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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The pre-show matches saw Adam Rose, with Layla and Summer, beating Fandango and Cameron beating Naomi. There’s nothing to say about either of these except that Cameron was horrible in the ring. I mean like REALLY horrible.

The pay per view opened with an awesome Tag Team Title 2/3 falls match with the Usos defending against the Wyatt Family. The first two falls were there so the match could be 2/3 falls. They weren’t bad but they could have been on any given Raw or Smackdown. The story of the match was that the Usos were barely bale to hang in there against the monsters and could only beat them with a quick rollup.

Then the third fall happened and everything went nuts with some INSANE near falls. Stuff like this is what makes tag team wrestling so fun as the drama is incredible and leaves you wondering when it’s going to end. The double splash from the Usos was a great big finisher and there was no way Harper was kicking out after it. The feud needs to be over now as they’re probably not going to be able to top this, but who do the Usos fight now? Ryback/Axel? I’d love to see them against the Ascension but WWE doesn’t seem to want to call them up.

I’ll cover all of the Rollins and Ambrose segments at once. Rollins was in the back when Ambrose attacked him. HHH ejected Ambrose from the building and said the match wasn’t happening. Later, Rollins came out and had himself declared the winner by forefit, but Ambrose attacked Seth again because wrestling security sucks. HHH came out again and had Ambrose handcuffed, allowing Rollins to jump him again. Finally, Rollins was trying to leave but Ambrose popped out of the trunk of his car and attacked Rollins one more time but Seth got away in said car.

Obviously there was no match and the more I think about it the less I like it. It felt like a cheap way to get people to watch the show and probably pop some Network buys. That’s a common wrestling practice but it doesn’t mean it’s something that I want to see happen all the time. The match will be fine when it happens, but you could have easily done a quick double DQ or countout and still had the match without a conclusive ending. This felt like a cop out and that’s not a good thing.

AJ Lee retained the Divas Title against Paige with a Shining Wizard. This was an odd match as they were trying to do something special but it came off sloppy. I can understand this not working better than I can most other matches as the girls don’t have anyone at this level to practice on. Paige has spent weeks fighting Paige and Cameron so doing anything complicated is out the window. Here she tried to do something a few steps higher and clearly needed more practice. AJ was far from perfect though.

Orton talked to Kane and tried to form an alliance but got nowhere.

Rusev and Swagger had a watchable match that ended in a Rusev countout win. The story of course was Lana’s promo before the match, saying you can’t blame Vladimir Putin for “current world events”, referencing the Malaysian plane crash. This caused a bunch of bad mainstream publicity for WWE, whose response was “we’ve been doing this story for weeks.” That really doesn’t make it any better, but it puts WWE in a strange place.

Rusev and Lana are going to get real heat because Putin is a real life crazy and possibly evil man who may be responsible or at least linked to the death of nearly three hundred innocent people. Whether the characters are directly referencing it or not, people in the media are going to complain. Why? Because media has a tendency to run off at the mouth and not understand the vast majority of what they’re talking about and complain before they know what’s going on. WWE had to know this was coming and really has no right to complain about the negative attention. Yeah a lot of the complaints are stupid, but they were coming no matter what Lana said.

Goldust and Stardust continue to talk about the Cosmic Key. This is starting to intrigue me.

Chris Jericho beat Bray Wyatt in a disjointed match. The chemistry really didn’t work and neither guy seemed to be on the same page. I still haven’t heard a logical reason for Jericho to win. The next night on Raw would see Jericho laid out by Bray, but Wyatt already lost a clean match. Yeah I’m sure Bray will win the blowoff match, but why didn’t he win both matches? I see absolutely no reason for Jericho to win at all. He has nothing to lose and there’s no need for Bray to lose to a guy in his third or so match back. The Summerslam win will help, but it’s taking a few weeks to get there.

Miz won the Intercontinental Title in a battle royal. The match was nothing special, much like most battle royals. I was hoping for Bo Dallas, but Miz’s Hollywood character is growing on me. The biggest surprise here was Slater dumping Cesaro which seems to have gone nowhere. It seems like Miz vs. Sheamus to unify the titles might be coming, even though that would be the stupidest thing they could do. One interesting note here: Del Rio went under the ropes before being knocked to the floor.

The main event was exactly what you would expect as the match started slow, got hot at the end saw Cena pin Kane to retain the title. Reigns looked like he was destroying everyone, though he’s not ready to be the top guy. That’s where WWE is in a good place, as they can build him up for several months. In theory he gets the title at Wrestlemania, but at least he’s got eight months to get there.

Overall the show was a disappointment as the buildup was far better than I was expecting but the execution really failed. Only the opening and closing matches were any good with the rest of the show being worthless. This is a show that could have been eliminated and used on a longer build to Summerslam, much like Fully Loaded 1998. It wasn’t the worst show ever, but it was pretty easily the worst show of the year. That’s saying a lot given that this really wasn’t horrible.

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Cena opened things up with an in ring commercial for the Network and the pay per view airing on it this Sunday. This is something that has been getting a lot of complaints since Monday, but let’s think about this for a minute. The Network hasn’t shown the best numbers so far and WWE is scrambling to find as many subscribers as it can. Therefore, it’s putting on a very strong effort and trying to make every show as important as it can.

Why is this something to complain about? We’re getting effort put into meaningless shows that make them far more interesting than they would be otherwise. Flash back a year ago to Battleground. Do You remember how worthless it was? It ran away with Worst Show of the Year and that’s what you would rather have than some thirty seconds of advertising for the Network? And what about all the sweet content we’re getting this week? Saturday Night’s Main Event, the Punk documentary and the Best of Nitro? If I have to sit through those things in exchance for some commercials, I think I’ll survive.

Anyway Cena and Reigns had a meeting before their six man tag against the Authority later, but their partner Dean Ambrose got laid out in the back. Rollins gave him a curb stomp onto a wooden pallet in a cool visual.

Miz beat Sheamus in a big upset. This is the kind of thing Sheamus needs to have: losses to big names. Now it means more when he comes back with a Brogue Kick and knocks Miz’s head back to Cleveland.

Let’s stop for a second and look at this match. It was one of FIVE matches between guys in the Intercontinental Title battle royal. For once, the midcard title got a solid build with about half the people in the match getting some focus. It’s so nice for a change and made the match on Sunday feel much more important than it did coming in.

Ziggler beat Fandango and got to dance with Summer and Layla. I have zero issue with good looking women in tight dresses dancing.

Adam Rose and Damien Sandow did a commercial for Sonic. You have to make up that $20 million deficit somehow. Again, if a minute long commercial bothers you that much, you’re beyond my help.

The Usos got jumped by the Wyatt Family. Another basic way to build a match on Sunday.

One of the longest segments of the night was a showdown between Zeb Colter and Lana. This was a lot of the same stuff they’ve been saying, but it was really well done and made me want to see the match. Swagger is going to tap, but the build has been fun. After this, I’m thinking Rusev goes after the US Title. It’s all that makes sense at this point.

Alberto Del Rio beat Rob Van Dam in a short match. Van Dam needs to win a match or two in the near future.

Cameron and Alicia Fox beat Nikki Bella in a match set up by Stephanie McMahon. They’re clearly setting up Brie’s return, but I’m not sure if it’s against Stephanie or Nikki. As long as the Bellas don’t have their SERIOUS talks, I don’t really care.

The big moment of the night was Cole introducing a special character in WWE 2K15. It was Sting, who appeared in a video where they threw it to a video where there was an orchestra playing Sting’s old music (from Starrcade 1997) with their backs to the cameras. They turned around to reveal they were all in Sting masks. Sting showed up and looked at the camera but didn’t say anything. He was NOT in the arena but the place erupted when they saw the masks. It appears that you’ll be getting both Surfer Sting and Crow Sting. Sting likely will debut one day, but it’s bizarre to see his face on Raw.

Cesaro has fired Paul Heyman, and lost to Big E. This is either moving towards Cesaro admitting he needs Heyman, or him winning the battle royal on Sunday to prove he doesn’t need Heyman and likely turning face. Word on the street is that WWE doesn’t want to push Cesaro and Reigns as big faces at the same time. I really hope this isn’t true, because if it is, I’ve lost a lot of faith in basic human intelligence and wrestling in particular.

Jericho and Wyatt had their weekly chat and Bray sent the Family out to attack him. Thankfully Jericho ran away before it got too bad. The interesting thing in this feud is that Bray can win every match and Jericho isn’t going to be diminished all that much. The question is where does Bray go after that.

AJ and Eva Marie had a watchable match where Marie wound up tapping. The girl is just there for how she looks in tight outfits but she’s not the worst in the world. Paige and AJ’s odd friendship continues, at least until Battleground.

Bo Dallas remained undefeated against Great Khali. He’s at the point where he needs to win something important soon, and the battle royal might be that something.

Paul Heyman offered a Plan C to the Authority. If it wasn’t obvious that Lesnar was coming back soon, I don’t think they could make it any more clear. There’s nothing wrong with that either and it’s going to be awesome.

Ric Flair returned and seemed to be at least a little bit buzzed. He hit on Renee Young (at least his vision still works) and picked John Cena for the fourway at Battleground. The interesting part was Cena handing Flair the World Heavyweight Championship on his way to the ring. This seems like it may be the last we see of that belt. It was obvious they were going to the new WWE Championship only at one point and handing it to Ric Flair in Virginia is as easy a way as any to get rid of the thing. I’m sure it’ll appear again someday.

The handicap main event was exactly what you would expect it to be. There really isn’t much to say about these things as they’re almost always the same.

Reigns stood tall to end the show. Seth Rollins seemed to injure his knee at the end of the show but it was fake. I bought it though so he did a good job.

Overall this was a solid go home show as I believe every match on Sunday’s show got some build. That’s exactly what you want out of a show like this and I want to see Battleground now more than I did. Nothing on the show was all that great, but I can accept a show that is mostly good for three hours.

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The opening segment saw Roman Reigns coming out to talk about how the Authority isn’t here tonight. This moved into a showdown with Kane, setting up a match for later in the night. Many agents were tossed aside during the melee which is always cool to see. The most interesting part though was Reigns stopping for the CENA SUCKS chant before saying that the chant is absolutely right when he’s in the building. Reigns is fitting into this role perfectly and it’s a good sign.

The Wyatts beat the Usos in another awesome match. There really isn’t much to say about this series other than the 2/3 falls match at Battleground should be just as good.

The announcers spent most of the show hyping up the free preview week of the WWE Network. Yeah I’ve been a subscriber since day one, but I have zero problem with this. The more people buy it, the longer it’s around and that’s a good thing.

Orton, Kane and Rollins all said they hate each other. There’s some very nice characterization going on here as the Authority is gone and their minions are all fighting with each other, but they act all nice when the bosses are around. Nice touch.

Alicia Fox beat up Nikki Bella in a non-match as per the Authority’s rules. Nothing much here, though Nikki’s surgery is probably the best investment she ever made.

Rusev crushed Rob Van Dam for his biggest win yet. I know I like Van Dam jobbing, but he needs a win or two so that beating him still means something.

Ambrose and Orton had a very good match where Orton won clean with the RKO. The more I think about this the less I like it. This is a match that shouldn’t have happened. You can’t job Orton as he goes into a title shot but you shouldn’t job Ambrose as he’s white hot right now. Ambrose looked like he was on equal footing with Randy, but he’s at the point now where he should be beating main eventers, not just hanging with them.

Cena and Reigns had a staredown in the back. You can feel the money when they finally have their match.

Alberto Del Rio beat Dolph Ziggler because Ziggler is a face in the WWE, meaning he can’t handle a man dancing fifteen feet away from him. I’m really sick of that ending.

Stardust and Goldust had another great out there promo with Goldust getting in the awesome line of “Where we’re going, we don’t need Rhodes.”

After a break, Layla hugged Fandango and said she couldn’t handle it if he still had feelings for Summer. He assured her he didn’t but then saw Summer (looking GORGEOUS) who gave him a look that said she knows he wants her. I never thought I’d say this, but being Fandango doesn’t sound half bad.

Jerry Lawler brought out Bret Hart for an appearance in Montreal. Bret seemed happy to be there and even got to punch out Damien Sandow. This was a special for the live fans and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

Sheamus beat up Sandow in a short match.

Renee Young interviewed Batista, who read a fan letter from Johnny Russo who is worried about what would happen if Batista’s face got hurt. Funny stuff and Batista is feeling the character.

The listings for what’s on the free week of the Network makes me want to go buy it again.

Jericho beat Batista clean with a Codebreaker. Post match Bray Wyatt came out and taunted him, so Jericho told Bray to shut the heck up as is his custom. Jericho went after him but Bray just had the Family appear next to him. I read this somewhere else but Cena has been the only person to figure out how to fight Bray Wyatt: bring back up.

By the way, yes I know Miz allegedly did all those things, but it’s all a big jab at Batista because WWE is really petty and doesn’t get why Batista would leave WWE for three months to promote his major role in one of the biggest movie series of all time. You would think they would market the heck out of that but instead, let’s have Miz be a stand-in for Batista and mock him.

Paige continued her over the top praise of AJ as her slow burn heel turn continues. They beat the Funkadactyls and the losers argued after. I still have no idea why I’m supposed to be interested in Cameron.

Kofi Kingston beat Cesaro again as what should be a Superman push continues to go absolutely nowhere. Cesaro was so ready to turn face the night after Wrestlemania and now he’s jobbing to Kofi before probably winning the Intercontinental Title in a few weeks to put him right back where he was a year or two ago. WWE can be stupid like that. Big E. saved Kingston from a post match attack.

Rollins talked to Cena in a good promo where again, Cena made it seem like Rollins was his equal.

Bo Dallas beat El Torito because he’s awesome. I don’t know where they’re going with Bo but he’s won me over.

Orton and Kane broke up a decent Rollins vs. Cena match, which is what should have happened in Orton vs. Ambrose. Reigns and Ambrose came in for the save and Cena stared Reigns down to end the show.

This show was a good example of what I was hoping this series would be. I really liked the show as I watched it live but it doesn’t hold up all that well when I look over it again. It’s still a solid episode but down more in the B range than the A- I gave it in the first place. Good stuff though and Battleground actually looks awesome instead of being the worst show of the last year.

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The opening segment saw the Authority bringing out Cena to announce him as the new A+ player. They sucked up to him like he was the new Face of the WWE but Cena thought something was up. He showed up a picture that actually wasn’t of someone’s face superimposed on someone’s body. Instead it was of the Authority looking devastated after Cena won the title.

This set up what appeared to be another rehash of Austin vs. McMahon, as HHH said Cena could do this the easy way or the hard way. Cena said he’d do it the hard way, so HHH put him in a fourway at Battleground where he defense against Reigns, Kane and Orton. Why Reigns is in the match isn’t clear as HHH freaked out on Vickie over the battle royal issue. As Cena was leaving, HHH said there would be a Plan B. Rollins came out, but word on the street says this is foreshadowing Brock Lesnar.

Other items of this segment saw Cena saying Bryan could have a World Title shot whenever he’s back, Cena being revealed as being on the cover of the WWE 2K15 video game, and Stephanie dancing to Cena’s music. As someone who is a fan of how Stephanie looks, I highly approve of this new dancing gimmick of hers.

Seth Rollins beat Rob Van Dam in a decent match. Again, Van Dam puts over anyone they put him in the ring with and the match worked well enough. The good part though was Rollins bragging about winning the briefcase but Ambrose came on screen and said that he’ll be there every single time Rollins tries to cash in. The briefcase looks like it’s made of gold but it’s full of TNT because it’s going to blow up in his face. This is an awesome idea and the whole thing gets better and better every week.

Rusev and Lana came out to do their thing but Zeb Colter and Jack Swagger came out to answer their challenge. Colter ripped into Lana for taking advantage of the USA’s freedom of speech and Swagger took Rusev down. This is the face turn that Swagger has needed for several years now and the people actually cheered for him. This is one of those ideas that is filed under “WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG.”

The Wyatts beat the Usos and Sheamus. Nothing special here but the Family likely gets another shot at the Usos. I have no issue with this at all.

Bo Dallas came out and took a knee for a moment of silence for Bad News Barrett and Daniel Bryan. This actually went on for sixty seconds and was so ridiculous that it made me laugh.

The Funkadactyls beat Nikki Bella in a match set up by Stephanie. This seems to be setting up Brie vs. Stephanie at some point which should be a good payoff.

Barrett is injured and has to vacate the Intercontinental Title. The belt will be held up until a battle royal at Battleground.

Cesaro lost to Kofi Kingston in a match that ended in a break. They’re pushing the App a bit harder but I’m not sure how much interest this match is going to draw them. It was a nice surprise though. Cesaro destroyed Kofi post match.

Santino has a party which turns into an ad for a beer company. Emma was mentioned as not being there because she was in a Connecticut hoosegow.

Damien Sandow was dressed as Vince McMahon and did an awesome impression of the boss. This caused Stephanie to pop up on screen and send out Great Khali to knock Damien out cold.

The Miz returned as a Hollywood A-List guy who was bragging about being in Marine 4. After a lot of bragging with people not caring about what he said, Chris Jericho returned, talked some trash, and laid Miz out with a Codebreaker. He talked about how great that felt but was cut off by the Wyatts. The Family beat him down and Bray stood tall as he has his next feud. Jericho is a good choice to face Bray as the fans are going to have someone cool to cheer for against Bray. Also, Wyatt can get a big win on pay per view after all those losses. At the end of the day though, no one is going to outcool Jericho so Bray should come off as more of a heel. The promos should be awesome too.

Summer Rae cost Fandango a match by kissing Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler kissed her back and Fandango freaked out, allowing Dolph to grab a rollup for the pin. Hopefully this gives both guys someone to feud with.

Goldust and Stardust beat Ryback and Axel for I think the third time in a row.

Paige came out and bragged about retaining the title until AJ Lee came out. AJ wanted a title match but Paige wasn’t sure. Eventually AJ talked her into it and won the title in a minute. This came off as a double turn, which is pretty much exactly the last thing they should have done. Paige was fine doing what she was doing, but we have to cater to AJ, even though there was a built in story for their major rematch.

Cena/Reigns beat Orton/Kane via DQ when Kane hit Cena with the steps. This was your usual main event tag. Rollins tried to cash in but Ambrose chased him off. Reigns speared Kane down and stared down HHH to end the show. That’s quite the mountain for Reigns to conquer when he gets the chance.

Overall Raw was a very solid episode this week as they’re actually trying instead of just putting it into neutral for the next three weeks. This show reminded me of last year’s post Payback show where they turned on the jets and had an awesome show with some good plot twists and changes going forward. This was a solid show with enough good stuff to carry things forward to Battleground before the Summerslam build blows things up as usual. Really solid show this week that I underrated.

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The pre-show saw Daniel Bryan return for an interview to talk about his status. The update wasn’t too promising: his arms aren’t getting their strength back and there’s talk about a second operation. If that’s the case, word on the street has him out another six months to a year. That’s a horrible situation but I’d much rather have him out that long and able to walk when he’s forty than get another year of matches. Bo Dallas came out and told Bryan to Bo-lieve which led nowhere.

The opening PPV match was an awesome back and forth fight with the Usos retaining the titles against the Wyatts. Both teams looked awesome out there and it’s the kind of match where the Wyatts don’t lose face by not winning the belts. The near falls in this were very hot and the fans got way into things as a result. A hot tag match is usually the best option for an opener and this was no exception. Luke Harper continues to be as awesome as you can be while still being a Bruiser Brody inspired lackey to a Louisiana cult leader. Really solid stuff here and I’d be fine with a rematch.

Ambrose continued his awesome streak of promos by wondering if he should use a ladder to get the briefcase or crush Rollins’ face. Dean is just feeling it right now and is one step off, making him all the more interesting to watch. The showdown is going to be white hot when it happens.

Naomi and Paige tried to do something different in the Divas Title match with some nice athletic stuff, but at the end of the day this was more about Cameron and Naomi’s impending split. You know, because we’re supposed to care about Cameron because she’s a STAR. The match was fine but nothing I’m going to remember two days later. Actually that’s true as I had to read the description to remember what happened.

Damien Sandow was Paul Revere and got beaten up by Adam Rose. I guess they were seven minutes short or something.

Before the briefcase match, we got some old school style interviews from the participants talking about how they were going to win. I loved these as they take like fifteen seconds apiece and give you a quick look at each person. Why haven’t these been a regular thing in twenty years?

Seth Rollins won the Money in the Bank briefcase in a good and entertaining match. Well entertaining most of the time at least as some of the high spots had me terrified. Thankfully no one seemed to be too badly banged up as a result. The main story was of course Rollins vs. Ambrose as their showdown continues to look awesome. After leaving with a shoulder injury, Ambrose came back and almost won the case, but Kane ran interference to give Rollins the win.

It’s such a simple idea but more importantly than that, IT MAKES SENSE. Kane works for the organization Rollins is a part of, so why wouldn’t he come down to help? It also sets up a potential match for Dean against Kane, though hopefully it’s on a Smackdown or something so that it doesn’t take up a ton of time. The rest of the match was nothing special and no one really stood out, save for Swagger for some power stuff at times.

Goldust/Stardust beat Ryback/Curtis Axel in the same match they’ve had multiple times now. Another TV match.

Rusev beat Big E. Again. It was slightly better than their last effort but it didn’t make things any more interesting.

Layla beat Summer Rae with Fandango as guest referee. Fandango is a lucky man and that’s about it.

Cena won the title again in another ladder match. The ending was exactly what it should have been, but I would have liked the challengers to do a little big more on the way to the obvious ending. Cena had to win given how things are looking heading into Summerslam so I’m fine with that. Would it have hurt them to let Wyatt and Cesaro not look like such afterthoughts though?

Post match Cena was called the greatest WWE Champion of all time. This made me roll my eyes, though I get why they say it. For those of you that aren’t up on your history, the statement isn’t laughable but it’s certainly not correct.

Overall Money in the Bank’s big matches worked but it felt more like a formality than a show you needed to see. The ladder matches were both good and entertaining enough for the $10 (something I skipped: the announcers were HAMMERING in the idea of getting the Network. It seems clear that the PPV providers are about to be gone in full very fast. Not a surprise at all when you think about it though) but the other matches save for the tag match were horrible or totally meaningless. That’s not a great selling point for a big show.

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Stephanie opened the show and I need to get this out of the way first: she looked GREAT on Monday with the dress showing off her figure very well. She’s been playing up her sexuality just a bit lately and it really does work for her. I’m not saying she’s Trish Stratus, but she has a really pretty face and can rock a tight dress with a very expensive body.

Anyway the point of the segment was she brought out Vickie to fire her but gave Vickie one more chance: if Vickie can beat Stephanie later in the night, Vickie can keep her job. Again, Stephanie was on fire here with how evil and vindictive she was but had that slight hint of a smile and sass to it that made the whole thing that much better. Her voice when she made Vickie beg was perfect and totally fit her character.

One thing though: Vickie said she’d do it because the one name more respected in wrestling than McMahon is Guerrero. I legitimately laughed and said are you serious when I heard her say that. In what world outside of El Paso does ANYONE believe that’s true? The Guerreros were a regional/midcard act until Eddie made them a big deal in the 90s and 2000s and their reputation would be nowhere near what it is if Eddie was still alive. To suggest that the Guerreros are on the level of the Harts for example is completely ridiculous.

The Usos and Wyatts traded singles wins in matches less than two minutes each. There’s not much to say about this.

Lana and Rusev insulted some Washington DC landmarks. I’m always a fan of things that are filmed on location as you can only have so much atmosphere in an arena.

Naomi beat Alicia Fox in a glorified #1 contenders match. The notable part of the match was Cameron on commentary as the MOST ANNOYING PERSON EVER. I really hope it’s a new character for her as she was every stereotype of a reality TV “star” that you could think of rolled into one. She spent the whole match babbling about how people are talking about her and that’s all that matters. Thankfully Paige shrugged all this off and held up the title to Naomi, asking if she wanted it. Simple idea and it worked. Paige is another girl that is better looking every time I see her, especially with that smile.

Bo Dallas beat Titus O’Neil in the same match that Bo has had since he debuted. It’s still working but he needs to move forward before it goes bad.

HHH announced the entrants in the Money in the Bank briefcase ladder match which had no one out of the ordinary listed. He put Rollins over as the favorite before RVD came out to trade some insults with Seth. A match followed with Seth winning via DQ when Ambrose interfered. The thing I thought the most out of all this was how bored I am with RVD. You get the exact same match out of him every single time and it’s really hard to care about him anymore. The one good thing is he’s putting a lot of people over and the matches aren’t bad. Uninteresting but not bad.

After the match Ambrose said that he had to be put into the ladder match or he’d just wreck the whole pay per view. There’s something awesome about that but more importantly, think about Ambrose for a second. Can’t you picture him interfering in every single match and then really screwing up the ladder match just because he could? That’s a very valuable kind of character to have: one that talks a big game but you could totally picture him doing it.

After a break, Rollins asked for Ambrose to be put in the match and HHH was totally cool with it. This was slightly spoiled for two reasons. One: it was pretty freaking obvious, and two: the original graphic had one more slot than had already been filled.

Bad News Barrett beat Dolph Ziggler to retain the Intercontinental Title in a very solid match. Ziggler looked good and Barrett showed that he can go in the ring. I have zero problem with thirteen minute matches between two talented guys for the midcard title every week. Make the thing the wrestler’s title again like it was back in the golden days.

Vickie came out for her match to Eddie’s music but the match was turned into a mud pit match, meaning the first person to go into the mud would lose. Stephanie sent Alicia Fox, Rosa Mendes and Layla to do her dirty work but Vickie threw all of them into the mud instead. Stephanie hit her in the back to send Vickie into the mud, then did a PERFECT imitation of Vince to fire her. She followed it up with a very appealing little dance while singing the goodbye song, only to realize that Vickie had nothing left to lose. Stephanie went into the mud and Vickie did Eddie’s shimmy to leave on a high note. This was the perfect way for her to go out and I smiled way more than I expected to.

Stardust sang When You Wish Upon A Star, prompting Goldust to say he’s the normal one now. Another funny bit.

Jack Swagger beat Kofi Kingston in a warmup match for the ladder match. Nothing to see here and no one buys either having a chance at winning the briefcase either.

Alberto gave one of the best promos of his WWE career when he talked about his success in Money in the Bank. Cesaro came in and stared him down while Heyman did the talking. Better than expected here.

Big E. beat up Damien Sandow as Abraham Lincoln as the stupid gimmick continues. Post match Big E. imitated a black preacher while talking about how amazing America was…..only to be laid out by Rusev. Again.

Cena did a Cena promo about Sunday.

The main event was another 4-3 handicap match and was basically the same match from Smackdown, meaning it wasn’t anything great but served its purpose.

Post match Kane was added as the eighth man to the ladder match but got laid out by Reigns to end the show.

This was an interesting week for Raw as some of the stuff was good but nothing on it was required viewing. After three hours, I had the same interest in the pay per view that I had going in and nothing made me want to watch on Sunday any more than I already did. The show wasn’t bad, but it didn’t need to exist for the most part. Stephanie in that dress was a very nice touch though.

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We open with a roster meeting on the stage to set up the major matches tonight. The Authority gives us Cena vs. Kane in a Money in the Bank qualifying stretcher match because Bryan can’t do it (makes enough sense) and a battle royal for the other Money in the Bank spot. Ambrose and Reigns won’t be in the battle royal because they have other matches that we’ll get to later. There wasn’t much to the meeting and it really didn’t need to take place. This easily could have been announced by Cole to save more time for other stuff.

First match up was Seth Rollins vs. Dolph Ziggler. They’ve fought a few times on Smackdown and the matches have worked, much like this one here. The interesting thing was the ending though, which ties into the next match as well. Dean Ambrose would hit the ring and attack Rollins for the DQ as Seth was about to win. That’s the logical move as Rollins’ back was turned and Ambrose had his best chance to get in an attack. Rollins escaped but HHH gave Ambrose a match.

Ambrose lost to Bad News Barrett via countout when Ambrose went out to fight with Rollins. The match was good, but the main story here was how awesome Ambrose vs. Rollins feels. This feud is on fire and feels like something that could launch them to a much higher level. It’s a feud based on hatred between two men over a betrayal instead of something contrived and that’s exactly what you should do in a feud like this. The fact that both guys can more than go in the ring makes things even better. I said that it was giving me flashbacks to Rock vs. HHH in 1998 and that’s about as high of a compliment as I can give.

Now we get to the stupid part of the show because this is WWE and it wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t have one. Roman Reigns intercepted and spiked some coffee (in plastic cups for some reason) that Vickie Guerrero was bringing to the Authority. Jumping ahead, HHH would spill his coffee but Stephanie would suck it down and soon get sick, vomiting on Vickie (possibly in a tribute to Ultimate Warrior who did the same in 1992 and would have had a birthday on Monday).

Much like last week with Layla, WWE doesn’t have A TOWEL available and Vickie wouldn’t clean up all night. With Vickie left in charge while HHH got Stephanie to a doctor, Reigns would tell her that she’s getting fired anyway so why not put him in the battle royal. She agreed, completeing Reign’s plans. This doesn’t work for a variety of reasons.

First and foremost, Roman Reigns just isn’t a mastermind like this. Not that he’s stupid or anything, but he’s a muscle and power guy who gets by being physical. Ambrose was the smart and dastardly guy in the Shield and could get away with something like this, but it really doesn’t suit Reigns. They tried this with Kurt Angle back in 2001 when he tortured Austin into giving him a title shot and it just doesn’t fit.

Second, it took A LOT of convenience to make this work. Reigns didn’t know that they would get sick that fast, that they would leave, that they would leave Vickie in charge, that Vickie would go for this, and that Vickie would turn on them for giving her more authority. It’s REALLY convenient that all this worked and it didn’t work for me. Also, did we really need the projectile vomiting? That’s supposed to be entertaining? Insert your own “it’s WWE” joke here.

Bray Wyatt cut a really good promo about how the title would be his happy ending because it means power. This promo made me think that he could win, and that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do. It makes sense for the story and would be the boost that Bray needs. He also made me believe that winning the title made sense which I didn’t buy last week.

Sheamus would beat Bray Wyatt via DQ in a nice brawl when the Wyatt Family interfered. The Usos would make the save as they’re defending against the Wyatts at Money in the Bank. This was fine and made perfect sense, along with preventing either guy from taking a clean loss. See how easy it can be?

Heyman said that Cesaro will win and that’s a spoiler. Simple line but I liked it.

Rusev squashed Heath Slater, who appeared alone and referred to himself as the American Rock Star. It came off as kind of a face turn but it’s not going to make a difference when you lose in 34 seconds.

Kevin Hart was the guest star last night and did fine in his short segment with Adam Rose. He did commentary on a mixed tag with Rose/Summer Rae vs. Layla/Fandango. Nothing to see here and Hart was fine.

The battle royal was next and actually surprised me. The final group included Reigns, Rusev and Bo Dallas among others. Reigns was the fairly obvious winner, but WWE gave us just enough reason to believe that the other two could pull it off that there was doubt. All you have to do is have the smallest doubt and you can get around the obvious result. They pulled this off in the battle royal and the fans LOVED it. There’s a big match between Rusev and Reigns somewhere down the line and it will rock if they build it up properly.

Cena cut a Cena promo on the Authority. Nothing to see here.

Cameron dragged Paige down to a horrible match, which I believe is leading to the Funkadactyls splitting and Naomi getting a title shot. At the end of the day though, Cameron will be around because she’s on Total Divas and is loud, obnoxious and stupid, making her a reality TV star. She’s horrid in the ring though and hopefully the split lets Naomi get some solo time.

Goldust’s partner was Cody Rhodes as Star Dust. This actually worked as they won a quick match over Ryback/Axel (basically wasting all the wins they’ve gotten in recent weeks but that’s WWE for you) with Cody getting the pin. Yeah it’s destined to lead to Cody vs. Goldust, but Cody as Cody Rhodes has never worked so this is as good as anything else. One nice touch: Cody got the pin with a move that used to be called Diamond Dust. Those good things being said, I really don’t get why they split up the Brothers in the first place. They were on fire and having good matches, but now we’re back where we started with Cody in a new gimmick. It’s working though so it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Cena beat Kane after surviving Rollins and Orton interfering thanks to Ambrose making the save. This was one of their better matches but it wasn’t anything all that good. Much like last week, Cena winning was obvious but there’s nothing wrong with that at all. You can’t have a huge multi man title match without Cena and WWE would be crazy to try.

Issues aside, Raw was awesome on Monday and Money in the Bank is looking like one heck of a ladder match. Reigns, Wyatt, Orton and Cena are all realistic options to take the title and that makes things far more interesting than just one or two choices. Reigns as a criminal mastermind aside, this was a good show that made the stars of the future look like huge stars and that’s a great sign going forward.

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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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The opening segment was one basic idea: Batista quit Evolution. In case you don’t remember this, WWE will show you a total of four times over the rest of the show. Other than that, HHH decided that the war with Shield isn’t over because he decided it’s not over. This is where things start to get hairy for the rest of the show. Above all else, there is zero reason for this story to continue. It’s keeping things going because the script says it does. When Shield beat Evolution in three straight falls on Sunday, why should we need to see them fight even more?

After a break, Batista confirms that when he said he quit, he indeed meant that he quit.

Sheamus, Cesaro, Barrett and Van Dam continued their intertwining stories without doing much of anything else. The important thing here was that Cesaro walked out on the match, much to Barrett’s annoyance. This looks to set up Cesaro vs. Barrett, but I’d assume Van Dam gets thrown in as well. Not much to this one but it advanced stories.

Damien Sandow continued to dress up like various characters, in this case as an Indiana Pacer. Big Show beat him up and that was that. The idea can go somewhere, but there’s no indication that it’s going to anytime soon. I know there’s something about the rant that was cut off on the pre-show, but it’s never mentioned and the whole story just feels like they threw it at him without any real reason.

Bo Dallas beat Kofi Kingston in the same match Bo has had since he debuted. Kingston is however a step up so he’s going somewhere. Nothing to see here but Dallas is nailing the character.

Stephanie and Cena had a long talk about what it means to strip someone of the title. The only announcement here is Bryan will defend the title against Kane in a stretcher match if he can, but if not then the ladder match is for the title. The highlight of this one though were some great lines from Stephanie and Cena, including Cena saying that Stephanie had some surgery and putting that idea “in a chest” to think about later and Stephanie making fun of the dueling chants by saying “oh sure you all like that idea” when Cena insulted her. When Stephanie isn’t taking herself too seriously, she can be a really entertaining person to watch.

Then Cena beat Kane via DQ in a really boring match. These two just don’t work well together.

Los Matadores and 3MB did their thing. Nothing to this one but it was really fast so there wasn’t much to complain about. I’m thinking one more match for the little guys.

The Divas match of the week also tied into Bryan vs. Stephanie as Nikki is being tortured for saying she missed her sister. Aksana and Alicia Fox beat up Nikki then Fox shouted about hashtags because in the modern world, people shout HASHTAG LOSER instead of saying YOU’RE A LOSER. Wester civilization is in its decline.

Another interesting story is Bray Wyatt not being on the show after losing at Payback. This leaves the Family alone to take up Bray’s cause in his absence, which leads to some intriguing possibilities.

Rose beat Swagger to continue their feud which doesn’t mean a ton anymore.

The Wyatt Family beat the Usos in a good back and forth fight which should set up a title match down the line. I can live with this one because the Usos are injured, but at the end of the day, is there any reason this had to happen? Now I know the Family can beat the Usos, which takes away a lot of the intrigue of traditional wrestling builds.

In the match that got on my nerves, Alberto Del Rio pretty much destroyed Dolph Ziggler in a Money in the Bank qualifying match. Del Rio might as well have been beating up Xavier Woods as he won via clean submission in less than six minutes. This came off like WWE saying “we have the power so stop cheering this guy because we’re just going to have him lose and lose and lose until you stop.” I have no idea why WWE feels the need to keep putting people down, especially when the fans like them and WWE is REALLY in need of top faces. Actually not even top faces, but just big faces. I mean, would it hurt to put him in an eight man match that he won’t win?

Cody Rhodes picked Sin Cara to be Goldust’s partner against Ryback/Curtis Axel. As you can guess this went badly, but it’s an interesting story. It pretty clearly ends with Cody realizing that it was Goldust who was the weak link and turning heel as a result, but there’s nothing wrong with that as it makes sense.

Rusev got a medal from an English speaking Russian government official. This was short and so was Lana’s skirt so it wasn’t too bad.

Then for the moment that made my eyes roll: Bray Wyatt will be back on Smackdown. AFTER FOUR DAYS OFF! Yeah I know it’s so he can be at Money in the Bank, but at least build this up for a few weeks, or have him miss Payback and do the previous match at Extreme Rules. But instead, let’s just do this for FOUR DAYS with less than 24 hours of wondering because why not.

Now we get to the big deal.

The main event was supposed to be Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton, but HHH and the sledgehammer had plan B in mind. Seth Rollins wound up turning on the Shield and attacking Ambrose and Reigns before seemingly joining Evolution. HHH and Rollins stood tall to end the show. This brings up several questions, with one being bigger than the other.

1. WHAT THE HECK ARE THEY THINKING? Now before people explain why this is a great idea, let me say that I don’t hate it at all and there’s a ton of potential for Rollins to be a big deal. That being said, it doesn’t make any sense to do it now and the way they did.

Rollins and the Shield have defeated Evolution twice in a row now, including in three straight falls last night. Why would Rollins leave now? You either have Batista quit before Payback and have HHH say he has a new plan and do the switch at Payback, or have Rollins get beaten at Payback and get annoyed, or have Shield lose. Having him be on the winning team and then turn though? It doesn’t make sense.

2. It felt like a swerve for the sake of a swerve. This ties into the end of the previous point. Why in the world did we need this swerve? It felt like they didn’t have anywhere else to go with this story so they had one guy jump to the other team so it can get another match or move to the Shield splitting. In a word, this felt forced. Like, REALLY forced.

3. Why did Shield have to split like this? After beating everyone (save for the Wyatts), why not just say they have nothing left to accomplish and that they’re going their separate ways but will be there for each other if the need ever arises again? Because this is WWE, where there’s ALWAYS a heel turn to end a team because it was really good when Shawn Michaels did it. Yeah that’s an exaggeration, but the thing just didn’t fit for the most part.

Overall I definitely don’t hate it and it really could do a lot of good for Rollins. It just doesn’t make sense the way they did it, and I have a bad feeling that we’re going to get some version of “I’ll explain when I feel like it”, which is code for “we didn’t think this through but are going with it anyway”. They really like that one and it did a lot of bad things in the NWO, so let’s do it here with the hottest thing in the company.

Raw was ok with a big ending. They don’t seem to have a lot of ideas going into Money in the Bank, which is annoying as MITB is little more than a crutch for the writers to not have to think of anything. It doesn’t help that they’re lazy in the first place, but why make them work when they can just do the same stuff with different people?

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