1) Kevin Owens (c) vs. Neville - NXT Championship Match
As you can probably guess, I marked out completely for this. Steen vs PAC on Monday Night Raw with John Cena on commentary? UN-BE-LIEVABLE. Neville snaps off some fancy stuff early like a hurricanrana and a huge dive. Owens soon gains control though and beats down Neville with strikes & slams while trash talking him as well as Cena. Neville begins fighting back, nails a big top rope moonsault to the outside. He went so far that he nearly missed Kev. Back in the ring, Owens sends him in the ropes for a pop up powerbomb but NO! NEVILLE HITS A RELEASE GERMAN SUPLEX/THROW! That was awesome! It would get better though as he would somehow deadlift all 272lbs of Kevin Owens with a bridging german that got him a two count. Neville heads up top for the Red Arrow however Owens recovers and nails Neville with the pop up powerbomb for the win. Extremely fun match as you'd expect. They didn't go all out like I kinda thought they would, but it was still a great start to the show.
Match rating - ***1/4
2) Nikki Bella vs. Summer Rae
Summer Rae is making a rare appearance in singles action on Raw. I wanted to be excited however I knew how this would go. Two minutes and... done. Cool little second rope spinning back kick from Nikki is the only highlight here. Poor Divas Division, that's all I can say. This was such a slack way to build up, if you can even call it that, the Nikki/Paige match that was just announced.
Match rating - *1/2
Kane is confronted by all the Money in the Bank participants
I LOVED THIS! Reigns starts things out then Kane rolls out to make things interesting. Ziggler brings this thing to the next level with a tool joke on Kane which leads to the quote of the night as Kane proclaims "Even the biggest tool in the household can be used in a variety of ways." All the guys make their claim to win the MITB match when R-Truth comes out and starts talking about what he's gonna do in the match. HE'S NOT EVEN IN IT! Kane points this out with another hilarious facial expression and a "YOU'RE NOT EVEN IN THE MATCH!" R-Truth & Kane are possibly the two most humorous guys on the roster at this point. Truth leaves embarassed and apologizes to the audience. New Day comes out and this gets even better. It all sadly comes to an end and we get a rematch of the waste of time bout from last week between Orton & Sheamus.. yay.
Segment rating - ***
3) Randy Orton vs. Sheamus
These two have no chemistry and a history of bad matches. It feels like they are just trading punches & slams the entire match. So, what does WWE do? Put them on TV for 15 minutes for the second week in a row. AND - it gets better, the match is a waste once again because it ends in DISQUALIFICATIONNNNN. Garbage brawl afterwards with the same spots they used in their semi decent match from Raw last February - back drop suplex on the table, etc. I was in a light hearted mood after the previous segment so I was able to not be too annoyed by this by laughing off the stupidity of it during the second half and working on this review in the first half.
Match rating - *
4) Dolph Ziggler vs. Kane
Another match that has hardly any drawing factors besides Dolph being Dolph and the corny stuff with Lana almost ruins that. This was still somewhat solid though. Ziggler always delivers in some form or fashion. Lana ends up falling off the ramp when arguing with Rusev thus injuring her ankle. It's starting to get sad that I'm finding so many things funny on this particular show. It just essentially means that kayfabe is close to being dead and in a way, it sucks.
Match rating - **
Miz TV with Big Show & Ryback
This was WAY better than it had any right to be. I tweeted that Ryback saved this show and while that may be a stretch, he certainly delivered one of the more enjoyable segments of the night. Miz mocking Ryback was fun, Show was bearable, and Ryback was all around great from his promos to lifting up Big Show and slamming him. Ryback had the crowd in the palm of his hand this entire segment and it was a joy to see. His IC Title run is well deserved and I'm glad its working so well and getting him over with the WWE Universe.
Segment rating - ***1/2
5) Luke Harper & Erick Rowan vs. Los Matadores
Here we have a squash match. A good squash though. It was nice seeing Harper & Rowan back together even if it was only a few minutes. They used the 3D as their finisher, PLEASE tell me that's leading to something. Harper & Rowan cut a cryptic promo afterwards telling us to be scared.
Match rating - *3/4
6) Titus O'Neil vs. Big E
Hell yeah! This was pretty awesome. Titus continues to get himself over every week, but sadly I feel like he's gonna continue in the Cesaro pattern of getting himself over only to not be used for several weeks thus losing all his steam then repeat the entire cycle. None the less, this was basically just a showcase for him and it was good stuff.
Match rating - **3/4
7) Roman Reigns vs. Kofi Kingston
Nice little first time match up here. It's not gonna blow you away although I'd say it's a bout worth taking the time to watch. Kofi got the advantage early by using Big E & Xavier in various ways to distract Roman including surrounding the apron of the ring Shield-style. Roman's comeback was fantastic and the finish was even better as Kofi springboarded off the top rope and got nailed with a superman punch in mid-air. This earns Reigns the victory.
Match rating - ***
Reigns grabs a chair and stands near the barricade after the match. Just as he does this, Dean Ambrose's music hits and he comes stomping through the stands with the WWE Championship, a huge bag of popcorn, a drink, among other things. He's easily the most popular guy in WWE right now. As weird as it sounds, I'd say he's simply a PG version of Stone Cold and mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Ambrose plomps down at ringside to watch the main event.
8) Seth Rollins vs. Jamie Noble & Joey Mercury (w/ Kane)
I guess the J&J face turn is official now. I just wonder what they will do after this. The crowd was dead at first, but would get going soon as Noble & Mercury began mounting some offense on Rollins. "You still got it" chants made an appearance here. This is worth seeing solely for the fact that JOEY MERCURY PINNED THE WWE CHAMPION! I don't even know what to think of that, I was just extremely shocked. They've been booking Rollins extremely weak which makes me think he will win at Money in The Bank despite my original thinking of Ambrose winning and Reigns cashing in. It's a tough one to predict. Or maybe, Rollins does lose which will end up garnering him sympathy for a face turn? Who knows.
Match rating - **3/4
Overall thoughts: This was SLIGHTLY better than last week's show which isn't saying much then again it is. Last week, there was nothing worth seeing aside from one segment. This week there were two segments & three matches worth taking a look at. There was still a dull period on this episode where I nearly fell asleep, though. I wouldn't say this was a good go-home show although it wasn't horrible either because they kept certain momentum going despite not garnering any new hype. Decent show.
Thanks for reading and make sure to follow this blog on Twitter @ThePWTruth!
No comments:
Post a Comment