Raw recap & reactions: Bragging Rights
WWE.com
Sigh.
What a boring opening to this show. I’m really starting to get fed up with this nonsense.
Miz and Morrison are mute worthy, Drew is now cutting generic “talk about how the upcoming U.S. holiday is special to you” promos, and Randy is back to calling himself the “greatest wrestler ever” and I did not need to be reminded of it. As much as Miz is mute worthy, he had an excellent point when he said that Drew was giving title shots to anyone with a face. That’s something I had been talking about everytime a new and unworthy person popped up to get a WWE title shot, and Drew would just happily give it to them.
Something I don’t think I’ve been mentioning is that the past 2 weeks, Sheamus had been running into Drew backstage, and he was being a cool dude and really friendly to Drew, as they are actually friends. Sheamus ran into him again, and presented him with a trunk. In that trunk, was Drew’s Scottish attire and it was a great moment. Sheamus also gave Drew a sword. While it was a cool moment, it could also be telegraphing Drew’s next feud.
So the match happened, and it wasn’t too bad, but we’ve seen it so many times in the past 3 months. There were some nasty table spots, where the announce desk did not collapse for Orton. Poor guy. But the best thing is that we’re getting exactly what I, and a lot of others, want. Drew and Roman is going to be a banger at Bragging Rights.
Now the question on everyone’s mind – why did they switch the WWE title at Hell in a Cell? It did give us this great moment here, but WWE definitely did the wrong thing last month. Chalk that up to Vince being a week to week booker and doing whatever his heart desires.
What a great way to do business!
A friendship that will never, ever end
We had a Firefly Fun House episode here that really didn’t do much, but the best part of it was Alexa telling Bray to spell jackass and Bray said M-I-Z. That got a laugh out of me.
Before the match, Alexa Bliss came out to a new Fiend-ified mix to her usual entrance music, which sounded great. But right before Bray came out, Nikki Cross tried to shake some sense into her bestie. It looked like it worked for a moment, but Alexa baited Nikki and attacked her. Then Bray’s cheery Fun House music hit and she flipped into a smile and escorted Bray down the ramp. The creepy ass staredown between Bray and Nikki Cross was also excellent.
Morrison tried to interfere twice, stupidly, and the second time he did it, Alexa dove off the steps and they both were sent into the ThunderDome crowd. Bray won the match, and then the happy friends walked up the ramp and were met by the Fiend on the tron.
Very interesting.
Both of them had scared looks on their faces. I’m trying to figure out what this means. Is The Fiend jealous? Are we going to have some sort of a love triangle here? Also, I had a thought that maybe we finally get the brothers united and Bo Dallas plays The Fiend in a future segment with Bray in the ring.
Whatever is happening, I’m in. It’s an interesting layer to this saga that I didn’t think of.
The Rest
New Day def. Hurt Business – This was the best match of the night. Holy shit. The last few minutes were fast paced and had a couple of scary dives from Cedric that could have ended badly. New Day and Street Profits is the right way to go and I’m glad they didn’t pivot to change the match at Bragging Rights. Xavier Woods is a fantastic wrestler and I love this dude.
Asuka, Mandy, and Dana def. Lana, Nia, and Shayna – So, what was the point of this match? Everything about this was dumb. Let’s start here – WWE officials putting Lana and Nia anywhere near each other was dumb. Randy put his hands on Adam Pearce and got an incredibly large unannounced fine, but Lana has been put through the announce desk NINE TIMES! Does Pearce and other officials truly not give one shit about Lana? They also put two other team members on the opposing side and threw Asuka in. Those same people decided not to get involved to help Lana again this time. I am so happy we’ll be done with this soon.
Well, then Dana got attacked by Reckoning (Mia Yim) backstage, and it was announced that both Dana and Mandy are out of Bragging Rights. Lacey Evans and Peyton Royce will be replacing them. Bleh.
RETRIBUTION def. Team Raw – So, what was the point of this match? More obviously, it was to show all of the dissension we already knew existed on Team Raw heading into Bragging Rights. I thought maybe we’d see a minute of T-Bar and Keith Lee but we didn’t get that. Slapjack was tossed all around and Ali got a kick ass pin on Riddle (really hate that they dropped Matt) for the win. Ali made sure he held that position and I liked that touch. A lot of pins should look more like that.
Jeff Hardy is mad at flyers – Jeff was backstage ripping down a bunch of flyers showing pictures of the accident he was not involved in back in June that injured Elias. As angry as he was, he made a point to show the full flyer on television and read the number people should call, too. Totally what one does when they don’t want a flyer to be seen by anyone. He then confronted Elias about it backstage and said he’d really hurt Elias and wouldn’t be responsible for it or something like that. It was dumb.
Never mind the fact that, ya know, the actual guy who framed Jeff and hit Elias with Jeff’s car is ON THE SAME SHOW AS THESE TWO! But he gets to pal around with Drew McIntyre and do the Team Raw nonsense. No one has even mentioned Sheamus and my intelligence is being insulted, which is common for a lot of WWE programming.
The wrestling on this show helped a lot, because the opening was a complete dud. Thankfully, it did not harm the show where it mattered. New Day and Hurt Business was the best match, Drew and Randy did well, and even Bray and Miz wasn’t bad. Hopefully the good stuff carries into Bragging Rights.
Yeah. Bragging Rights. I mean, that’s what Survivor Series is now anyway. Why not just call it that?
Grade: B-
What were your thoughts, Cagesiders?
**For Original Source – Click Here**
Share on Facebook
Tweet
Follow us