Reviewing the Review: Monday Night Raw – June 9, 2014
Last night had some major events taking place and as usual, the fans aren’t all that pleased. To be fair it’s WWE, where nothing is ever satisfactory. Let’s get to it.
The opening promo was the Authority stripping Daniel Bryan of the WWE Title. At the end of the day, this is the only thing you can really do. The guy can’t wrestle and hasn’t been able to for a month, so you have to take it away. Luckily for Bryan, he was only champion for a month so it’s hard to jump on him for the weak ratings. If nothing else maybe he’ll be seen as valuable for them going down without him. The MITB ladder match will now be for the title and Randy Orton has been added to the match because he’s Randy Orton. Seriously that’s pretty much what HHH said.
In the same promo, HHH talks about how Shield was told to evolve but only Seth Rollins actually listened to him. This led to the announcement of a six man tag later with Ambrose and Reigns teaming up with whomever they could find against the Wyatts. Why anyone expected anyone not named John Cena to be the third man is beyond me. Yeah it was predictable, but don’t act like it was some big disappointment just because you figured out who it was and they didn’t throw in a big curveball. That’s your fault for inventing some standard. If you don’t like Cena that’s one thing, but saying that him being the third man is a stupid idea shows that you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sheamus beat Bad News Barrett in a MITB qualifying match. Say it with me: Sheamus got beaten up and hit a Brogue Kick for the win out of nowhere. Typical hard hitting and not bad match between these two.
The Wyatts had a promo with Bray saying he was reborn. This was below their usual standard.
Lana showed off her legs while Rusev destroyed Ryder.
The Goldust Needs A Partner story continued with R-Truth. Something that I haven’t touched on in this story is Ryback and Axel picking up a lot of wins. It’s building them up as a new set of challengers and that’s something the Usos need right now. I love killing two birds with one stone. Later in the night Cody promised a new partner next week who will magnify Goldust’s greatness. I saw someone say it’s Sandow as Goldust and that’s probably the case…..unless Cody is now a Boliever. I have no idea why but that popped into my head as a possibility last week. I know it doesn’t make sense and I doubt it happens but it was there.
Summer Rae poured milk over Layla and it looked like male ejaculation. You know you were all thinking it.
Now we get to the real meat of the show: Shield attacked 3MB and got to talk about Rollins. Ambrose got right to the point by saying he was going to beat Rollins up very, very badly. This was a really simple promo but Ambrose was bleeding charisma out there and the whole thing worked really well.
Then we got to the one I really liked. Reigns spoke in a very calm and casual voice about how Seth committed the most horrible sin of them all. Roman is coming after all three of them and Rollins is his first target, followed by Orton and then HHH, presumably at Summerslam.
Reigns going through Evolution one by one is a great story and will make him look like a huge star. I loved how casual he was with this and acted like this was something he just had to deal with. Not a lot of people talk in a voice like that and it worked for him. He even capped it off with a Game of Thrones reference, because Roman Reigns is 29 years old and actually in tune with pop culture rather than referencing things that were big deals 15 years ago.
Damien Sandow dressed as a dancer to team with Fandango (accompanied by a still milky Layla for no logical reason) in a loss to the Usos. If there’s a point to this Sandow stuff, please feel free to get to it anytime.
Bo Dallas beat Xavier Woods in the usual Dallas formula.
Cesaro beat RVD to qualify for the ladder match. There’s really nothing to say here.
Cole had a sitdown interview with Rollins to explain why he did this. The explanation was that Rollins founded the Shield and didn’t like sharing the credit. That helps, but it really doesn’t answer why he joined Evolution. Shield has proven that they’re better than Evolution, so why would Rollins want to work with or under a leader that he’s defeated twice now? It would make more sense to have Rollins strike out on his own or start a new stable with lackeys of his own. Instead he’s arguably third fiddle in Evolution and lower than when this whole thing started. I still think there was no reason for this other than shock value but this helped.
Ambrose and Reigns ran in post interview but the Wyatts made the save, drawing out Cena for the obvious reveal.
Paige beat Alicia Fox again and Fox freaked out on Aksana for costing her the match. I’d like to point out again: I don’t care about stories involving crazy losers.
Jack Swagger got fired up by a slap from Zeb and beat Santino. I didn’t care the first 5 times they did this and I don’t care now. Swagger has needed a repackaging for about four years now, since he’s been the same character since roughly 2009.
The six man main event was fine and did a nice job of storytelling. Having Reigns and Ambrose finally beat the Wyatts in a six man in their first try without Rollins shows that he was the reason they couldn’t do it and adds to the story. Reigns tearing through everyone is going to be an awesome sight to see.
Last night’s Raw was a good example of having everything go so fast that I didn’t have time to complain about most of it. The matches were mostly short but the most part nothing was all that terrible. This show was about the main event scene and we got a lot of stuff added on to the big pay per view match. Also we got a preview of what’s coming for Reigns and that’s the most important thing for the future. Efficient but not a great show this week.
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Before the Goldust/Cody Rhodes saga ends, Cody HAS to select Booker T as a partner.
I can’t say enough about the Promos from Dean Ambrose & Roman Reigns this week. Ambrose is only beginning to scratch the surface of his potential and im looking forward to Reigns going through Evolution one by one.
I wish people would just stop complaining about John Cena joining The Shield this week. Its not like Cena stole any of their thunder nor did he get the pinfall either. The hate for him is just so stale now.
“Summer Rae poured milk over Layla and it looked like male ejaculation. You know you were all thinking it.”
Hahahahaha.
Good Stuff, KB.
I agree we need more from Rollins, however I’m sure that as he gets into his feud(s) with the Shield more will come out. I feel like he should feud with Ambrose first, while Reigns goes after Orton.
As far as Sandow goes, I’ve always believed that the designated comedy act of the day is somebody who amuses Vince, and if he can get over with the comedy, he finds it as a bonus. I think Sandow was quite over around this time last year so when his push was derailed, people still liked him. There was a brief ‘Let’s Go Sandow’ chant on Raw so maybe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
KB, early pick to win MITB?
Yes and much like dusty that entire thing was done to humiliate the guy.
As for the slow burn theory if true great. It just seems another stupid comedy gimmick, who is there to amuse the writers and no one else. Also being a smarter than you heel. How does dressing up as magneto make any kind of sense?
Um…Wolvervine was in the ring? There’s a difference between not liking something and something not making sense.
This doesn’t explain why a character who is an intellectual savior to the masses would do this. Why would he even know or care who wolverine is? It doesn’t really make much sense for the character does it?
I thought it was fairly obvious by now that that gimmick is over and done with.
Re: Sandow
There’s one of two things here. 1) This is the point: Creative wants to do this comedy routine each week, and he’s the guy tapped to do it. You may not like it, but look at it this way: he gets to be on the show EVERY week. I’m sure there’s some talent in the back who’d love that kind of exposure. Also, for better or for worse, he’s selling the hell out of the gimmick! 2) This is a long, slow burn, where they put him in more and more absurd situations until he “blows his top” and “shoots” on how WWE is using him.
Re: Cena
People hate on Cena teaming up with the Shield, because all Cena haters know how to do is hate on Cena. If they had Cena AAing the entire Family in the match and pinning them all, then I could see the hate. But they booked the match correctly, and had Reigns get the pin.
I’m sure Sandow loves looking like a joke every week proving he shouldn’t be higher on the card and earning less.
Also the writers aren’t to blame, the people they hire aren’t used to writing a wrestling show. They write sitcoms and reality tv. Wrestling is a different beast. One could argue that you don’t need a fleet of writers to write the shows. But it is what it is.
Whether he likes it or not, he’s selling it like Dusty Rhodes sold yellow polka dots! Some of the stuff he’s done is pretty stupid, but the “interpretive dancer” bit was flat out hilarious!
I just recently started to wathc wrestling, and from whats happening right now what I don’t get is this: Kane would face Daniel Bryan for the Title if DB could compete. He can’t. So the winner of a ladder match is the new champion, and Randy Orton is part of this ladder match without doing nothing… But Kane isn’t? Shouldn’t Kane be in the match since he was the number 1 contender?
Welcome to wrestling. Kane was never designated to win the title, so he’s not getting much focus now that Bryan is out.
Isn’t that like admiting that Kane had no chance at beating Daniel Bryan? I mean, Kane probably didn’t have a chance, but shouldn’t they act like he did? Sorry for my poor english.
Rollings is a mole. I’m still saying it.
What is the point of Rollins being a mole to Triple H. If the shield beats him every time they wrestle on pay per view?