Who is Bobby Lashley?
Who is Bobby Lashley?
Asuka just fucked Nia up with that kick.
Yawn anything with Vega and her group
Seth dressed like he is in reservoir dogs
Guess Lana is going to be phased Out with lashley
Lana should jump ship and start fuckin with Drew McIntyre.
Don't think Lashley is being phased out. Think they are gonna have him feid with Drew.
They really are leaning into Edge and Orton being the greatest wrestling match ever. These two guys actually have the skills to be in the conversation for that but the odds of that happening have to be higher if it came without the boasting prior to the match. I don't think we got a lot of new material with these promos but they were delivered extremely well.
It always seems to be a moving target with a narrative they're trying to portray with Liv, but I appreciate the fact they're putting time and energy in making her relevant. Ruby, on the other hand, isn't getting much of anything. She needs some momentum or a tag partner or she's going to fade into nothingness in a hurry.
I like what they're doing with Asuka. Kairi is going to get over because of a recorder lol. The stuff with the recorder could be super cheesy but I think it's going to pass because Kairi isn't coming off as fake with it. Nia and Asuka is a good introductory feud for Asuka as champion.
Creative is feeling itself with some stupid DQ decisions. Last week it was Rollins, this week it was The IIconics. Not a lick of sense made between either decision based on how they roll matches out. At least they're getting the ball rolling on some development for them.
I like how they spiced up Shayna and Natalya after having their matchup last week. Joe did a pretty solid job with adding his color for the match. He's generally strong in this regard but it felt like the quick insight from him during the match was useful. This seemed to be a big week for cultivating stories within the women's division. Good on them for doing that as there's different levels of storytelling they can go with, based on the performers they've got available to them.
Garza's swag was on point. I was curious when Crews was going to be coming back. He had a lot of fire in him when he came out to the ring. They kept harping that there was a lingering issue with Andrade and Garza when it came to Theory but that never really came into focus, other than mixups in competition. As for Owens, I'm curious to see what they do with him because it seems like the secondary title picture is established, McIntyre is handling things at the top, and ...
Rollins has enough going on outside of the title pictures. If you're just mopey and hanging around the barricade, Rollins is going to see you and get you crewed up. Theory with Murphy and Rollins makes way more sense than where he was before. He's getting passed around quite a bit, though. This looks like it's setting up Rollins and Black, which is always going to be welcomed. I'm just curious how they plan to go about Black working through Murphy and Theory. It will be much cooler if he does it alone.
They're really leaning into the sports entertainment framework with the Raiders and Profits. I don't know if it's clicking.
Clearly McIntyre's thing now is kicking out at 1 after a brutal move. I don't like that being overused, if that becomes a staple. I guess it could be spun if it actually becomes a half accomplishment for someone if they're able to get a two count on McIntyre in the later stretches of a match and commentary puts it over as a big deal. The milage is absolutely going to vary when it comes to Lashley slowly being built as a No. 1 contender for McIntyre. They're taking their time with it and adding some layers to Lashley with MVP's involvement. Might not be super compelling, but it's logical.
Now come on man that’s totally different, that was all Perfect! Same with the football pass.Originally Posted by Donald
The Raiders are not perfect.
The most interesting thing that happened on RAW, was the slap to Peyton Royce by Billie Kay. Why WWE loves to tease tension in tag teams is beyond me, and of the two, I see Peyton Royce being the stronger singles competitor. I hope they stay together as a duo though.
I wonder what lame DQreasons they'll come up with next:
"Oh you've punched him one too many times in the corner ring the bell!"
"Oh closed fist ring the bell!"
Aren't all fists closed?
If the thumb's not in place it can be an open fist.
An actual open fist strike is more like a slap.
Holy shit, they're actually billing Orton/Edge as 'The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever'?Talk about overhyping something to a ridiculously stupid degree...
I wouldn’t even put their LMS in a Mania Top 50. It was just looong.
I have no desire to see Edge and Orton again, unless it ends up with them becoming Rated RKO and fucking up the tag division.
I actually enjoy the Viking Raiders/Street Profits stuff. Was that Sarah Logan on that horse?
Glad to see Apollo back. I really hope he wins the US title next week. Guy deserves it!
Hopefully Lashley dethrones McIntyre. Imagine that. Strowman and Lashley as the world champs. That would make me a happy boy.
Thought it was a bit silly to have Nia interrupt Asuka and Sane, only to get her ass handed to her. I would have had Nia destroy both, and have Asuka have a "How am I going to beat her" look on her face.
Gotta admit I laughed when Nia got her ass beat. Asuka's owned her several times in the past so doing the "I can't beat her because she's big" wouldn't have flown.
I do wish they'd tone down on Super Drew a bit with the one count kick-outs. Not even Super Cena was this bad.
Some scot you are, Support your own pal
In theory, it'd take quite a bit of explanation as to why he slides into the role but with a vacancy now in Vega's crew, Carillo makes a ton of sense.
2 things:
As far as Drew kicking out at 1, you can tell how many of you didn't grow up during the Hogan era where he basically no sold everyone's finisher and still shattered the box office every time he showed up. What Drew needs to stop doing is the 3-2-1 bullshit.
The other thing is last night on WWE's Facebook I read arguably the dumbest comment about women's wrestling in the history of the sport. Some fuck goes "Doesn't WWE have a weight limit for women?" and it was in reference to Nia Jax. It just goes to show some of you are just pieces of shit fans.
Tough Scots love. Plus I'm not blaming him, it's the booking.
I did laugh hearing Orton v. Edge, greatest match of all time or whatever the fuck lol. Edge hasn't been in a GOAT match conversation since TLC II and I don't think Orton has ever been despite being one of the best the WWE has to offer. Their matches against each other have never been in that conversation. If Orton can have GOAT match discussions after facing the likes of HBK, Daniel Bryan, and Christian then I have no clue how Old Man Edge is going to pull it out of him.
Except I did grow up during that era plus the product is very different these days. What worked for Hogan isn't necessarily going to work for Drew where fans can turn on him in a dime for being too protected and powerful. That's what concerns me.
It's because he supports Rangers isn't it?
That too.
The 3-2-1 stuff is so bad. It's like tuning up the band bad.
Tuning up the band is good, gets the crowd into it.
What about Orton pounding his fists like a hungry kid waiting at the dinner table? Think he even got injured doing that once.
Last edited by Badger; May 19th, 2020 at 12:00 PM.
They fight really stupid people. If I heard a pounding on the ring, I'd get out of there.
What about those people that duck their head in advance to give a backbody drop?
The people thatstill take said back body drop despite it being telegraphed?
Even worse, the people that duck their heads and then Goldust drops down to his knees and uppercuts them? Surely they should see that coming?
Those people that get whipped to the other side of the ring and decide to run back and take a move?
There's too many of these.
I don't mind the countdown. The problem is, for right now, he's playing to a crowd that isn't there. During these empty arena matches, he should speed it up some. One of my favorite shows is old (2006?) Japanese shows called Kamen Rider Kabuto. The main gimmick on the hero's belt device is three buttons that he has to press in order to charge up his kick before he kicks a monster's head off. They would mix it up and have him do it faster or slower depending on the mood of the episode sometimes. I even recall one where he kept getting interrupted by flailing mooks trying to stop him. He'd either dodge or punch one after each button press. When he got to "three" the main bad dude was toast. Imagine if they did something similar to that with Selena's crew. He keeps trying to do the Claymore, but after each count, he gets interrupted, either by someone trying to punch him, grab his leg, etc. Have Andrade in the corner trying take the turnbuckle pad off or something.
I've been watching some of Drew's matches as champ. He's pretty good and can maintain a good babyface role if, and I do mean if, they don't try to overly goof him up like they love to do. It worked with Hogan because it was Hogan and that was the era they were in where it could still work. By the time they did it with Cena, it was eyerolling. So when they tried to do it with Reigns, that is part of what made people cringe.
I don't think we should apply logic to wrestling or else we got a real problem
What if he's counting "3-2-1" but the guy doesn't get up? He takes longer? Then Drew looks foolish.
Oh I was just saying that Hogan was even worse than Drew doing a hard kickout at 1. I guess it just depends on the circumstances. To be honest, never noticed it until Corbin and guess what? Fuck a King Corbin, that dude is definitely contributing to horrific ratings....To the point where they literally did an angle blaming him for Raw's all time low ratings lol. I mean if Drew takes Strowman's finisher or Wyatt's finisher and does a hard kick out at 1 then yeah that's excessive. But I'm not negative to him doing it with certain talent.
I mean, the guy smashed Lesnar. If he's supposed to be above Lesnar then why not? Better than Goldberg getting that kind of rub.
I'm seeing the same shit happen to him that happened to Diesel after he won the belt, or Roman after the Shield broke up where they're trying to make them funny and comical and panning to the audience with certain shit they do that comes across mad corny. Where prior to these big pushes those very same things were just fine. Why does he need to do a fucking countdown? It's so stupid.
And yeah we can look at other talent doing certain things that are in the same ballpark but not everyone in the ballpark is cool lol.
Ever tried applying logic to real life? Even more of a mind fuck. People act like wrestling is Twilight Zone. It can be don't get me wrong but there's plenty of logic that is used.
Who's gonna take the title off of Drew? It's not gonna be Lashley, as much as I want it to be. Is it going to be a returning Brock Lesnar, when the audiences come back?
That's probably a question not worth answering until audiences are back. McIntyre's response by the crowd can probably help dictate how they operate. It doesn't have to be the most reasonable or likely person to beat him. It could just straight up be a lesser-than who is a transitional champion.
I'd like to be a fly on the wall. What are they discussing when the ratings come in? There are so many factors before Covid-19 that were attributing to all-time low ratings for both shows.
Can we look at the audience and have a strong assumption that half are only there because it's something to do and they're not watching regularly? Just from personal experience when Raw was here in December and did those back to back shows, there were a lot of people on my social media talking about going. These were not people who followed wrestling to my knowledge on the same scale as someone like me who watches every week.
My youngest sister attended her very first event that night with her 3 year old son and fiance. I think it was simply because she had been offered cheap tickets through work. So in saying that....Would they hold off on taking the strap off of Drew or would they look at Raw's ratings getting worse a sign that they still need to keep their ear to the streets. Drew is getting praise all across the board imo, some of this he's just figuring out as they go and damn some of it's old right? 3-4 weeks old or are we back to live shit?
Unless things drastically change with their taping schedule, it's never going to be more than a week or two old. The actual MITB match seemed like an extenuating circumstance of something that was banked and held for more than 3--4 weeks.
Oh against Lesnar was cool but slightly concerned that they may overplay him as being too strong as at the moment it's either get up before the count or a one count. He wasthe right man to beat Lesnar but given their tendencies to overbook superhero faces in the past, I hope they don't make the same mistake here. It is still early days in his reign and with no crowd though so won't judge further at this point. I do agree the 3-2-1 isn't needed though.
Speaking of Corbin, have they deliberately changed his finisher from the End of Days to Deep Six? Wonder why that is?
They might want to protect the End of Days if they're having dudes kick out on 1.
It happened on SD too, he won with the Deep 6. He's not used EOD in a while. They do randomly change people's finishers from time to time so wondered if this is one of those times.
Is the hate for Corbin X-Pac heat? Or do people hate him because he's just marvelous at his role? Fucking love Corbin. He's so good.
I loved, loved, loved him on NXT. Then when he came to the main roster I liked him at first, but then he became bland. But this King Corbin stuff, he's hitting a home run everytime.
I think he is good at his role but I think the general hate is more down to the fact he is always the one being pushed and they don't give many other heels a shot.
It's basically getting stale.
I get the term X-Pac heat but it never made sense directing it toward X-Pac but that's a completely different conversation.
I think it's Go Away Heat. Get the fuck off my tv heat. You can watch a movie and go damn that guy fucking sucks as a villain. And it's not a "I really like this villain how can I hate him?" it's a "this guy needs to find a new career" type feeling that many many many fans have.
And when you hear people defend him it's "He's doing his job as a heel!" And anyone worth a damn in this business that says that about Corbin is either towing the company line or hoping to stay in good graces with the WWE by not shitting on a guy that is clearly high on their list. I'm not negative to the guy being used just not as much or as high up the card as he has been for 2 years now. Again....they basically told us he fucking sucks and people don't watch when he's on tv so why keep having him in top spots?
Sorry for towing the company line. Don't worry, if he ever goes to AEW I'll probably hate him.
Well, do you feel like he's a main event heel? Or do you feel like he's overpushed and the hate people have for him isn't a bunch of grown people older than 9 than know how to spot a good heel and shit heel?
He could be much better and much worse in most facets that it takes to be a performer on WWE TV. He's fine, just overpushed/overused.
To me, Corbin is like the mini boss in a video game. Not a henchman, but the guy who orders the henchmen. Maybe like Bebop and Rocksteady, but not a foot soldier, and not Shredder. He's a high level mid-card heel. I don't think he should be sniffing at world titles, but he could make a decent IC or US title heel. I don't think he's overpushed as I feel like he loses way more than he wins. He lost the Roman feud, the MITB match, just to Drew, etc. Think his job is to get people to hate him and whoever overcomes him gets even more cheers.
He is (and yes partly because of the garb)
Treated as top level and presistent but yes Donkey Kong generally does win. The problem is even though he does lose frequently he is always in the top program. Like you say he can make a decent midcard heel.
He should be a gatekeeper in the midcard but is generally positioned as a top heel.
And the problem is the WWE hasn't noticed that people don't really cheer the other guy they just boo, cuss, spit, whatever they can throw at this guy to let the WWE know sorry, he fuckin sucks.
Remember when people used to think they were cool and go "If you think this person sucks then don't watch"....Well....many are not watching so now what's the approach? Social media is a wonderful thing and I think people are pretty fuckin open and descriptive about why they hate Corbin.
It'd be one thing if we always read shit where people were like "Man this guy is so good at being a heel he makes me want to see him get his ass beat" but naw it's very insider-ish with the criticism from fans that are as young as 9-10 years old that just flat out say naw, he sucks.
It's one thing to not like Van Halen and say "They fuckin suck dude". That's totally different than saying as musicians they suck like if you heard that dude kill the guitar and said in terms of talent he fuckin sucked. Corbin not only has shit music but his level of talent does not match the spot WWE perceives him to be deserving of.
Best heel in the company at the moment that is worthy IMO is Shayna Baszler. Not only talented, physically imposing but gloriously slagged Becky off where no-one else did. She is a proper video game boss.
Asuka vs Baszler is going to rock once Asuka's done with Nia.
Yes! Corbin is a mini boss for a water level, that you wish you could bypass because you hate that level. He's goddamn Labyrinth Zone.
I don't hate him, I just wish he was gone permanently.
What I don't like about Drew as a babyface....watch his interview on Raw with Charly. The first half is this corny "Every day is good for a Claymore party! I'm having a blast I'm having fun look at me smiling and just having a fucking wonderful jamboree!" then he wraps it up with a more serious tone. He needs to figure that out, or the WWE need to, whoever is dropping the ball.
When I see Drew I don't want to be like oh man that guy looks like he'd be the life of the party doing karaoke and probably has a little cute dog named Channing after his wife's favorite actor.
This could also be I was never really a fan of the guy other than when he first debuted he had that sweet theme song. But he's someone I grew to like and saw that he had the visuals, he had the tools in the ring, he could talk. He still has time to figure it out though.
They really struggle to book turned babyfaces. As soon as there’s a whiff of someone getting over, they can go overboard and have them pander and kiss babies to the point they become annoying forgetting why fans actually like them in the first place.
I think the concept for guys like Drew should be keep their previous traits but just have them target heels instead. Drew doesn’t have to be all thankful all the time. Keep him somewhat tough and stand-offish without pandering.
Drew needs to ditch the comedy. Just be a serious, fighting champion and we all win.
I don't remember him clowning around in NXT. I remember him just being a straight up badass. His main roster run this time around has been good outside of the promos. 50% of the time he's nailing them, the other 50 I'm like dude, this just screams scripted Vince shit. When he was a heel with Dolph he'd say super weird dark metal lyrics-ish type stuff and now he's the life of the party, a Claymore Party!! Just feels like the WWE thinks he's still missing something which is stupid because I doubt they put the belt on him because of his witty personality.
I re-watched last week's Raw because I missed some things:
- Does MVP not remember the last time he partnered up with Lashley? He helped Bobby win the TNA World title and and was promptly ditched for his efforts.
- Alexa Bliss: "You can't just walk down here and demand a title match. That's not how it works around here." Uh, that exactly how things work around here, Lexi. You even did it yourself. You complained week after week that the Kabuki Warriors were supposed to defend the titles on both brands and asked for a title match.
- Seeing Seth's reaction, finding out you're going to be a father is clearly more soul crushing than being buried alive
As far as DQs go, that was pretty straight forward. Peyton wasn't legal and repeatedly assaulted Alexa in plain sight of the ref. It was a weird way to prevent the IIconics from getting pinned, but they obviously want to tell this story about them being dysfunctional and this was the catalyst for that.
How many times in the tag matches over the years though has an illegal partner gotten in the mix though and the ref not disqualified them though? Sorry but still lame because they’re so inconsistent with the rules.I re-watched last week's Raw because I missed some things:
- Does MVP not remember the last time he partnered up with Lashley? He helped Bobby win the TNA World title and and was promptly ditched for his efforts.
- Alexa Bliss: "You can't just walk down here and demand a title match. That's not how it works around here." Uh, that exactly how things work around here, Lexi. You even did it yourself. You complained week after week that the Kabuki Warriors were supposed to defend the titles on both brands and asked for a title match.
- Seeing Seth's reaction, finding out you're going to be a father is clearly more soul crushing than being buried alive
As far as DQs go, that was pretty straight forward. Peyton wasn't legal and repeatedly assaulted Alexa in plain sight of the ref. It was a weird way to prevent the IIconics from getting pinned, but they obviously want to tell this story about them being dysfunctional and this was the catalyst for that.
Plus the ref allowed her to do it three times before realising she wasn’t legal? Laughable.
One final thought. Iiconics is one of the teams not to sow dissension between because really who are fans going to cheer for? They’re not Sasha and Bayley plus one of the few actual teams to support this barely active women’s tag division. Teasing up a break-up between them is daft.
They certainly wouldn't cheer for the one that married Tye Dillinger.
Maybe give them a ten count to think about it.
I wonder what happened to him. Released what, 2 years ago? I'll see what he's up to on Wikipedia.
Or you could watch AEW....
Sorry Donald what was I thinking? You won’t even watch for Swagger!
I was intrigued by the guy who wrestles with his hands in his pockets, but that novelty wore off quick. I read about it though, just no desire to watch.
He had a good match with PAC/Neville but tbh the novelty wore off.
Jericho and Britt Baker, they’re the selling points.
Britt Baker?
She's probably in the top 5 in the empty-arena setting. Possibly lower if the playing field is level and everyone on the roster is involved.
And she wields a mean shoe too.
Unless someone tells me which is which, I can't even tell the IIconics aapart. They're interchangeably terrible.
They should stay a tag-team until the sun burns out, because as singles neither of them have a career.
I can't stand Billie Kay.
Peyton Royce is bearable, some days.
They'd really have to do a lot of leg work to create a compelling case to like Peyton or Billie if they broke them up. There was more of an investment of time between the easy comp (Mandy and Sonya) and they made it clear why you should like Mandy and hate Sonya. Either way, it's probably not in the best interest of everyone to break up The IIconics.
Billie is clearly holding Peyton back from becoming the next big thing. It's time to cut her loose so Peyton can soar to new heights
I know it’s only nxt people but it’s nice to have a crowd
The “hockey boards” are kind of weird tho.
Interesting that they took a page out of AEW's book by having wrestlers as the audience. Not a bad idea. Gets some NXT people on screen at least. The boards actually make the rampway look very futuristic depending on whose entrance is playing. Problem is that the boards seem to deaden the sound the audience makes, so it sounds, natually, like they're behind glass. Maybe they can mike them up next time? At least they're learning.
Also, when Charlotte's on screen I want to stop watching. This is not a good thing. Yes, she's a heel and that's her job to hate her, but it's too annoying at this point, her dismissiveness of everybody.
So fuckin sweet.
Does Almas ever win?
Seth's been standing there just staring at the mask for 47 minutes.
Rollins with two jobbers scary
Red is not your color
Well, he does have a tendency to zone out as evidence by a couple weeks ago.
Apollo winning the U.S. title is pretty nice for him. Here's to a good reign.
I'm glad that Drew is genre savvy and getting straight to the couch flipping point and asking where Lashley's at.
I still appreciate the Iiconics.
KO losing to a jobber lol ok
Please tell me KO's contract isn't up soon or something cause this dont make sense
Smart having NXTers in the audience. Loudest reaction yet for Crews and Carrillo.
Why do people think Angel Garza is a jobber?
Oh it's rom2647 saying that, nevermind.
Asuka is the best thing going she is great
I like how she hummed her theme music during her backstage interview earlier. Sometimes when the ring announcer talks you can see her mouthing the words while she stands in the ring
I like the rollout of the NXT developmental people and the plexiglass. The MO seems to be that you can't something on WWE that seems to be working unless they put their spin on it or make it feel original to them. I'm guessing the NXT people and plexiglass take care of that. Malcom Bivens and Rik Bugez are two guys who probably are going to have a good chance to stand out if they're on camera often.
It feels like Andrade has been a weak champion for an incredibly long time. He didn't really do anything with the championship, so I'm curious to see what comes of him without the belt. It's crazy to see that it took a while but they decided to go ahead and do stuff with Crews. He was originally rushed onto the main roster from NXT without any direction on NXT and on Raw. He floundered on Smackdown. It's good to see that his random trade from Smackdown to Raw paid off this time with a push. He's delivered in the last several weeks so hopefully they don't drop the ball with him now.
Nikki's promo went a long way in making the tag team with Alexa more closely connected. That's been long overdue. It was good that it was all tied together due to the fact that the friendship has legitimately been beneficial to her. It was a good week of development if this feud was going to continue. The overall feel of it sets up where it feels like the team that doesn't have the titles at the end will be broken up.
The confused state of KO continues. It feels like his Mania win was pointless and ages ago.
Murphy and Theory could be a really good tag team if they stick with it. I'd dig seeing a match with them against Ricochet and Alexander. Carrillo might be a guy who is better suited to be in a tag team. When Rollins dials it up to 10 with intensity/vigor, he's a really good promo...so that makes his monotonous and stoic promos very much a downer. Rollins/Black should rock but the idea that it very well could not get a clean finish is disappointing. Hopefully that leads to an actual match at Backlash.
A suggestion I made came to light: even with an audience in the crowd, they kept Edge in the back and didn't have the crowd reactions. They have to do everything in their power to let the promos be great if they're meant to be great and that likely means keeping the crowd out of the mix.
When they announced it on Friday I didn't get the idea of the match between Charlotte, Nia, and Natalya. It boils down to being way too transparent. Natalya hasn't won anything in a while, Charlotte is just there to be Charlotte, and Nia was already feuding with the champion. The match was good but its a shame they didn't book things better leading up to it. Asuka was great on commentary, but that's a given.
Kind of surprised they brought up the issue with the 24/7 title. Gronk probably should have kept the Janela shades on so it didn't seem so blatantly obvious that he was reading off a prompter lol. R-Truth is going to take down that football man.
Mysterio's "retirement" seems like a ruse, but we'll see how they actually play that out.
Bianca Belair was brought onto Raw and immediately called out The Street Profits for not taking things seriously. That message clearly didn't stick and Bianca has been MIA since. DQ finish? MUST BE MONDAY NIGHT!
Like BG said, shitty title reign for Andrade but I am happy for Crews. I've always liked the guy. Curious to see how he fares as champ.
Loved the use of the developmental talent as the audience; it was too fucking weird without a crowd, you could tell the wrestlers were infinitely more invested.
Edge’s promo was awesome.
About to get the network solely for “The Last Ride”; Shawn Michaels’ “Chasing the dragon” line is 100% accurate, it’s painful watching Taker go down this deadend (pun intended) road like this.
Good for Apollo Crews, hopefully he gets a chance to run with the ball.
Still think Asuka could use a manager to talk for her; Brock is done, Paul E is just being wasted backstage.
Crews is so boring to me. There is nothing about him I enjoy. I don't even like his look. He looks like a steroid up wrestler.
Garza’s good and happy he’s getting a push but at KO’s expense? That’s just weird.
Happy for Crews, good athlete and let’s see what he can do with the belt. Needed to get it off Andrade for a while.
I also Seth is better bring intense than stoic.
The Raider/Profits are way past stale and unfunny, just make both look like idiots. Typical WWE comedy and now we get bowling next where the Raiders will no doubt hurl the ball over the alley. Oh joy.
Good women’s triple threat and probably Nia’s best match in a while but really most credit goes to Charlotte/Natty. Obvious outcome though.
Drew is a mixed bag. He’s okay on the mic but this “Claymore Country” stuff can go. Too corny and not enough badass.
Last edited by Badger; May 26th, 2020 at 10:07 AM.
The more I think about the Owens stuff, I think he's just being used to prop other people up. That was supposed to be goal for the other side with Styles when he was the US champion (Ricochet, Carrillo, Crews, etc) and it didn't take. It kind of feels like Owens is having to do that now for talking segments or actual matches. I mean...people have to serve that role in order to get more depth or attempt to create new stars, but it doesn't make sense based on how he was built towards Mania. The upside is it clearly didn't work when they did it for Styles and he kept chugging along, so maybe that happens for Owens but his picture within Raw still seems unknown.
Owens lost because he was attacked pre match and looks to be having a feud with Garza for right now. he isn't a jobber and didn't lose to a jobber. he is putting someone over who cheated before the match. I am pretty confident Owens will beat him clean to end their feud. If he wins clean last night then what? I'm sure WWE is trying to get by with meaningless feuds until fans are allowed to attend. I mean Lashley and Miz/Morrison are in the title hunt right now. that's all we need to know.
Garza may not be a complete jobber but he has not been presented as even close to KO's level, so this was a huge upset. KO is a great talent and I am confident that he will be able to help elevate Garza without losing much if anything himself. The KO Show segment to set up the women's match was a great example of his ability to look good himself, and not detract from the others. His banter with Asuka reinforced her as a face (after her chanting "Becky!"), but the small things like his interaction with Charlotte with the feather shows he can go off script slightly, as good as anyone since the Rock. And the KO Show segment really benefitted from having more of an "audience" to react.
Someone clearly thinks highly of Garza this week - not just his huge win, but they also interviewed him backstage during the Crews/Andrade match. I generally cringe when they upstage other wrestlers like that. If they are going to use KO to elevate Garza, I really hope its for a good reason and they go a long way with it. Don't have Garza lose to Humberto Carillo next week.
Lana is a LOT darker since she's been hanging out full time in FL, and not on the road all the time. I think she's too talented on the mic for what she's been given, but hopefully she will get a decent payoff with the MVP angle. I will admit I liked MVP's response to her saying "we need to talk", as MVP simply said "no we don't" and left. I suspect they will have Lana's frustrations lead to her involvement in the Lashley-Drew match, and maybe she will be taking a Claymore for her efforts, but more likely it leads to a DQ finish and a rematch to prolong the feud another month.
I agree with @BGMaverick about the Nikki promo being long overdue, but it helped a lot. This was not how most of us thought her involvement with Alexa would play out, and it really helped Nikki. But she looks terrible taking that beating from the IIconics, who really don't look like they could punch their way out of a paper bag.
Angel Garza is a former Cruiserweight Champion. Hardly a jobber.
So is Akira Tozawa and you see how he's booked on Raw. Garza is booked better than Tozawa in the sense he gets more screen time and he has more personality. All that said, Garza generally loses more than he wins.
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