17th August Edition Of The Monday Night Raw & Wrestling News

To open the show, the WWE bumper itself was hacked by being a bit distorted. Does Retribution’s menace know no bounds?!

This continued right into the main episode, as Drew McIntyre’s promo telling Randy Orton it’s really not cool to kick old people in the head kept getting interrupted by loads of incorrect graphics. Kevin Dunn as the leader of Retribution confirmed! Or maybe not, as in the biggest babyface turn of the year so far, Retribution were shown attacking the production truck, meaning the next segment was only able to use about 7 camera cuts in 5 minutes. A reduction of 2,198 camera cuts.

Drew positioned himself as the locker room leader, which Seth disagreed with - potentially setting up Drew’s first post-SummerSlam feud.

MVP claimed Apollo Crews is behind the Retribution faction, which led to Apollo beating Shelton Benjamin - meaning Benjamin and Bobby Lashley will be banned from ringside for the US title match at SummerSlam. This prompted a brawl with Ricochet, Ali, and Cedric Alexander. Which R-Truth also somehow ended up in, losing his 24/7 title to Benjamin. This set up a six-man elimination tag for later, again posing the question: is it real diversity, when it’s all fudged inside one division?

The Bachelor’s Demi Burnett is still at Raw, who Ivar won from Angel Garza with a giant turkey leg - leading to Garza beating him with a really cool dropkick to the side of the head. Samoa Joe then revealed in an excellently delivered promo to Zelina Vega that all that security footage trawling to find out who Retribution is has uncovered her slipping something into Montez Ford’s drink. While I still don’t think Vega is to blame here, I do think Andrade and Garza need a lot more heat going into their pay-per-view match. Ford made his return to beat Andrade later on.

NatayaLana - how’s that for a portmanteau! - beat Mickie James with a count out. But we never got to see it because Seth was arguing with Joe on commentary about Rey Mysterio.

Sasha Banks and Bayley cut a promo about who should face Asuka first at SummerSlam (they settled on Bayley), and then wondered who will face them for the tag team titles at Payback? Going by the last week of WWE booking, probably also Asuka. Asuka’s tag partner Shayna Baszler was taken out early on here when Nia Jax crashed through the plexiglass screen of suspension to brawl with her. It provided some nice drama with Asuka getting worked over for the chaotic final sequence hot tag of Shayna’s return - tapping out Bayley in the ring while the Asuka Lock was on Sasha outside.

IIconics and the Riott Squad is still happening - with Peyton Royce beating Ruby Riott, thanks to Liv Morgan dissension yet again.

And now it’s the most exciting time of the week! Come look at all his new toys in Shane McMahon’s sweaty scuffle underground punching club! Erik of the Viking Raiders beat Enzo Amore, I think? Dolph Ziggler thumbed Erik in the eye and choked him out in our first proper main roster talent Underground fight. Ivar threw Dolph into the crowd, so they’ll have a match next week. Arturo Raus and Riddick Moss went to a no contest because they fell into the crowd.

And after being shown talking to Shayna and Shane, MMA Four Horsewoman Marina Shafir won her debut Underground fight, to be taken out by Nia Jax - who ran off from Baszler. Three weeks in, and the gimmick’s novelty has now worn off, with still no real explanation, stakes or substance to the concept.

Speaking of a lack of depth and vision, out came Rey Mysterio with one eye. His depth perception won’t be as good with one eye missing. Too soon, it was too soon. I shouldn’t have gone there. Rey spoke about the pain he suffered seeing his son crucified last week with kendo sticks, and announced he’ll be in Dominic’s corner for the SummerSlam street fight. Seth and Buddy were goaded down, but it’s a trap! Rey distracted them on one side of the ring, and Dominic wasn’t as hurt as he was letting on, grabbing some kendo sticks to whack Seth back and forth in a good old fashioned father and son game of bash the fake prophet.

Needing only three men for their tag match, Apollo picked Ricochet and Ali, leaving Cedric in catering again. MVP played on Alexander’s insecurities, furthering the idea he might join the Hurt Business. Really, though, Cedric should be thanking Apollo - as both Ali and Ricochet were immediately squashed by Bobby Lashley (how’s Raw working out for you, Ali?). Crews managed to eliminate Benjamin and MVP, but lost to Lashley. I get that Lashley is your big muscle guy, but MVP does sometimes need to win things, especially when he’s the challenging for the title.

During all this, Cedric won the 24/7 title from Benjamin, successfully defended it against Akira Tozawa, for Shelton to win it back.

And the main event was the much promoted Shawn Michaels return to say his piece to Randy Orton - who came out doing all his usual poses and dancing along, now watch this video of Ric Flair getting punted in the head. Michaels cut a decent promo about how Randy never cared for Flair, and he hopes he eats a Claymore at SummerSlam - so Orton jumped him FROM OUTTA NOWHERE with a super speedy RKO and punt, presumably to get it in before Drew made the save. It was a good tactic by Orton, and an exciting change from his usual methodical pace, but the rest of the segment misfired. HBK started to get up in the corner. Selling the effects, sure, but an RKO and punt should’ve borderline killed him given how much the moves have been built up. And Randy had an oddly second unsuccessful go at Drew, before he connected with an RKO on the third. Seemingly designed entirely so Phillips could yell ‘you’ll never see it coming!’ That was the SummerSlam go-home. What did you think of the show? Let me know in the comments. Unfortunately, after doing some of the best Retribution angles so far - which admittedly isn’t the highest bar - the faction disappeared after the first half hour. Hopefully WWE learn from this though, and boost security. I mean what self-respecting wrestling outlet gets hack- And for the go-home episode for SummerSlam, it’s a bit disappointing. This week’s Raw is Poor. Adam Blampied has fantasy booked Raw Underground, kind of. Watch our brand new series Calling Spots by clicking the video on the right - where we play narrative telephone with ridiculous WWE storylines. And learn the shocking story about a man breaking into Sonya Deville’s house over the weekend in an attempt to kidnap her. We’ll have SummerSlam predictions up later today, so subscribe and enable notification to always on. I’ve been Oli Davis, Jam that Jam.

Wrestling News

Following his feud over the NXT Championship with Adam Cole, Velveteen Dream suddenly found himself taken off TV for almost two months - which just so happened to coincide with allegations against him resurfacing as part of June’s SpeakingOut movement. Backstage reports at the time said he was “done” with the company. But on last Wednesday’s episode of NXT, Dream made his return to the promotion right into the North American Title picture with a new heel gimmick. Fightful Select reported Dream’s return caught many in NXT by surprise, and that there was significant heat on him backstage. Apparently it’s believed he was receiving preferential treatment, as if anyone else had such erratic behaviour issues, they would’ve been fired. The Speaking Out allegations against him were only part of the controversy too. A warrant had also been issued for his arrest late last year after he allegedly vandalised someone’s car, and he had a car accident back in June. The controversy deepened when one of Dream’s accusers revealed on Twitter he was never contacted about any investigation into the allegations - implying WWE had not taken them seriously. Triple H himself has now addressed the situation in an interview with CBS Sports, confirming WWE did hold an investigation, but didn’t find anything significant. "...We didn't. He was in an auto crash. When he was medicinally cleared to have the option to come back to the ring from his fender bender, we proceeded ahead the manner in which we did. We investigated what was there and we didn't discover anything." The greatest reaction to Hunter's case peculiarly hasn't originate from the first informers or columnists… yet from a member of WWE’s own roster. Replying to an Instagram news post about WWE not finding anything on Dream, Raw’s Nia Jax commented with several clown emojis. Implying WWE’s own roster isn’t buying management’s actions. And Nia isn’t the only one publicly criticizing the company…

Oneself broadcasted reliable Monday Night Messiah Seth Rollins has implied he may in actuality be unsteady - in a meeting about WWE to Bleacher Report. And Seth isn't the main individual to straightforwardly condemn the organization they work for.

As Chris Jericho has stood up against an AEW title.Speaking on his Saturday Night Special Q&A, Jericho referenced that toning it down would be best in AEW, and specifically featured Taz and Brian Cage's FTW Championship as an issue. Subsequent to stating "There's too f****** numerous titles" in WWE, he said AEW as of now may be venturing over the cutoff - title of your 2012 WWE pay-per-see. "I figure it should remain there. The FTW Title even is excessively. It doesn't mean anything. What difference does it make? That is simply me, however perhaps a few people care. It appears to me it's not so much as a genuine title." Do you care about the FTW title? Tell me in the remarks.