-Another week and another strong presentation for Oba Femi on the part of WWE. As an act, he’s clicking, the audience is reacting to him, and there is a confidence with which he plays the character that is easy to invest in. I love the seemingly off the cuff banter he has with the fans as they’re chanting for him before he speaks.
What the hell are we doing?
-As for Oba Femi vs. Brock Lesnar inside Hell in a Cell at SummerSlam? It’s bad booking. Plain and simple. What the hell are we doing? Look, it’s smart to put some context around Femi choosing to fight Lesnar instead of wrestling for the world title at SummerSlam. All they needed for that was a quick backstage segment where Femi told the world that the title will always be there, but Lesnar wouldn’t. Fine. You jumped through that hoop. Why, though? Femi opting to not take a world title shot hurts the prestige of your world championship. Obviously, you don’t want that. Also, Femi looks naive in making this choice. Since WrestleMania, Femi has talked about wanting to win WWE gold. He had the chance now and decided against it? It’s inconsistent all over the place. With Femi being in and winning the King of the Ring tournament, you gave fans permission to get excited about a potential world title win at SummerSlam. With Femi and Lesnar now on deck instead, that excitement of fans was stolen away.
-With all of that stipulated to, Femi and Lesnar were strong in getting to this match. They’ve got a chemistry together that is of two alphas jockeying for position at the top. It wasn’t overtly scripted either. Lesnar was on his game, which limited the talking of Paul Heyman. That’s rare from him. Thumbs up on the segment itself without the ridiculous context behind it.
A middle finger
-Well, if you were wondering about the status of The Vision, Paul Heyman gave a pretty definitive update this week. Heyman essentially told Austin Theory to fuck off. There ya go. Vision over.
-It’s crazy that Rey Mysterio — at his age and with all the injuries he’s had — can still go out there and have a solid television match with a guy like Ethan Page. Page had a strong introduction to the main roster, but losing the WWE Intercontinental Championship matches early stunted any momentum. The loss to Mysterio won’t help that. At this point, Mysterio has more to give Raw on a regular basis. Page is on track to be more like a JD McDonagh than a Damian Priest.
-Is anyone more cringe than Joe Hendry right now? It’s like the current WWE creative department took all of the old Vince McMahon tropes and tossed them into the Hendry character. He comes across as such a phony and seems genuinely disinterested in the bit. As for the Street Profits, yikes. That’s not the way you want to celebrate your tag title win. As for the match between Hendry and Theory? It existed and Theory lost. To Hendry. That’s all you need to know about where Theory’s at right now. Losing and getting told to fuck off on television all in the span of less than an hour.
Hello Liv Morgan
-A pretty standard victory promo from Iyo Sky this week. Liv Morgan was the true mic standout of the segment. Morgan dropped some fierce words to Sky and presented very well in doing so. There was a confidence there that was special. She ditched the laugh and honed in on the disrespect she felt. It’s not a very high bar, but that was Morgan’s best promo ever.
-I don’t understand the Solo Sikoa obsession with The Bloodline. Dude, you’re on different shows! Just stay away and that’s that. The only reason why they are crossing paths is because Sikoa has stuck his nose into Bloodline business. I have a bad feeling all of this is leading to a match between LA Knight and Jey Uso at SummerSlam. In that very match, Sikoa is going to turn on Knight and join The Bloodline again. You heard it here first.
-Speaking of Jey Uso, he was obnoxious on commentary this week. In a recent interview with Jackie Redmond, he said that he didn’t care about the fans anymore and this proved it. That heel turn is coming real quick whether he likes it or not.
Remember Maxxine?
-Remember all the fake hype about Maxxine Dupri? You saw the real Maxxine Dupri this week against Raquel Rodriguez. Her work is extremely soft, disconnected, and ill-timed. There isn’t a flow on anything she does in the ring. Rodriguez got the victory over her this week and now will face Sol Ruca for the WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship. That’s a good TV level match for Ruca.
-My god the new Chad Gable music is awful. Manufacturing music with specific crowd participation points is desperate and the crowd this week knew it. Gable got the victory and both he and JD McDonagh dodged a bullet on a scary near-both of a top rope Spanish Fly. Week to week, Gable is losing momentum from the El Grande Americana stuff. It’s a shame, but for as good of an in-ring guy that Gable is, his character just doesn’t have a lot for fans to connect with right now.
-The segment of the night goes to the main event angle between Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns. Rollins in particular. He was great. You never know what you’re going to get with a Rollins promo, but it felt like he paid extra attention to making sure this one was good. Rollins and Reigns have been building this match in the background for months and now it’ll happen at SummerSlam. Rollins did a nice job of properly articulating why Reigns would take the match with him. There was a confidence in that, which stood out. Reigns showed a little ass too — something he doesn’t do often. Reigns saying he NEEDS to beat Rollins is notable. Reigns is typically not that vulnerable.
What did you think of this week’s episode of WWE Raw? Drop your thoughts in the comments and let’s discuss?
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