Raw recap & reactions: Revenge
WWE.com
Dominik Mysterio is exceeding expectations.
Ever since SummerSlam, Dom has had multiple matches where he has gotten himself over as a Rey Mysterio babyface, which is perfectly named considering who his father is. In the main event, he faced Murphy in a street fight and the whole Mysterio family was out to watch, at Murphy’s request.
So during that match, the Mysterios did everything right. Rey’s daughter and Rey himself had a kendo stick, but never used it on Murphy and let Dom fight his own battle. Dom climbed up the ThunderDome and dove off to Murphy on the floor in a really cool spot. Dom also sold his ass off for Murphy in multiple spots that looked brutal, like when he slammed Dom’s head onto the stage.
The finish however, that was the best part. Murphy tied Dom up in the ropes again and was about to grab a kendo stick, but Rey took it away from him. Seething with anger, he slid out of the ring and looked for more underneath. He threw a table and it landed on the announce table. As he did that, Rey’s daughter and wife broke Dom free from the ropes and he did a FANTASTIC SUNSET POWERBOMB sliding under the ropes and it looked amazing.
The Mysterio family then got Murphy in the ropes, and one by one, all of them (yes, ALL of them) took turns swinging their own kendo sticks at Murphy, who gave up and gave Dom the win. Such sweet revenge.
No Seth Rollins this evening, so he’s kayfabe still super pissed at his disciple for betraying him at Payback. Obviously he was just not there this week for reasons, I’m assuming. Where does that leave he and his disciple? I’m hoping this starts the break up between them. I’m ready to see Murphy out on his own.
Finally, this beatdown at the end was virtually un-seeable as Kevin Dunn Dunn’ed hardcore during it. My eyes don’t usually hurt from the zooms and camera cuts, but ho-ly shiiiit it was so bad for this.
Three Claymores for RKO
Randy Orton said he’d jump through whatever hoops he had to in order to earn his rematch for the WWE Championship, and now he finds himself facing Lee again. The more they cross paths, the more likely he is to kick him in the head. Orton asked, what do you do if the champion can’t defend his title at the one show of the year where every champion has to defend their title?
Obviously you hand Orton the belt!
All of a sudden, Scott Steiner… oh sorry no just an ambulance siren rang through ThunderDome and an actual ambulance came out. Drew McIntyre opened the door and went down to the ring and gave Orton a Claymore Kick! Well I didn’t expect Drew to march out after obviously stealing an ambulance from the local medical facility.
Anyway, this is the Drew McIntyre I can get behind!
Later, Lee held himself up as Orton went for the RKO! That was such a cool visual. All night though, cameras kept catching Drew in the back as he said he was leaving, and that pretty much telegraphed exactly what happened during the match. Orton on his third RKO attempt finally connected, and he turned around into a Claymore Kick for yet another DQ in yet another Lee vs. Orton match.
After the match, Randy was leaving the building and Charly Caruso went to ask him a question, but this time, he was ganged up on and Drew gave him ANOTHER Claymore Kick. 3 RKO’s and 3 Claymore Kicks. I’m not the only one that wished Drew was driving the ambulance out of the arena that Randy was loaded into, am I?
Have I mentioned that this is the Drew I can get behind? Because I love it!
RETRIBUTION speaks
Liv Morgan was about to pin Nia Jax in the second 2 on 1 match, and the lights went out.
RETRIBUTION appeared, and they said that behind the ThunderDome is the same WWE as before (very true!), and they were disowned and discarded and WWE left them to survive in an unfair world. Another one said they’re going to lay waste and destroy every WWE superstar.
Okay, so it’s about time we actually heard from this group. Just… like, yeah I don’t know. Once again, they randomly interrupted something that wasn’t that important to get their message across. I’m annoyed by how Raw just doesn’t care about this group that continues to interrupt the show and “hack” lights and whatnot. I’m equally annoyed that the group is only on one show now. They’re talking about WWE in this promo, not just Raw.
Why just Raw, though? It just doesn’t make sense. Oh okay we hate WWE and want to wreck up their shit, but we’re only going to do it to Raw! Huh?
Good that we hear from them, but if it doesn’t make sense, it’s best that they just don’t talk at all.
The Rest
The Hurt Business def. Crews, Ricochet, and Cedric Alexander / VIP Lounge– It’s about damn time! As I mentioned last week, I was pretty much done with this. Week after week after week of this back and forth between MVP and Cedric was tiresome. But he turned heel! He wrecked Ricochet. I was kind of hoping Ric would be the one turning in a swerve but I enjoyed what we got! The Hurt Business being real dicks before the match was a nice touch. A group with the name “hurt” should be… hurting people after all! Now I am intrigued to see where we go here as this is Cedric’s first heel turn in WWE.
Later, we had a VIP Lounge segment, and Cedric told us that being at the business end of a beat down every week wasn’t fun anymore. Teaming with a guy who calls himself the “One and Only” in Ricochet and protecting someone without getting himself a title match got tiring. He also brought up getting paid more to be a winner which was a great touch, but then was interrupted by Viking Raiders, Ricochet, and Apollo Crews, and they all brawled to a commercial. So you knows what that means!
The Updated Hurt Business def. Viking Raiders, Ricochet, and Crews – The Viking Raiders had a really nice double team to MVP. Cedric was being a real dick laughing at Crews getting beat up by the Hurt Business. Benjamin hit Erik with 3 effortless overhead suplexes like a boss. My favorite moment was Cedric and Ricochet going at it. And then we had… another referee botch as Ricochet kicked out and they counted to 3 and rang the bell. Appreciate the extra aggression from Cedric here.
2 on 1 mayhem – Shayna had the first 2 on 1 vs. Riott Squad and twisted Ruby’s arm like a pretzel, but got pinned by Liv Morgan on a distraction by Nia, who just laughed off her tag partner losing. In the second match, RETRIBUTION interrupted before Liv could get the win over Nia.
Street Profits def. Andrade and Angel Garza / The Artists challenge Street Profits – Very strange that Dawkins waited for the first interaction between Garza and Andrade to end before attacking Andrade. Maybe tonight was the end of this tag team? After teasing a break up for weeks last month, they started gelling together again. Running away from RETRIBUTION may have been the final nail in the coffin. For whatever reason, the referee botched the 3 count after two while Montez was pinning Andrade, took another whole second, and counted the three and ended the match.
Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura came out after their win, and said that they had a long run with the Raw titles, but didn’t do much with them (boy is that the truth!) and next week, they’ll be challenging them to a champs vs. champs match. STD joke almost got bungled and kind of fell flat for me, fam. Wait, Survivor Series isn’t next week…
Peyton Royce def. Billie Kay – This… was weird. I didn’t really know how to react to this. I can say that I, without a shadow of a doubt, prefer that these two women team up. Also, you can really tell that they don’t have chemistry as opponents. This was a quick match and had a few slip ups, but they embraced after Peyton won and I thought Peyton was going to attack her, but they moved on.
Asuka and Mickie James def. Natalya and Lana – The ol’ champion and challenger in a tag match a week before their own match trope. Appreciated Lana wearing Hart family colors in her gear. Asuka slapped Mickie’s butt to tag in. Heh. Got a laugh out of me. I’m expecting a run in next week and a DQ because that’s the typical WWE booking.
Raw Underground – KO and Aleister Black fought here and gave Underground its first long match since the inception. They had a whole 2 on 1 Shayna vs. Riott Squad match and a commercial in between this for some reason. Aleister had a triangle hold on and KO swung him into a column. They then brawled with other dudes as Shane McMahon tried to regain order. And then we went to the other 2 on 1 between Nia and the Riott Squad. When they came back Daba’Kato (formerly Babatunde) destroyed them both and that was the end.
This should have been the best episode of Underground given who was involved, but ended up being the worst, thanks to stupid WWE antics. Why the hell would you put two matches, RETRIBUTION promo, and two commercials between this match? This was something myself and a lot of people were looking forward to.
Once again, Raw was more bad than good. Really dragged, too. Drew, Keith, and the Mysterio family were my highlights, and that’s it. This show hasn’t been doing well since SummerSlam, to be honest. The repetitive booking is continuing to hurt Raw. Many matches where people have faced each other too many times since SummerSlam. Give me the draft!
Grade: C
What were your thoughts, Cagesiders?
**For Original Source – Click Here**
Share on Facebook
Tweet
Follow us
