***Quick Note***
This edition of Pops & Botches comes from one of our Discord users @Clintster, who was brave enough to tackle a RAW review for us. Any criticisms, please direct accordingly. Any praise, then I totally helped (kidding!). Interested in covering something on our site yourself? Hit us up!
Now, on to the review…
Welcome to the first edition of Pops and Botches: RAW! I know it’s been a while, and you would think that the marquee show would deserve immediate attention. Looking at the show lately, however, it’s been a painful slog. I’m doing this out of a sense of completion, and pity. Maybe this will be my one column, maybe this will be the beginning of a new tradition.
Anyway, a little about myself before I dive into the suck. My name’s Clint and I am a longtime fan of professional wrestling. Like many other SRP writers, I was following the news on Uproxx up until late this spring. Now we’re here, filling the vacuum that resulted, and looks like I am going to be working the Raw beat. Well, let’s not postpone the inevitable; dive in with me, won’t you?
POP-ish: Promo Parade 2.0
The show opens with a review of Randy Orton’s win against The Big Show last week. It goes a wee bit longer than it needs to, but then again what would you expect for The Greatest Wrestler of All Time*? Orton comes out to give us a history lesson of his greatness, and goes on to compare himself favorably to Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. Makes sense I suppose, after all, how many “The Marine” movies did those guys make?
He gets on to the thrust of his promo. There’s something missing from his life – the WWE title he has only held 13 times before. Orton has respect for Drew McIntyre, but he has what Orton wants. He challenges McIntyre to a match at SummerSlam, but will Drew accept. God, it’d take something drastic to draw his attention, like maybe an RKO outta nowhere or something. What’s the chances of that happening?
We then get Nia Jax coming to the ring, and apparently WWE is tweaking their promo parade format. Instead of daisy chaining wrestlers and interruptions to eventually form a tag-team triple-threat Brawl For All match to close the show, they are apparently just having them come out one at a time and vacating before the next promo starts. Progress?
Nia knows how Orton feels; she also wants to be champ again. Just as she is about to explain how she is going to maim Kairi Sane to reach this goal, she’s interrupted by Shayna Baszler who earns my respect for bluntly stating that “nobody gives a damn” what Nia wants. They get into a pull-apart fight, which will lead to a match later on tonight. Hoo. Ray.
POP: CANNONBALL
At first I thought the Street Profits were out to continue the Promo Parade, but instead they introduce the three teams that will battle to be their SummerSlam opponents: The Viking Raiders, Ricochet & Cedric Alexander, and Andrade & Angel Garza. This was actually a decent match, with all three teams getting their chance to shine. It ends with Ivar hitting a cannonball to the outside to wipe out Team RicoCedric and Erik (oops), then Cedric crawling into the ring only to eat a Wing Clipper from Garza. Of course, the winners go over to taunt the Profits, who stayed for guest commentary. Now let’s see them build to SummerSlam by challenging one another to a series of non-wrestling dares.
BOTCH: At Least Kairi is Safe
We get our hoss match with Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler, but not before a backstage segment where Nia confront’s Referee Nicholas’ Dad for not making her the champ. After about a minute of action, both women are counted out and they continue to brawl outside the ring. WWE seems to be hiring the height challenged as security, as an inordinately small guy tries to stop Shayna and gets pancaked for his troubles. Sadly, that was the highlight of this segment.
BOTCH: An Eye for An Eye for An Eye for An Eye for An Eye…
We get a recap of the feud between Seth Rollins and Rey Mysterio, in case you forgot just how devastating and violent it’s been. Rollins and Murphy come out for their talky bit, and I think to myself that Murphy needs a disciple-worthy suit. And maybe a different theme song. And maybe the return of his first name. Just sayin’.
Seth rolls out his promo and at this point even the WWE Developmental crowd is snarking on him. He beat Rey and Aleister Black on consecutive nights but that still ain’t enough. Rather than a title, however, Seth wants to defeat Dominick Guerrero. Dominick comes out and Seth tries to talk it out with him; Dom tackles him for his troubles (c’mon, buddy, the Greater Good) and the GG take him down, complete with Seth doing his best Snitsky impression. Black comes out for the save, but gets beat down as well. They drag him over to the steps to work on his eyes (yes, again) only to be interrupted by Dominick and a kendo stick. God, that’s just tedious to watch.
BOTCH: Bobby Lashley Destroys Everything He Touches
This is not a compliment. Hurt Business (and the two ugliest belts in wrestling) comes out for the VIP Lounge and MVP lays into last week’s returnee Mustafa Ali. He’s trying to recruit Mustafa, and offers up Apollo Crews’ “injury” as proof that Ali needs to make the right decision. This gets interrupted by R-Truth attempting a sneak win against 24/7 champ Shelton Benjamin, but he only gets a 2 count.
Mustafa comes out after the break to take on Lashley, and Lashley dominates the match early on. Tozawa enters with his ninjas to battle Shelton, but they are also unsuccessful when Lashley destroys the ninjas. Thanks, dick.
Mustafa finally gets some offense in on Lashley, but misses a 450 and gets a full nelson for his trouble. We get some closeups of his toro after the match, and he looks like he’s been run over by a train. It looks like Mustafa’s return is over before it started. Damn you, Lashley! You ruin everything!!!
POP: Most of the Asuka-Banks match
And of course we start it out with a recap of the feud between the two. And of COURSE we get Stephanie McMahon emasculating both competitors because reasons. Cut to the Wives in the ring, where Sasha calls Steph out for being a bully. Bayley and Sasha are just absolutely awesome in their eeeevil, and if they dedicated the third hour to just this promo and the Sasha-Asuka match, I’d be satisfied. Kairi (in leather pants) storms the ring and chases off Bayley to make sure there is no funny business during the match.
The match itself is pretty good, with constant back-and-forth between the two. Sasha tries to Eddie Guerrero “title pin” trick, but Asuka shows she has seen the show and hands the Raw Women’s Title back to the ref. Sasha works Asuka’s leg over for a while, and shouts “I NEED THIS TITLE!” We then get a mysterious Titantron shot of Bayley and Kairi brawling backstage, which leads to…
BOTCH: The end of this match
Asuka is torn between continuing the match and watching her friend being brutalized, and in a very non-Cena moment, she finally runs out of the ring to help Kairi. The ref counts her out and awards the title to an unconscious Sasha. And now we finally have The Wives with all the gold. I have no problem with the result of the match, as I feel like Bayley and Sasha need this to keep their heel status secure, at least for a while. I’m not a fan of how the ending was booked, however; logically, Asuka could have taken the three seconds to pin Sasha before going backstage. However noble that gesture was, it just seems to me to make her seem less than logical. Plus, now Sasha will be looking for an opponent for SummerSlam. Think her callout of Stephanie means anything? Naaaaah.
Sad POP: Reege
The WWE acknowledged the passing of Regis Philbin with a nice package of his appearances at WWE events as well as past superstars showing up on his morning talk show back in the day. Regis was a real supporter of the WWE, and his booking of wrestlers to his program helped give them a larger audience. Rest easy, Regis.
MEH: Murphy Wins
Murphy faces off against Humberto Carrillo, after humiliating him a couple of weeks ago. Carrillo takes the fight to Murphy early, landing several Tajiri-like kicks the Disciple. He runs into a high knee, however, and Murphy wins with Murphy’s Law. He celebrates by ripping off his pleather top, which I can only hope means a change in his ring wear by next week.
BOTCH: EWTREME II
Drew and Ziggler get a whole half hour for their match, but not before he accepts Orton’s challenge for a title match at SummerSlam. Great. I’m sure this will be approached in a new way and not with the same lazy booking that keeps popping up in Orton feuds.
Drew has been saving the Ziggler match stipulation for the whole show. Turns out he wants to redo their battle from Extreme Rules, only with both men able to use international objects. There is some confusion as to whether this was a title match or not, but that is to be expected these days. (Turns out it is non-title) After being beaten down rather solidly, Ziggles mounts a counterattack with a kendo stick to Drew’s eyes (Oh COME ON!!!)
Drew finishes with a Claymore through a table, but before he can properly celebrate…
(long, heavy sigh)
…Randy Orton comes to the ring and hits an RKO “from out of nowhere”.
I really hoped that RAW would have given me some kind of hope for my first Pops and Botches. I thought I could make a fairly even-handed recap that could point out some bright spots in a quagmire of a show. Turns out that I was wrong. So wrong. Dead wrong. This made me actively question when John Cena would be coming back. And that is just terrible.
Hopefully I’ll be back next week. If I am, though, I may need to write (and watch) this drunk. See ya next Tuesday… maybe.
