RAW In A Nutshell: Brotherly Break Down?

RAW In A Nutshell: Brotherly Break Down?

It’s the start to yet another fine week in October, and Evolution gets closer by the minute. Similarly looming is the Crown Jewel event, which may or may not happen. Lots going on for this week’s edition of RAW to take care of, right? Of course there is. We should expect some fallout from the Bella beat down of RAW women’s champion Ronda Rousey. And, with RAW in the City of Brotherly Love, we will surely get to see the latest status of the trio in The Shield. Will we see a brotherly break down in Philadelphia? Let’s crack open this Nutshell and find out!

Best Match of the night:

The opening match, Seth Rollins versus Dolph Ziggler, was probably the best one of the night. I’d say the main event was entertaining, but the opening bout was far better from a wrestling perspective.

Worst match of the night:

Lashley versus Breeze was really not a match.

But then, neither was Finn Balor and Jinder Mahal.

The worst? It’s a coin toss really, they both were forgettable.

Crowd Chants of the Night:

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Break her arm

You suck

Star of the Night

Maybe heels, but the Bellas played their role very well.

The six men involved in what felt like the whole show-The Shield, Ziggler, McIntyre and Strowman-all deserve credit.

Spot of the Night:

An Angle Slam for Baron Corbin on the steel ramp? Sure, why not. Given Angle’s neck issues, it was a spot I didn’t really think they’d do, but they did indeed do it.

Jobber of the Night:

At first, I felt this was Tyler Breeze’s spot. Then we had a return of The Conquistador. Vacationing GM Kurt Angle was put in a 2 on 1 handicap match against the Authors of Pain and declared “but I don’t have my gear!”. It seemed he improvised and wore the gold suit from last week, but instead of the Hall of Famer, the Authors were fed some jobber.

Upset of the Night:

I don’t really think there was one tonight.

Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:

Sasha’s return was a good and unexpected surprise

Tweets of the Night

 

Botch of the night:

No disrespect intended, as Rousey certainly delivered a passionate promo, but she had a few flubs during the segment. This is an example of where she really struggles, and it’s another time where I wish she had become (or still will become) a Paul Heyman girl, so to speak. It probably ran a little longer than needed (from a talking perspective), and there was clearly a reason why Brie and Nikki got extended time on the mic-they have a better delivery than the champ.

That being said, Ronda did drop some pretty hard hitting shots which many in the audience agreed with.

Also, Cole with a big one-after McIntyre walked to the back, he asked “did we just see the dissolution of McIntyre…”. Obviously meant to finish it, but did not.

LOL Moment of the night:

Not much. I kind of liked Apollo and Elias going back and forth, there was a tiny bit of humor to it, but that was about it.

Noteworthy Moment:

We had a couple of big returns, if you will.

Biggest from a size perspective? Tamina Snuka, just in time for the Evolution battle royal.

Biggest from a star power perspective? That would be Sasha Banks. It will be interesting to see how Banks factors into Evolution, with the all woman PPV just around the corner.

On one hand, Shield brothers looked together when Dean Ambrose helped ensure Seth Rollins qualified for the World Cup. The favor was not returned, sort of, however. During Ambrose’s own qualifying attempt, Rollins came to his aid but when Rollins was attempting to help Dean back into the ring, Ambrose swatted him away (with us to believe it was inadvertent). Post-match, the two got into it, held back by Roman Reigns, and then all three entered into a match against Strowman, McIntyre and Ziggler for our main event.

For all the apparent fractures in The Shield, it was the union of Strowman, McIntyre and Ziggler that fell apart first.

Overall lowlights:

Man oh man, what happened to Bobby Lashley? Was not getting a lot of action, good or bad, as a babyface. So, WWE straps Lio Rush to him, turns him heel and….crickets? The Philly crowd was cold and quiet to the newly minted heel. That’s not the way you want things to go if you are aiming to make the man a monster heel.

Philly crowd was not, from what I heard, loving the practice bit by Lita and Trish. Or maybe they just said practice a whole lot more than needed. Then again, that line was from Iverson like…a really long time ago.

Overall highlights:

The complexities of The Shield relationships is being displayed well.

Liked the filmed bit from Kane and Undertaker-reminded you of how WWE used to do a lot of packages.

Nice to see Sasha back

After the final bell:

All in all, a good show. It won’t be the top show this week no matter what they do, thanks to the 1000th episode of SmackDown tomorrow night. That being said, it was a good show as they approach the go-home show ahead of Evolution.

Introduced to professional wrestling in the 1980’s thanks to Superstars and Saturday Night’s Main Event, John’s passion for the ... More about John Deegan
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