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WWE RAW PRIMER 7/29: A Feud Renewed, Where’s the Beef, Drake Can’t Catch a Break, The Man vs. The Goddess

By Frank Peteani, PWTorch contributor

July 29, 2019

Alexa Bliss (art credit Travis Beaven © PWTorch)
SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...

WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW PRIMER
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, ARK. AT THE VERIZON ARENA
JULY 29, 2019
AIRS ON USA NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EDT
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Michael Cole, Corey Graves, Renee Young

LAST WEEK’S RAW RATING: 2.12 (.38 INCREASE FROM PREVIOUS WEEK)

Arena and Items Advertised by WWE

Tonight, WWE returns to the Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, Arkansas. We inch a little bit closer to a big weekend of wrestling as NXT Takeover: Toronto and SummerSlam are just under two weeks away. I am excited to be joining Greg Parks this coming Sunday on Wrestling Night in America from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the PWTorch Dailycast. Go to pwtorchdailycast.com for more details on how you can listen if you haven’t listened to the show before. We will certainly focus on those big events as well as all other things wrestling including the stellar and outstanding New Japan G1 tournament.

The Verizon Arena will have been open for 20 years this October and has hosted many WWE as well as WCW events before they were purchased in 2001. Two episodes of Monday Nitro emanated from here as well as Thunder in 2000 (sorry to remind you of that show’s existence). In 2002 it was the site of No Mercy which saw Brock Lesnar retain the WWE Championship over the Undertaker and the unification of the World Heavyweight Championship and the Intercontinental Champion where Triple H defeated Kane. Did anyone forget about that brilliant decision?

That was all then, and this is now. We come off a week where the Raw reunion was one of the big talking points. You can see how all the legends and Hall of Famers coming back helped to give Raw a tremendous boost. Smackdown did not follow suit, even though Shawn Michaels was advertised, as its 1.56 was more in line with what that show has been doing lately. We did not get significant cross-pollination of the past and current wrestlers except for Seth Rollins and DX/nWo as well as Bray Wyatt attacking Mick Foley. Numerous legends got involved with the 24/7 Championship including “Million
Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, but ultimately the title found its way back to R-Truth.

Here is what WWE.com is showing for tonight thus far:

Matches & Segments:

  • Rollins seeks retribution against Ziggler
  • “Samoan Summit” set for Reigns and Joe
  • Becky Lynch set to battle Alexa Bliss

Storyline Follow-Up

  • 24/7 Rules

Seth Rollins vs. Dolph Ziggler

Last week on both Raw and Smackdown we had episodes of MizTV where Seth Rollins appeared on Raw and WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels appeared on Smackdown. Michaels was advertised to appear as a guest commentator but did not do so.

Seth Rollins called Brock Lesnar a Seth Rollins-wannabe on the show and then took on A.J. Styles with D-Generation X (Michaels & Triple H) in his corner. Rollins won the match via DQ when Styles’ O.C. partners Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson got involved. Eventually the rest of DX (Road Dogg and X-Pac) as well as nWo founding members Scott Hall & Kevin Nash (Razor Ramon & Diesel) got involved and the two sides brawled. Rollins was able to do probably what he wanted to do since he was a kid, which was the DX schtick of “ if you’re not down with that, we got two words for ya….suck it!”

On Smackdown, Dolph Ziggler interrupted Michaels’ appearance on MizTV. Ziggler talked about how Michaels broke his heart when he returned last year (referring to Crown Jewel). Michaels called Ziggler a second-rate Shawn Michaels. Ziggler would eventually super-kick Michaels and leave the ring.

These two had a long feud last year over the Intercontinental Championship. They met on several Raws, last year’s Extreme Rules in an Iron Man match as well as SummerSlam where Rollins regained the title with Dean Ambrose in his corner. Drew McIntyre was by the side of Ziggler. Tonight, they renew their feud in a one-on-one match. To provide a little color, here are samples from some of their Raw matches last year:

 

Frank’s Analysis: Let me just get this out of the way. Rollins was EMBARASSING to watch last week. The way he imitated Paul Heyman was stupid and calling Brock Lesnar a Seth Rollins wannabe is silly because NOBODY thinks that. I don’t have much to speak on with this match as it’s just a renewal of a feud that, for the most part, ran very well and gave us some great matches last year. Nothing from last week really led to this, but does anything flow week-to-week in in WWE? Nonetheless I can’t imagine not having some form of shenanigans involving Paul Heyman and/or Brock Lesnar as they get ready for their SummerSlam match.

The “Samoan Summit”: Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe

Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe have certainly been on the dance floor through the years. Last week on Raw, they met in a one-on-one match after a back-and-forth where Joe put down the fans for enjoying the legends. Roman took that as insulting his family, considering his cousin and WWE Hall of Famer Rikishi was one of those legends. After a brief brawl, Joe left but eventually agreed to have the match. In about seven minutes, Roman won with his signature spear. Here’s a sample of the segment and match from last week:

https://youtu.be/-fZxO45yElk

Tonight, they have a “summit” in an attempt to squash their “beef” according to WWE.com.

Frank’s Analysis: Roman was great last week, as was Joe as always. I thought it was a little wonky the way they got to the match. Joe never insulted Roman’s “family,” but rather the fans for enjoying the legends. Joe then saying he didn’t want to wrestle and agreeing to do so a moment later was silly. Nonetheless, they had a decent match. I expect tonight will set up another at SummerSlam. It would have been better if they didn’t have the match last week but rather the brawl, the summit tonight, and then the match at SummerSlam. This is where having to fill three hours of TV time is difficult every week. Nonetheless Roman and Joe have good chemistry, especially with them both being Samoan, so this should be good overall. Joe continues to be diminished by losing as much as he does.

Non-Title Match: Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch vs. Alexa Bliss

Becky Lynch is set to defend the Raw Women’s Championship against Natalya at SummerSlam in Natalya’s home country of Canada. Last week on Raw, Becky was a guest on Alexa Bliss’ A Moment of Bliss. Before Alexa could get a question in, Natalya interrupted. She talked about their history in Japan and WWE. Becky talked about Natalya training Ronda Rousey in the run-up to WrestleMania, from whom Becky took the Raw title. After several more words the two women brawled before referees separate them. Here’s a tweet from Becky showing some of the history between her and Natalya:

Before SummerSlam, Becky will make a pit stop and go one-on-one with Alexa Bliss. These two have history as they feuded over the Smackdown Women’s Championship during its inception in late 2016-’17. Here’s a sample of a steel cage match they had on Smackdown in January of 2017:

Frank’s Analysis: A Moment of Bliss should be renamed Interruptions at Any Moment, right? It seems like someone always comes out uninvited and we have a brawl. At any rate it’s interesting to see how WWE is framing Natalya as a heel, especially when she is going to her home country. Becky’s not being too nice herself, so I don’t really know what they want to see at SummerSlam. As far as tonight I wouldn’t be surprised if this mushrooms into a tag team match with Alexa & Nikki Cross teaming to face a reluctant duo of Becky & Natalya. That’s what WWE tends to do in these cases, don’t they? If that doesn’t happen, who knows. We will further the feud somehow between Becky and Natalya.

24/7 Rules

I forgot to set an over/under on how many times the 24/7 Championship changed hands. One thing was for sure. R-Truth started the show as champion and was going to end the show as champion, and that’s what happened. Kelly Kelly became the first female to hold the championship. Alundra Blayze nearly threw the title in the trash, and “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase was finally able to buy a championship by paying Alundra before she could throw it away. If only Andre the Giant were around.

Nonetheless, before R-Truth ended the night with the title or his “baby” as he calls it, Drake Maverick held the championship. As he and his wife were getting into a limo to consummate their marriage, Truth rolled Maverick up from behind to score the pin. He then got into the limo with Maverick’s wife and they drove off.

As it does every week, Twitter tells the story of this championship:

https://twitter.com/RonKillings/status/1155278790244950017?s=20

The 24/7 story rolls on tonight.

Frank’s Analysis: You want to know something? I really hate that I think this is funny and I enjoy it. I was on a layover in Kingston, Jamaica. The restaurant in the hotel was the Twenty-Four Seven Café. All I could think of was the 24/7 Championship and so I took a picture of it and tweeted it out.

Other Match Results & Notable Segments from Last Week

The Usos (Jimmy & Jey) defeated Raw Tag Team Champions The Revival (Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder) in a non-title match. The Usos father, Rikishi was in their corner. D-Von Dudley of the WWE Hall of Fame tag team The Dudley Boyz was in Revival’s corner.

Drew McIntyre fought Cedric Alexander to a no-contest when McIntyre attacked Alexander before the bell rang

The Viking Raiders defeated Curt Hawkins & Zack Ryder

Rey Mysterio defeated Sami Zayn

Braun Strowman defeated Randy Rowe in a squash match

Overall Thoughts on Tonight’s Show

My good friend of nearly thirty years decided to DVR Raw last week after not watching wrestling since around 2002. He’s a highly intelligent guy and was always astute on the product. We used to go to a bar where we knew the bartender. She’d put Nitro on one TV with Raw on the other. We frequently discussed wrestling during those days until he stopped watching. He’d check in now and then through the years but never got hooked back. Last week was no exception. He called me Tuesday morning and told they did nothing to get him back into it. He said, “my IQ dropped about 50 points watching,” and the booking hardly made any sense. He said some stuff was good overall, he was not convinced to start watching again. It’s a shame because this particular friend and I always have good discussions on things whether it’s the Mets, football, politics, or life in general. The same applied to wrestling back in the day. I would imagine the majority if not all of the extra one million viewers they got for last week’s show feel the same way as my friend. Nonethless, the SummerSlam picture should come more into focus tonight.

Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Questions and discussion are welcome! Thank you for reading.

RECOMMENDED: HEYDORN’S WWE RAW REPORT 7/22: Alt Perspective coverage of the live show including full reunion coverage with WWE legends, A Moment Of Bliss with Becky Lynch, and more

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