Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: July 28, 2014
We’re heading into Summerslam and one major thing stood out to me about this episode of Raw. Was it the World Title match? The grudge match between Ambrose and Rollins? Wyatt vs. Jericho II? Maybe even Rusev vs. Swagger? Of course not. I have a feeling I’ll have a lot to say about this one. Let’s get to it.
The opening video focused on Brie and Stephanie, plus some other stuff from last week.
Cena opened the show and talked about how he knows he’s coming into Summerslam for the beating of his life but he’s going to fight for everything he’s worth. Heyman came out and got in an argument with Cena where they talked about what passion meant. Cena brought up ECW and touched a chord with Heyman, as you would expect him to.
There was a lot of talk about Brock wanting to make Cena a victim just like the Undertaker. Heyman is reaching new levels of milking a single match, but that’s exactly why they gave Brock the Streak and it’s working like charm. This was really solid stuff and made me think that Cena is going to lose, but it’s going to be in a war.
Speaking of a war, Cesaro came out at the end of the promo and started a match with Cena. Cesaro wound up losing to a top rope AA, but it was the kind of battle you would expect. I really wish they could have a match where Cesaro had even a prayer of winning. The match was a great back and forth brawl between two guys that can work the heck out of a power brawl.
After Stephanie freaked out about Brie Bella, Orton came in to complain about Reigns costing him the World Title shot last week. This led to HHH telling Orton to take care of Reigns. The match at Summerslam just has to be made official at this point.
Paige and AJ had another chat but Paige made the mistake of calling her crazy. I’m assuming the submission match is coming at Summerslam. Also, I could get used to Paige skipping around and smiling very quickly.
HHH and Stephanie came out for their serious chat about the Brie Bella issue but Jericho cut them off for his usual magic with Stephanie. Rollins wound up jumping Jericho to set up their match later tonight.
Summerslam 1998 is airing on the Network this Sunday. I dig the idea, but I really don’t care about sitting down at 8 this Sunday when I could start the show, say, now.
The Usos and Ziggler beat Ryback/Axel/Miz. Standard combine two matches into a six man with nothing all that interesting to it.
R-Truth beat Bo Dallas in less than a minute. They had to get Dallas’ first loss out of the way at some point and it’s better to do it now than have him lose all his heat in one match.
Lana and Colter’s argument this week was about the flag.
Adam Rose beat Damien Sandow in less than forty seconds. Somehow I think this is the payoff for Sandow.
Roman Reigns vs. Kane never happened as Orton jumped Reigns from the crowd and destroyed him. Again, the match is obvious and just waiting for the announcement.
Diego beat Fandango to continue the issues with Layla/Summer Rae. Nothing to the match but GOOD NIGHT did Summer look great in the matador outfit.
Naomi/Natalya beat Alicia Fox/Cameron in yet another nothing match. There have been way too many of those on this show.
Chris Jericho had Seth Rollins beat in a good match when the Wyatts interfered. This is another case where the ending was obvious and there’s nothing wrong with that.
The big ending segment was Stephanie coming out and confronting Brie Bella. The end result was Brie getting her job back but wanting a match against Stephanie at Summerslam. This was a fine segment, but WHY IN THE WORLD WAS THIS THE CLOSING SEGMENT TO MONDAY NIGHT RAW??? I’m fine with them fighting on pay per view, but there is no reason for this to be the last thing we see.
Stephanie McMahon is a great heel, but at the end of the day, Brie Bella isn’t anything special. She’s Daniel Bryan’s wife, but Bryan isn’t around right now. Brie is just another boring Diva in a large group of them. With all the big stuff they have coming up at Summerslam, I see no reason for this to be the feature attraction.
Overall Raw was….different. WAY too much stuff felt like it didn’t matter, but at the same time, so much of Summerslam is either official or obvious that it’s just building at this point. The problem here though is you need this kind of stuff to fill in a three hour show. It’s almost like a three hour show every week is a REALLY bad idea.
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Three diva segments a week make you question the move to three hours more than ever.
perhaps they closed the show with the Bella and Steph as an odd way to show once Bryan comes back, if he does, he’ll still be in the main event scene? idk man im thinking theyre trying to set up Brie and Bryan vs Steph and Hunter but arent really hyping that in case Bryan cant come back soon..
and i think all the focus should be on Aj and Paige since the other divas suck and are boring. keep their non interesting stories on Total Divas except Paige and aj
Apparently Canada is getting the Network as a regular TV channel so it would make sense to advertise Network shows. Of course, that’s when it’s actually in Canada though.