WWE was in Knoxville, Tennessee for Monday Night Raw this week, a show that featured a man breaking, another man choking, and a new stable being named.
Step Up
Roman Reigns opened the show with a promo about his shiny new Intercontinental Championship. To sum it up briefly, last week was a good week for him. Raw defeated SmackDown and he won his new championship. And then…the line.
“You want it? Stand up and take it.”
That’s really close to another phrase, isn’t it? Like, cringingly, unoriginally close to Cena’s “You want some? Come get some.”
I just…am I wrong to want more than that? I guess it’s all the same for someone issuing an Open Challenge for their championship. There’s not much meat to that.
But still! Can we not follow the Cena blueprint the whole entire way?
Eventually, Roman faced Elias for his championship later in the show and I certainly cannot complain about the effort they put in. They gave plenty of spots to Elias and he definitely impressed with them; his elbow drop and sit-out powerbomb were both incredible.
Reigns won, of course. But that wasn’t all for the Big Dog; after the match, Samoa Joe had a Coquina Clutch ready for Reigns on the stage and left the champ unconscious. Joe had to be pulled off Reigns as he screamed in the Reigns’ face.
So…that’s neat! That’ll be a fun feud with two really great talkers. I have no issues with this at all. Proceed!
The Woman who Started it All
I’m not sure how I feel about this.
After announcing her return last week with two new friends in tow, Paige and her new stable were set up to face the team of Bayley, Mickie James, and Sasha Banks tonight. Things got tough for the Boss, however, when neither of her teammates joined her in the ring.
It’s because they were beaten up backstage by Paige, Deville, and Rose. The new trio then sauntered out to the ring and – like the trope of villains that they truly are – they explained their master plan in full, unnecessary detail.
Essentially, Paige started the Women’s Revolution. And she’s jealous.
It’s a pretty flat motivation and kinda bums me out, to be honest. They could and should be able to do better than that. With all that said, I like the stable name: Absolution. It’s cool-sounding. We might…might get good merchandise. So that’s good.
I also enjoyed Paige giving Sasha a chance to submit. That’s not something most stables do. Banks didn’t, and it led to her getting beaten up and left to lay.
Later in the show, Absolution showed up once more to stare at Asuka a bit. I can’t blame them. Also? I WANT PAIGE VS. ASUKA PLEASE.
What Fresh Hell is This?
No seriously. Someone tell me.
Look, Knoxville was a dumpster fire all night. Not really WWE’s fault, either. They’re rabbling about their footballs and trying to pay a coach way too much money. Whatever. Point is that for whatever reason, they were awful.
But stuff like this really doesn’t help.
I’ve enjoyed Jason Jordan lately. He’s more despicable than actual heels. He’s a fake tough guy. And you know he’s priming to break Kurt Angle’s heart, especially when ol’ Kurt loses his mind with excitement whenever Jordan asks him for “an opportunity.”
(And can we PLEASE stop using that phrase, WWE?)
But we all know he’s not a tough guy. He’s using this knee thing as an excuse and he’ll keep doing it until someone provides some consequences. He challenged Kane, he whinnied like a lame horse, and then he got counted out.
And up until here, everything’s okay.
Next was a really, really long beatdown on Jordan by Kane. Until finally Finn Balor showed up to put an end to it with a damn good pop by Knoxville’s horrid standards.
And then we had another Kane match. This time with Balor.
…And then Kane gets DQ’d by using a chair very early into the match. And then we got ANOTHER Kane beat down. Boy, I sure love Kane beat downs, guys and gals!
FINALLY, Braun Strowman shows up. And he ran Kane off with a series of slow, plodding moves that were meant to look cool.
Good lord.
So WWE, here’s your first mistake: Thinking we want to see Kane in 2017.
Second mistake: When you have Balor come out for the save only to fail and make Strowman come out – for KANE – you’re really putting my ability to root for both men into jeopardy. You’re making them contend for my affections. You’re saying “Balor’s not good enough…BUT BRAUN THOUGH!”
Don’t do that. Jordan was enough here.
And then Braun didn’t even do anything cool. He just did what Kane did to him. That defeats the purpose of what makes Braun awesome.
Geez this sucked. Literally the worst feud going right now.
Best of the Rest
DELETE – I’d make this a featured part of the review if there were more to go on. Bray Wyatt returned to mutter about how we’re all dead and he enjoys our misery. He defeated Matt Hardy in short order and walked off. Hardy was slumped in the corner and seemed to begin having a spastic fit, shouting the word “delete!” to himself. Curious.
Rollins def. Cesaro – A good match, but a combination of one we’ve seen so many freaking times that I’m starting to yearn for more Sheamus vs. Cesaro matches. We’ll get another next week when Ambrose returns from his honeymoon.
Samoa Joe sleeps Titus Worldwide – Don’t you ever look Samoa Joe in the eye, you hear me? That’s a bad man right there. This was early on in the night before Joe would reappear to accost Reigns.
Gallows and Anderson are the best. Even doing silly Christmas ads.
The Asuka staredown – I mentioned it earlier, but how great was it for Asuka to simply smile at Absolution as if they were her new Christmas presents. Her armbar to Dana Brooke was incredible, too.
Rich Swann def. Akira Tozawa, Noam Dar, Ariya Daivari
Only thing I noticed in the Cruiserweight match was Corey Graves asking why Vol fans couldn’t have kept Enzo out of town too. As a Memphis Tigers fan and a man eager to dump on Knoxville whenever I can, I popped hard for that. YOU’RE GOING DOWN, YOU HEAR ME, UCF?! WE’RE COMING FOR YOU ON SATURDAY!
Ahem.
Anyway. I need to say more because these four guys really worked their asses off. It was a good match that saw Rich Swann advancing to a one on one match (at some point) for Enzo Amore’s championship. The unfortunate truth is that good wrestling is easy to come by these days – it’s the good stories that we’re thirsting for. Won’t find it here.
-
This show had a lot of segments that were essentially what they ran last week. There were some things that I liked more than last week – Reigns, Asuka in particular – but GOOD LORD that ending was ugly. I don’t even know what else to say.
Grade: D+
C’mon, WWE. Step up.