How’s it going everybody? Thomas Robinson here with the Armbar Analysis, giving you my thoughts on this week’s edition of RAW. Following the obvious buzz from last week’s RAW, the pressure was on for WWE to keep the momentum up. I was left very dissatisfied with WrestleMania and I felt the majority of last week’s RAW was just WWE going back on a lot of their questionable booking decisions from Mania. I felt that the WWE had to pull something out of the bag for RAW last night, held in Los Angeles and ran by Shane McMahon once again. Did they deliver?
My short answer is yes. As far as a logic follow-up from the events of last week, it was fine. All of the matches from this week had a legitimate purpose and was designed to put the right people over. AJ Styles has to look strong going up against Roman Reigns at Payback, so he had to follow up his win last week with a big win over Sami Zayn in what was a decent match. I’d hate to just call their match this week just “decent” but it didn’t completely meet my expectations. Now granted, it’s not like AJ and Sami had a lot of matches outside of WWE. This match was really the first chance AJ and Sami had of working together, so I guess some of the miscommunication from their match was to be expected. There were a lot of instances where it seemed that Sami was working much faster than AJ. However, the structure of the match actually made sense with this in mind. A good portion of the match was spent with Sami and AJ feeling each other out which makes sense, as the two had never really faced each other before. I’m sure this will be one of those pairings that’ll really start to click after a few more outings.
I also really liked the match between Charlotte and Natalya for the Women’s Championship. I question whether Natalya should be challenging for the belt this early on into the program between the two but it was not like it was a totally decisive finish. It was a good means to set up a rematch at Payback as Natalya had Charlotte beat with the Sharpshooter. I do think Charlotte is getting better but I really dislike her mounted forearms which makes her look like a really bad striker. The technically side of things was great and you could tell the fans were getting into those spots. This was a perfectly fine women’s match. It was just a shame that it was the only women’s match on the show!
We also had a new tag team tournament to determine the number one contenders for the New Day’s WWE Tag Team Championship. The tournament started on RAW with the Usos taking on Heath Slater and Curtis Axel from the Social Outcasts, while the Dudleyz faced the Lucha Dragons. The Usos and the Dudleyz both advanced. One of the highlights of the show was Enzo Amore and Big Cass coming out to trash talk the Dudley Boyz, with Enzo stating that the only reason he existed was because his parents got it on!
The big news coming from the tag team division though is the debut of a new tag team that’s not even in the tournament as it stands. After months of speculation, Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows appeared on RAW to attack the Usos. I don’t want to say that I called it or anything, but I remember reading a report yesterday before RAW that Doc and Karl were supposed to debut “soon.” I remember this because I read a similar report about how Tyler Breeze was supposed to “debut soon” in October. I read that on a Tuesday and on the Tuesday I read that, Tyler debuted on the SmackDown! tapings. This is happened a few times where I’ve seen a report about an NXT star debuting on RAW and those stars would show up shortly afterwards. Soon is soon but I didn’t expect it to come this soon after they didn’t appear on last week’s RAW. My expectations were that they were going to arrive at Payback.
It’s interesting to think about where they’ll go from here. They attacked the Usos right away and the announcers were asking why they attacked the Usos, which would suggest a feud. The Usos were interesting targets for Doc and Karl as the Usos are related to Roman Reigns, AJ Styles’ opponent for Payback! You can read into that however you want but surely something big is in the works?
Cesaro and Kevin Owens had a hell of a match to determine the number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship. Cesaro won clean with the Neutraliser and he will face The Miz for the Intercontinental Championship at Payback. It’s an interesting match-up for the championship. I’m sure Cesaro can get a good match out of the Miz. Speaking of the Miz, his segment with Maryse was so great. I didn’t expect their on-screen partnership to work this well so far. Maryse complaining about the Miz’s water while he laid there with cucumbers on his face was so great. I would not want Cesaro to lose to the Miz this soon after coming back but I wouldn’t be to bothered if the Miz beat Cesaro. At least Miz is somebody that can get the right reaction and be entertaining while he does it.
Chris Jericho’s Highlight Reel was interrupted by Dean Ambrose in a very funny segment. Apollo Crews beat Adam Rose with the highlight being Bo Dallas yelling “that’s my best friend!” Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt teamed up to defeat Sheamus and Alberto Del Rio in the main event. Bray worked well as a babyface and there’s a lot of potential if they go 100% with him as a good guy. I’m not sure if he’s 100% face just yet with his staredown with Roman but it’s a good direction for him. His hot tag looked really good too.
This RAW gets a thumbs up. It surpassed my expectations and I was entertained for a lot of the show, which is saying something considering that it is three hours long!
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