RAW 5/9/16

Insect Overlord

Might still happen. He's doing well working the crowd so far but he needs something to properly get them booing.

Adiboo

What are they all wearing on their lapels?

paconnors

conors cure pins

Mr.Nice Guy

If that was Seth Rollins's babyface turn it was an underwhelming start.

phatkev

Rollins is so much better doing face promos

Neil3030

Underwhelming, lacking clarity and positioning the dynamic between the authority figures central to the whole thing.... ugh...

Neil3030

Ah... Jericho makes everything better....

Agent Coulson

And the winner for line of the night goes to Jericho

Longest reigning universal champion ever

Neil3030

Charlotte v Bayley... when was the last time a totally over legit heel faced a totally over legit baby in WWE?

Mr.Nice Guy

I hope Bayley's not legit hurt.

Neil3030

Kinda hope the Owens/Zayn match doesn't go ahead. Way too early to have that rematch.

Agent Coulson

Jack Gallagher could the new William Regal for the WWE

Mr.Nice Guy

Braun's coming out here right?

Edit: Nope. Looks like they're trying to make Bo work again.

J. Marston

Is Sasha forgetting her lines?

johnnysmack

Thought sashas segment was very well done but god damn ending the show with reigns, **** me! I hadn't even thought about him all night and didn't miss him at all then suddenly his music hits.....****

Moneymaker

Wow that show was the ****s.

Enzo and Cass segment and the Club and New Day segment were two of the worst all year. The kind of stuff that makes you embarrassed to be a fan. New Day have long run their course and the Club are a dead team now. Good job creative.

O'Neill and Young, nuff said.

Same old ****, only difference is there's a brand split now.

Think i'll stick with Smackdown.

CSF

Yeah that was pretty f*ckin bad.

Agent Coulson

You can just imagine Vince rolling around laughing his ass off at the Enzo and Cass, The Club and The New Day bits

SlickRic

Absolute horseshít.

And it looks like they might have Reigns beat the Champion to set up a triple threat. Or if the Champ wins, it'll be interference by someone to set up a match between that person and Reigns, thus still making Owens look weak.

New Day are done. They've completely fúcking destroyed an enjoyable act.

The Club are meaningless.

Bayley is winning immediately, which is also dumb. The whole thing about her NXT run was that she was a complete underdog come good. Establish the underdog gimmick with the wider audience before having her go over the Champion. Have her have something to overcome.

If that was Rollins' face turn, they're even stupider than I could imagine. What should've been a huge moment has become something that we're supposed to guess about.

Bounty Hunter

SlickRic wrote: »

And it looks like they might have Reigns beat the Champion to set up a triple threat. Or if the Champ wins, it'll be interference by someone to set up a match between that person and Reigns, thus still making Owens look weak.

Rusev, it has to be.

They have kept him off TV the past few weeks but his program with Reigns just disappeared and although that conveniently allowed for the Universal title qualifier, 4 way and tonight's show without interruption it is now time for his return to allow them to ease Reigns away from the title picture without looking weak and thus allow the Rollins vs Owens title match to take place.




Despite so much Authority figure stuff and it going so long, I actually liked the opening and yeah Y2J got in an awesome line with calling Owens the longest reigning Universal champion ever.

However after that there was very little on the show I cared too much about

J. Marston

johnnysmack wrote: »

Thought sashas segment was very well done but god damn ending the show with reigns, **** me! I hadn't even thought about him all night and didn't miss him at all then suddenly his music hits.....****

Thought it was awful myself. She's so rigid when speaking, it's hard to buy into "The Boss" persona.

Also, the backbreaker part of the Bank Statement always looks so weak.

the groutch

the problem is she's a natural heel.

Lord TSC

Reaaaaaly not a big fan of that show.

I liked that Seth's face character seems to be the same as his heel one, but now facing heels. The idea of Seth coming out and cutting a "I love you guys" promo on night 1 of his face run made my skin crawl, so I'm happy enough with that.

And I don't mind the idea of Owens vs Reigns YET. Owens needs wins against top guys, and quick; being handed the title after being stuck in midcard, he needs to face and beat Reigns, in the exact same way Balor did. If Owens can pin Reigns next week, it establishes his credibility a bit as a top guy.

The bad....I hated the entire New Day segment. Just hated it. I also hated Sasha's retirement speech. Not only does it serve to cheapen genuine retirement speeches, it makes her a bit of an asshole playing on emotions like that. It worked for Henry because he was a bad guy. It doesn't work for Sasha as a face at. all.

ERG89

J. Marston wrote: »

Thought it was awful myself. She's so rigid when speaking, it's hard to buy into "The Boss" persona.

Also, the backbreaker part of the Bank Statement always looks so weak.

When she mentioned trying to get attention on Instagram I assumed she was talking about herself :pac: When she spoke about Mae Young & that she was saying that before the womens revolution started there was a lot of women respected which there was. The way wwe talk about it sometimes I expect Stephanie to burn her bra in support to the women's movement.
What can you say about Raw few squash matches, others didn't matter & a few really bad segments that were worse than the latest from Titus/Young.

Mr.Nice Guy

I thought it was a very poor episode. Three things stood out for me as being horrible.

The opening segment: Seth Rollins has had A WEEK to process what happened to him. Now I expected he would come down, get in Stephanie's face, be very cool, very cold, very calculating, and say to Stephanie, 'I don't know if you were involved or not but tell your husband this message from me: I'm coming for him and I'm going to kick his ass. ' Then he would be placed in a match where he'd have to earn an opportunity to get at Owens.

Instead, he comes out hysterical, completely flipping his lid, flustered, as if he had just been screwed minutes ago, as opposed to a week ago, and he whines, 'How you could do this to me Stephanie?'

FFS, this is our new top babyface? He sounded like a jilted lover on Eastenders. And if that wasn't bad enough, his whining actually worked. Foley gave him a title shot. Just like that. Another title match that he just walks into. Why am I supposed to root for this guy, again?

Second thing I hated: that Club/New Day segment...wow. That must be the worst segment of the year. I was shocked they weren't burying it on commentary which usually happens when they realise something has died on its arse. They didn't think that was funny, did they? This whole feud has been a disaster and they need to split these guys away from each other immediately after the PPV. This was wretched.

The final thing that I hated: that Sasha segment. She was effectively a heel here. Let's review this: a message is tweeted by her that she has some bad news to tell. She comes out and spouts a load of crap about the women's revolution and empowerment, all the while getting tearful, leading the fans into thinking she is going to retire...Dana Brooke comes out...and Sasha attacks Dana to reveal she is fine and that she's coming after Charlotte.

This was like the Mark Henry phony retirement a few years back - who was a heel. Talk about messing with people's emotions. And do we really need Sasha in the title picture when Bayley is there? It feels too soon for that.

There were some things I liked. I enjoyed Sami Zayn's promo to Owens and his line, 'when I win the title I won't need HHH to hand it to me on a platter.' The match between the two was good - but then I thought, wasn't I told at Battleground that their match was their 'final encounter' and here they were weeks later flouting that stip. And they wonder why they can't get people to invest in their stories?

Thumbs down.

Lord TSC

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

Rusev, it has to be.

Um....

Rusev is tweeting pictures of himself sitting on a beach with Lana, saying today starts his 23 day honeymoon....

The White Feather

I was probably about to write the exact same post as you Mr.Nice Guy.

The thing that stuck with me was at the start, they ran thru what happened last week and it took 3.30 mins to do it.A great video package where you wonder what Seth will do, will HHH be there and will they challenge each other.

Then they cut to an earlier today segment with Steph and Mick that went on far too long and took the wind out of the sails. It took just under 4 mins I think.After KO and then Seth do great mic work we are back to Steph and Mick setting up clash of champions match in the ring.

Then it cuts back to backstage with Steph and Mick talking yet again.

This is all within the first 30 mins.So nothing has changed from the old days if we just looked at this episode. It's like bad habits coming back.

As for the rest, New Day and The Club are just a big joke now. Cannot take them seriously anymore. They just want to 'entertain' and not win wrestling matches anymore.That segment was cringe inducing and I had to fast forward it.

What is the point of Sheamus and Cesaro in the series? I presume Cesaro comes back to draw 3-3 now.I don't care about either much.I like their wrestling but sick of seeing them wrestle each other. (FFS please tell Cesaro to take off that tape)

Same as KO and Sami. Stop putting them wrestling each other.I know they are good but it's not special any more. Fighting over nothing as well.

I think there was a Backlund/Young segment but I buzzed through that.Looks like it is going nowhere so it's not interesting.

Sasha looked like she completely forgot her lines or lost her way in her promo.What was the point of it in the end as you said Mr.Nice Guy?

Reigns ending the show dominant is where you wonder do they not want to please their fans at all.Just turn him heel already.

The only good thing about this show is that Seth turned face finally which he should have been already since he came back from his injury.If Roman turned heel then the ship could slowly begin to be righted.

Lithium93_

WWE have ruined Gallows & Anderson.

CastorTroy

I see Sasha's Twitter is now Sasha Unbroken Banks. Not sure where that leaves Bayley after she pinned the champ, for some reason.

Had to laugh at the backstage segment with Alicia and Nia. Firstly, it seemed Nia learned her lines for the segment with no one working with her which is why she mispronounced "raggedy" which seemed to confuse Alicia, then we had Alicia accidentally hitting Nia with the box causing her to stop. Also that crazy thing seemed more forced than usual.
So looks like she'll be Nia's first real opponent and right after Strowman fought his first real opponent, as in not local talent.

Did Backlund lose a tooth?

I was thinking the same about Zayn and Owens. So soon after their decider match, they fight again. Why not just move Zayn to Smackdown?

And Cesaro now has to win the next 3 matches at least to get it to the decider match. Was looking at the upcoming PPV schedule to see how it could play out and don't see how they could have it at a PPV.

thebostoncrab

With word on the street that Cesaros contract is coming up, I can only hope this being 3 down nonsense is unrelated...