7th September Edition Of The Monday Night Raw & Wrestling News

The show starts with Michael Cole’s voice opened the show FROM OUTTA Tom Phillips being on holiday. Because, apparently, they’re not the same person. Cole’s commentary was actually really good.

Randy Orton said he should just be handed the WWE Championship after he took out Drew McIntyre two weeks ago, when he was interrupted by a local medical facility vehicle sirens being driven into the Thunderdome - because ambulances are like Ubers, I guess? - for Drew to burst out and hit Randy with a Claymore.

Adam Pearce, who now kayfabe runs WWE it seems, asked Drew to leave so he couldn’t do anything else to Orton - prompting the night long thread of McIntyre walking around permanently on his phone, like he’s channeling 2017 General Manager era Kurt Angle, promising he’ll be going soon. And then Claymored Orton for the DQ in yet another Keith Lee match, and then again backstage. Keith being a loss prop to the Orton/McIntyre feud aside, I love how this feud is being built around finisher counts. None were hit at SummerSlam, and now they’re three a piece in surprise attacks.

Despite being built up for months next, WWE managed to make Cedric Alexander’s long-teased heel turn a bit of a wet fart. The constant bait-and-switch story was further muddied by the Hurt Business attacking Cedric before their six man tag - which paid off with Cedric joining them when he beat up his tag partners Ricochet and Apollo Crews.

Confirming the heel turn, Cedric explained his actions in a VIP Lounge segment later on, where he said he’s sick of sacrificing himself for Apollo and Ricochet’s opportunities, and now he wants that money. The Viking Raiders, Ricochet and Apollo came out for a brawl and Holla, holla, we’ve got ourselves an 8 man tag players.

This was a fun match, with some surprisingly heartbreaking interactions between freshly broken up tag partners Cedric and Ricochet. Hopefully they get a singles feud now, because those matches would be phenomenal. Unfortunately the match seemingly had to be cut short when Ivar immediately threw up the X signal after his dive outside. An audible appeared to be called, so Cedric beat Ricochet with a Mikonuchu Driver - not his finisher - which Ricochet actually kicked out of. A botch, sure, but understandable because of the injury.

Meanwhile, in purgatory, Angel Garza and Andrade are still splitting up, and they’re also still having matches with the Street Profits. Andrdae’s loss was hopefully the end of their never ending story.

As the SmackDown tag team champions Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura came out to challenge the Profits as part of the quarterly cross-brand invitational.

What are the rules? R-Truth ran away from Akira Tozawa in a restaurant.

To cement last week’s split, former IIconics partners Peyton Royce took on Billie Kay in a match that rather impressively had no heat even from artificially piped in crowd noise. Royce won, and the two hugged afterwards.

Raw Women’s title opponents Asuka and Mickie James teamed against Natalya and Lana, brought to you by Bang Energy. Asuka blind tagged herself in to win with the Asuka Lock, to sow some slight seeds of dissension with Mickie.

As much as I love Keith Lee vs Randy Orton, they’ve had the same match three times in two weeks now. Keith blocking the RKO just by being massive was great, but Drew cost him the match, and he just Thanos’d away like he doesn’t care. Keith needs to keep beating people to continue his momentum.

Shane McMahon then opened the Thunderground door for Kevin Owens, and then the big guy opened the door for Shane - potentially revealing a bit of Raw Underground magical lore gone unnoticed until now, you can only enter Shane McMahon’s sweaty scuffle club if someone else lets you in. Like they’re all vampires. I’m trying to create my own fun here, because Raw Underground is crap.

Kevin Owens took on Aleister Black in easily the biggest Thunderground match so far… so Raw cut to a commercial as soon as it started, then to a backstage segment with Orton and Pearce, then to Shanya Baszler losing to the Riott Squad in a handicap match.Then back to KO vs Black. Then to Nia Jax just about to lose to Liv and Ruby. Then to a Retribution promo, then, half an hour after they started, yet only having about a minute of screentime, Owens and Black being called off because Daba’Kato beat them both up. Raw Underground is just terrible.

As is the booking of the handicap matches in between here - with backwards psychology for the newly reunited Riott Squad babyfaces getting the two-on-one advantage, really diminishing the only proper team on Raw to challenge for the women’s tag belts, and making Baszler not cool. And the handling of Meh-tribution. Making the lights cut out just before Jax was pinned, Retribution cut a very overscripted promo with crappy WWE dialogue. “This Thunderdome is an exterior, behind this heap of screens is a similar establishment, the equivalent WWE as in the past, a similar behemoth who disposed of and repudiated us, leaving us to make due in an unjustifiable world." So it's a play on the delivered individuals back in April? This is their first proper explanation of who they are and their motives, and it came across incredibly generic and santized. Which is exactly what you don’t want for a faction that’s meant to be a force of chaos.

Thankfully, the main event was absolutely terrific. Because part of Rey Mysterio’s contract re-negotiations appears to be ‘also sign my entire family’, all your favourite Mysterios were ringside for Dominik’s street fight against Buddy. Dominik impressed yet again, with a great crossbody off the Thunderdome stands, and an amazing sunset flip powerbomb outside through a table. And in a cathartic lovely family bonding finish, all the Mysterios tied Buddy up in the ropes, and all took turns whacking him with kendo sticks - as Rey screamed at Seth down the camera. With each member of the Mysterio family getting their revenge. Over and over again. For quite a while. Ok, I think you can stop now! They’ve, um… they’ve got some things to sort out.

Let us know what you thought of the raw show. Don’t let the main event and some fun McIntyre vs Orton stuff fool you. This was a crap show. Just like Retribution said, this might be the updated Thunderdome era, but it’s the same old WWE - as in, all the same storylines and feuds that passed their expiration dates long ago.

Wrestling News

Seven years ago back in June, WWE removed Paul Heyman as Raw’s Executive Director after not even one year in charge. The company publicly explained this was to ‘streamline the creative process’, and definitely not to provide a sacrificial lamb for the upcoming investors call about falling ratings. But according to a new report, it seems like they’ve accomplished neither. Despite initial optimism about the Thunderdome era amongst the creative team, Gary Cassidy of Sportskeeda is reporting Raw has been massively struggling backstage. WWE didn’t announce any matches for last night’s episode until 70 minutes before the show was about to start because Vince McMahon hadn’t even looked at the script until he boarded his jet to the Amway Center. Which is the old rich guy version of finishing your homework on the bus. While SmackDown has a single creative force driving it right now under Bruce Prichard, the two names spearheading Raw are apparently “not up to the task of getting the show done in time" or "getting contribution from ability" in an opportune way - with one of sources saying: "Crude has truly self-destructed without [Paul] Heyman driving the innovative”. Heyman, of course, is also now on SmackDown as Roman Reigns’ heel advocate. Perhaps it’s all just elaborate long term booking for Survivor Series and Brand Warfare! They’ve just got to quell the roster warfare first.

WWE reportedly told talent last week they had 30 days to stop using 3rd party platforms like Twitch and Cameo or risk being fined, suspended, or even fired. The roster was apparently confused by what exactly the ‘3rd party’ restrictions meant, though. So WWE clarified their new rules to talent before last night’s Raw, and seemingly relaxed some of the bans to appease a disgruntled locker room. Dave Meltzer announced ability would have the option to keep their Twitch and YouTube accounts, yet they need to do so utilizing their genuine names, not their WWE names, and they must inform WWE of their accounts. This contradicts a letter WWE sent out last week, where the company claimed they also owned talent’s real names. The ‘clarification’ was again described as “super vague”.

After three years of saying it’s going to happen, WWE finally uploaded content from their partnered indie promotions EVOLVE, PROGRESS, wXw and ICW to the Network in July. Probably one of the worst times to do so, in the wake of June’s SpeakingOut allegations that accused numerous wrestlers who had prominently featured for those promotions. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter is reporting WWE has altered some of this new content because of the allegations - like the wXw Toronto 2019 show, by removing the opening Fatal 4-Way match between Daniel Makabe, Cima, Brent Banks and Julian Pace and an angle involving David Starr and NXT UK Champion WALTER. Pace had previously been released from his wXw deal following allegations against him, while allegations against David Starr led to several promotions severing ties with him and stripping him of his titles.