WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 9/5: Dominik hits as a heel on night one, Strowman return a curious miss, more

BY JON MEZZERA, PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR

Braun Strowman undergoes major surgery
Braun Strowman (artist Travis Beaven © PWTorch)

SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...

Opening Segment – HIT: At Clash at the Castle, Dominick should not have turned on his father. He should have gotten upset at Edge and kicked him in the balls like he did, but then he should have walked out without getting physical with Rey. Let Judgement Day move on to something new without Dominick joining them, and have a feud between Edge and Dominick with Rey in the middle. That’s how I would have booked this. Once the decision was made to have Dominick join Judgement Day and get physical with his dad, this was at least a good way to follow up on that angle. Raw got off to a nice start with Edge calling out Dominick. Rey played his part well. Rhea Ripley was good in her interruption. Dominick seemed more confident in this heel role, but he hasn’t had to talk yet. Let’s save a little of the praise he’s getting for being so good as a heel until he at least talks once. The physicality with Edge’s leg injury worked well. So while I don’t like the overall direction, at least what they did with it was good.

Braun Strowman Return – MISS: I am fine with WWE bringing Braun Strowman back. It makes sense to give him a dominating return to remind audiences of how he’s the Monster Among Men. He even announced that he would be on Smackdown too. That is a nice hook. The reason that this is getting a Miss is that he buried four tag teams and ruined a fatal four way #1 contenders match. Were Akira Tozawa, Reggie and R-Truth busy? There was a problem with the #1 contenders match to begin with. New Day lost to the Viking Raiders on Smackdown, so why were they in the match and not the Raiders? Why was Alpha Academy who never win in it? I’m not concerned about some of these teams getting squashed by Strowman, but The Street Profits? WWE has been teasing both Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins as possible singles stars. But, they didn’t look like potential starts here at all. Their involvement was the worst part of this.

Rodriguez & Aliyah vs. Doudrop & ASH – MISS: This was not a good match. I won’t spend a lot of time on it, as it just wasn’t good. At least the new Women’s Tag Team Champions won. They seem to be setting up Doudrop and Nikki ASH to either break up or rebrand which would be good. But, then they won on NXT the next night which doesn’t make much sense. I’m also not into Raquel Rodriguez & Aliyah as a team.

Theory – Owens – HIT: First of all, it was nice that Austin Theory got his first name back. He had some definite stumbles in his promo talking about what happened to him when he tried to cash in Money in the Bank during the main event of the PLE only to get knocked out by Tyson Fury. What I appreciated about his performance was that he covered for his mistakes well by playing up his jaw injury from that KO blow. Speaking of KO, this was another good week for the now babyface Kevin Owens. He continues to shine on the mic as a face. He keeps playing up his near victory over Roman Reigns 18 months ago. They certainly are keeping the idea of an upcoming Reigns vs. Owens match alive.

Theory vs. Owens – HIT: That good segment led to this good match that lasted 16 minutes, although with two commercial breaks, we missed quite a bit of the action (yeah, I know its on split screen). Owens got the strong clean win. As a general rule, I feel that the MITB briefcase holder should be booked very strong while holding onto it, so that if they successfully cash in, they won’t be seen as a fluke of a Champion. In this case however, a Reigns vs. Owens match is much closer to reality than an actual cash in for Theory, so the ending made sense, especially given Owens’ recent change to a babyface where he needs the momentum.

Clash at the Castle Video – HIT: WWE did a great job throughout the show recapping Clash at the Castle with short video highlights, some interviews (like what they did with both Riddle and Seth Rollins), and this one long video package. They made the show feel like a big deal and might make some fans regret missing it if they did.

Damage CTRL – Belair – HIT: Ok, so CTRL is a stupid way to spell Control. And I’m still not totally buying Iyo Sky in the group. But, Bayley gave her best performance on the mic during this segment which built well to an eventual rematch for Kai-en-Sky against Rodriguez & Aliyah as well as Bayley’s eventual Women’s Title match against Bianca Belair. Belair was also good in her role here. She seemed more natural where she was confronting Bayley without just spewing her EST bit.

Priest vs. Mysterio – HIT: Will Rey Mysterio and Edge get help in their feud against Judgement Day now that Dominick has switched sides? Rey certainly could have used the help in this good match against Damian Priest. It went 14 minutes and featured good wrestling action throughout. It built nicely to the point where Dominick finally got involved to stop his dad from hitting the 6-1-9 on Priest which ultimately cost him the match. The beating at the end followed by the challenge to Edge for next week all worked well.

Lashley vs. Miz – HIT: This is a minor Hit as I had problems with it. WWE did not do a good job of explaining why The Miz was getting another United States Title match. While the pre-match beating was well executed to have Miz and Ciampa injure Bobby Lashley’s arm, the fact that the referee would allow a match to happen at that point didn’t make sense. They did a nice job of building to the match throughout the show with the interviews with Miz about Dexter Lumis and the match. Lashley also had a short interview to set it up. The action in the match was pretty good with Lashley selling the arm injury and Miz constantly trying to take advantage. He also had help from Ciampa to be at the point where he could climb out of the cage. The shot of him looking down at Lumis coming out from under the ring was cool. Miz is playing his part as a spooked kidnapping victim well. They are clearly getting to a Miz vs. Lumis match, but please get Lashley away from this storyline now. Give Lashley a strong US Title challenger ASAP!

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com’s WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw and Smackdown each week. Email him at jmezz_torch@yahoo.com.


CATCH-UP: 9/5 WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW RESULTS: Keller’s report on Lashey vs. Miz in a cage, Edge responds to Dominik turning on his dad, Clash at Castle fallout

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply