Monday RAW in Memphis Review
If you’ve solely been focused on WWE for the past five years and nothing else, there’s a worldwide wrestling phenomenon known as The Bullet Club. For the past half decade they have been one of the dominant forces — in terms of in-ring and merchandising — in professional wrestling. No matter what incarnation of the Club, no matter who comes and who goes, Bullet Club is strong. Go to any wrestling show anywhere and you’ll see Bullet Club t-shirts, and swag.
Also, if you weren’t aware, New Japan Pro Wrestling (where Bullet Club was born and thrives) just held one of the biggest PPV’s in their history — Wrestle Kingdom 12. And Chris Jericho was on it.
So, WWE has almost gone out of their way to make references to The Bullet Club, and finally unite former BC founding fathers Karl Anderson and Finn Balor (along with Luke Gallows) to form “The Balor Club.”
Throughout the show there were so many inside jokes/references to the Bullet Club, that it was almost a bit silly. Especially when Corey Graves said that Balor, Anderson, and Gallows were “the elite.” An obvious reference to The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega’s Bullet Club subsection.
However, the huge positive out of all of this is that Balor, Anderson, and Gallows were propelled into last night’s Monday Night RAW main event…and (surprisingly) won. Baylor has also taken a turn developing a cockier attitude. And thankfully his inane “An Extraordinary Man Who Does Extraordinary Things” moniker has been dropped for now.
The trio is absolutely dynamite together, and you can tell from their ridiculous, unshakeable grins that the three friends, are having a blast.
Their match against “The Champions Club” — Jason Jordan, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins was very entertaining, and I’m liking (I think) where this Jordan heel turn is going.
Onto the rest of the show…
The Miz returned, and he solidified he’s…AWESOME. I’ll freely admit I could not stand The Miz when he debuted in WWE, but now you have to look at him as an unmitigated star, if not WWE legend. His focus on the Intercontinental title is great. Would I like to see him in the Universal Title hunt? Of course. However, it’s difficult to see him believably dethroning Brock Lesnar.
Holy grappling hooks, Batman! Yes, Braun Strowman used a damn grappling hook to pull down a set on top of Kane and Brock Lesnar. It was really, really silly.
Paul Heyman’s promo…that veiled (maybe not) shot at WWE Creative was, as always, gold.
Titus Worldwide defeated The Bar. This was a much better match than anticipated, and to be fair the win was a surprise, and was a needed one for the floundering Titus Brand. This could easily play up to the “doubt” surrounding The Bar’s chances of winning at The Rumble, but also setting up an epic fall for Rollins and Jordan.
Samoa Joe destroyed Rhyno. I get the angle, but man Rhyno is a (man) beast, he could’ve used some offense. However, the big thing here is Joe setting his sights (hopefully) on John Cena. This feud has a lengthy history dating back to their independent days. And yes, Cena was on the indies.
Bayley and Sasha beat Absolution in a very solid tag match. My question here is this — that’s two weeks in a row Absolution has lost in tag action, what’s the end game here? I don’t know if we’ll know till Paige actually gets back into the ring. Regardless, Sonya Deville is really improved in the ring, and Mandy Rose is as well.
Enzo Amore vs. Cedric Alexander was a let down. I know they’ll hold the title rematch till Royal Rumble, but man they’ve lost a lot of steam in recent weeks with this division.
Matt Hardy helped keep Curt Hawkins streak in tact, then had a laugh-off with Bray Wyatt.
