This weeks RAW was still pretty monotonous with the last few RAWs although they did have a few highlights. It seems that WWE are just getting through each week until the draft (this week) so hopefully things will improve when they start to care again. The problem WWE have, is that they’ll have about an hours worth of content on RAW that is entertaining, and the other 2 hours are filler or are just plain boring and inconsequential.
The first highlight was in the first segment, Darren Young of make ‘Darren Young Great Again’ fame, won a battle royal to become the number one contender for the Intercontinental title at Battleground. To be honest, Darren Young’s current gimmick is borderline the worst thing on WWE weekly television, but seeing him win was fun because he’s the underdog. Apparently he hasn’t won a singles match on RAW since 2010 or something when he lost to Cena so it’s good to see that they’re giving him a bit of a push. However, I do think it’s just an attempt, along with Ryder, to make the lesser members of the roster seem relevant for the draft. But, in all fairness, the crowd reacted well to him winning and I really like him in the ring too, I prefer him to Titus so I’m all for someone new getting a push.
Seth Rollins did have a funny segment where he faked an interview with Reigns to make him look silly to the audience. Rollins’ clear heel intentions in these promos make me think that they’re still trying to get people to feel sorry for Reigns so he can return as a face. It’s pretty obvious that won’t be the reaction though. Anyway, this was one of the funnier segments WWE have put out in recent weeks and it ended with a quality promo from Ambrose who’s growing into his champion role, cutting promos where he’s fired up and ready to fight rather than the goofy stuff he’s been doing since leaving The Shield.
The main thing I wanted to talk about this week, in reference to RAW, is the Wyatt and New Day segment. The idea of the segment was great, the idea of making the Wyatt’s seem even more mysterious and dangerous by having this at their compound is a great idea. Whether or not it was inspired by the final deletion of Broken Matt Hardy fame, it was a good idea. It’s just a total shame that the execution of such ideas were so bad. A bit of background on myself, I’m a University student that is studying film. But, you definitely don’t need to be studying to have a degree in Film to work out that this whole segment was so overly produced and filmed awfully that it ruined any shred of great idea that presented itself. The cigar burns that covered the segment along with the “old” looking filter made the full segment barely visible not to mention, this was supposed to look like it was shot on an old 8mm camera but they’d shot it from 20 different angles and had the twitter hashtag in the corner. Giving credit to WWE, it’s very rare that WWE’s production of vignettes ever let them down but in a segment that could have been among the best of the year, it really did fall short of the standard that they’ve set.
Perhaps, the best segment of the night was the unexpected John Cena appearance with Enzo and Cass against The Club. They’d referenced a few times that Cena wasn’t going to be at the arena because he was practicing for the ESPYs (whatever the hell that is) and just off of watching wrestling for so long I should have known that he was there by the fact they mentioned it so frequently that he wasn’t. Regardless, I just took it as face value, so when Enzo and Cass stood up to The Club for what looked like an inevitable beat down and Cena’s music hit, it actually made me pop. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one because the crowd seemed to pop as loud for Cena as I’ve heard in quite some time. The way they’ve thrown this AJ/Cena feud into a 6 man tag match is quite interesting rather than going with the 3 matches which Cena wins 2. I think the outcome will be the same but as I said about Darren Young, I’m happy just for something different.
The forwarding of the Owens and Zayn feud this week was also entertaining, as per usual. The character that they’ve both created play off each other so well and they probably have the most chemistry out of anyone feuding in the full of WWE. I thought it was quite a funny segment with Owens declaring that he refuses to go out with Zayn on commentary because of a health risk. This segment was good, the brawl was fun, and the subsequent Cesaro and Owens match was also really entertaining. The finish did make me question whether Owens is switching out the Pop-Up Powerbomb for the torture rack neckbreaker but a solid segment nonetheless.
The last segment was between Vince, Stephanie and Shane and they were discussing this weeks WWE draft. Vince signed Shane to being Smackdown commissioner while Stephanie is RAW commissioner. Although it sounds like it’ll end up being overbooking, it did intrigue me that Vince demanded that Stephanie and Shane both hire a general manager for their respective shows which makes me wonder what duties will be assigned to these positions. It could lead to Stephanie not being on TV every week though which will definitely be a positive. When the General Managers are announced on Monday, I might write an article on my thoughts of the full draft on Tuesday before the first, Smackdown Live.
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