Welcome to the Overcooked Raw Refresher
Featuring a preview of tonight's Hell in a Cell PPV
Did you ever see the movie Event Horizon?
If not, shame on you.
It's only the very best deep-space-horror-movie-where-the-starship-is-actually-a-portal-to-hell of 1996. And it stars Laurence Fishburne.
Anyway, there's a point where they realize that the former captain who tore his own eyes out in a fit of space madness is not just babbling incoherently on that videotape, he's saying "Liberate Tutemet Ex Infernis."
Which means "SAVE YOURSELF FROM HELL" in Latin.
God this movie is so wonderawful.
If you haven't seen it, you must. It's your homework for the week.
Anyway, watching Raw last Monday night, I kept repeating that phrase to myself over and over.
Liberate Tutemet Ex Infernis.
Save yourself from hell.
I have to watch this horrible, horrible dreck.
It's my job.
You do not have to watch.
You can be spared.
You can still lead a full and happy life.
You can make it out with your sanity intact.
IT'S TOO LATE FOR ME.
LIBERATE TUTEMET EX INFERNIS.
SAVE YOURSELF FROM HELL.
....
Let's get on with it.
And now, fifteen minutes about the Champion's Comedy Sidekick's Comedy Prop.
I love Chris Jericho.
I really like "The List" as a gimmick.
But it can't be more important than the Universal Championship. It just can't.
And fully an HOUR of this 3 hour episode revolved around The List: Announcing it being missing, looking for it, the ramifications of it not being found, finding it, and the big Triple Threat Main Event after having found it.
The search was kind of fun, I guess, with Jericho running into the cast of Superstars in the locker room and saying funny Jericho things, and then with a cameo by list-withholding Braun Strowman growling "Say Please."
But there's two separate backstage segments starring Stephanie McMahon and that's just two too many.
Hey did you hear that the WWE gave her a 3-year contract extension because apparently that's a thing they have to do?
So hooray for all of us! Three more years of emasculation!
And she's a dog lover, too, so you know she's a good person.
Except, nope. Look at this dog's face.
"She emasculated me, too."
And after all of this, after Jericho told Stephanie that unless he got the list back, he WOULD NEVER WRESTLE ANOTHER MATCH AGAIN EVER, to which Steph responded by threatening to suspend Jericho if he didn't wrestle that night, after finding the list being passively perused by a Giant Frankenstein Lumberjack, Jericho doesn't even bring it out with him to this meaningless Triple Threat Main Event.
How do I know it's meaningless? Because the YouTube video of it skips over the whole thing and goes right to the end where Seth Rollins pins the Champ and his BFF at the same time, basically winning a handicap match. And he does it in the wackiest way possible.
Look at their little legs kicking.
Hilarious.
Of course, after the match, the beatdown commences, and we finally, after two months, we finally get to see the vicious heel champ Kevin Owens that we loved to hate in NXT.
THIS.
THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN MISSING.
Kevin Owens has the potential to be the greatest heel of his generation.
But that's not gonna happen if you have him run from a one on one fight or be the straight man in a comedy trio also featuring a zany scarf-enthusiast and a damn CLIPBOARD.
HELL IN A CELL PREVIEW:
This is one of your 3 Main Events for the Evening, and has the potential to be very good indeed. Their match last month wasn't all that great, and I am hoping that we finally get that Tyler Black vs Kevin Steen match I've been waiting for all this time.
Chances Jericho gets involved: 100%
Chances HHH gets involved: 10%
Chances Rollins does something ill-advised,
hurts either himself or Owens,
and we hear from Bret Hart on Monday: 50/50
Projected Winner: KO
I'm so proud of you for making history.
JUST KIDDING THE CELL WILL HAUNT YOUR DREAMS FOREVER.
IT WILL RIP YOUR LEG OUT OF YOUR HIP SOCKET
AND IT WILL GOUGE OUT YOUR EYES.
I'm so proud of you for making history,
and that's why I personally booked this match.
YOU'RE NOT READY.
THE CELL WILL EAT YOUR CHILDREN.
Proud Papa, that's me.
Hey did you hear, probably the only reason Sasha vs Charlotte won't main event tonight's PPV is because of Vince McMahon!
I know! I was just as shocked as you!
HELL IN A CELL PREDICTION:
Here's the deal. I don't know if this feud has the heat right now to justify being put in the cell, let alone MAIN EVENTING in the cell, but the other two cell matches aren't exactly perfect options either. The Owens and Rollins feud has been poorly booked from the start. I really feel like most people don't care about this match one way or the other. Rusev and Reigns have the heat between them to warrant a cell match, but are you really going to have them close the show? The US Championship match? That would bury the Twizzler Title forever.
The Women's Match is as good as any other option, and it would also "make history." They shouldn't do it just to make history, but if that's an added bonus, then great.
But the question here isn't whether the women deserve to Main Event simply because they are women, the question is whether they don't deserve to Main Event, simply because they aren't men.
WWE should pull the trigger. Let them close the show.
And put the title back on Charlotte.
That undefeated streak at PPVs should only end at one of the big four, and preferably at Wrestlemania.
And what better way to get nuclear heat on Charlotte than for her to beat Sasha, to brutalize Sasha in The Boss's hometown?
And that Boston crowd's going to be in a foul mood for the rest of the night after you book Charlotte to win, so why not have it be the last match of the night?
Better than having the crowd shit all over your Universal Title Match.
Plus, you can have Charlotte continue the beatdown after the match, and Bayley can run in and make the save.
Tease that as the next program.
They won't do that, though.
They'll probably have this go on to start the show, actually, as has been rumored, and Sasha will win, get the crowd pumped for the rest of the evening.
WINNER: Charlotte if it goes on last, Sasha if it's anywhere else on the card.
"See you in Hell." - Roman Reigns
"We're already there." - WWE fans
This damn feud has been going on since early August. It's almost November.
At least there's some heat behind it, and we really believe these guys don't like each other.
Problem is, they think we're rooting for one guy, and we're totally not.
We're rooting for the guy who's fighting for the honor of his wife, sticking up for the dignity of his family, struggling to reclaim the title that he lost. These are qualities that we have always prized in the traditional babyface persona.
We're rooting against the guy who demeans women, is only out for himself, attacks without remorse, and smirks to himself about it, thinking he's the greatest guy in the world. These are qualities that we have always despised in the traditional heel persona.
Why the WWE can't see that they've created a bizarro world feud is beyond me.
Every time they show Roman Reigns sticking his nose where its not wanted and then expect me to cheer for him, every time they show Rusev sticking up for his wife or his family and fighting to protect their honor, and then expect me to boo him, I feel like something's horribly wrong.
HELL IN A CELL PREDICTION:
Odds of Roman Reigns spearing Rusev through the Cell: 1,000%
Odds of Roman Reigns Winning: 1,000,000,000,000,000%
This is gonna suck, y'all. It's one thing to watch a match where the outcome isn't in doubt, but it's quite another to watch it, knowing for a fact that the wrong guy is going to win it.
By the way, Fightful has obtained footage of Roman Reigns training for this match:
Seriously though, is that guy naked?
(Upon further inspection, yes. Yes he is.)
Also seriously though, how drunk is the guy in the canoe that he couldn't see or hear that freight train barreling toward him? Head on a swivel, dude.
But let's not blame the victim, here, the naked spearing guy (hereafter referred to as Roman Reigns) is definitely at fault.
The other guy was just minding his own business, when a naked man, Roman Reigns, obviously high on something and showing his ass to the world, launches himself into frame and spears the poor unsuspecting guy into oblivion.
It's a perfect microcosm of the Reigns/Rusev feud, but six seconds long, and looping in perpetuity.
RIP Vine.
WINNER: Roman Reigns
LOSER: The WWE Universe
Rusev, what do you think? Are you happy that Vine is dead?
Me neither, pal. Me neither.
Oh, goody! A PPV preview match for free for no reason!
Sarcasm--The overused tool of every great internet writer.
They're even busting out spots that should have been saved for the PPV.
Imagine how hard you would pop for that if you saw it for the first time during a Championship match on a PPV.
Cesaro and Sheamus won on Monday, which means they're not winning tonight.
Great, now we all know when we can take a break to make a sandwich.
HELL IN A CELL PREDICTION:
New Day is going to break Demolition's tag reign record, so they're not losing this match.
Maybe Cesaro & Sheamus figure it out, show some teamwork, come super close and still lose the match. Then they vow to work together and they enter into a real life feud with New Day, and after New Day beats that record, after Cesaro & Sheamus have gotten close on several occasions, maybe at the Royal Rumble, it's Cesaro & Shea-saro who finally unseat the champs and cement themselves as a tag team for the ages.
But it much more likely that they lose tonight, blame each other, and we get two more months of them beating on each other.
Maybe it'll be a Best of Seventeen.
WINNER: New Day
In the fifth, your ass goes down.
Like Marcellus Wallace and Butch the boxing man, Brian Kendrick is asking TJP to throw the fight.
Of course, Butch wasn't fighting Marcellus.
Tiny little quibble there.
Still, points for originality. Legit never seen this move before.
HELL IN A CELL PREDICTION:
TJP doesn't throw the match outright. He's got too much pride for that.
Or hitpoints, or whatever.
But I do think he's going to hesitate when it's time to put Kendrick away, and Kendrick takes advantage with a low blow and a roll-up or something.
WINNER: Brian Kendrick
Then TJP loses his rematch through some other underhanded means, and we get either Rich Swann or Cedric Alexander in the Cruiserweight title picture where they belong.
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Once in a while, very rarely, but once in a blue moon,
something happens on Raw that reminds you
why you are a fan of this silly, stupid product.
They've slowly been reducing Enzo & Cass to a comedy sideshow, where they're not even close to the titles, they lose a few matches in a row to THE SHINING STARS of all people, and they seem to be nothing more than their entrance shtick.
But you can't argue with the fact that the people still love them.
And that love could never be better illustrated than when Gallows & Anderson cut Enzo's mic, and he got the crowd to accompany his speech, from memory, at the top of their lungs.
Chills.
Once in a while, you know. Once in a damn while...
Just put them on a plane back to Japan.
You've nerfed these poor dudes so hard, it may not be possible to salvage them at this point.
Anderson eats a Big Boot from cheatin' ass, triflin' ass Colin Cassady, and gets rolled up by Enzo.
I'm begging you, WWE. Stop booking your babyfaces to cheat to win, or to insult their opponents' families, or to launch a basically unprovoked beat down that continues well past where it should end.
That's not "good guy" behavior, and we shouldn't have to explain that to our kids.
Or, alternatively, you could stop marketing your product to children.
Pick one: Are you family entertainment, or are the lines between good and evil so blurred that I can't even see them anymore?
HELL IN A CELL PREDICTION:
Gallows & Anderson seem to have delusions that they're still a formidable tag team.
Meanwhile, Enzo & Cass are brainstorming Halloween Costumes.
I hope this is a classic case of over-confidence.
Enzo & Cass are bulletproof at this point.
Gallows & Anderson need a decisive win here.
I'm hoping the bookers realize this too.
WINNERS: G & A
____________________________________________________
Under The Bottom.
Instead of Over The Top!
Get it?
It's not "Over the Top", it's "Under the Bottom!"
Because it's so bad!
*sigh*
Over the Top was a terrible Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling movie from like 1987.
The only way he knows how?
By arm wrestling?
He doesn't know how to throw a punch?
God, that movie was terrible.
But not as bad as this movie!:
Seriously, who Greenlit this?
HELL IN A CELL PREDICTION:
Bayley wins, gets a huge babyface pop, and then we spend the rest of the PPV being disappointed with the booking and/or watching Sasha vs Charlotte like this:
Nothing else that happened on Raw really mattered.
Not Vince expecting Brock's hometown crowd to cheer for Goldberg.
Not Titus forgetting how to sell a two hand shove.
Not Curtis Axel cutting the promo of his life in his hometown only to lose to Bo Dallas.
And not this, for some reason:
Not this:
Not this:
Not this:
Not this:
Not this:
Not this:
And certainly not this:
Why don't any of these things matter?
Because as of this writing,
they still haven't put Braun vs Sami on the Hell in a Cell card.
There's a rumor going around that it's going to be a "last-minute addition,"
but still no confirmation.
I kind of understand why, though.
Because if they did, they'd have to scrap all of their advertising for tonight.
BECAUSE IT WOULD BECOME A QUADRUPLE MAIN EVENT.
Seriously, (and not just because I predicted this feud a month ago) I am so hyped for this.
BOOK IT.
MAKE IT HAPPEN.
__________________________________________________
I'll be covering Hell in Cell Live, so come join the fun in our Live Viewing party.
Until Then, I've been Alex Pawlowski
and this is me when they announce that Braun vs Sami match.
You can follow me on Twitter @pawlowskithe4th
