Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Raw: Nothing even kind of made sense. Kevin Owens came back from “quitting” to help Braun Strowman, Drake Maverick of all people ended up in charge of the Authors of Pain, and The Shield went through the United States Justice System in record time. Also, they were given a police van!
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for September 10, 2018. Subtitle h/t and +1 to AddMayne.
Best/Worst: Here Comes The Ax, And Here Comes The Smashers
Last week’s show featured The Shield:
- getting into a pull-apart brawl, which happens on every like, third WWE show
- somehow getting arrested for doing so
- getting arrested, taken to a Local Policing Facility, seeing a judge, having judgment passed on them, being arraigned, being sent to (wrestling?) jail, posting bail, stealing (or being given, since they weren’t arrested again) a police van, driving that van back to the arena, and somehow backing it up all the way into the Raw stage at 10 PM on a Monday night, on a holiday, all within three hours
- after all that, still getting beaten up when the entire heel roster shows up for some reason and beats them down for ten minutes
This week’s show improves upon that, I guess, by having the entire heel roster show up for a celebratory speech (for some reason) only to get attacked by The Shield, brandishing axe handles. I’m … not sure where you just buy a bunch of axe handles without axes attached to them, or why you’d use those instead of like, baseball bats, or a tire iron, or any number of easily found things at your local Wal-mart, but it’s axe handles. And while we’re talking about those, I don’t ever want Dean Ambrose to start acting goofy again, but I do wish he’d double-wielded, just for the “double axe-handle” joke.
On the plus side, it gives The Shield some much needed revenge after last week’s ridiculousness and beatdown. Shield plus weapons equals able to beat up a crowd of people. It’s the Stone Cold Steve Austin corollary. On the minus side, this is more or less why nobody cares about the WWE roster at large, because they can be lumped into a mindless collective that can’t beat up three dudes with a 17-man advantage. A couple of weeks ago we believed Braun Strowman vs. The Shield was kind of a fair fight. Now Braun Strowman plus the Tag Team Champions plus everyone else on the show who’s ever held the tights on a roll-up can’t even land punches. It’s the kind of segment you get when you don’t keep anyone’s prestige or power levels consistent and change them around to fit your week-to-week needs.
Constable Baron Corbin, First of His Name and King of the Assholes, throws the Fist Pals out of the building under threat of making them vacate their various singles titles and taking away Ambrose’s hot dog cart of death, or whatever. That leads to a surprisingly logical but also completely unnecessary if last week’s show hadn’t been such a mess segment where Ambrose and Rollins change into their singles shirts, claim they aren’t “The Shield” if there’s only two of them to get back in (groan), and then reveal they’ve brought local police tough Hank Schrader in to arrest Corbin for arresting them under false pretense. Thankfully they follow up with a bit explaining that this actual cop is also friends with Dean Ambrose (because he’s always going to jail for stuff), so I don’t have to write a paragraph about how a wrestling license lets you override cops and control them like the spear in Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Corbin cowers at the threat of arrest, agrees to let The Shield back into the building for a couple of surprise attacks throughout the remainder of the show, and gives Rollins and Ambrose a Raw Tag Team Championship match against Drewdolph at Hell in a Cell. Let’s hope this sets a precedent for evil general managers understanding that if they arrest wrestlers for normal pro wrestling reasons, they’re subject to retaliation, and it’s not worth it.
So the show isn’t great this week, but at least it’s got a basic amount of sequential reasoning.
Sneak attack numero uno happens after Rebrand McIntyre vs. The B-Team, who still look like the biggest jagoffs on Earth doing that B-Team chant and then jigging while stock circus music plays. This is one of those necessary “rematch clause” tags where yeah, you’ve moved on from the joke champions, but you’ve got to put them away with authority one extra time to make sure nobody (like me) spends the next five years asking WHERE’S THEIR REMATCH? While complaining about rematch clauses out of the other side of our mouths. It’s your trope, not ours, we’re just trying to balance “what we expect” with “never getting our hopes up.”
Anyway, Drewdolph and the Punch Buddies have a Tag Team Championship match coming up on Sunday all of a sudden, so they’ve gotta get in one more run-in segment to make sure it’s valid. Real talk, that match should rule, and is one of those pairings so on-paper good that a month from now we’ll have forgotten 100% of the build and just be marky marks for tag team wrestling. Because tag team wrestling is the best wrestling. Full stop.
Sneak attack number two comes at the end of the night, in the form of Roman Reigns staying hidden while Braun Strowman looks for him until the final quarter hour, because it’s his yard and he knows how this business works. Roman shows up standing on the announce table with the Universal Championship over his head, so Strowman wanders up to confront him, and a Quicktime event happens. They exchange some blows, a table spot gets set up, and they end up Taz and Bam Bam Bigelow’ing themselves through a suspiciously padded and cardboard section of the stage.
I thought this was a pretty necessary interaction to followup on Strowman’s constant “Roman wouldn’t be Universal Champion if his boys hadn’t jumped into the fight” talking point, because it shows that yeah, even one-on-one, Roman is ROMAN J. REIGNS ESQUIRE* and is still OP enough to fight back. If you’re locking them in a cage, yeah, it might be more fun to build up Roman as a scrappy underdog facing the fight of his life, but also we’ve seen the last SEVERAL YEARS of Roman Reigns and know he and Strowman are pretty even stats-wise. If Strowman’s a 94, Roman’s at least a 93, and if we’re being honest here, probably a 95.
*the J. stands for “John Cena”
Best: This Week’s Two Biggest Improvements
Kevin Owens is supposed to have a match with His Majesty Tyler Breeze, but murks him before the match begins and cuts a much, much-needed promo explaining why he quit, came back, and started randomly helping the people who’d terrorized him into quitting in the first place.
It’s not the best explanation I’ve ever heard, but here it is: Owens legitimately “quit” Raw, but was begged to return by Baron Corbin, Khalasar of the Great Ass Sea. He agreed to return if Corbin allowed him to be Lawless Darkness: he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, which … sounds a lot like a WWE babyface. Kevin Owens is now a babyface, I guess. Join us next week when he smacks Corbin in the face and calls him a bitch, and is rewarded with a title shot while everyone half-cheers.
Also, he hates Bobby Lashley now, because Lashley’s the guy who injured Sami Zayn. It’s probably a good idea to pivot away from beefing with Braun Strowman, which Owens never really seemed to want to be a part of to begin with. They don’t address that at all, so here’s to our cyclical Men in Black mind-wipe. I don’t wanna see Tyler Breeze get completely jobbed out like this — the Authors of Pain get “local talent,” why’s Breeze gotta do worse than they did? — but hey, he’s on television, and his entrance theme isn’t interrupted by Fandango’s anymore. Maybe we can build to some Zayn/Owens vs. Lashley/Breeze tags, where Lashley stands on the apron for 90% of it? I’d be into that. You could call them “Breezoring.”
But Wait, Bobby Lashley Might Be Great Now
It looks like somebody finally got the fucking memo about Bobby Lashley’s return being the most second-hand embarrassing shit of all time and decided to change things up. Now he’s basically Brock Lesnar, standing in the background lifting weights and saying one or two snide things in passing while someone with charisma — Lio Rush, in this case — hops around him cutting the actual promo. This is such a better use for Lashley, because (1) it means we’ll hear him talk less, which has been about 75% of the problem, (2) it gives him someone to interact with beyond low-level heels and his sisters, and (3) you can either have Lio Rush show up to take huge bumps to make these matches interesting or BETTER YET, put them in a tag team and stop trying to make fetch happen with Lobotomized Ted Arcidi.
If you’re gonna do the classic WWE “all black people have to be tag team partners or feuding against each other” thing, just make Lashley and Rush a regular tag team and let Stokely Hathaway manage them. I’d say team up Rush with Patrick Clark again, but The Dream has no memory of that team.
Best: Big Show As Make-A-Wish Ambassador
I don’t have any snide jokes to make here, I just wanted to take a second to say how much I love that a monstrous giant born from inside a mountain by a Satanist and his powdered Hawaiian master to destroy Hulkamania who once died in a rooftop monster truck battle on Halloween is now global ambassador to a bunch of adorable children and their dreams. Pro wrestling’s pretty great.
p.s. Shawn Michaels is backstage like, “shit, Super Messiah is such a good name.”
Worst: The Legendary Bellas
I spent too much time ragging on the Bella Twins last week, and this week they kept Brie out of the ring, so I don’t have any huge complaints. All I’ll say is that the most obnoxious thing WWE is doing right now (non-Saudi Arabian propaganda house shows division) is constantly insisting that the Bella Twins are storied legends of the squared circle.
If you want to say they’re extremely popular, or that they’ve got great business/marketing minds, or put them over for being nominated for People’s Choice awards or anything like that, go right ahead. That’s all true. If you want to launch into long speeches about how there’s an entire generation of superstars who never came up “with the Twins in the locker room” like they’re the goddamn Undertaker, that’s something else entirely. Nikki Bella’s at least got some cred when it comes to working hard and actually adapting to the changing environment, but “The Bella Twins” are in no possible stretch of the imagination “wrestling legends.” Sasha Banks didn’t grow up wanting to be the Bella Twins. Bayley didn’t write letters to her class as a 10-year old talking about how one day she wants to make it into WWE so she can use that as a jumping off point for her fashion line and YouTube channel.
It’s not even true in WWE terms. They aren’t Trish Stratus and Lita, they’re the female Killer Bees from the era of women’s wrestling where you got fired for wrestling “like the men” if you had a good match. Yes, they’re extremely popular, and yes, they’ve got an important role to play in the show both in the past and in the present. But let’s not treat them like they’re the fucking Crush Gals, okay?
(Ruby Riott deserves better.)
Best, Mostly: Mick Foley
I love Mick Foley with all my heart, and he’s one of the undisputed greatest emotional talkers in the history of the game. I just wish they didn’t drag him out here every Hell in a Cell season to cut the same promo about how Hell in a Cell is such a life-changer, especially since the Cell he fought in isn’t the same one guys fight in today. It’s not really a “Satanic structure” if you’re wrestling a normal hardcore match with a cage around you that you only touch if you want to climb halfway up it and fall backwards onto a crash pad. Mick Foley got rekt in that thing. So did Shawn Michaels. So did the Undertaker, especially when he got in there with Lesnar. Wrestling changed, and so did the public’s desire to see wrestlers’ insides on their outsides in every important match, so the cage became less a “cage” and more a toy playset. Now when you do the “scrape the guy’s face back and forth across the links” spot it doesn’t even cut you. You don’t need to put the fear of God into Elias about it. He’s not even on the pay-per-view, unless they wanna do a goofy song interruption bit between matches.
Shout-out to Mick for bringing back Dean Ambrose’s old hair, though. Elias should’ve stopped him mid-speech and dueted with him on ‘Mr. Bang Bang.’
Mick reveals that (1) he’s the special guest referee for the Universal Championship match at Hell in a Cell, because they’re doing everything they possibly can to soften the blow of Roman Reigns ruining Braun Strowman’s Money in the Bank cash-in, and (2) Stephanie McMahon, who hates him, gave him permission to make a match for the night, because he used to have this job, but she edged him out and replaced him with a different guy she thought she’d have more control over, then edged him out to replace him with a stooge mid-card heel in a vest. Sure!
That ends up being Elias vs. Finn Bálor, which at least gives poor Finn his first win since SummerSlam.
The Rest Of The Show
Last week, Chad Gable and Bobby Roode (Basic Gable) became a tag team and proved themselves in a victory over The Ascension. This week, they follow that up by proving themselves in a victory over The Ascension. Raw, y’all.
To say what I’ve said on Twitter already — I never do that — the best way to keep this angle from its inevitable “Bobby Roode turns on Gable for no reason and they feud” ending is to have James Storm randomly jump and beat the crap out of Gable. Roode remembers who he is, Gable goes and finds Jason Jordan, and we get a bunch of Beer Money/American Alpha matches. If Jordan’s not healthy yet and isn’t coming back, have him grab Shelton Benjamin from blue obscurity. Really all my fantasy booking ideas end with “lots of good tag team matches.”
The Authors of Pain, now KFC’d and simply called “AOP,” defeat a pair of Fantastics from the future named Roddy Ace and Nathan Bradley. They have coordinating chokers, like the American Males. They lose, hard. And at the risk of paraphrasing another joke I’ve already made, if Drake Maverick’s going to keep managing a team of war-themed guys, he should at least change his name to “Rockstar Scud.”
Triple H once again says he’s going to defeat The Undertaker for the last time ever in Australia, until they do a tag team match in Saudi Arabia a month later. Join us back in 1998 to see what happens next!
Best: WWE Custom Tees
I like this idea, but can you just give us a button we can click on when ordering the official t-shirts that says “don’t put all that dumb shit on the back?”
Worst, With A Little Best: Ronda Rousey’s Still Not Selling Your Stuff
Here’s my major problem with the women’s tag match: Ronda Rousey needed to lose this. She needed to show some vulnerability heading into her first title defense at Hell in a Cell, especially since she treated the former champion, Alexa Bliss, like a complete jobber afterthought. If Ronda had taken a loss here, you could at least rationalize that she’s an actual performer and an actual part of a division that can compete with her. Otherwise you’re Chyna trouncing Ivory at WrestleMania. Sure, it pops the crowd, but you just had your top female performer murder your second best female performer like she was nothing. So who’s supposed to fight her now? For once Raw doesn’t do the “blank has pinned the Women’s Champion” bit, and I’ve gotta complain about it. I don’t understand my own understanding of context sometimes.
But yeah, Ronda getting dino damage and having the announce team freak out about it for the entire match only for her to throw Mickie James around like a chode and tap her out to that dreaded “bend your arm the way arms bend” armbar was pretty lame. Ronda’s too good at this for you to not teach her how to be a constructive part of the show. She’s a name already, you don’t have to keep insisting the UFC person is instantly so much better than anyone who’d ever start in WWE. You want to portray these fighting leagues as equals, don’t you? Shit, look at Shayna Baszler. She’s lost plenty of times, to a tiny Japanese pirate princess even, and nobody questions it. That’s why her matches have drama, and are interesting to watch. It’s why the tag at WrestleMania was so good. We thought she might not win it for a second.
On the positive side, ALICIA FOX.
I don’t know why she got demoted from tag team partner to valet for this — did she get injured dying her hair? — but showing up looking like a Disco M. Bison earns her a Best anyway. A Look has been served. Mickie James and Alexa Bliss might as well have wandered out here in pajamas.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
AwkwardL0ser
Ronda’s rib injury is actually just a false flag to hid her true weaknesses being hit in the face, losing her guns, gays and Lizard people magic
troi
Alicia Fox is starring in Springtime For Hitler after Raw.
blacksnakemoan
“Hey, we had 11 kids here…there’s only 9! We’re missing two…”
“Ummm, who’s in the ring against AOP?”“……oh, crap.”
Blade_222
Too bad Glenn Jacobs had to become mayor, Kane & Gable would have made a good team.
AddMayne
You know, it being just regular Seth and Dean again would explain Roman not being there
Canonically he can’t recognize them without their Shield gear
Harry Longabaugh
Baron Corbin is what happened if Tom Cruise in Cocktail and Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder got caught in a teleportation accident.
Endy_Mion
I know that Ellering was the one who made AoP a household name, but wouldn’t be the first time a Drake took credit for someone else’s work before they saw a Push(a T)
Mr. Bliss
I wonder if Jerry Jones ever watches HHH and the Mcmahon’s ability to make everything about them, and thinks to himself “I need to learn from them…maybe I can make Garrett put me in at wide receiver.”
Amaterasu’s Son
I wonder if Dolph hates the B-Team because they give him Spirit Squad trauma flashbacks?
Also of note, Connor’s Yes Lock is also better applied than Cena’s STF.
That’s it for this week’s column. Thanks for reading, as always. Join us next week when the Undertaker appears “live.” As live as he can, I guess. It might just be his wax figure with Clutch Cargo lips.
Be sure to drop into the comments section to let us know what you thought of the show, and be here all weekend for
