I said on last night's Fightful Podcast that this may have been the worst Raw of the year in my opinion. The crowd was really hot and cold, but had they been cold, it would have really suffered. Below are my thoughts as the show progressed.
⦁ Seth Rollins is the logical fifth man for the Raw team, but this match needs stakes, badly. A title shot, a week running Raw, a non-title match of their choice. Something! What the show doesn't need is the illogical idea to weaken your team members before they compete.
⦁ The introduction of Noam Dar was good, but hopefully the WWE doesn't rest on that. Brian Kendrick is the only person in the division with anything resembling a character, and that shouldn't be the case. Neville and TJ Perkins both could be good heels as cruiserweights.
⦁ This tag team promo was super doody. Not Enzo and Cass' best work for sure, but them having their own stylized mics are cool. Everything about this was bad and corny and terrible, outside of the crowd reaction. At least they had fun. Are all of these teams comprised of nine year olds? This is pathetic. Two pointless matches afterwards, too. I'll give them credit for trying to add something to Golden Truth vs. Shining Stars though.
⦁ Who ever thought Strowman would be as interesting as he is?
⦁ Charlotte has become a really great heel. Alicia Fox's promo was pretty terrible, and based on the spoilers I expected a bigger reaction for Bayley, but it sure picked up.
⦁ There was way, way too much yakking on this show. Then when there WAS wrestling, it between people who are supposed to be teaming in a couple of weeks. Why? It makes Stephanie McMahon look inept
⦁ I was really looking forward to Rusev/Sami Zayn, and it ended kind of abruptly after just being okay. At least I'll get to see Zayn/Ziggler at Survivor Series. That's cool.
⦁ The Shield tease got a pop, but what's the point if it's just 2/3's of them? Would you pop if Animal and Hawk reunited without Droz, or Ax and Smash without Crush, or the NWO without Virgil? Okay, bad examples. But if you're going to tease this, Survivor Series or The Royal Rumble would have made more sense.
