What Happened Last Night on Clash Of Champions: Drew McIntyre got the rare triple assist from a group of Legends to deafeat Randy Orton, WWE found a way for me to be upset with multiple Asuka matches, The Bidness of Hurting continued to be really good, and Angel Garza’s body finally got tired of facing the Street Profits (sorry).
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Prelude: Hey folks, HGR here. I understand this will now be my third straight Raw Review with a different title, but after work shopping it around, understanding the there are never enough Pops on a regular Raw to serve that style of article. I finally with an assist from the bossman up stairs (No not Ray Traylor) would like to welcome you to the first, and officially going forward, addition of…
RAW EMOTIONS
You know, because it makes me cry myself to sleep usually while questioning my life choices?
We open Raw to the aforementioned team of Legends, HBK, Flair, Big Show, and little L legend Christian. I mean I love Christian but are you really putting him in the same tier as the other three? And yes that includes Big Show who’s been at least important to a certain level since I was ten years old.
WWE Champion Drew McIntyre joins them and they have a nice little chat about the heinous acts of a certain individual they all bonded over their love of punching in the face, but not surprisingly, are then interrupted and we all can acknowledge the fact that WWE’s understanding of comeuppance is a never ending loop of people that never stop punching each other. But hey, at least we are getting a WWE title match tonight? And I’m sure with Orton clearly leaving the arena that nothing bad will happen later right? Overall the opening segment didn’t overstay it’s welcome and we moved on quickly while setting up events for tonight. Huh, weird.
GROUNDHOG’S DAY
I’m not entirely sure how winning literally one match in your career to earn a title shot, and then losing said match, earns you ANOTHER title shot the very next night. But this is the same company that has six people murder each other in a cage death fight for a shot the same week a guy said “I’ll fight you” and was given a shot. SHRUG.
Asuka and Zelina together are pretty solid, they are putting Zelina over very well and with some more time in the ring, potentially in the tag division she could turn out to be a solid member going forward. Please though, don’t make me watch her wrestle Asuka again anytime soon, neither match was bad per say, it’s just.. the same match again on Raw.
GRATUITOUS EX-MANAGER SHAMING
I understand that Andrade is a “bad guy” and it’s my conflicting narrative based on WWE’s training me to understand that heels are generally logical people who have friends while their faces are d-bags who make poop jokes and punch people forever for slighting them even once.
However, Andrade coming out to shame Zelina after her loss to Asuka just didn’t sit right. With Garza out for however long I understand plans have had to change, but going right to “be a dick for basically no reason” needs to not be the first go-to when changing plans for a heel.
Andrade and Keith Lee go on to have a very serviceable match that doesn’t really help or hurt anyone but is at least acceptable pro wrestling on my TV so I guess I can’t complain. Huh, weird.
THE SHARK CLEARLY JUST WANTED TO GIVE TOWZOWA A HUG, WITH IT’S MOUTH
The history of the 24/7 Championship isn’t even a year and a half long, but it’s been the heart and soul of Raw since it’s inception. After it finally settled in the rightful hands of R-Truth, who continues to do not only the best work of his career, but the best work of any career really. Add in great guys who also seem all in on the division like (in the past, Drake Maverick) Towzowa and Gulak and you have yourself some pretty good television. Huh, weird.
The triple threat between them itself is a serviceable match that thankfully stays away from the slapstick comedy and just gives Truth a solid actual wrestling match win. Which is something I’d actually like to see more of going forward.
[INSERT JERRY LAWLER RELATED JOKES HERE]
So as ABSOLUTELY stupid it is that this angle continues, the part of it that annoyed me the most? Jerry Lawler. Who would have guessed?
Why do we need interviewer shows/segments? We literally have people coming out non stop and monologuing every week. The part that grinded my gears the most? The very beginning. Not only have we had to sit through countless hours by now of Seth/Rey recaps. Jerry Got Dang Lawler decides to literally recap the story IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEY SHOWED A RECAP.
This all brings upon the wrath of the Messiah himself, who after commandeering Murphy’s cell phone, (uh, illegally?) shows the world some text messages between Rey’s daughter Aalyah (don’t spell it like that) and Murphy where they you know, were very nice a cordial to each other? Happy birthday texts? GASP how dare you!?
This leads to Dominick attacking [checks notes] Murphy? For being, uh, nice to his sister? And not anyone trying to punch Seth “Literally ruining everyone’s lives” Rollins at all during this entire episode? Ugh.
Which then leads to a Dom vs Murphy match, which of course brings out Aalyah, which I have to look up how to spell every time I type by the way. I don’t care what you name your kids, just know you can definitely make their life more difficult than it needs to be simply because you want them to be “different”. But whatever, just don’t name them Michael.
OH GOD A NATALYA AND LANA MATCH THAT WAS.. WAIT.. That wasn’t that bad…
Yeah I never thought I’d write that sentence either. Natty and Lana come out claiming for some reason the Tag Belts should be theirs, and somehow the Tag Division only exists because of them? I understand the generally idea of a delusional heel, but Natty you weren’t even teaming with Lana when the belts were created so…
This leads to an open challenge and by god if Raw didn’t get a bit more shiny with the addition of Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke who are now teaming up because REASONS.
And I say this as not a joke, because the idea confuses me to no end. The match is… fine? Like it’s very acceptable wrestling and borderline pretty good considering the people that are in the ring. I just.. I don’t know how to process this?
Brooke and Rose pick up the win because two people teaming for the first time every is always better than an established tag team and a show filled with acceptable wrestling and not completely terrible character development isn’t causing me to curl up into a ball. Huh, weird.
BACK IN (THE) BLACK (ROOM CLOSET)
Aliester Black is here to tell you things about why he did the things and for whatever reason those things are apparently have very little to do with Seth Rollins and company, also known as the people who.. You know what nevermind. I get Kevin Owens vs Black on TV I’m not going to complain about it.
EXCUSE ME WHILE I NOW COMPLAIN ABOUT IT.
The match itself is going pretty ok, It’s clearly not a feud ender so they aren’t going full bore. And then it just.. uh, ends? Because the ref decided to be as humanly close as possible to someone throwing fists and bows at another human and accidentally getting caught with a bow is somehow not his fault? Ugh, whatever. This feud started seemingly randomly and now it’s got an awkward referee vendetta angle attached to it. Monkey’s Paw you win this round.
HACKING SMACKDOWN APPARENTLY JUST WASN’T GOOD BIDNESS
So was Ali trying to drop off his application for THB? Was this just a miscommunication? Where is Cedric Alexander? Aren’t Crews and Ricochet actually tired of getting their asses kicked by now? Was that WWE employee wearing sweatpants again and that’s why MVP wouldn’t let them sit with them? You expect me to believe Bobby Lashley ONLY eats two plates of food per meal?
The Six Man tag is good wrestling and apparently the subtraction of Cedric and addition of Ali from Team Bad Intro’s To Entrance Music (BITEM for short) was just what the team needed to finally notch a win. Even if the match had some iffy Retribution stuff in the middle that didn’t actually have retribution in it and was actually very pointless. But again I’m not going to complain about good characters getting time to shine and good wrestling on my TV. Huh, weird.
BIANCA IS BECOMING THE MOST ANNOYING-EST
I get the point of these videos, in a Mr. Perfect kind of way, showing of the natural talent of Belaire. But I dunno, something about them doesn’t vibe right. As a heel in NXT the EST moniker made sense, also she’s a beast and can back it up. But I assume they want her as one of the top faces in the divisions going forward. So this will be an interesting transition.
A GLORIOUS RETURN
Not mention yet was a backstage segment in which Dolph Ziggler of all people took Adam “Who are you and why are you running Raw” Pearce aside with an “idea” for tonight’s WWE Title match. The stipulation of it being a NEW challenger notwithstanding. My fears were at least subsided when we get to the return of Not Bobby Roode!
To be fully honest, Roode doesn’t do much for me. Amazing theme and robe aside he’s very serviceable in the ring and on the mic. He’s just not a guy I care about. Part of that is on WWE for that HORRIBLE face run they had him go through on Smackdown. But mostly I again, hashtag can’t complain about a very good back and forth matchup that showed off both competitors well and had a clean finish to end the show.
OR SO YOU THOUGHT (we didn’t think that)
No there’s nothing sketchy at all about the cameraman following along, wait is that Cedric? No it’s Randy Orton! Aw crap he tricked us by pretending to leave earlier! Or maybe he did leave and just didn’t want to hang around watching Raw for three hours (understandable) just to get some ‘venge on some old people.
Not only is Orton here, he’s brought NIGHT VISION GOGGLES with him. Well I guess he might have left those at the hotel? Eh whatever. A quick flip of the lights and blam-o everyone is laid out and no one expects the janitor with the cameraman following him as he slowly sweeps off into the night.
You thought I was going to say slithers, but I went with the janitor pun instead.
AND THAT’S THE END OF… WAIT REALLY, IT’S OVER?
This was the least offensive episode of Raw I have heard of in a long time. It’s a testament to how often WWE has to change things on the fly and how much better they seem to be at that than they are at telling the stories they want to tell. Huh, weird.
If you enjoyed Raw, Enjoyed this Column, or just enjoy life in general, give this a share. If you have any mercy please tell my boss this wasn’t very good so he doesn’t make me watch Raw again, no way they pull out another not terrible episode anytime soon, feel free to leave a comment below or stop over on SRP’s Discord.
