This 24/7 Title has the chance to be really fun...but Cageside? I cackled like an idiot at the initial crowd reaction.
Mick Foley came out to start the third hour and talked about how Raw needed to get “raw” again. And then he pulled a slim green and gold belt out of his felt WWE bag and held it up.
The 24/7 Championship was up for grabs...and the crowd collectively made the sound from the intro of Home Improvement. Man, I’m still giggling thinking about it.
I hated the belt’s look on first sight, but I like it a lot more now that we have an idea of who’s going to be fighting for it. Foley set that championship on the ground and allll the lower card dudes sprinted out to the ring to brawl for the prize. The Club even played tug-of-war with it until Titus O’Neil finally picked it up to become the Champion.
...The short-lived Champion, that is. Robert Roode ambushed him on the stage with a roll-up, becoming our second Champion and spending the rest of the third hour sprinting for his life as a low card mob chased him.
That’s good stuff, man.
The treachery wasn’t over, however. Just before the main event, R-Truth helped Roode to hide in the trunk of a sedan. Truth directed the mob to go another direction before betraying Roode and driving off as our third 24/7 Champion.
I’m actually pretty excited for this. Lower card guys haven’t really had much to do and this is something that could be really fun. In fact, it IS fun; this isn’t a new thing, after all. WWE even has material to pull from.
I never lead these reviews with a low card feud or storyline; it’s nice to do that for once – and for a good reason.
The Beast has a Boombox
God, Brock Lesnar is so good when he wants to be. Holding that damn briefcase like a boombox and dancing to his own music with it? Pure gold.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Lesnar winning the briefcase, but that doesn’t mean that this can’t be done well. And with the story they fashioned together, it’s...okay, I guess? The gist was that Lesnar wasn’t “snuck in” or anything, but he certainly capitalized on an opportunity to win the briefcase. And now, both World Champions are essentially at his mercy.
Well, both World Champs in question challenged Lesnar to a match, which he refused. The duo were then put in a tag team match against Baron Corbin and Bobby Lashley in the main event. The match turned out to be a no DQ match as well, which suggest some sort of McMahon tomfoolery going on.
It was good for what it was. I mean, no one here is acting like Lashley and Corbin are a legitimate threat to either champion, right? That’s basically been their role for a year now. The good guys won in the end, but brawled with the two before Lesnar appeared to close the show, teasing a cash in before walking away.
I’m...pleased(?) that WWE is trying to write some underlying mystery stuff going on here. I’m not sure they ever explicitly said who strung Zayn up at Money in the Bank, for example, and that’s two nights in a row where the card was apparently changed at the behest of a McMahon: Charlotte’s match at Money in the Bank, and the main event on Raw getting changed to a No DQ.
I just don’t have any desire to watch more power plays among the McMahons. I really don’t. Especially after all the Shane McMahon garbage I’ll talk about below.
Let’s put it this way: more Lesnar doing goofy shit with his briefcase and less McMahons, yeah?
Alexa Bliss is all of us
This week’s Moment of Bliss might have been my favorite part of the show, solely for some excellent Bliss moments.
Bliss was trying to interview Becky Lynch with Nikki Cross hanging out in the background when the IIconics showed up to troll The Man over losing a title. They were joined by Lacey Evans who took credit for spoiling things for Lynch.
In response, Lynch challenged them all to a fight. Cross was quick to offer a lending hand to the champ before Lynch essentially told Bliss that she was fighting too. Bliss was extremely unhappy about being told what to do and trudged reluctantly to the ring with her coffee mug in hand.
That’s a mood. That’s a mood I feel every morning when I first get to work. I feel like we just connected on a spiritual level, Alexa.
Bliss was awesome outside the ring, too. She tapped the ring apron politely to cheer on her new friend in Cross and did everything she could to avoid participating in the match. And in the end, Lynch and Cross were able to take care of business.
The Cross/Bliss friendship is slightly intriguing, but we’ve seen this stuff with Bliss before. WWE needs to deliver a different outcome for this feud to truly be fun, but it’s off to a good start, in my opinion.
The Rest
Braun Strowman def. Sami Zayn – It’s that time of year, folks. It’s time to build to Jeddah. Strowman and Lashley gotta grapple so that means Braun’s picking up wins.
This sucks. Yet again.
I wouldn’t be as repulsed if this were some glorified house show that WWE didn’t promote, but they make this trash part of their televised programming. It’s gross. And I really have no interest in letting it go, either.
Roman Reigns vs. Shane McMahon in Jeddah – Can we agree that Reigns isn’t a SmackDown superstar at this point? Third week in a row on Raw, right?
More Jedda card-building. This time featuring Reigns calling Shane a rich brat (true) and Shane recruiting Drew McIntyre to watch his back.
More Shane/Jeddah crap – Drew McIntyre defeated The Miz in a match to help beef him up as Shane’s muscle. It’s been all downhill with the Shane/Miz feud since WrestleMania.
AJ Styles slapped Baron Corbin – Corbin trolled AJ for losing and AJ slapped him. Honestly, if Raw was just people slapping Corbin...I’d be cool with it.
The Firefly Fun House is satisfyingly creepy – We didn’t get a real Fun House segment this week; instead, we got a prolonged Fun House intro song where kids were shown with distorted features, blank faces, and the words “Let Him In” on them. Inject that nightmare fuel into my veins.
Cesaro def. Ricochet – I was really looking forward to this match, but they went to a commercial break, came back, and then went to another one for some dumb movie I’m not going to watch.
Cesaro won, Ricochet lost. Commentary did their best to put Ricochet over in defeat, but I’m not a fan of these recent Ricochet losses.
The Revival def. The Usos – Fun TV match, but the best part might have honestly been The Revival creeping Alexa Bliss out backstage with their celebration.
Samoa Joe demands his title back – I like that they’re saving this for next week. Not everything has to be featured on every show. Joe called what happened to him at MITB a travesty and that he knows that Rey Mysterio, an honorable man, wouldn’t stand for that. And that he’d make things right by handing Joe his title back.
...Or else.
Lars Sullivan’s interview cut short – He never said a word. The Lucha House Party interrupted and were able to get a bit of offense in before Lars could squash them. He nearly did in the end, but they high-tailed it to the back.
New third-hour lighting – Keep it, WWE! I see you trying to make that last hour more engaging. I appreciate it.
Weird show for me. I liked a lot of what WWE did, but hated nearly everything connected with the upper card cast. I didn’t like how Cesaro/Ricochet went down, nor the McMahon/Reigns/Miz stuff, nor anything that involved that dumb show in Jeddah.
But with that said, it meant a lot of new faces really shined. That’s cool.
Grade: B-
I was actually planning to give this show a poor grade until the 24/7 stuff turned out to be so amusing. If WWE can keep up the 24/7 Title fun, deliver on the Cross/Bliss story, as well as the Joe/Mysterio/Dominick story next week, it’ll make the Jeddah crap a little easier to tolerate.
...Still gonna point out how much I hated it, though.
What did you think of the show, Cageside?