Thursday, March 28, 2024

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RAW 08/27/18: Much ado about nothing

Welcome to Mykel Night Raw! I’m filling in for the super wonderful Alex today, and without further ado, let’s get into it!

The first sighting of the female variety comes in the form of Ms. Dana Brooke chatting alongside her diminutive friend Apollo Crews about wrestling fundamentals as well as earning a spot in Evolution. If I’m not mistaken, I thought every woman on the roster was going to be there, but I digress. What’s shocking is she’s in wrestling gear! To add further to the shock, in walks Titus O’Neil to tell our favorite flipping fact finder that she does indeed have a match, and it’s against Sasha Banks!

At first, she doesn’t look too pleased, but she puts on her game face and heads out all smiles! As soon as she leaves Apollo points out Dana hasn’t wrestled a singles match in nine months, and she needed a tune-up and implies Banks is too much for her. Titus is unphased, saying he has faith in her.

Up next after the break, we hear the phrase that makes me die a thousand deaths and fervently hope Michael Cole gets laryngitis every time he says it, “It’s Boss Time!” meaning the arrival of Sasha Banks, flanked by her side ponytailed silent partner, Bayley. Dana is flanked by her Titus Worldwide cohorts. Why are they worldwide, I’d like to know. Anyways, the match itself began with Dana showing off her athletic prowess, using la magistrals, jackknife covers, kip ups, enziguris and a cartwheel back elbow Jillian would be envious of.

However, she was channeling Maryse circa 2008, wherein she’d hit a big move then gloat and preen, giving Sasha time to recover.  The Boss fought back with a kick to the head in the corner after a failed back elbow and connected with Meteora and a two count, only to be met with a forearm and a set up for Purple Fusion, only to have it countered into the Bank Statement and Ms. Brooke tapping like a conductor does to get the orchestra’s attention.

Next, we see Elias out to do one of his now-famous performances only for him to run down the Toronto crowd, and from there, enter Trish Stratus. She comes into the ring and does her signature pose and is introduced by Elias. He then shaded her by saying that she took time away from changing diapers to do something important.

Elias continues by telling her that he’s a big deal, to which Trish agrees, and says she’s a fan of his music. But when he disses her hometown, he needs to shut his mouth, to which he makes a Maple Leafs not getting a Stanley Cup comment, to which Trish retorts “Kind of like you winning a WWE championship”. Sick burn, Trish, two snaps for you.

Trish goes on to put over her match with Alexa Bliss at Evolution, to which Elias throws some apt shade of his own and asked if it’s going to be a swimsuit model pillow fight. Trish has finally had enough and told him to pack his stuff and leave, which one more time, Elias comes in with a harsh comment. He tells Trish that she wants to walk with Elias, but says he’s not into 60 year-olds, which earns him a slap. Enter a happy-go-lucky Ronda Rousey, and then the Queen of Harts, and these past couple weeks, Hearts, herself, Natalya.

After a commercial, enter the Goddess Alexa Bliss. She’s on the entrance ramp with Foxy who has questionable headgear, but at least she doesn’t look like she lost a fight with Garden nymphs and gnomes that dragged her underground, bound her in shrubbery and latched it to her weave as an ever-long reminder to not mess with the Fairy people.

Anywho, Alexa has a mic in hand as well as couple nicknames for Nattie (Ms. Underwhelming), Ronda (Ms. Overhyped), and Trish (Ms. Irrelevant) who are standing in the ring. She then tells Trish she replaced her and there’s not enough yoga she could do to spare her from the ass-kicking Bliss is going to give her. She then turns her attention to Ronda telling her she’ll have her rematch at Hell In A Cell.

She gets back to Foxy and a beatdown is on the docket on the Fox Supreme Court (next caller!) and Nattie’s name is on it.  After that, she introduces a returning Mickie James, who walks, waves and smiles. Hey, girl, hey.

The match was brief, with Alexa and Mickie being chased from ringside by Trish and Ronda and Nattie getting a win in her home country.

Backstage, we see Trish, Nattie, Ronda and of all people the Bella Twins posing for selfies and letting us know the Bellas will be back in action next week.

In a WWE.com exclusive, Trish soaked in her return to Monday Night Raw.

Also, the Riot Squad, whom the Bellas will be facing next week had some choice words for them.

Thoughts: I’m going to keep it 100, for me, Dana was the star of the night. Her match with Sasha showed that she has potential and they gave her a chance to showcase it. Good on WWE on giving us a somewhat fresh match up. We knew she was going to lose, but she’s at least got a good amount of offense in. That being said, the pacing of the match was too slow, and I found myself not really featuring it. I do like that commentary did put over her lack of matches as of late as well.

Trish’s return, to me, was an absolute dud. I don’t know what was up with her delivery, but it was flatter than my stomach after using her Stratusphere Yoga products for a month. She didn’t really seem all that enthusiastic, personally. What also baffles me is there is no follow up on Ronda taking out or Lord and Saviour per the narrative, Stephanie, instead our champion has no mic time and instead plays third fiddle with a goofy smile on her face.

Alexa comparing herself to Trish was a nice way to blur lines, but it fell flat like a lot of Alexa’s promos do for me because the other woman doesn’t really speak back. This was a piss poor re-introduction for Trish, she did a piss poor job last night on the mic, and that whole segment was a clusterfuck. Speaking of, what in the name of Jesus’ third cousin twice removed on his mother’s side was the point of bringing Mickie back just to have her look like Ms. Rhode Island from Miss Congeniality? If that’s their idea of adding depth to a story, then the runoff from my portable A/C unit is deep as the Atlantic Ocean.

The match itself served its purpose of keeping Nattie feeling good, which I was cool with as I love Nattie. That announcement for the Bellas was also so random, it’s like WWE just is throwing women out there in the hopes we gets excited about Evolution coming up without thus far, giving us a rhyme or reason as to why I should care the Bellas are back, why Trish is back, what they’re doing back, and then taking the selfie could have been bumped to .com.

Speaking of .com, WWE, boo-boo kitty, I’m going to need you to actually move stories ON THE SHOW, not .com, not twitter. On average RAW has approximately 3 million viewers and we have to sit through three hours of wrestling, if it’s viable to the show, then keep it there if it’s so supposed to move the rivalry. Stop trying to make YouTube and Twitter your lazy attempt at booking, it’s like fetch, Karen it isn’t going to happen. That was a lot of complaining, and I hate to do it, but for goodness sake, book the women better.

Happy readings and share your thoughts and commentary!

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