Hey everybody! It’s @TheMagnumDA with another installment of the Raw report! We’re still four weeks away from “Money in the Bank”, and we’ve got even more qualifiers set for tonight. We also have the Contract Signing between Ronda Rousey and Nia Jax, as they will fight at MITB for the Raw Women’s title. What are we waiting for? Let’s get to it!
The Results
Opening Promo: Stephanie comes out and emasculates three men (Kurt Angle, Roman Reigns, and Kevin Owens). I guess this is what they teach businesswomen on those “Leadership” retreats. Honestly, the whole thing goes nowhere until we get Roman Reigns vs. KO as our opening bout! About 30 minutes into the show!
1. Roman Reigns defeated Kevin Owens by DQ (**)
2. Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns defeated Kevin Owens and Jinder Mahal (w/ Sunil Singh) (***)
Three Sisters Promo with Sami Zayn and Bobby Lashley: Tell you what. Let’s just talk about this in the “Good, Bad, Ugly” section. Again, take a wild guess where this is headed.
3. Ember Moon defeated Alexa Bliss (w/ Mickie James) (*3/4)
4. Baron Corbin defeated No Way Jose (*)
5. The B Team defeated Breezango (1/2*)
Rousey/Jax Contract Signing: Stephanie tries to play both sides here, but she ends up sounding like a dickhead. She insinuates that Nia Jax is lazy (you know, because she’s 200+ pounds, and all big women are lazy, right Steph?) Jax immediately puts Steph in her place by saying, “I’m sick of that ‘lazy’ crap. I’ve been hearing it all my life.” Nia tells Ronda that she will not be able to put her in the Armbar, and Ronda responds by saying she’s going to take Nia’s title…AND her arm! Well, I hope she gives it back.
6. Dolph Ziggler (w/ Drew McIntyre) defeated Chad Gable (**)
7. Natalya defeated Sarah Logan by tapout in a Fatal Four-Way (with Liv Morgan and Dana Brooke) in a Money in the Bank Qualifying match (*)
8. Elias defeated Bobby Roode (**1/4)
9. Braun Strowman defeated Finn Balor (***1/4)
The Good
Rollins Continues to Roll: Seth Rollins continues to show why he’s one of the top in-ring performers in the company, with another outstanding performance in tonight’s match. I loved that finish with KO…very creative stuff. After KO rolled out of the way of the first Curb Stomp, Seth simply followed him with another attempt that hit paydirt. Awesome stuff.
Ziggler vs. Gable: Okay, they only went four minutes, and it wasn’t the best stuff. I still feel like these two could have an incredible bout, based on their collegiate background. I want these guys to get 15-20 minutes!
Finn the Giantkiller: Even though the main event was formula ‘David & Goliath’, it was still a pretty good bout. I thought this was one of Finn’s better matches on Raw, because he made fans believe that he could win. Yes, Braun is a monster and eventually crushed Finn, but there was a moment where fans believed he could pull off the impossible and slay the giant.
The Bad
An Hour With Roman: So we basically got Roman Reigns for the entire first hour of Raw last night. I get what WWE’s doing…they booed KO when he brought up his sarcastic admiration for Roman, and they cheered when Roman and Seth won the tag match. They’re trying to navigate through the very audible jeers for Roman Reigns. It makes me sad that they are in *this much* denial. Can you imagine how much better business would be if the top guy was actually someone fans WANTED to see? At least on Smackdown, people want to actually see AJ Styles. As long as this show continues to revolve around Roman, it’s going to stay stagnant.
The Ugly
Three Sisters: So Sami promised that he would bring out Lashley’s sisters to explain Bobby’s bizarre promo from two weeks back. He didn’t exactly deliver on this promise. Instead, Sami brought out three men in drag, who proceeded to portray Bobby as mean-spirited and abusive. So we’re going to portray Bobby Lashley as abusive towards women. Even crazier, when Bobby came out to look at his “sisters”, he started acting flirtatious with them. He lifted one sister’s dress, and started playing with the other sister’s hair. So…is Bobby flirting with these guys? Or…is this how he acts around his sisters? Either way, I needed to take a cold shower after watching this. This was as bad as ANYTHING put on TV by WCW in the year 2000. Poor Sami. He deserves so much better.
Well, that’s going to do it for the Raw report! Check in tomorrow for the Smackdown Live TV report! @TheMagnumDA, signing off.
