Bruno Sammartino Tribute
The show opened with a respectful 10 bell salute for the recently passed Bruno Sammartino, with Vince McMahon flanked by SmackDown’s old midcard onstage. I mean, Raw’s entire roster onstage. There was one notable absence, however…
Roman Reigns fOreVER!
…the not-getting-paid-by-the-tribute Brock Lesnar, who kicked off the show by looking menacing while Paul Heyman cut a typically very well delivered promo. Spoiler: Brock’s retaining at Friday’s Greatest Royal Rumble. Spoiler: Brock’s going to dominate Reigns in a steel cage. Spoiler: those several fans chanting ‘Roman’ at ringside are quite clearly plants.
Yes, it’s come to this folks. The last spasms of a dying idea. When reality doesn’t behave the way you want it to, you change reality – like a madman pushing back the tide with a broom.
During Heyman’s most dastardly taunts, the camera would cut to one group of fans at ringside, but from different angles so it looks like they’re not all in the same place. Four times this same section were cut to, with grey shirt baseball cap man getting more WWE screen time than Mike Kanellis’ entire 2018.
They would then chant ‘Ro-man, Ro-man, Ro-man’ with their fists punching in unison with about as much conviction as a North Korean military parade. I’ve seen 2D SmackDown Just Bring It audience members more convincing.
It’s pathetic, really. That WWE have to go to such lengths to reverse engineer crowd reaction. Hot take: the Roman Reigns experiment is a failure. Whatever this is needs to stop.
Elias beat Bobby Roode
Elias didn’t even get to ask what WWE stands for, as Bobby Roode gloriously interrupted his pre-match gig. That’s where the glorious-ness stopped though, as Roode lost clean several minutes later in just his second week on Raw – establishing him firmly in the undercard.
Woken Family beat Ascension
Bray Wyatt and Woken Matt Hardy are a fun team, but the meshing of their acts is awkwardly presented. They beat The Ascension ahead of their Raw tag title match at Greatest Royal Rumble.
The Sami & Kevin Show: Kurt Angle
The Sami & Kevin Show was a fun new segment, which got them booked in a match against Bobby Lashley and Braun Strowman later on. Even with all the very good video packages hyping the event, Kurt Angle’s tease of him teaming with Daniel Bryan and Chris Jericho against Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens in the 50-man Royal Rumble match is the thing that’s got me most excited.
Dolph Ziggler & Drew McIntyre beat Titus Worldwide
McInDolph beat Titus Worldwide next in a decent squash match showcasing the new team’s moveset. But it was Drew’s promo afterwards that really made them feel bigtime, where he called out the locker room for just turning up and collecting paychecks.
Chad Gable beat Jinder Mahal
After Jinder Mahal mistook Chad Gable for former Raw tag team champion Nicholas – still a thing that actually happened – Kurt booked them both in a match.
It had a neat babyface overcoming the cheating heel structure, with Jinder attacking Chad before the bell, but Gable eventually reversed Mahal’s Khallus into a pin. Enable Gable!
Bobby Lashley & Braun Strowman beat Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn
I don’t know if it’s that Bobby Lashley isn’t getting crowd reactions, or that Braun Strowman’s are just deafening. The 10 year old angle hasn’t hurt him one bit, and the crowd were ridiculously into these hands. Strow-ley beat Kevin and Sami in a fun match, where Braun killed KO on the outside once, twice, three times these hands.
Baron Corbin vs No Way Jose
In his Raw debut, Baron Corbin refused to fight No Way Jose because one of the conga line might jump him from behind… and then he jumped Jose from behind.
Finn Balor & Seth Rollins beat The Miztourage
After several backstage segments where Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas tried to become new members of The Shield with Seth Rollins, or the Balor Club with Finn Balor, they lost to both in a tag match as… the Miztourage again, which was a bit anticlimactic.
But not as disappointing as Finn and Seth now being best buddies. Their pre-WrestleMania feud was one of the best things on Raw in recent months.
10 Woman Tag
After a terrifically insincere stand up to bullying promo from Alexa Bliss about Nia Jax, and then an awkward babyface team backstage ra-ra lead by Natalya, The Riott Squad, Bliss and Mickie James took on Jax, Natalya, Sasha Banks, Bayley and Ember Moon in a 10 woman tag main event – in response to the 10 man tag main event from the previous week. Equality.
The match’s story was centered around Natalya getting injured after Sarah Logan’s chop block. Ronda Rousey came down to help her bestie, but got into it with Mickie James giving the good gals a DQ loss.
Fake Reigns fans aside, this was a fun-ish episode of Raw, just one with very little substance to get into. This week’s Raw is poor.
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