What’s up folks? Here’s my review for the July 6th, 2020 edition of Monday Night RAW.
Best: 2/3MB
We began Monday Night RAW with Drew McIntyre goading Ziggler into revealing what the stipulation to their match at The Horrow Show at Extreme Rules (please don’t call it that) will be. Ziggler reveals it’s a secret and that he won’t tell Drew, which is a wise decision on his end. Ziggler knows he cannot physically match up to Drew. One guy defeated Brock Lesnar and Big Show back to back. The other couldn’t defeat one half of Heavy Machinery on the same show. So why give Drew time to prepare for what’s in store? Keep him guessing. That stuff is good.
However, what puts this segment over the top isn’t Dolph Ziggler (because let’s face it, he’s just average at this point), it’s the little wrinkle that he put into this feud. It’s Drew’s old running buddy, Heath Slater. Nothing puts more eyeballs on a WWE Championship feud than a good old fashioned worked shoot. Heath Slater, who was released by WWE in real life about a month ago, returns to berate Drew for not being there for him when he was fired. The whole context of Dolph constantly mentioning that Drew was once fired now comes full circle, because there was a point in time where Heath was in WWE and Drew wasn’t. Now it’s the other way around, and Drew is now the top guy holding the top title.
Heath reminds Drew that he had his back, but now that Drew made it to the top, he forot about him. You could feel the passion in Heath’s voice, and if you were a newbie to wrestling, you’d think that this segment was real with no acting involved. Dolph mentally manipulating Drew may end up being his best chance at taking the title from Drew. I don’t know where this will head after, but this adds even more intrigue to what the stipulation will be. Let’s hope WWE doesn’t botch it on the creativity for this one.
Best: Women’s Wrestling
Up next, we have Bayley and Sasha hyping each other up like the delightfully arrogant heels we’ve all come to know and love. Sasha declares that she will become 2 Belts Banks and Money In The Bank. I sincerely hope WWE will look into making 2 Belts Banks and 2 Belts Bayley a thing. This may be the only time that will happen. Anyways, like I mentioned in Friday’s review of SmackDown, these two have been one of the bright spots in the pandemic era of WWE, as they’ve been carrying women’s wrestling, both on the mic and in the ring. This is even more so when you consider they’re doing this across three shows.
Out comes Asuka to rain on their parade, and she has her old companion, Kairi Sane, coming to her defense. This, of course, is bittersweet since Sane is on her way out of WWE to live in Japan to be with her husband, so we should cheerish whatever moments we have left of our favorite Pirate Princess. Let’s also not forget that Sasha will now be facing Io Shirai, Kairi Sane and Asuka all within a month span. It’s like every conceivable dream match we could think of her has been taking place week after week. Hopefully, Bianca Belair isn’t too far behind.
Sasha and Kairi put on a fine match until we get that the DQ finish. I suppose it works since it protects Sasha and doesn’t give Kairi a loss after coming back after all this time. Still, far more good than bad here.
Best: Eye for an Eye
Before I give my opinion on this segment, can I just mention how WWE is taking the “independent contractor” deal to new heights? On this show, Slater is currently fired, Sane’s contract has lapsed and Mysterio doesn’t even have a contract at the moment. Owens also said he didn’t want to come to WWE with over 30 people in the company testing positive for the coronavirus. Yet, here we are. Crazy.
Anyways, Seth and Owens is out to rekindle an old WrestleMania flame. Owens points out to Seth that things haven’t been going well for him since WrestleMania, which I assume is in reference to his failed challenge for the WWE Championship and provoking the ire of nearly everyone he is coming into contact with. Rollins (rifghtfully) mentions that if Seth has had it bad since WrestleMania, Owens has had it worse since he’s been mostly injured since WrestleMania after fracturing his ankle at WrestleMania. In Seth’s words, he “sacrificed” himself just to get a victory for one night.
One of the reasons why I love Seth’s new prophet gimmick is because his prophecies have actually come to pass. Think about it. When Samoa Joe challenged him along with Owens for the tag titles, he got himself injured. When he tried teaming up with the Viking Raiders, they got hurt and lost the tag titles to Seth. Even when Owens defeats Seth at WrestleMania, he injured himself in the process. So in a way, it would make sense for Owens to team up with Seth as opposed to trying to fight him. But since Seth’s a scumbag, that won’t happen.
Their WrestleMania history aside, Rey comes out to accept Seth’s Extreme Rules challenge and Owens offers to take Black’s place, with the winning team picking the stipulation. Rey’s team wins and the stipulation is…an Eye for an Eye match? Now, obviously, we’re not going to expect either man to attempt to gouge one’s eye out like Itachi did to Sasuke…(or will they?). Are they just going to spend all match trying to shove each other’s eye into the steel steps? Are they going to try and use weapons to do so? In this pandemic era, we’ve seen a lot of creative matches, but I’m wondering where they’re going to go with this one. How do you even determine a winner?
The segment was mostly good, but they’re going to have to elaborate on how this match is going to work.
Worst: United States Title Scene
First, let’s address the elephant in the room. I hate, hate, HATE that United States title design. Why? Not because it’s ugly. But it’s just so bland. If someone were to carry a replica at a live event, would you be able to tell that it was the the United States title from a distance? I sure wouldn’t. If you’re going to have the United States Championship be called as such, you should at least make it resemble the United States. The color scheme is just mostly gold with streaks of red at the bottom. Actually, if you look at it closer, it resembles more the logo for the New Orleans Pelicans for those who watch the NBA. Also, and maybe it’s the lighting, but that title looks kind of….small. It resembles a novelty toy for a child.
That’s not the only issue I have here. The next issue I have is with MVP getting a title match against Apollo. I have loved the MVP/Bobby pairing for the most part, but it’s like they’re doing things in reverse here. Isn’t MVP the manager and Bobby the performer? Why is MVP pinning champions and getting title matches on PPV? Further to that, why is Bobby just willingly going along with it? If MVP becomes champion, wouldn’t he be upset that the manager that was supposed to help rediscover himself is hogging the titles for himself? MVP holds value as a manager and as a mentor, but why he’s getting the title matches is kind of beyond me.
Cedric and Ricochet, who have done nothing as of late, come out in defense of their friend, only to lose to Bobby and MVP in his business attire. You’d think WWE would have something better for those two to do, but since the Street Profits apparently rubbed WWE management the wrong way by going through the crowd during one of their entrances, it looks like it’ll be a while before they can even sniff the tag title scene.
Best: As the Wheel Turns With Ruby
Ruby’s seen better days, hasn’t she? One member of her former trio has withdrawn from wrestling and is now pregnant in real life, and the other defeated her in a match and now doesn’t want anything to do with her. Now, she can’t win singles matches on her own as the IIconics sweep her in back to back weeks.
This is probably some kind of redemption story arc that will lead to Liv Morgan reuniting with her, and perhaps making a run at the women’s tag team titles. I didn’t really care much for Ruby or the Riott Squad when they were a thing. But I can get behind Ruby showing some personality and see what she can do as a good person. Besides, the women’s tag team division is basically anemic, and needs all the names it can get. It’ll give Liv and Ruby something to do, and it’ll give Sasha and Bayley more challengers other than makeshift tag teams of singles wrestlers or teams they’ve beaten a litany of times.
Best/Worst: Six-Man Tag
First, I love it when Randy gets upset at his teammates. Randy really laid into Garza and told him to quit playing around and he’ll unload on him. You can close your eyes and pretend Angel Garza and Andrade are Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase here. The concept is all the same here. For most of the match, Randy doesn’t tag himself in and lets Andrade and Angel do most of the work, presumably working to redeem themselves after the two got humiliated by Big Show single handedly last week. And in the end, Randy ends up getting the win anyway.
The flipside of this? The focus of a six-man tag team match involving The Viking Raiders, Angel Garza and Andrade in 2020 is Randy Orton and The Big Show. The last time these two had a formal feud was in 2013, and before that they faced each other one on one once every four years. Why are we doing this in 2020? I can get behind Orton getting the legend killer back and I can understand the premise, but do we really need to draw this out any longer than it has to? Orton could have attacked Big Show one episode and have been done with it just like Christian. The general rule of thumb is that if a feud can be settled on an episode of RAW without making it feel cheap, then do it, and Orton and Big Show do not need to be feuding with each other for a month to build to a match at this point in their careers.
Other things I liked on this show was MVP mentally manipulating Cedric and Orton misdirecting Akira and the ninjas. The main event was also well done as well.
If there’s one thing that I hate, however, it’s having the elderly Ric Flair at the Performance Center at a time where over 30 in WWE have tested positive for the coronavirus. He doesn’t need to be in Orton’s story and he certainly doesn’t need to physically be there. Even if it’s just in backstage segments, there’s no excuse for even putting him in that situation.
That’s my review for this week’s RAW. What did you think?
