Hola guys, and welcome to this weeks edition of the Raw Redux. I’m aiming to not make this as thesis paper level long as usual, but I make no promises for next week because my honorary Diva (a tradition first started by our own Cryssi with Dolph Ziggler), Adam Rose will be debuting and I may go absolutely psychotic. Hey… at least I’m giving you a weeks notice so you can prepare yourself to either skip or deal with me around this time in seven days.
When it comes to this week, however, we’ve finally broken our hot streak of getting double the Divas action. To be honest, I’m kind of okay with that because I feel it’s good to give Emma and Layla a week off to try and freshen their feud up. What we did get though, was something different and unexpected to say the least!
Being that some of you might not want to be spoiled with an intro before we get into things, let’s start off with some boss lady, Stephanie McMahon:
To the arena we go as Stephanie McMahon makes her way out from the back, strutting her stuff while she steps into the ring and grabs a microphone to address the actions of Kane to Daniel Bryan last week. Steph tries to justify her own actions first off, claiming she tried to stop Kane from doing what he did, but she was to no avail. From there, Miss McMahon calls out Daniel from the back and after some stalling, here he pops with… BRIE(!) by his side. Brie engages in the “Yes” chants for him, as his neck is badly damaged from the assault. The two stand side by side on the stage, with Daniel informing Stephanie that he almost believed her in her “claims” that she wants what’s best for them. The only problem though? Everyone knows she’s full of crap.
Stephanie accepts that and states that she doesn’t blame him for thinking that way. She admits that she and Triple H never wanted him to be their champion and they got a little out of control trying to stop him from doing so. Daniel asks Stephanie how she thinks Brie felt watching everything the two of them did to Daniel for months upon months, revealing that the only reason she never intervened was because Daniel assured her not to get involved and she respects him enough to know that he could do it on his own while having her best intentions in mind at the same time. Stephanie feeds into his reasoning by saying that he did do everything on his own and all she ever wanted to do was to both give Kane a backbone and give Daniel a credible opponent for his first title defense at Extreme Rules. Unfortunately though, Kane became a demon and went a bit too far.
She tries to relate to Brie’s situation by comparing the things Brie had to endure over the past few months to some of her own past experiences with Triple H, then summing it up by apologizing to the two of them for everything. The crowd isn’t buying what Steph’s selling, nor is Daniel… who denies her apology and states that she’s still filled with crap. Stephanie doesn’t know what to do to prove to him that she’s telling the truth, but assures him that she has no idea where Kane is and that his mask has been locked in her office all night.
She then transitions into a match for tonight. Daniel, of course, can’t compete until Extreme Rules… but Brie can! Because of this, she’s going to give them an opportunity and show the two of them how sorry she really is by granting them the chance to stand side by side as dual champions! Stephanie lets the world know of some mythical figure named Tamina Snuka who is apparently booked in a Divas Title match at Extreme Rules… but that doesn’t mean it HAS to be Paige she’s up against. Therefore, Paige is going to defend her Divas Title against Brie Bella and it starts next! Daniel vows to stand in Brie’s corner, which Stephanie approves. What on Earth?! We now fade to see Kane’s mask has been removed from her office… ruh roh.
After a break, we return to see Paige in the ring already (sigh), as the referee holds the Divas Championship up while the two of them eye each other down. The bell sounds as both lock up and Paige applies a side headlock takeover. Brie counters into a leg scissors, but Paige kips up and Brie nails a jumping snapmare. Dropkick! Paige now counters and flings Brie across the ring. She nails a few kicks and a fisherwoman suplex for a near fall, however, Brie scores with an elbow. Her offense is quick though, as Paige knocks her into the ropes and lands a few knees. A shriek gets the crowd involved, while Brie knocks Paige down and hits a knee. She goes to the top to channel “Brie Mode”, as Paige heads up and gains a huge superplex! Both are down, as Kane’s pyro EXPLODES onto the screen and gives me a mild concussion from jumping so high at the sound of it.
Daniel looks on in fear, as Kane rises from the inside of the ring and grabs Brie by the foot! I cannot. Paige hightails it out of that ring so fast you’d think someone was pointing UV Rays at her… but Daniel, however, charges inside to try and save Brie from Kane’s clutches. Kane shoves him back and tries to drag Brie right to hell, but the two go back and forth as Brie shrieks in fear. Suddenly, Daniel runs in and whacks Kane over the head with a monkey wrench! I am dying at how randomly amazing this is, and it gets even better as Kane lifts himself up and chokeslams Bryan. Brie is overcome with emotion and tries to rush to her mans side, but doesn’t realize that she inadvertantly just crawled herself back to Kane’s evil lair. He grabs her boot again in what I can assume is some sort of Tony Atlas written fanfic come to life, as he tries to bring her back to where her entire career started by dragging her underneath the ring. Brie is kicking! She has kicked her way out of his grasp and rushes to Daniel outside as the two of them head up the ramp and Kane sets off his concussion inducing fire pyro once more.
Ahem… now, we head backstage after a second break to spot Brie shaking in fear as Daniel gets checked over by the physician. Suddenly, Stephanie McMahon walks up to them acting all concerned about Daniel. She apologizes and claims she had no idea any of that was going to happen, but also states she doesn’t blame them if they refuse to believe her. Almost immediately though, she conspicuously begins trying to figure out if he’ll be able to compete on Sunday at Extreme Rules. He turns to her and vows to be there, then adding that he’s going to make Stephanie regret the day she decided to drag his wife into the picture. With that… the look on Brie’s face turns straight from fear to anger as she eyes down Stephanie McMahon.
“Get out… You BITCH!”
The crowd explodes with cheers. I explode with cheers. Mother Earth herself just called boss lady a bitch and I don’t know how to handle anything right now. Stephanie McMahon reluctantly walks off, leaving the couple to themselves as they breathe about as heavily as both I and the very cat used in the above photo.
In addition to all of that, check out this weeks dose of Ravishing Russian, Lana, below:
And as always, rounding out the nights festivities will be none other than my honorary Diva, Adam Rose, who I will be recapping for you guys every week as long as there’s some sort of woman in his entrance entourage (or I can find some other way to sneak it into a redux).
My excitement levels are higher for this than pretty much anything going right now (aside from swearing Brie Bella mind you). COME ALONG!
The Good:
“Get Out, You Bitch!” – THIS is all I have ever wanted. I don’t even know what to say because for months we have wanted Brie Bella in this feud as an equalizer to Stephanie, and now they’re finally going for it! The line went over so well with that crowd and was desperately needed to give her some substance after she’s been reduced to screaming, crying, cowering and running away for the past few weeks. It honestly started to excite me about what could come because you have to *think* if they weren’t going anywhere with it, Brie would’ve been dropped after last week instead of given way more to do. And the fact it involves not only Kane and Daniel Bryan, but their World Championship is incredible to me, and leads me to hope we could set up a mixed feud of Daniel and Brie against Stephanie and Kane. Whatever the case may be though, tonight we got Brie dropping the B word so let’s all hope and pray at Extreme Rules we finally get our knockdown, drag-out catfight at ringside. I don’t want to get excited because 99% of the time I’m let down, but let’s just hope this fits into that 1% bubble for a change because I’m in love with how different the WWE is going in their approaches to a lot of these top caliber feuds such as Cena/Wyatt and Daniel/Kane. These don’t feel generic, and I want things to stay this way because the typical, repeated storylines have primarily been why I have a disconnect to people in the main event scene. They’ve got ME excited for the main eventers, which is kind of like a casual fan saying they’re excited for a Divas feud. Plus, if you look at things from a technical perspective, we’ve actually got three womens feuds going on right now between Layla/Emma, Brie/Stephanie AND Paige/Tamina which is nearly enough to plot my early demise. Keep it up WWE!
Little Touches by Steph, Daniel, Brie – I really loved that Daniel explained the reason Brie waited 750 lifetimes to get involved with this feud as being that she respected him and his wishes for her to not step in harms way, and that he could fight his own battles. Now I’m sure that’s not the legitimate reason because Brie probably wanted to get involved as badly as we all wished she would, but for storyline purposes it does make perfect sense and that’s all I could ask for them to do. Another bit I enjoyed was a little touch of Brie wearing ring gear both last week and this week because seeing her in an attire this go around gave me no indication she was competing. Last week I thought for sure she had a match, but since she didn’t, I, in turn, didn’t really get any thoughts from seeing it again. I don’t know if she planned to do that, but that’s a small thing I really appreciated as it made Stephanie’s announcement of her facing Paige come as way more of a surprise than it would’ve if she was in a dress last week and gear this.
Oh and I also give Stephanie a thumbs up for actually reminding us Paige and Tamina have a match on Sunday because I think that one sentence is the most build up their feud has had since it (somewhat) started.
Rusev/Woods/Truth/Lana – I know Lana doesn’t really play a huge part in things this week, but I’m glad they actually gave Xavier Woods and R-Truth a bit of upper hand on Raw tonight. Their Extreme Rules match doesn’t just feel like a squash as it had felt to me even though Alexander Rusev (which I’ve recently discovered the real reason I dislike him is more to do with how expressionless and bored he looks 24/7 and not AS much to do with how Lana heavily upstages him) is still probably going to win. Lana was her usual self though, and that self is great so I can’t complain about anything here.
The Somewhat Good:
Paige vs. Brie Bella – I enjoyed seeing these two square off with one another, especially because it was actually given backstory to feel important and because it was something aside from putting Paige up against Aksana or another heel to easily beat. I just don’t feel like it showcased Paige very well character wise because well… we still know nothing about her (based solely on Raw episodes at least… I know she gets built up with videos and stuff on every other show) and putting her up against a babyface this early on really showcased how much better she shines as a heel both in the ring and with her mannerisms. To be honest, I think I would’ve liked to see Stephanie book Tamina against Brie tonight, especially because Brie wasn’t even in that “alleged” #1 contenders battle royal that Tamina won and it could’ve played into that. They could’ve easily either put the #1 contendership on the line or had it be set where the Extreme Rules match would become a triple threat if Brie were to beat Tamina. Regardless though, Paige and Brie meshed so well together and that’s just something picky that in no way affected how much I loved this whole segment.
The Not-So Good:
Paige vs. Tamina Build Up – Is this a thing? Did I hallucinate that battle royal on Main Event weeks ago? I give up on both this and the hope that I could act as a one man crusade to get Paige any sort of backstory shown on Raw. Hopefully they can have a really good match to make up for how horrible this has been for them, and… that’s about all I’ve got.
Until next week, I’ll be off crying real tears of joy at the fact Sami Zayn and Adrian Neville got name dropped by John Cena on Raw.
