Oh dear. Last night’s Raw was a little bit pants wasn’t it?! Backstage segments that made no logical sense, obvious storytelling booked to look like some massive deal and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it match. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer but Raw was boring. Plain and simple.
Despite being a three hour show, we only get a two minute match, which is pathetic. Before we get to that latest installment of “Same Old Shit, Different Championship”, we’ve got a comedy dose of Stephanie McMahon with The New Day.
The WWE Tag Team Champions ask whether they will be broken up when the “Brand Extension” comes around. Not sure what is wrong with the term brand split, but whatevs WWE. Is it just me or did the wording “unique group of Superstars” make anyone else think that it won’t be a complete split, and more popular stars with be on both shows, with lesser popular stars placed on a respective brand? I hope that’s not the case.
The Ravishing Russian Lana is up next. Someone so talented crippled by terrible booking – how rare it is for creative to have no idea how to use someone? Oh no wait, that happens with most of the roster. Anywho, she introduced Rusev before he has a must-see staredown with Titus O’Neil. Riveting stuff.
Up next, it’s time for our women’s segment for the evening. We first get a glimpse of various Superstar reactions to Charlotte‘s verbal dressing down of Ric Flair from last week. Who cares what Kalisto thinks about this? Certainly not me! Next.
We next see Stephanie McMahon letting rip at Charlotte earlier in the day. She says is quite frankly embarrassed to have her as the Women’s Champion. I’d be more embarrassed about the booking if I were you Steph…
And now it’s time for our match between Natalya and Dana Brooke. I am gasping at the shock factor of having a rematch from SmackDown – well I never?! Warning: if you leave the room to grab a snack, it’ll be over.
Following the match – if you can call it that – Natalya and Becky Lynch appeared on Backstage Fallout to reflect on what just transpired in the ring.
Finally, Sasha Banks appears on a WWE.com exclusive video. No, she’s not singing a cover of Sia’s Alive to prove that she still exists, she actually gives her thoughts on the WWE brand extension. Sasha is hoping to get drafted to SmackDown. She better hope the Women’s Title is on that show then. Watch WWE put Sasha on the show without a women’s belt. I would die laughing because it really is the type of shit they would pull!
Thoughts: What is that I can smell? Oh yeah, hot garbage. When will WWE ever learn? We don’t want to see short matches and boring, repetitive stories that don’t make sense. Instead of clearly stalling until Sasha vs Charlotte at SummerSlam, how about you actually put effort into the ongoing stories and make them matter? The booking tonight was downright lazy.
First of all, what the hell as Stephanie talking about backstage to Charlotte? The “you have no respect” type of angle is a joke. Stephanie, were you looking in a mirror when describing the “selfish, self-important brat”? For crying out loud, you slapped Ric Flair yourself just two weeks ago to steal some of the spotlight for yourself. The qualities Stephanie was annoyed at are all the ones that she possesses. I honestly thought she would be congratulating Charlotte. Oh how I was wrong. This just made no sense to me. Both Steph and Lotty did well in their deliveries but logically, they may as well have spoken a made up language.
As for the match, what is there to critique? Dana delivered her finisher well I guess, and she sold Nattie’s discus clothesline excellently (Tal delivered it great too), but really, I am clutching at straws with those points. The match was way too short and I’m tired of this same old rubbish. If Nattie isn’t winning the championship, I just want this feud to be over with. I’m tired of her getting absolute dross booking to worth with. How can these girls impress with two minutes on the clock?
Seeing Becky was nice and it does make sense for her to be involved, but it was totally obvious. Did we need yet another repeat of SmackDown before she inserted herself? Couldn’t we have had Charlotte facing her instead, with Dana and Nattie on commentary? That would have been way more interesting. All in all, Becky getting involved didn’t need to be so much of a big deal to be honest.
Looking forward, I still hope that this leads to a Fatal-4-Way at Money in the Bank. I’ll be sooooooo annoyed if it just leads to a tag team match that we could have on Raw. Watch that happen though…
