Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: May 27, 2014

The reaction I’ve seen to last night’s show seems to be that it was one of, if not the worst episode of all time. This blew my mind as it may not have been the best show in the world but it couldn’t have been THAT bad. Let’s get to it.

We opened with Stephanie and HHH saying they had to take the title away from Daniel Bryan tonight because he couldn’t wrestle right now. While that’s true, Stephanie gloating made it all the better. We’ll cover the rest of that segment here as it’s easier than mixing it up later on.

Later in the night, Bryan came out and said he could give up the title, but it would be a slap in the face of everyone that had ever cheered for him while admitting that the Authority had been right. He said he wouldn’t do it, but Stephanie brought up a clip of Brie Bella shoving her a few weeks ago. If Bryan doesn’t give up the title on Sunday, Brie gets fired.

This is one of those moments that made perfect sense and sets up the drama that you need for the segment on Sunday and the moment will be good. I’m not sure where they’re going to go, but I can’t imagine Bryan is going to keep the title with him possibly being out all summer. At the end of the day they’ll probably put it up in Money in the Bank and that makes perfect sense for this situation.

The other good thing to come out of the opening segment was Brad Maddox being fired as Raw GM. Maddox isn’t terrible as a personality and has a future as a backstage guy or commentator, but there’s no need for anyone to be Raw GM right now. With the Authority around, anybody as Raw GM is going to look worthless. The GM’s have been worthless for eight months or so now so getting rid of Brad and eventually Vickie won’t hurt at all.

The first match was Cesaro beating Rob Van Dam thanks to Bad News Barrett interfering. This is my normal complaint: the #1 contender to the Intercontinental Title gets pinned six days before his title shot. Sheamus ran out to beat up Cesaro post match, making me see what they should have done: Sheamus/Cesaro vs. Barrett/Van Dam. At least with Van Dam he’s over to the point that a loss isn’t going to hurt him. Also Cesaro is getting that German suplex over as a secondary finisher which is a rare thing anymore.

Next up was the first of two Divas matches and I’ll look at them one at a time. First up we had Eva Marie pinning Summer Rae due to a distraction by Fandango and Layla. Eva and Summer have been feuding on Total Divas, which you need to watch to get the details. On the other hand you have Summer and Layla feuding because of something that happened on Raw. This leads to a problem with the Divas and Total Divas. The latter feud shows the problem with this.

If you watch Total Divas, you see the logic behind why Summer Rae screwed over Eva in the tag match on the show: Eva is terrible. She can’t wrestle, she’s there because of a reality show and how she looks in shorts, and she would drag down any team she’s in. It’s stupid, but at least it makes sense. That being said, we’re supposed to cheer for Eva because she’s some young tough girl that is trying to achieve something. We’re of course supposed to ignore how evil she is on the show.

On the other hand we have Summer chasing after Fandango, but if you watch Total Divas you would see them going on a date “in real life”, and them having ZERO chemistry and agreeing to just be friends. But now this is their “wrestling” life and there are feelings and a breakup there.

In other words, you need to watch Total Divas to understand one story but if you watch the show, the other story isn’t going to make sense. Hence the problem with the whole show.

Now we get to a match that was causing some issues with fans. El Torito beat Drew McIntyre, which fans called ridiculous, stupid and not believable. I don’t even know where to start on this. Time for a list!

1. Drew McIntyre hasn’t won a singles match on WWE TV since September 2012 when he won on Superstars. His last singles win on Smackdown was in March 2012 when he beat Hornswoggle. His last singles win on Raw was FOUR YEARS AGO. Drew McIntyre is a jobber. He’s been a jobber for years, he’s going to be a jobber for a long time to come, but because he loses ONE MATCH, it’s ridiculous? Yeah it’s to a comedy character, but that brings me to point #2.

2. Drew McIntyre is part of a comedy stable. 3MB is nothing but a comedy group and has been since the day they debuted. They’re in a war against a group that is only slightly more serious, and the real story is about a leprechaun vs. a half man/half bull who just had a WeeLC match with mini announcers and a mini ladder. But none of this works because a guy that hasn’t won a match on Raw in four years lost to a comedy character isn’t ok. Santino uses a freaking sock to beat a former World Champion, but Torito pins a jobber and the people are calling it completely unrealistic?

3. Where was this OUTRAGE when Torito pinned Slater on Smackdown a few weeks back?

4. Did I mention the pin on Drew wasn’t clean? Even still though, it’s time to freak out because a comedy character pinned a jobber.

Then Hornswoggle pulled off Torito’s tail, setting up a mask vs. hair match on Sunday. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it goofy? Yes. Is it for children? Yes. Is it something anyone should be mad about? Of course not, but they will anyway. I actually smiled at this a bit as they’re coming up on a match that actually makes sense in the feud. It’s cute and on a free show so why not?

That brings us to the big Wyatt promo this week. Bray did his usual stuff of calling Cena a hypocrite before moving over to Jerry Lawler. Jerry didn’t getin the ring but the Family beat up JBL and took Lawler into the ring. Bray asked Jerry if he had any issues with lying about Cena’s career and never bringing up anything that questioned Cena. Lawler didn’t mind, but the Wyatts threatened to attack him until Cena and the Usos made the save. Cena called Bray a hypocrite for attacking an innocent man who disagreed with what Bray thought.

This was the thing that WWE has needed to do for months now: have Bray do something evil. For months and months all we’ve been told is that Bray Wyatt is evil, but he hasn’t really done anything evil. Until people see him do something evil, like attacking a legend who had a heart attack live on TV two years ago and is in his early 60s, there’s no reason to boo him. Now people are seeing what’s behind the evil smile and there’s a reason to boo him. Notice the fans cheering for Cena as soon as he pointed all that stuff out about Wyatt. It can work.

Rusev beat up Ryder until Big E. made the save and waved the American flag on Memorial Day. Yeah Big E. is going to get mauled on Sunday in the yet to be advertised match, but this worked well and made Big E. look good for awhile. Speaking of looking good, I swoon over Lana more every time I see her.

Stephanie was talking to Alberto Del Rio about nothing that ever came up again.

Batista/Randy Orton beat the Rhodes Brothers in an elimination match. This didn’t mean anything and the elimination rule was thrown in at the last minute. The match made perfect sense and made Batista and Orton look good.

Bo Dallas beat Sin Cara just like he did on Smackdown. He isn’t great in the ring, but Dallas’ character is going to be amazing if they use him right.

Emma beat Alicia Fox in a nothing match. Post match, Alicia freaked out (again) and shouted that she was NOT a loser while ringing the bell and pouring soda over herself. I have no idea if this is going anywhere but Emma winning was rather questionable.

Then Damien Sandow dressed up as Davy Crockett and lost to Adam Rose. This is a hard one to defend so I won’t try, but I have no idea why anyone expected Sandow to remain a serious character. Rose and Swagger continued their feud with Rose getting the upper hand again. I’m also not sure why Rose didn’t debut against Swagger on Sunday.

We got the same Sheamus match we always get: Sheamus gets beaten up, there’s no reason for him to win, then he hits a Brogue Kick out of nowhere for the pin. Post match he was attacked by Cesaro to set up an injury angle though so maybe he loses the belt on Sunday.

The final segment of the night was the contract signing between Shield and Evolution. First and foremost, let’s look at the contract itself. This is a picture of what was on the paper last night.

It’s nice to see there’s still a sense of humor in wrestling.

Anyway, the segment was nothing out of the ordinary. A brawl broke out and Evolution got the better of it for once thanks to the sledgehammer. You had to expect this after Shield stood tall for so long.

Overall last night’s show wasn’t all that bad. Yeah there were some stupid moments in there, but to say it was one of the worst shows of all time is WAY too big of a stretch. At the end of the day it really wasn’t a horrible show as a lot of stuff was set up for Sunday and the Sheamus vs. Del Rio match was only bad near the ending due to bad booking. There were some stupid moments, but it was nothing that far out of the ordinary. As usual, wrestling fans lose their minds over something that really wasn’t that big a deal.

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