SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Charlotte – Trish – HIT: This was certainly better than what WWE did with Charlotte Flair and Trish Stratus last week to set up their match at SummerSlam. It wasn’t great. Neither of them was great on the mic, but they were solid to good. Having a Trish video interrupt what was supposed to be a Charlotte video worked well. They successfully addressed why Trish in particular wants this match and why it is important for her and Charlotte to win on Sunday. I’m not as fond as how the segment ended with Trish slapping Charlotte and Charlotte ultimately laughing it off.
Ziggler vs. Ali – MISS: The set up to this match was fine with Dolph Ziggler imitating Goldberg, using his music and doing his entrance while coming to the ring for his match against Rey Mysterio. He then attacked Mysterio before the match started and yelled about Goldberg which wasn’t as good. We just saw the same non-match on Raw the night before when Drew McIntyre attacked Cedric Alexander before their match. That led to Mustafa Ali making the save and challenging Ziggler to a match (in a weird way on the split-screen during the commercial break). That was ok. And while Ziggler certainly did need a win on the last show before facing Goldberg at the PPV, it was crazy of WWE to sacrifice Ali like this and have him lose. Just last week, he beat the Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura in a non-title match. He’s been telling this story of redemption and trying to get back to the top after losing his opportunity due to injury earlier this year. He has so much more value than Ziggler at this point. Anyone in WWE management who doesn’t realize that is an idiot. It was unacceptable to job Ali out to Ziggler when they could have come up with several other wrestlers in that spot. Or they could have just had Ziggler stand tall after beating up Mysterio without a match.
Natalya vs. Moon – MISS: It is stupid to book a match between two title contenders who both need wins on the final show before the PPV where they will get their title matches. Natalya played her part well here showing more of that heel character that she unleashed on Raw. But, it came at the expense of Ember Moon who didn’t look like a strong challenger for Bayley’s Smackdown Women’s Championship. Why was Natalya disqualified? Is it illegal to put a wrestler in a submission hold on the outside? I’m seriously asking. Or was it a double count out? That would make sense, but it wasn’t clear to me. Maybe I missed something.
The KO Show – HIT: Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon gave good performances on the KO Show with Owens trying to get Shane to put his career on the line in their match at SS. I would rather have a Shane-free Smackdown, but he played his part very well here. The fight that ensued with Elias helping Shane get the better of Owens was well done. Owens was able to fight them both off for awhile, but ultimately the 2-on-1 situation got the better of him and was a tease of what might happen at the PPV when Shane will have help from guys like Elias in their match. The final few moments of the beating where particularly strong with Shane brutally beating on Owens who was trapped under the announce table. This should also make Owens’ fans want to see him get revenge on Sunday.
Black vs. Zayn – HIT: This match was supposed to be at SummerSlam, but it happened on Smackdown instead which was nice considering how long SS will be without it. It wasn’t needed on the PPV and it makes some sense that Aleister Black wouldn’t want to wait to fight Sami Zayn after Zayn challenged him last week. The match was really good while it lated. I wish it had been longer than 7 minutes, but I thoroughly enjoyed that 7 minutes.
Gable and Elias – MISS: Chad Gable has a lot of talent. We saw it at NXT. We’ve seen glimpses of it on the main roster. But, he hasn’t had much chance to show it off on Raw or Smackdown lately. He did show it off in a great match on 205 Live against Jack Gallagher a few weeks ago. But most WWE fans haven’t seen much from him which is a shame. They finally feature him in a backstage segment, but instead of doing something to re-introduce him to the fans or build him up in some way, they have him stand there while Elias makes fun of him for being short. What a terrible segment. Elias has mostly been a loser. Having a loser make fun of another wrestler immediately paints that other wrestler as a loser too, especially when Gable just stood there and took it. He didn’t have a come back. He didn’t get in Elias’ face. He just stood there like a loser. I’m sure he’ll get his “revenge” next week. But, that will be too late.
Kingston Video – HIT: Last week, WWE did a great job with the Randy Orton video talking about his WWE Title match against Kofi Kingston at SS. This week, they did another great job with Kofi’s video response. Like last week’s video, this one fit in perfectly with their characters and their history going back 9 years. It is an example of building to a huge Title match without having the two wrestlers standing in the ring together talking back and forth. These videos have been well done and have worked to build anticipation for that match.
Continued Reigns Mystery – MISS: Who thinks adding a shot from a camera inside the car that was trying to run over Roman Reigns was a good idea? How is that realistic? Roman Reigns’ sit down interview with Kayla Braxton wasn’t good. Did he actually have the gaul to say that he does things on his own? He rose to prominence in WWE as part of The Shield. Even after they broke up, he worked with Dean Ambrose the first time and Seth Rollins the second time. Having him turn down security doesn’t make him tough; it makes him stupid. The apology to Samoa Joe worked well and the promise to get answers by the end of the show was a fine way to hook fans to stick around, but I didn’t really care. After a solid main event tag match of The New Day vs. Bryan & Rowan, we saw Reigns go into the locker room and kicking out everyone but Buddy Murphy. Like Gable, Murphy is a very talented wrestler who hasn’t had a chance to show it lately. He finally gets some tv time and it is to get threatened and beat up by Reigns since he was a witness to the scaffolding “accident” last week. This didn’t make me want to see Murphy get a push which he deserves. The reveal that it was Rowan, but not Bryan was ok I guess. But, it is still a bad story involving attempted murder.
Follow me on Twitter @JonMezzera (pretty clever handle right?). Just be aware that I don’t live tweet Raw, I don’t tweet much about wrestling, and I don’t tweet much at all.
Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com’s WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw and Smackdown each week. Email him at jmezz_torch@yahoo.com.
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