Reviewing the Review – Monday Night Raw: September 22, 2014

We’re coming off Night of Champions and things have to be shaken a bit due to Roman Reigns’ injury. There’s a big hole at the top of the card at the moment and thankfully Dean Ambrose seems to be there to fill it. The other interesting thing is going to be what happens to the title now as we should be heading towards Cena vs. Lesnar III inside the Cell, but that match is a bit played at this point. It should be interesting to see what happens in the next five weeks. Let’s get to it.

Ambrose came out to open the show and said he wasn’t dead. He promised to stay in the ring all night until he got his hands on Rollins. Instead he got John Cena who teased a brawl because he wanted to beat up Rollins as well. The Authority came out and thankfully Cena and Ambrose just went after them instead of hiding behind the big invisible wall. Rollins got chased to the back and stole a car to avoid a beating from Cena and Ambrose. Dean as the new half of the Super Best Friends could be interesting, though he seems more like a loner than team player. Granted he was part of the best team in years so maybe it does work.

Ziggler got the Intercontinental Title back with the same rollup with a handful of trunks that Miz won it with the night before. I have no idea what the need was to change the title again, but at least it’s being defended. Can we get some new challengers now though?

Video on Reigns being taken out. That could change a lot of things going forward. Someone with a lot of time on their hands should write a column about that.

Jack Swagger beat Bo Dallas again. I’m not sure what the point of having these three trade wins for 8 days is.

Natalya beat Summer Rae in the Total Divas match. Rosa and Layla brawled and still no one cares. Just let them be hot and shake their hips a lot. It’s the only thing people are going to be interested in.

Ambrose beat Kane via DQ when Rollins ran in. Kane wasn’t as useless as he usually was here but it was only a six minute match. Dean fought them off with a chair but was eventually locked in a room by the Authority. Stephanie got in a great line: “Have we ever thrown someone out that didn’t come back?” I love it when they actually pay attention to continuity with little things like that.

Sheamus and the Usos pinned Cesaro and the Dusts in your usual “take two feuds and throw them together” match. This was longer than it needed to be but entertaining enough at the same time. Cesaro and Sheamus hitting each other very hard is all they need to do and it worked here. Usos vs. Dusts is fine, but I’d like to see a few more teams added to the mix. You know, like a division.

Rollins confronted Orton about Randy saying the Authority had to put on Rollins’ fires from earlier in the night. Nothing much came of this but it could be a seed for later.

The Next Generation thing they were hyping was video game stuff. Like it is EVERY FREAKING TIME.

Mark Henry came out to apologize for tapping out last night. The Russians came out to laugh and challenged him to another match. Henry made up for tapping out to the Accolade by only passing out to it this time. To be fair I don’ thtink anyone really believed he was going to knock off Rusev.

Adam Rose and the Bunny beat Slater and O’Neil. I can’t help but like this as it’s so goofy but they’re making it so goofy. All the heat is going to go away when the Bunny is unmasked though.

The Bellas are now arguing over the name Bella. Seriously. This might trump Booker T. and Ahmed Johnson fighting over the letter T. in WCW.

AJ beat Nikki Bella because Nikki is awful in the ring.

Cena beat Orton via DQ when the Authority interfered. There was a box at ringside and, as everyone who has ever watched a wrestling show knew, Ambrose was inside it and helped Cena clean house to end the show.

It’s very obvious that Ambrose is substituting for Reigns but that actually works so much better. Ambrose is the natural rebel whereas Reigns is a wrecking ball and doesn’t really fit in a war against the Authority. In other words, Ambrose is more like Austin while Reigns is more like Batista. That’s a VERY good career to have and Reigns is going to be a big star, but there are a lot more places to go with Ambrose’s character. It might be a better idea to have him as the top guy, assuming the fans buy into them, which they seem to be.

The show was a nice change of pace from the stuff we’ve been having for the last few weeks. Lesnar not being around is good in this case as they need to have some more stuff other than just Lesnar vs. the hero of the month. Cena can get his rematch later but it’s nice to give that feud some time to chill instead of just beating it into the ground. Rebuild Cena and let others fight Lesnar for awhile. Good show this week but it’s more about setting stuff up for later than anything on Monday.

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