Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: August 25, 2014

WWE is in an interesting place right now as they’re coming off the great Summerslam show and have Brock Lesnar on top, but the question now is what do they do with him? The Cena rematch is the only option and it’s what we’re getting, but how do you get people to pay for the rematch of a horrible beatdown? Raw is the attempt to start that process. Let’s get to it.

We opened with the Hall of Fame forum and this was a mess. It came off like three old guys just chattering and didn’t really get any point across. Basically only Hogan thinks Cena has a chance in the rematch but they all love him. The best thing that can be said about this is Flair didn’t embarrass himself, which is a rare sight (though he’s been on better behavior as of late).

Cena came out near the end and did his serious voice about how he’s ready for the rematch, though it’s about the norm for him. I’m not sure what they can do for Night of Champions that they didn’t do for Summerslam, but the question of how Cena can make this one closer might be enough to work. I’ll give them this: they’re making me have more sympathy for Cena, which seems to be the goal.

Nitro is coming to the Network. All this does is make me mad that it wasn’t available when I was reviewing the old episodes.

Rusev beat Swagger via referee stoppage in another entertaining match. I like what I’m seeing with Swagger, but someone is going to have to explain the idea behind pushing him by having him lose every match. At least he isn’t tapping anymore. Bo Dallas mocked Swagger after the break to get us to the real point of the thing.

Cesaro beat RVD in a quick match to become #1 contender for the US Title. Why this wasn’t the Summerslam match is beyond me. Cesaro vs. Sheamus should be good. I know this because I’ve seen them fight 384 times.

Paige finally beat Natalya, thereby making the previous losses look worthless. Post match Paige came out and did the semi-lesbian stuff which won’t go anywhere but will spawn a million fanfics.

Kane and Rollins eulogized Dean Ambrose. There wasn’t much to this but it served as a way to get Roman Reigns vs. Rollins started. Reigns broke things up to defend Dean’s honor and got a handicap match as a result, because that’s what the Authority does in WWE.

The Usos lost to the Dusts via countout due to Jimmy banging up his knee. The Dusts turned heel in a post match beatdown on the injured Uso. Those two as heels actually works and will make the promos sound a lot less comical. Also it gives the twins a team to feud with other than the Wyatts, which they’ve been lacking for a good while. How have the Usos been champions for six months? It seems like they just got them.

Lesnar and Heyman did a pretaped promo on Cena. The pretapes are a good idea to keep Lesnar on TV without paying a fortune.

Dolph Ziggler beat Damien Mizdow in a short match. Just story advancement for the next match with Miz.

Now we get to the big segment of the night as the Bellas had a sitdown interview. Brie tried to make up but Nikki (in a skin tight black dress) said every stupid thing she could think of about Brie, ranging from Brie stealing her boyfriends to Brie has an ugly husband to wishing Brie died in the womb. Nikki then shoves Brie down as Brie cried and slapped Jerry Lawler off camera.

The segment, as you can imagine, was cringe worthy. The Bellas can’t act and the things Nikki was saying were more laughable than emotional. Who cares that Brie did something when they were like 15? Stay on the point about Brie abandoning Nikki because there’s an actual story there. Have Brie explain it and then Nikki can be all irrational. In other words, TELL A DECENT STORY. The fans still won’t care, but there would be less to complain about. The blowoff match is going to be horrible.

Roman Reigns beat up Kane and Rollins until Seth brought in the briefcase for the DQ. They tried a Curb Stomp on more cinder blocks but Reigns beat then up again, sending Rollins running scared.

Los Matadores beat Slater and O’Neil. The losers had issues after the match and there’s a slight hint of Slater turning face. Again, I’ve heard worse ideas.

Bo Dallas beat Kofi and then got beaten up by Swagger. More story advancement.

Then we get to the part of the show that got on my nerves worst. Cena basically squashed Bray Wyatt before the Wyatts saved their leader. Then Cena squashed the whole Wyatt Family while Big Show and Mark Henry were in the same general area. Of all the people they have on the roster, Cena had to beat up Bray like that? You can’t put him in there with Harper or Rowan in the first place and have one of them get beaten up that badly? It’s the point of having lackeys: you can keep the big name from taking that big of a beating.

This goes to show you how thin the top of the roster is right now. The heels are all with the Authority and there really isn’t anyone outside of the Wyatts that you can put in this spot. Del Rio would have been perfect, but with him goen, there really was just Bray and company. WWE might have to, gulp, elevate someone before this becomes a bigger problem. Odds are that won’t happen though because WWE.

Raw wasn’t very good on Monday and a lot of that is due to how thin the roster is. With the Authority, Jericho, Ambrose and Orton all gone for the week, the wrestling was a lot thinner than it should have been. They really need some fresh blood at this point and the people are there to elevate if they would ever freaking do it. Unfortunately they seem terrified of that concept and the show gets stale in a hurry.

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