While SmackDown Nosedives, RAW Is Hitting Its Stride

Welcome to this week’s RAW recap! While SmackDown went down a dark path and left me disenchanted with the product on Sunday, I must admit, the red team is pulling through and picking up the slack. It’s the polar opposite of what the brands were before the “Superstar Shakeup” occurred. Let’s talk about the “good” show!

Bray Wyatt opened the show with an eight minute long promo that I didn’t understand a word of. The guy’s delivery is on point, but Jesus Christ his material is just gibberish. Roman interrupted and talked a little shit, and played his part really well. Eventually, his mic skills are going to improve to the point where there’s gonna be no legitimate reasons to dislike the guy other than “He’s pushed and _____ isn’t!” like it is with John Cena now. This led to a match between the two, set up by General Manager Kurt Angle, who was just fucking STOKED to get “YOU SUCK” chants.

The match was short lived, however, due to interference from Samoa Joe and Seth Rollins. If this were a schoolyard fight, Finn would be praised by the teacher for showing such maturity. Bray had a hilarious sell during this match that I watched a hundred times over, and I’m not even sure why it’s funny, but it is.

We finally got the in-ring debut of the Drifter! I said this on Twitter last night, and I’ll repeat myself here: I think he’s pretty average in the ring! More than capable of putting on decent to good matches. His gimmick gets a LOT of heat, and serves as a great tool to get an interrupting babyface a pop. BUT, if he starts clobbering motherfuckers with his guitar every week like Jeff Jarrett on 2000s episodes of Nitro, he’s become my favorite wrestler in the company. I need exploding guitars. Need them.

Finn Bálor tried to cut a quick little Bálor Club promo before his match with former partner Karl Anderson, but was interrupted by Paul Heyman, the advocate for Brock Lesnar. A lot of seeds were planted in this promo for a future Bálor vs Brock promo, and I don’t know when it’ll happen, but when it does it’s gonna RULE. The Demon vs The Beast. I hope Daniel Bryan just tells Bálor about all of the ideas he had for a match with Lesnar and lets him use them.

This is one of the more surreal matches to take place on WWE television in 2017. Fergal Devitt, now Finn Bálor, against Karl Anderson of the Bullet Club. Insane. They had great chemistry, obviously, and put on a pretty fun television match.

Matt Hardy faced off against Sheamus in a match where the winner decided the stipulation for Extreme Rules Tag Team Championship Match. Oh course, Matt won, and chose a steel cage match. It’s interesting because with the Hardy’s track record, you’d think they would select a ladder match, but this feud does kind of call for a Steel Cage match. Do we think Jeff hits a Whisper In The Wind off the cage? Cesaro’s known for being a good base to catch people. We’ll see.

Alexa Bliss is just so friggin’ good. She’s a phenomenal talker, especially as a heel, and I don’t know how many times I’ll have to say this, but she’s the future of the women’s wrestling. Every mannerism is on point. The look of fear after Bayley made the save spoke a thousand words, it was great.

This was alright, but I’m starting to get tired of these people interacting with each other already. I’m still very excited for the Fatal 5 Way, and think it’ll be phenomenal, but let’s TRY to hold them off until then. The roster is sooooooo deep. Why are we just making them wrestle each other all the time? Like, next week, we’re right back to Reigns vs Rollins and Bálor vs Samoa Joe vs Bray Wyatt.

My favorite part of RAW was this Goldust promo that aired somewhere in the middle of the show:

Goldust going back to his roots is something I’ve been wanting for YEARS. Not necessarily the gay crossdresser, because hey it’s 2017, that’s okay now, but the “Director’s Chair” Goldust. The Goldust that lashes out and beats the fuck out of people. I thought he was just fantastic in this promo. And hey, you wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts. Throw the strap on him. Jinder Mahal and Goldust. WWE Champions.

I’ll see you guys tomorrow for SmackDown talk!