It’s the last RAW before Summerslam! The biggest event of the Summer! The WWE’s second most popular ‘live exclusive’! It should be a momentous RAW for the women as they head into a big PPV match and follow up on an amazing match a couple weeks ago! Well… not quite, but join me on this week’s RAW redux to catch up on the action.
Right at the top of RAW, we have Lana and Rusev threatening to hold the show hostage if they don’t get an apology from Roman Reigns. Heads of RAW Mick Foley and Stephanie McMahon come out to regain their show, where they set up a match – Roman Reigns will take on Rusev in the main event to defend his wife’s honour.
Our first match from the women features the ‘Force of Greatness’, Nia Jax. In the ring is local talent Rachel Levy, who has a quick pre-match interview with Byron Saxton, before she’s inevitably destroyed in a quick squash.
Backstage, we see Charlotte threatening to replace her ‘epic failure’ Dana Brooke if she messes up one more time! Dana looks a little shaken up, but she knows she’s being put on the spot now!
Pa-pa-party! It’s Alicia Fox back in the RAW ring, for what felt like an eternity! We have Sasha Banks on commentary and Charlotte makes her way down to the ring for their match. While it’s lovely to see Alicia back, she’s taken out quite quickly by the Natural Selection. The cocky challenger calls Sasha to the ring, which causes our plucky Champ to make her way down the ring. Dana Brooke run in from behind to lay out Sasha and Charlotte locks in the Figure 8. An annoyed Sasha clutches onto her leg as the Mentor and Protege celebrate, hands raised as they go into Summerslam.
Last up, we see Lana introducing her husband to the ring as he prepares to fight for her honour. During the match, the ever stern Lana is taken on an emotional rollercoaster as she sees her man come close to winning, but unfortunately he comes up short. A visibly disappointed Lana breaks down in tears as her man is defeated, is this a sign of things to come this weekend?
Thoughts: We all know that Summerslam will be the rubber match between Sasha and Charlotte, so I guess creative have been restricted and we got such a predictable and dull RAW. All that great stuff post-draft has now turned into ‘generic booking 101’. Heel looks strong on last show, face overcomes odds at PPV and we all skip happily into the sunset… yawn.
I guess I can’t fault the possible injury angle to Sasha’s leg as this Summerslam match will need something fresh, as we’ve seen these 2 go at it for 2 years now. However, the delivery was still so tame! Charlotte couldn’t do a ringpost Figure 8? Dana could have used a weapon to attack her leg? Trap her leg between the ringsteps? Predictable.
Charlotte and Dana’s crappy pairing continues to have this inconsistent ‘Will they? Won’t they?’ tension that none of us care about. They even tried to give Dana the ‘stare away in sadness zoom’ shot, but the crowd still didn’t react. Both of them never had a relationship to begin with, so no one will care when they break up. Dana being a face is something I’m not too thrilled about either.
Nia squashing another jobber, yeah that was alright. Nice new move, but she’s literally getting the same booking as Braun Strowman. Both of them have been doing the same thing for about 4 weeks now, we’re bored. This week should have really amped the ante for Jax if they want anyone to care about her next week, since I bet money she’ll be popping up to take on Sasha Banks next Monday.
I guess the most interesting thing this week was seeing Alicia back… or was it? I see you guys in the comments wondering where Alicia and Summer are, well hey you got your wish and what did it do for her? Nada. Nothing. Zilch. A jobber entrance and even the Producers in the gallery switched cameras during the end of the match. Nothing against Alicia, but what else did you expect her to do? This isn’t her feud and I saw several of you guys complaining that the women had to ‘share the stage’ with the men during that mixed tag match saying that Alicia/Summer should be involved. That mixed tag match did way more for the women and the division than a big multi-women tag with irrelevant bodies involved – go back and watch 2008-2012 to see why those aren’t needed. I don’t know what’s up next for Alicia, but this pretty much certified that she’s back in jobb*- ‘enhancement talent’ stage for the time being, which is a shame.
Finally, to comment on the Lana stuff – I touched on it last week that her character is just dying a slow death. Her whole ‘schtick’ was being this powerful, conservative and tough woman, but now she’s a screaming annoying brat. Reigns winning last night was an annoyance in itself, but Lana just standing there and pouting while her husband failed to defend her honour was so disappointing. I honestly won’t be surprised if she turned on Rusev at Summerslam, started being linked to Roman Reigns and becoming ‘Westernised’. Literally, aside from her accent, there’s nothing left of the Lana that everyone got into in the first place.
