Raw was live from my neck of the woods this week (Corpus Christi, Tx), but sadly I was unable to attend. As I sat at home watching a replay of the show and sobbing into my stuffed Macho Man wrestling buddy, I did my best to look at the bright side and not let jealousy completely consume me. Here are some highlights:
Roman Reigns and Rusev started the show after an outdoor promo from Seth Rollins where he called out Finn Balor and his "demon". Rusev is a great heel and I'm glad to see him with some gold. He's a part of the grand wrestling tradition of evil foreigners, and his valet-turned-bride Lana completes the package. Her parading around in her wedding dress is as pathatic as it is hilarious. She's also desperately needed as a "heater", since Roman still can't get the crowd behind him sometimes.
Sheamus and Sami Zayn had a nice match following that, with Cesaro using the old distraction ploy to help Sami nail a Helluva Kick and score a sneaky victory on the Celtic brute. Not much else to say here, just that I love all three guys involved and look forward to more great matches between any combination of them. Backstage, Commissioner Foley set up a 2/3 Falls Match for this sunday at Summerslam.
The skits with "Doctors" Gallows and Anderson are falling flat with the crowd as their feud with The New Day continues. New Day faced the Dudleys and scored the "v", so here's hoping the Bubba Ray turns on D-Von sometime in the near future and he imports his fantastic "Bully Ray" character from Impact over to Raw.
Nia Jax destroyed a local gal. She's the femme fatale version of Goldberg.
Heath Slater made another big to earn a Raw contract by challenging Brock Lesnar. It went about as well as you'd expect. I'm starting to like Heath on the mic, though. I hope they have a plan for him down the road. And Brock was a freaking monster as usual. Paul E. even let him talk this week!
Kevin Owens took on Big Cass, with their current tag team partners at ringside. Not at ringside for long, however, as both partners got involved and turned it into the usual clusterf***. Everything about this feud is a win for me. I like everyone involved and if not for Balor/Rollins, I'd even think them capable of stealing the show on Sunday.
Roman and Rusev fought backstage in the catering area. All that perfectly good food gone to waste.
Titus O'Neill made his heel turn official by attacking Darren Young and leaving him lying during their tag match against The Shining Stars. The crowd seems a little more into these guys than when they had their last push. Bob Backlund is unintentionally funny, as he grows older and approaches Ric Flair levels of insanity and flushness of skin.
Jinder Mahal is back. Neville beat him. Mahal did some very old school heel-ish things, which I like. Neville's still awesome, but I don't see either of these guys doing much for the time being; the roster is just too stacked right now.
Somebody ran in the ring during Seth Rollin's promo. Don't be a douche if you ever go to a live event. No one is there to see you, idiot. Way to rep the 361, asshole. It's all good though, because Finn did his "demon" entrance and got to kick Seth around a little bit.
(Damn, now I'm really sorry I missed this show.)
Gallows and Anderson beat the Pokemon Trainers, a.k.a. Goldust and R-Truth. New Day came out and attempted to whack Anderson in the huevos with a trombone, but the bald duo slipped through their fingers.
Charlotte beat Alicia Fox in a quickie match. I remember in 2014 thinking Fox was actually going to turn things around and be a contenders, but I guess the 'E had different plans. Sasha came out to confront her, only to get blindsided by Dana Brooke and be put into the Figure Eight submission by Charlotte. Am I looking forward to their title match on Sunday? Oh yeah!
Roman and Rusev had a pretty good hoss fight to close out the show. I really liked the multiple top rope flying headbutts from Rusev. I didn't think the 'E was okay with that move anymore, since what happened with Chris Benoit nearly a decade ago. They pulled out all the stops (sans blood and weapons) to have a good WWE-style main event match. Congrats to both guys and I'm sorry I missed it!
Thanks for reading! Tomorrow I'll be back with thoughts on Smackdown Live. I don't know if I'm going to cover every show week by week but I felt especially compelled to do so this week since they were in my hometown.
Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com
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