for a dude. If Sheamus does that to Cesaro, he’s an opportunistic bastard. If Cesaro does that to Sheamus, he’s doing whatever he has to do to win. I think an underrated thing about old commentary is how announcers tried to be impartial, which made them getting mad about cheating actually matter.

It wasn’t always an “us vs. them” situation, with the people calling the show always trying to side with whoever’s popular. It’s what I loved about Jesse Ventura, and to a lesser but still valid degree, Corey Graves. You can support the heels and justify their cheating (like I do almost every week) for heel heat, but it loses its power if the faces have someone doing it too. There’s no way to get indignant about right and wrong, which is a fundamental building block of pro wrestling, even when those alignments are subjective. Especially when they’re subjective. You’re just picking sides on a show where everybody cheats and is opportunistic, so why does interference or pulling the tights or hitting people with weapons ever bother you? It’s just how things work in WWE. Why wouldn’t you cheat? It’s understood. It’s just like not wanting to work hard when you can just show up at the last minute, slap somebody in the face and get a title opportunity.

And granted, that’s not me being “upset” or getting up on some Jim Cornette-style high horse about how wrestling used to work and doesn’t now, it’s just me trying to figure it out in my own head. Wouldn’t it be more fun to have Cesaro cheat to win, have the announcers actually note it as a kinda sh*tty way to prove himself when he’s already down 3-1, and play with the moral gray area of a guy who could usually crush Sheamus, but is forced into desperate places because of his injury? That’s a hell of a lot more compelling for both sides than, “heh, well.”

Best: RIP Alicia Fox 1986-2016

If you missed last week’s episode, 2010 WWE Divas common card Alicia Fox accidentally hit Nia Jax in the face with a box of tissues for beating up her friend in a wrestling match. This week, Nia responds to that boxing by TAKING ALICIA FOX TO THE GODDAMN WOODSHED.

This is SO GOOD. The announcers try to portray Alicia as a 10-year veteran and one of the most accomplished and decorated female competitors in WWE history, like she’s the lady AJ Styles and not a former wedding planner who got into the company via an infidelity angle and stuck around long enough to hold the Divas Championship once for a month and a half six years ago. Nia beats her like Alicia owes her money. At one point she’s got her by the hair and is just ruthlessly swinging her back and forth into the security railing. It ends with Nia spearing her through/into the timekeeper’s area, and Fox having to be carried away by referees. Love. It.

This is the Nia Jax we always wanted. She should be the Ronda Rousey of the main roster. She should just murder death kill people for a few years until everybody ups their game, and somebody figures her out. Confident, Vader-ass Nia Jax forever.

Best: Soft Resets

A while back, The Club used a Crotch Neutralizer to injure Big E. From then on, Anderson and Gallows became “doctors,” where the joke was that since they hurt a guy’s balls, they were DOCTORS OF BALLS, and everything they said had to do with nuts or balls or being “testy.” They started bringing out jars with eggs in them and saying they were free-floating testicles. Soon that transitioned into a gimmick where they were “retirement specialists,” with an acronym that spelled out “old fart.” Last week, they brought out a trio of guys dressed as old guys dressed as the New Day and called them the “Old Day.” The entire thing was written by a 12-year old who thought he was SUPER FUNNY.

This week, New Day shows up and says, “hey, sorry The Club wasted your time, that was the worst segment we’ve ever seen.” The Club responds by saying, “yes, that was the worst segment. Sorry. Anyway, we’re the Bullet Club again, so let’s get back to the part where we punch you and kick you and have good tag matches.” So we’re just calling a mulligan on the entire angle, and I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to say, “yes, that never happened,” and move the hell on.

Now to do this for the other 1,214 episodes of Raw.

____ Has Pinned The ____ Champion!

I’m not going to Best or Worst this because it’s one of the most tired things they do, but I’m happy they’re doing it. Does that make sense?

The softly reset Club wrestles New Day in a non-title match, and straight-up beats them. That sets them up for a title match at Clash Of (The) Champions. Nothing WWE loves to do more than hype a match by showing you that match minus consequence two weeks early.

But hey, nobody drank ball juice, nobody made jokes about having the “pee-pee” beaten out of them and Sonny Boy was nowhere to be found, so let’s just make it to the Clash.

Best/Worst: Bos Vs. Joes

I take a week off from the Best and Worst of Raw and Bo Dallas gets a push. The hell?

I like that Bo’s getting to be an actual wrestler on the show again, but I’m not totally on board with it for two reasons:

1. Is Bo Dallas a scary powerhouse? Is he, really? When Bo was a fired-up ersatz Barry Windham, nobody liked him. They pushed him down our throats and we turned on him to the point that crowds were physically turning their backs on him. It wasn’t until they realized Bo was a natural cornball motherf*cker and played into that that people started actually reacting to him, and that gave us the dorky innocent Bo we Bo and love. I like that he’s getting to win matches, but is it worth it if he sacrifices the only things that’ve ever made him entertaining?

2. WWE isn’t great at having two unstoppable monsters at once. They always end up feeding one to the other. See Baron Corbin and Bull Dempsey. Braun Strowman and Nia Jax happening at the same time worked because they’re never going to face each other, but even that has conditioned some of us to think they’re gonna pair them up. Now Bo Dallas is killing local talent? Are they just doing that to feed him to Braun? Who asked for a Braun Strowman vs. Bo Dallas feud?

So yeah, I’m gonna wait and see where this goes. I think Bo’s done some great, extremely underrated work over the past few years, but I don’t think Bo as Sylvester Terkay is the way to go. We’ll see.

Worst: Jack Swagger HATES PEACE

Only in WWE could you have a guy say he found inner peace as a heel move, and then have the previously racist and nationalist white supremacist dude show up as a babyface representing America to beat him up because he hates peace.

After the match, Tom Phillips finds Jack Swagger backstage and tells him it’s “no secret” that his contract with Raw is about to expire. Because I guess Raw signed him to a two-month contract? Is everybody else up on their Jack Swagger contract negotiations and I just missed the memo? Swagger’s response is to breathe into the microphone like a dude who really needs to stop smoking, look Tom up and down, and leave. You heading back to Mars, Jack? Am I finally gonna get to finish that story?

Maybe they should have him go down to NXT and team up with Oney Lorcan so they can look for go off-screen somewhere and look for their roots.

Best: Come To Puerto Rico (For An Actual Reason)

The Enzo and Cass vs. Shining Stars feud is cold boogers on a leopard-print paper plate, but I appreciate that WWE has finally, finally given the Shining Stars something “heel” about their gimmick. Since they were repackaged, their entire thing has been, “we’re from Puerto Rico, we think Puerto Rico is nice, you should take a nice vacation and come to Puerto Rico,” and we’re supposed to be booing them for THAT. Having them try to sell Puerto Rican timeshares to WWE’s undercard isn’t exactly breaking a one-legged kid’s one leg in front of his mom and then pushing him down a flight of steps in a wheelchair, but it’s certainly more of a heel move than, “here’s an enthusiastic recommendation.”

That continues in the match, with Primo helping Epico steal a victory over Enzo. It’s more directly heel than them opportunistically taking advantage of a third party distraction. I’m willing (and honestly excited) to give these underdeveloped characters and stories time to grow and find themselves, especially if it’s built around Enzo Amore talking a ton of sh*t and then losing. Do that with everybody.

Best: Owens vs. Reigns

I don’t know if I make this clear enough in columns sometimes because all you ever get is my barely in-context complaining about sh*t, but honestly, nothing forgives an angle not making sense, having inconsistencies or being built on bad moral or ethical logic like a good match. At the end of the day, if the match is good I’m gonna like the match and forgive most of what came before it. Remember WrestleMania 30? Remember WrestleMania 31? The builds for those were TERRIBLE, but the shows were good, and now everybody fondly remembers the shows and couldn’t give less of a sh*t about the weeks of build before them. That’s how wrestling history is written, for better or worse, and a strong argument against people who say wrestling’s the least important part of wrestling. Wrestling is the point, whether you like it the most in the moment or not.

Anyway, regardless of our ongoing beef with Roman Reigns getting an endless string of title opportunities or Mick Foley being weirdly into upholding his integrity while stooging for the least trustworthy and least consistent character in WWE history, Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns was DOPE. It was somehow even doper after Seth Rollins interfered and the match had to be restarted. I think part of that is thanks to a GM restart improving Roman’s chances of winning by like 1000%, which got everyone into it even more.

Real quick though, are we ever going to just accept the Roman Reigns vibe? He’s still being portrayed as the same old Roman Reigns, even though he’s being booed against (1) a confrontationally threatening overweight Canadian dad who hates everyone but himself, including YOU, and (2) a Bulgarian guy who spent most of the past few years trying to humiliate America. Rusev costs the guy the match, then gets in the ring and brutally punches him in the face like 10 times, and the crowd is chanting RU-SEV RU-SEV. That’s not Brandon Stroud Being A Contrarian, that’s an actual observable reaction from a live crowd of thousands of people.

Anyway, a surprisingly good and knowing Raw to send us into the go-home show for Clash of Champions. Bonus points if Rusev starts teaming up with Owens and Jericho, and they form an Actual League Of Nations, But Mostly Canada.

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night

TheBaron

Some say Paige quit the Women’s Revolution.

Daniel Valentin

*one month of Spanish classes later*
Enzo: “What do we have ourselves aqui, un par of odiosos? Un par of odiosos?”
Big Cass: “There’s only UNA PALABRA to describe you, and I’m gonna DE-LE-TREAR-LA for you: S-O-O-A-H-V-E, SOOAHVEEEEE!!!”

Sliced Bread No.2

Zayn: Guys like Chr-
HHH: Cut his mic! CUT HIS F*CKING MIC!

DarO

The Club are basically Lord Tensai: The Tag Team

MillionDollarDan

Writer: Remember when Jack Swagger was world champion?
::Vince stares ahead blankly::

Big Baby Yeezus

How can John Cena advertise for Tapout if he Never Gives Up?

mikeybot

and courtesy of Big Poppa Pump, we know how the odds can be against you in a triple threat

Southern

Foley comes out and restarts this thing until reigns wins

muddywilbury

To those of you wondering why a good bit of us hate Foley the GM, the fact that he restarted this match after KO got beat down by Rollins giving Reigns the advantage is another reason why.

And finally this week, a large portion of +1’d comments in the open discussion thread were jokes in the style of my (for whatever reason) controversial approximations of Mauro Ranallo from the Best and Worst of Backlash. So in addition to the top 10 comments of the week, here are the week’s 6 best Mauro-isms.

Mr. Irrelevant Dolph Ziggler