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Csonka’s WWE Raw Review 9.28.15

September 28, 2015 | Posted by Larry Csonka
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Csonka’s WWE Raw Review 9.28.15  

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MONDAY NIGHT RAW 9.28.15

OFFICIAL RESULTS
US Title Open Challenge: Champion John Cena defeated Xavier Woods @ 9:26 via DQ [**½]
– New Day defeated John Cena and the Dudley Boyz @ 6:45 via pin [**½]
– Big Show defeated Mark Henry @ 2:36 via pin [NR]
– Brie, Nikki and Alicia Fox defeated Paige, Charlotte and Becky @ 6:51 via pin [**]
– The Swamp Monsters defeated The Prime Time Players @ 4:20 via pin [*]
– Neville defeated Stardust @ 2:45 via DQ [NR]
– Randy Orton defeated Bo Dallas @ 1:50 via pin [NR]
Non-Title Match: Champion Kevin Owens vs. Rusev went to a no contest 0:49 [NR]
– Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt went to a double countout @ 13:07 [**]


* We get the usual video recap of last week’s events.

John Cena’s US Title Open Challenge: Cena came out, crowd hate, witty crowd is lively remark, the champ is here, US Title important, US Challenge begins now. XAVIER WOODS PLAYED CENA’S THEME ON THE TROMBONE! The New Day then came out, explaining that they are here to make WWE great again, and that they will take out the Dudley Boyz on Saturday, LIVE on the WWE Network. They are great men. Xavier Woods accepted the challenge. Cena was aggressive early, attacking Woods before he was ready, which New Day did not appreciate. New Day tried to distract Cena, and then they got tossed to the back. They then worked through the commercial, and when we came back from commercial Woods had survived and eventually took control. It was nice to see Woods get some ring time here, and out of the three he was the guy to put out there if someone was to lose since Kofi and Big E are the regular team. This was a fine little match, but nowhere near the level of many of the Cena challenges. New Day ran in for the DQ and attacked Cena, leading to the Dudleyz making the save. I liked this, short promo, match and moving on to help build the match for Saturday’s special. Also…

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* Brock Lesnar’s Go To Hell Tour, a Brocktober special!

John Cena and the Dudley Boyz vs. the New Day: JIP. Obviously this came out of the opening match, which works well to sell Saturday’s tag title match and also gives the show a smooth feel from segment to segment. New Day eventually took control and did the kicks to Cena in the corner for like, a minute straight. They worked over Cena, Big E did his dance and then Devon got the hot tag. During the battle Cena ate the big spear from Big E when he was on the apron and they spilled to the floor. I appreciate Cena taking that to put over Big E’s move, but damn son, save some shit for PPV. Woods made a save for Kofi two different times, and Kofi scored the win with the trouble in paradise on Devon. This was another fun little match here, not great, but it had its moments and gave the tag champions momentum heading into their defense on this weekend’s Network special.

* HHH & Steph were with an HR lady to meet with Kane. Ashley from HR is here to answer an anonymous complaint against Kane, for creating an unsafe work environment. Seth Rollins appeared, and acted outraged about this whole situation that started from an anonymous email, which he would have no knowledge of since they never said that so it’s obviously him but for storyline purposes we need to nod and play along. Ashley from HR will be observing Kane tonight, and Kane promises to take this seriously. Wacky Kane is fun, but again, I have no desire to see him in the ring these days.

* Ambrose does not think that it is a good plan for Reigns to fight Wyatt tonight. Reigns doesn’t give any fucks, and will finish the feud tonight. Ambrose promised to help if the swamp apes get involved, and when Reigns mentioned that Orton could help, Ambrose acted like a jealous girlfriend. Orton arrived, there was some sexual tension, and Reigns promised to end it tonight. Orton said if he didn’t end it tonight, it would be open season.

Mark Henry vs. Big Show: There was clubbering and head butts, spears and yelling. Show slammed Henry with ease and spent as much time yelling at the crowd as working over Henry. Show dominated and ended Henry with the KO shot. It wasn’t pretty, but it was Show destroying another giant man as he prepares to fight Lesnar on Saturday. It was exactly what it needed to be, and didn’t go too long.

Miz TV w/Charlotte and Becky: Because it went so well the last time, lets do it again! They did some back and forth, they got to mock the Miz and Charlotte then called out Paige. Team Bella came out and talked their shit about being united, and Nikki even agrees with Paige to a degree, like the fact that Charlotte’s reign will end. Nikki also took credit for starting the revolution, and I am sorry to say that she must have forgot about the greatness of Stephanie McMahon inventing women and the entire revolution. This led to Paige coming out and taking credit for the NXT women only being there and famous because of her, which led to the Bellas trying to get the former friends to fight. Paige again took a shot at Brie and Nikki’s men, leading to a brawl. PCB ended fighting the Bellas off, but Paige still thinks that this is her house and that she needs no friends. The good news is that it was better than the horrible segment they had the last time on Miz TV, The bad news is that it wasn’t by that much. Paige had a good zinger there, but it mostly came off as people mindlessly yammering. The bottom line was that while not a complete train wreck like last time, it had bad and useless content that in the end really did not help anyone. Yeah, Paige is getting in some zingers, and? Also…

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Brie, Nikki and Alicia Fox vs. Paige, Charlotte and Becky: JIP. JBL was projecting Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn’s mantra that all women hate each other and never get along to excuse their booking choices. So we got Paige back with her partners she ripped last week and tonight, as the reluctant partner. What happened to Natalya? I thought she was besties with Charlotte and Becky now? Charlotte and Becky didn’t tag her in, which led to the Bellas getting the heat on Becky (as always). Charlotte eventually got the hot tag, which makes sense that they would not trust Paige. It eventually broke down, Paige cleared house and then Charlotte got shoved into her. This led to her bailing, and then Natalya finally came out. Paige attacked her, and Nikki then hit the rack attack on Charlotte to win. Ok, there was no need for the Paige bump. They already split last week, and the fact that they wouldn’t tag her in was reinforcement enough. I also didn’t like Charlotte losing already in any way, give her momentum, don’t take it away. But hey, who needs strong champions when you can go with the old reliable and lazy booking that’s so easy! This whole thing felt poorly put together, and after a pretty good start the show has taken a dip in quality. The match was perfectly fine, not great, but there was nothing really wrong with it.

* We get a big hype package for Show vs. Lesnar. I love how they completely edited Heyman from the Survivor Series title change.

* Rollins speaks with Ashley from HR, and buries Kane. Kane of course arrives and praises everything that he and Rollins accomplished together, and he brought him a gift. Kane gave him the severed head from the destroyed statue, because he cares. He went to the landfill in Baltimore and dug all night to retrieve it. Ashley from HR thought it was a sweet gift. Kane said it’s amazing what one man can do with a shovel…

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“Damn right!”

The Prime Time Players vs. Luke Harper and Braun Strowman: This had little to no heat. The Swamp Monsters controlled for a few minutes, Titus got his hot tag and ran wild on Harper. He got distracted by Strowman and then all four got involved, Strowman attacked Young, Titus tried to make the save got ate a clothesline. Strowman got his big cuddly hug on Titus and that was all. They largely kept Strowman on the outside, but the match just didn’t have much going for it. We had a dead crowd, lackluster action, nothing to get you emotionally invested in the match and just a feeling that it didn’t matter. I am not a fan of the Prime Time Players losing here; it feels like such a downgrade for them to be cannon fodder for the Wyatt Family. Come on; were Jack Swagger and Zack Ryder busy or something?

Stardust vs. Neville: This was every Stardust vs. Neville match ever; Neville did some speedy and athletic shit. Stardust cheated and worked an uninspired “heat”. Neville made the come back. Then after two-minutes, Wade Barrett returned and laid out Neville with the bull hammer after Stardust tossed him into it. Barrett then laid out Stardust with the bull hammer. He said that the king was back, and the reaction was that of no fucks being given. None of these guys have anything resembling momentum, no one cares about them because they are all written like a bunch of geeks.

* Ashley from HR walks and talks with Rollins, we get the evaluation next.

Ashley from HR Gets a Segment: Kane and Ashley from HR were in the ring for Kane’s job evaluation. Rollins came out and interrupted and ran him down, and showed some video of Kane reigning havoc on others over the years. Rollins then talked and talked about how evil Kane was, and claimed that he would never go to hell, he’d go to heaven. He then claimed that he has an audience with the Pope last week, and the Pope himself said he was going to heaven. Yup. Seth talks so much yet says so little most times, which is a shame because there are times he can be really good. Kane then rolled video, showing off his relationship with Kane, featuring Rollins constantly running Kane down. Yeah, this is still going on, it felt as if it lasted forever. Ashley from HR claimed that she did a thorough and comprehensive investigation in under two hours, and claimed Kane was sound of mind and could keep his job. She claimed that Kane was thoughtful, Kind and the perfect WWE employee. She then claimed Rollins was completely unprofessional and needed a proper evaluation. Rollins yelled more, dropped his belt and when Kane tried to pick it up he gave him the pedigree (after struggling to actually do it). Rollins then attacked Kane with the chair as the segment felt as if it was clicking in at around three hours. Rollins then Pillmanized the previously injured ankle of Citizen Kane to close out a heatless and soul crushingly boring segment. Rollins rambled more, Kane was taken away in an ambulance, but just as he started to go away smoke and red lights filled the ambulance and Demon Kane appeared and limped around backstage and then no sold the ankle injury. Kane returned to the ring, no sold a chair shot and beat the hell out of Rollins. Rollins escaped before the tombstone, but left the title for Kane to pose with. We couldn’t even put this off until next week to sell Rollins’ beat down a little bit? When you do stuff like this it makes the whole segment mean nothing to me. Rollins actually gets to look dangerous for 45-seconds, and then acts like a bitch and gets his ass handed to him, again.

* Bray Wyatt then cut a creepy promo backstage.

Bo Dallas vs. Randy Orton: Orton beat his ass and won with the RKO in under two minutes. It was exactly what it was supposed to be, especially after that bullshit we just got.

* We get highlights from Smackdown, where Owens walked out on Rusev.

Kevin Owens vs. Rusev w/Summer Rae: The Ryback is on commentary. They brawled for 30-seconds, and then they got involved with Ryback and the match was thrown out. Owens and Rusev then attacked Ryback, which brought out Ziggler to make the save. I guess we’re setting a possible four-way for the title, but that felt rather useless because it was so short and they didn’t really do anything to make you care.

PAUL HEYMAN TALKS: Paul Heyman came out to sell Saturday’s Lesnar vs. Big Show match. Paul was his usual great self, and did the best he could with what he had to work with and tried his very best to sell Show as a serious threat. Show came out and said that he knows that Paul is afraid for Brock and that Brock is afraid of him because Show plans to make history again and defeat Lesnar. Paul walked off as Show threatened to end Lesnar on Saturday night. This was a pretty good little hype segment for Saturday’s match, but far from great.

Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt: Commentary reminds us that this feud has been going on for five months. Seems longer. Wyatt lied and brought out the Swamp Monsters to the ring. Reigns cut a promo and called Wyatt a bitch, and this was enough for Wyatt to send them to the back. They brawled, Reigns ran wild with suplexes and was in full control and then we went to a commercial break. Wyatt of course took control during the break and was in charge when we came back. This match largely felt lifeless, as if they were going through the motions after the opening stretch, which I did enjoy. The most interesting thing that happened during this match was that the Chiefs threw a touchdown to a wide receiver. It wasn’t that it was a bad match; it was just so lifeless and boring. Reigns ended up spearing the steps late, and then we got a double count out as they brawled on the floor. Of course, one of those matches that weren’t very good and felt like it was killing time because they were killing time for the non-finish. They brawled in the crowd, Wyatt threw a tech guy into Reigns and then they did a break the barricade spot. Bray then stood on the announce table and posed, but that was silly, because Reigns came back from the dead and speared him and they both laid there like they were dead. Judging by all of the big spots here, they have to be building to a sell match between these guys or the teams. Otherwise it makes no sense. The last two minutes were good, but I shouldn’t have had to wait since around 8:50PM ET to get it.

* End scene.

* Thanks for reading.

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“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”

3.0
The final score: review Bad
The 411
I have said this before, but the show started off so well with Cena and New Day and then moving into the tag with the Dudleyz. It wasn’t great, but it was good, fun and was making sense. I liked it. And then it started to go off a cliff until the final minutes. If this is their answer to the declining ratings, it was a horrible one. If this is the answer to Monday Night Football, it is a horrible one. But then again, it is September and almost October, which means that Raw gets increasingly lazy. I am sure that I will hear, “Just wait until January and Mania season,” but why should I care when they book in a way that I have to wait for them to care and try? This show wasn’t all bad, but felt like it lasted five hours long; it was lazy, had some bad finishes, the crowd was lifeless most of the night and if I had the choice to turn it off, I would have out of boredom. Pour one out brothers…

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legend

article topics :

RAW, Tremendous Tirades, WWE, Larry Csonka