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RAW HITS
Corbin Challenges for the Universal Title: I wrote a few weeks ago that Baron Corbin should abuse his power and name himself the #1 contender for the Universal Championship. It would make the most sense given his character and his storyline advancement as the acting General Manager of Raw. So, I was glad when he did it this week at a time when Roman Reigns was recovering from the Hell in a Cell match the night before. And it was good to hear the babyface announcers actually calling it out for being a major abuse of power.
McIntyre vs. Ambrose: The Raw Tag Team Championship match at Hell in a Cell was a great match, my favorite of the night. I’d say it is a match of the year candidate for the WWE main roster (although there aren’t a lot of other contenders that jump to mind). It was nice to see that match followed up nicely with two singles matches on Raw. The first was Drew McIntyre vs. Dean Ambrose. It was a good match. I was surprised when McIntyre got the clean win. He certainly deserves a strong singles push, but that isn’t going to happen for awhile during his time teaming with Dolph Ziggler and Braun Strowman. But, this win plants the seeds for down the line when he will be a top singles star.
Rousey’s Open Challenge: I liked the set up for this segment when Ronda Rousey asked Natalya and the Bellas how open challenges work. She is portrayed as a bad ass fighter who is still learning how things work in WWE. This fits well into that character. Plus, I’m still trying to figure out how open challenges work since they clearly don’t involve a contract, but we’ve also seen where wrestlers need to sign contracts in order for other matches to take place. The scene was good and set up for the actual open challenge later in the show. Rousey was ok there. She took a little too long soaking up the cheers for my taste. She was a little too smiley at the start, but I liked how she got serious at the end when she actually challenged someone to come out and fight her. The use of Natalya’s music worked well. I liked Rousey’s reaction to thinking her good friend was going to accept the challenge. The reveal that the Riott Squad had taken Natalya out was strong. It set up a 3 on 1 situation where Rousey could initially show she’s better than them individually, but not when they use the numbers game to their advantage. The Bellas making the save made sense. It helped hype their six woman tag match at the big Australia show.
Undertaker: This is a minor Hit. I don’t care about seeing Undertaker wrestle again, or Triple H for that matter. Undertaker was good in his promo. He went on a little too long, but was strong in answering Triple H’s accusations against him from last week saying that he had lost respect for himself. His announcement that Kane would be in his corner against Triple H got a big pop from the live fans. He is another old wrestler who doesn’t need to be wrestling any more. I get being nostalgic, but for me the time for these guys has past. I am not a fan chanting “one more match!” at Shawn Michaels. I hope he doesn’t return to the ring. So, I have issues with this for sure, but it was good enough for what it was to just barely get a Hit.
Ziggler vs. Rollins: The second singles match on Raw involving the Tag Team Champs was also good. The set up for the Intercontinental Title match made some sense for getting Dolph Ziggler’s rematch out of the way in a way where he thought he was going to win via forfeit. The match itself was only 9 minutes and wasn’t nearly as exciting as the matches we’ve seen between Ziggler and Seth Rollins before. But, it fit in perfectly with what happened the night before. Both of them sold their injuries really well throughout the match. They wrestled a different style to match their storyline which was great. It was still really good for what it was. And the ending was great with Rollins hitting the stomp for the 1-2-3.
Lio Rush: This is another minor Hit. Lio Rush is a star. He has shown a lot of charisma and great in ring work on 205 Live. He comes across like someone who lives his character. In other words, he is Lio Rush. He isn’t playing Lio Rush. But, he is a heel. He does a great job as a heel who compliments his opponents in a condescending way while talking himself up as being better than everyone. I like the idea of giving Bobby Lashley a mouthpiece. Rush did a nice job of interacting with Elias who was good in his role. Rush also was strong on guest commentary for Elias vs. Lashley while it lasted. It was fun to watch him use his great athleticism to evade Kevin Owens. I see some potential in his pairing with Lashley. However, they are a babyface team on Raw. So just like Drake Maverick, Rush seems to be playing a different character (or at least a slightly different version of the same character) on Raw from what we’ve seen on 205 Live. So are we supposed to cheer for him on Monday but boo him on Wednesday? Like we are supposed to boo Maverick on Monday but cheer him on Wednesday.
RAW MISSES
Opening Segment: There was good stuff in the opening segment. Some of the mic work was strong. The problem is that there wasn’t anyone to cheer for. The one babyface involved was Roman Reigns who most of the fans were booing. Fans popped for Braun Strowman when he first came out, and cheered when he started saying that Baron Corbin and Reigns suck, but he was clearly antagonistic towards the fans at that point. He is a heel. Plus, he wasn’t nearly mad enough at Brock Lesnar for costing him his Money in the Bank cash in. Paul Heyman also got a nice reaction when he first came out and his promo was good. But, he’s pushing a heel and was getting booed. So, they were ultimately setting up a triple threat match that involved three guys that the fans don’t want to see win. And it is a match that won’t happen for two months (a match that Strowman said sucks). I’m all for hyping a big match well in advance, but with Super Show Down in Australia, and Evolution before then, it feels like too much going on in between.
Bayley vs. Brooke: WWE hasn’t gotten anything out of their loooong storyline with Bayley and Sasha Banks feuding and then getting back together. They seemed to be going somewhere with a feud against the Riott Squad, but they are moving on to Rousey & The Bellas. Now they are being used as a backdrop to the Dana Brooke storyline. At least Bayley got a win here, but she and Banks are far too talented to not be a bigger part of the show.
Again with the Videos: Last week, I complained about how Raw featured too many videos. This week was the same. They had a recap of Hell in a Cell while Reigns made his entrance in the opening segment. They recapped Rousey vs. Bliss. They had a video for the Mixed Match Challenge. Then they had one for the “Marine 6” with The Miz. They replayed the same video on Reigns vs. Strowman from HIAC that opened the show. They had another good video on Conor’s Cure. Like last week, I don’t take umbrage with each individual video, but the totality of them. They showed a video for the upcoming WWE 2K19 video game which does look pretty good and I did like the choice of Imagine Dragons music for it, but it felt like just another commercial within Raw for a WWE product (in addition to the actual commercials). Later they showed highlights of Ziggler and Rollins falling off the cage through the announce tables. They had another good video about Hispanic Heritage month, but even though it was good, it was still more filler video content. Of course, they had multiple recaps of events from earlier in the show. There was a recap of Owens attacking Lashley a few weeks ago. Once again, it was too much.
Reigns vs. Corbin: While I liked the idea of this match as it fit in with Corbin’s character and Reigns’ storyline, that doesn’t mean that it would end up being good. It went the predictable route of having Corbin change the rules to restart the match. Corbin’s limitations in the ring are on display more against Reigns than they have been against Finn Balor, but those Balor matches weren’t any good either. I was shocked…shocked to see Corbin with Reigns in his usual combo head and arm lock after the commercial interruption. They threw out all the bells and whistles with Strowman, Ziggler, McIntyre and the rest of The Shield getting involved, but we saw a bunch of that the night before, so this didn’t feel special.
Crown Jewel: I knew WWE had a deal to run multiple shows over a number of years in Saudi Arabia. I don’t pay that much attention to the business side of things, so I didn’t realize that that meant more than one show this year. I assumed they would go back next spring. Now, I see that they are doing another one right after Evolution. This seems very crass to me. It points to the fact that the only reason the women are getting their own PPV is that a few weeks later, WWE is doing another show where they won’t be allowed to appear. It is also very close to the super show in Australia and Survivor Series. Forgetting politics for a moment, it is too much to me. WWE isn’t doing a good job building to the matches at these shows. They announce things ahead of time and then try to fill in the blanks of the storyline of why the match is occuring. If they hadn’t announced Rousey & The Bellas vs. The Riott Squad already, the angle on this show would have explained why the match was happening. But, it was already happening. That’s one of several examples (Undertaker vs. Triple H being another). They are promoting too many things and they aren’t doing a great job with it. Throw in the politics of the situation of doing business with a repressive regime (even if it is doing some better things lately, they are largely symbolic – woman can drive now, but how many actually are? Plus, how is life for homosexuals there? I could go on, but I won’t), and add to that the fact that the woman can’t appear on the show, and you have a really bad situation. I didn’t watch The Greatest Royal Rumble and I won’t watch this.
For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell’s views to mine by visiting ProWrestling.net’s “Hitlist” section HERE.
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. Follow him on Twitter @JonMezzera.
NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 9/10: Renee Young, Police on Raw, Mick Foley’s return, Elias vs. Balor, Kevin Owens explanation, B-Team rematch, Bella-Riott
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