The events of RAW last night had me so bewildered, I could not do the review until I was right in the head this morning.
Big news out of last night, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan were without Bray Wyatt, Daniel Bryan will either face Kane at Money in the Bank or vacate the championship where the new champion will be crowned in the Money in the Bank match itself, and we watched Triple H hatch his “Plan B” on the WWE Universe.
What else, the top 30 minutes of each hour had something in common. Awesome. The second half of each hour also had something in common… Total Suckage.
We kicked off the show with a repeat of about four years ago. What do I mean? Well, Triple H goes on a tirade about how he never loses and wants another match with The Shield. Batista throws a temper tantrum comparable to my twin girls and demands a WWE Championship match. While my kids would have been better contenders, Triple H talks down to his child, had Batista paid any attention to things other than himself, Daniel Bryan is injured and cannot compete. “You’d probably choke anyway” is what The Game mutters out loud, sending the Marvel alien into a frenzy. In the end, Batista does what he does best, and quits. Yep! Once again Batista “quits” WWE.
Best part was Randy Orton not saying a damn word.
To keep things rolling, we got another great match out of four people who always deliver. Sheamus and Rob Van Dam defeated Cesaro and Bad News Barrett when Cesaro retreated with Paul Heyman, leaving Barrett to eat a Brough Kick/Five-Star Splash double-finisher. Very curious as to why they make Cesaro a coward all of a sudden. Something worries me here. What does not worry me, is how Barrett took everything like a champ and hell, he was the MVP of the match.
In the beginning of the first hour’s decent into stupidity, Damien Sandow, dressed in a Pacers jersey (as RAW was live from Indiana), he mocked their team and started fooling around with the basketball. Funny stuff. Sandow is so good on the mic. He doesn’t use cheap words either. However, fun and games end when Big Show arrives to KO the Intellectual Savior. Sigh…
In the “match which didn’t happen last night and still should never have happened” Bo Dallas defeated Kofi Kingston. Dallas, like last night at Payback attempted a heel-like promo, but when the crowd keeps chanting “We Bo-Lieve” then you know the gimmick is working. Kingston owned the match, but inevitably lost to a poorly executed Bo-Dog. Brian Kendrick is rolling in his grave… Wait? He’s NOT dead? Ohhhhh, just his career.
Backstage, we learn tonight, Randy Orton will face Roman Reigns one-on-one, all because “Bluetista” quit. HA!
Up next is a very interesting confrontation between Stephanie McMahon and John Cena. What began as Stephanie announcing how Daniel Bryan will either defend the WWE Championship at Money in the Bank against Kane, or he will vacate the title, and a new champ will be crowd in the Money in the Bank match itself. The latter is very interesting as it COMPLETELY DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF MONEY IN THE BANK!!! Oh, should Bryan choose to compete, it will be a Stretcher Match. Meh. Cena confronts Steph and gets her to admit how she hates Daniel Bryan. Cena, stating he is “only saying this as an employee” informs her on a scale of 1-10 in terms of performance, she is a zero, which means she sucks. The segment then descended into childish humor referring to surgeries he had, Triple H had, Daniel Bryan had, and then references “two” surgeries Steph had herself. Oy. Once the banter jumped the shark, Cena wound up with a match with Kane, lasting no longer than five minutes as Kane got himself disqualified, reminding us all he is a monster. However, Cena got the last laugh by hurling the ring stairs at Kane’s head. Cena’s new trademark? Throwing stairs!?
Right, so being a monster means you DQ yourself in every match. Got it.
Los Matadores beat 3MB. Thank heavens there is something for all these morons to do.
Nikki Bella is defeated by both Aksana and Alicia Fox. Uh, I got nothing on this one.
Zeb Colter, thank Primus gets on the mic and berates Adam Rose and his Express. Colter is so good, he can make this ridiculous feud something you can try to care about. Swagger owns the match, but then suddenly eats mat via Party Foul and loses, again. Cue the tears.
It’s top of the last hour! The Usos vs. The Wyatts put on a main event pay-per-view match Good lord, Luke Harper is damn scary when he cuts his own backstage promo, and in the ring is a creepy dude! Rowan is a beast, just throwing both Usos around and hitting massive slams. Harper takes flight twice in this one, and the live crowd appreciates it with a “this is awesome” chant. Usos and Wyatts work damn well together, easily able to keep a fast pace, slow it down when needed and then pick it back up. Match end after Harper misses his spinning clothesline, but Rowan makes a blind tag, hitting a massive sideslam for the pinfall win. I see Tag Team Title match in the very near future.
Still riding the good vibes, we got a solid match between Dolph Ziggler and Alberto del Rio. The catch? Winner goes to Money in the Bank. Winner was Alberto del Rio after a great chain of counters. Sad to see Ziggles lose a qualifying match, the MITB match is designed for guys like Ziggler. Shame.
In an effort to find a tag team partner to defeat the onslaught of Rybaxel, Goldust picks… Sin Cara. Disastrous results as Sin Cara continues to suck, regardless of who is under the mask. Cody Rhodes looks on backstage with disdain as Team SinDust loses.
In a complete waste of time Alexander Rusev is awarded some sort of Russian honor. Legit or not, no one cared and did nothing but give me time to throw up.
In the main event, Seth Rollins beat up Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns with a chair.
WHAT!??!?!?!
You read that right. What should have been Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns, turned into the most confusing heel-turn in the last decade. Triple H announced his Plan B, which was Seth Rollins turning on the Shield. Very surprising, but lacked in the “oh my god” factor. Rollins siding with Triple H and Orton then planted the two remaining members with RKOs as the live crowd gives Rollins the “you sold out” chant.
So let’s see… Shield utterly dominates Evolution two major events in a row, so let’s just have Rollins change sides. Sure, that works. [Note: We’ll have a column on this later today]
Overall, RAW was a decent show. Decent, because only half of it was actually watchable. Sort of confused as to what WWE has planned next, because right now it seems they are scrambling for ideas.
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