SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
RAW TALK REPORT
AUGUST 16, 2021
AIRED ON PEACOCK (VIA WWE NETWORK)
REVIEW BY NICK MORGAN, PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR
Hosts: Kevin Patrick and R-Truth
This week’s guests (more interviewees than guests): Riddle, Damian Priest, and Nikki A.S.H.
– Quick news break here: no Kevin Patrick in studio. Instead we get Scott Stanford. Who? I don’t know, but just another talking head, though he did have a pretty nifty pocket square.
– As is the new normal for this show, Raw Talk opened with a video recap of the Goldberg – Bobby Lashley in-ring confrontation before moving to the in-studio talking heads, who with way too much glee recapped the entire show and touted the upcoming Summerslam PPV. If they just did a straight recap without the obviously faked excitement and totally WWE-style pseudo-analysis, it might be worth watching, but these folks are not really analyzing anything the way fans do with their friends. They are just spouting the company lines. Quite frankly, it’s really boring and groan inducing to watch.
– This said, after quite a bit of this we get our first backstage interview with Riddle. Sarah asked the basic question about how Riddle initially felt being rejected by Randy Orton prior to his match vs. A.J. Styles, but then is really happy that thinks worked out and that RK-Bro will win the tag team championship at Summer Slam. This was totally fine but did lack the energy that Matt Riddle usually brings to the table. A real middle of the road promo, that didn’t do much to generate excitement for the upcoming match.
– Coming out of the interview we got a Summerslam promo featuring Reigns and Cena and then were back in the studio for more video clips and “wanna-be ESPN-style sports recap” of the show we had just watched.
– Our next interview segment featured Damian Priest. Of course, Sarah had to ask about Moist TV before getting to the question of Priest’s match versus Sheamus at Summerslam. When Sarah did ask Priest what it would mean if he won the U.S. Championship, he noted that it would mean his name would live on in legacy. Not quite sure what he meant by that, but as with Riddle in the earlier interview Priest’s energy level seemed subdued. Maybe they put something in the water.
– After the throw back to the studio complete with a recap by the talking heads of what we had just seen, they teased a segment with Nikki A.S.H. and went to a break for another Summer Slam promo.
– After some continued blathering by Stanford and Camp we get the Nikki A.S.H. interview segment. This time Kevin Patrick was the interviewer. While I enjoy Nikki’s obvious joy of performance, this act is getting old. She keeps getting beat up and then saying its okay, she tried hard, that she has the most powerful heart. In perhaps the most energy of the night, Nikki A.S.H. said that she will do her best and she will come out of Summerslam as the women’s champion. This one was not bad, but I do miss the old format and think it would have been so much better for Nikki in this situation as she could show off her personality so much more powerfully in that environment.
– After the segment we are thrown back to the studio where Stanford and Camp mouth a bunch of cliches about how it’s now time to put up or shut up and things will be decided at Summerslam. With that they said good night and thankfully we are put out of our misery as they signed off for the night.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Pretty much the longest 20 minutes I have spent recently, but as with Talking Smack, if you missed Raw and wanted a quick recap with some video, Raw Talk can provide that for you. Aside from that benefit there wasn’t a stand out moment tonight, as the interviews seemed low energy and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they were all taped prior to Raw’s live airing. All the conversation seemed extremely canned and lacked the emotion you would expect after a live performance in front of a big audience. It won’t kill you to watch, though it may make you a bit queasy. You won’t miss anything big if you decide to skip this week’s episode — in fact there isn’t much RAW about it, more medium well done.
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