A week after technical difficulties caused a skipped article, Andrew brings us his breakdown of WWE Raw and SmackDown Live!

Well last week there was no article because my TV and internet are both Verizon FiOS, and FiOS decided to blackout in my area from 1pm Monday until like 11am Wednesday. So that makes it hard to review things in a timely fashion with work and technical difficulties.

But we’re back this week, maybe the week off helped? Maybe it was like a pallet cleanser?

No?

Same old crap?

Eh…let’s find out.

Raw Ratings:

• Ronda Rousey vs Liv Morgan: Rousey wins via Arm Bar – * 1/2
• Ronda Rousey vs Sarah Logan: Rousey wins via Arm Bar – *
• Raw Tag Team Championship #1 Contenders Fatal 4 Way: Heavy Machinery vs Lucha House Party vs The Revival vs The B-Team: Revival win via Shatter Machine – ** 1/2
• Sasha Banks & Bayley vs Nikki Cross & Alicia Fox: Bayley wins via Roll Up – * 3/4
• Jeff Jarrett w/Road Dogg vs Elias: Elias wins via Drift Away – ** 1/2
• Finn Balor vs Lio Rush: Balor wins via Coup de Grace – ** 3/4
• EC3 vs Dean Ambrose: EC3 wins via Jacknife Cradle – *
• Braun Strowman & Kurt Angle vs Drew McIntyre & Baron Corbin: McIntyre & Corbin win via DQ – **

Review Notes:

Becky and Stephanie start the night out with a highly divisive promo. Many people seem confused at Becky’s actions, but it’s a beautiful wrinkle in her character. The Man is afraid of no tangible object; a fight, a Heavy Machinery concoction, man or woman…but intangible things cause fear. The way her voice wavered a little, and how quickly she was answering back to Stephanie, was all fear. Fear that the McMahon family are looking for an angle to screw her, and fear that Doctor Jail will force her out of yet ANOTHER opportunity. This is great, differentiates Becky from the other anti-corporation figures of the past and makes me love her even more. Everyone has fears of things they can’t control, even The Man.

Ronda has a forced promo next, sure “Ice Up and Pop Advil” or whatever she said was a good line, but the words felt rehearsed. It would’ve been a good promo from Heyman or Samoa Joe, but Ronda, it’s just odd.

Granted then she takes her frustrations out on two-thirds of the Riott Squad, and sure, they happened. Liv is a better character than she is wrestler, but there’s still something enjoyable about watching her work. Forgettable matches though.

Couple promos, only memorable thing was Nikki Cross making sense about her being judged and not accepted by anyone, except the other weird girl. Don’t Cross the Fox was a cute line as well.

The tag match…happened. Two joke teams, a worthless Lucha thing and the only legitimate tag time…and I was supposed to believe or care that someone not named The Revival were winning? Come on now.

Zack Ryder can’t spell his name and neither can WWE. Hooray lovable losers!

Kurt Angle heads to the ring to give an assumed retirement speech. Drives us down memory lane without falling asleep at the wheel, but Corbin and McIntyre interrupt, attempt to beat down Angle, but Braun Strowman shows up on Angle’s side. The Monster who was always in his face for competition, challenging him and fought against him…suddenly goes respectful babyface. Yeah no. The Braun character is dead to me, I don’t care.

Foxy and Cross jump Banks and Bayley before the match starts. So the match that we all thought was a slam dunk, became almost in doubt, if you were dumb. The beatdown lasted a while, but after the commercial break Bayley is in the ring and Sasha looks dead on the outside. Long and short, this is a Bayley handicap match, save for one save by mostly dead Sasha. So good for the Boss & Hug Connection?

Apollo says he’s got Angle’s back, but then gets stared down by Rezar and Drake Maverick, so he must’ve just left the building in fear of Rezar.

Jarrett and Road Dogg sing “With My Baby Tonight” again after a weird mish mash of Road Dogg era promos, but that’s fine since Jarrett is a weird reference of different versions too. Elias shows up, a nice verbal spar and a solid match afterwards. Jarrett and Elias was the highlight of the Men’s Rumble, and I’m alright with this for now.  Dogg and Jarrett do get the best of Elias, even after Elias gets the win, so this ain’t over yet.

Dana Brooke is apparently not loud enough to break through Natalya’s magical ear buds. So hooray a miscommunication proving ground match next week. Noticeable thing to me was the Nattie did something different with her hair (to cover the ear buds before the punchline obviously) but it’s actually a better look for her, keep it.

Injured Balor is apparently not taken seriously by Lashley. So he changes the match to being against Lio Rush instead, beats on Finn pre-bell, interferes before being kicked out and then yea, Finn wins in an alright match. The one cool move Lio had was missed by the camera, so it was alright save for a few psychology nit picks. But I guess seeing Finn as the bigger guy was…different.

Paige shows up! *goes to the bathroom*

Moment of Bliss! Alexa is doing her flirty thing with EC3, sure. Before Ethan can talk, Nia interrupts, then Dean interrupts her interrupting. Alexa plays flabbergasted well. Dean gets in a few amusing questions, but it leads to EC3’s debut match (Where are EC1 &2 being the best line of the show). As for the match, the crowd was dead, in the moment when they were supposed to rally EC3 up from a hold, they chanted for Ambrose. EC3 gets a Jacknife Cradle, Ambrose doesn’t even try to kick out and EC3 acts like he just won the Super Bowl. This match was a boring waste of time…similar to the Super Bowl…so…okay maybe that comparison worked too well.

Mojo is the man in the mirror. The promo had some passion, he’s shown glimpses of something…just can’t ever seem to hold it.

Main event time, it was…fine. Corbin and McIntyre tried to control Angle so Braun couldn’t get in, when he finally did, they held their own. Braun actually needed to tag out, but then we get the most moronic application of the tag team rules ever. Braun is told if he hits McIntyre while not the legal man, he’ll be disqualified. DISQUALIFIED FOR HITTING THE OTHER PERSON JUST BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T TAGGED?! Next week tags aren’t legal unless you hold the rope, then to follow that, if you throw your opponent over the top rope, that’s a disqualification too. WELCOME TO ASININE BULLSHIT BOOKING!

Overall Score: 4.5/10

The wrestling wasn’t inspired, the main event ending ruined what could’ve been an alright match. Hell the only real bright spot was Becky’s opening promo cause it gave the character depth and a chance to give Ronda space to breath and not be so overshadowed by The Man. I also shouldn’t understate Elias/Jarrett, but that wasn’t so much a bright spot, as much as, I just enjoyed the whole thing for personal reasons.

So this episode was close to average purely because only the ending of the main event really bothered me, the rest put me to sleep.

SmackDown Ratings:

• Shinsuke Nakamura & Rusev vs Gallows & Anderson: Rusev wins via Machka Kick – ** 1/4
• Randy Orton vs Mustafa Ali: Ortion wins via RKO – ***
• Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville vs The IIconics vs Carmella & Naomi: Rose wins via Moneymaker – * 1/2
• Daniel Bryan vs Jeff Hardy: Hardy wins via DQ due to Rowan interference – **

Review Notes:

Charlotte opens up the show, showing us Becky’s Monday promo and then chiding her afterwards. Becky shows up under the Wrestlemania sign in the crowd and walks down. Charlotte tries to get in a dig with the “First you took my dad’s saying and now Roman Reign’s entrance”, but no one cared about her and all popped for Becky. Becky was allowed into the ring, stared down Charlotte before HHH came out and basically reiterated what Stephanie said. Becky lent a little more credence to her actions by stating she doesn’t trust them, Trips basically said it doesn’t matter how she feels, she has to get cleared. Becky takes the “How’s Stephanie” jab, so Hunter starts going off about he thinks the injury is fake and she just wants an excuse to get out of the fight and play martyr cause she’s scared of Ronda. Becky slaps Hunter and they stare off for a bit before Becky smirks and walks off. Becky is still the best thing the WWE Main Roster has going for it.

The odd pairing of Rusev and Nakamura, faces off against The Good Brothers, because, well they’re friends with R-Truth. The match was alright, but Lana screaming at Shinsuke to get up and get back into the ring, and physically helping him back to his feet was interesting. Not sure if Lana will piss off Shinsuke eventually and cause him to lay out Rusev (or Lana for that), or if she’ll somehow push him and maybe Shinsuke tries to get her to manage him too, so then Rusev versus Shinsuke for Lana’s services could be a thing. I don’t love the last idea, but it just popped into my head as I’m writing this, so…hooray stream of consciousness.

Now I’m marginally biased when it comes to Randy Orton. Yes he’s very calculated, some of his matches are slow or boring, but generally he’s always a solid hand. This match with Ali was a great storytelling match. Ali looked like a real threat, got around a few Orton classic moves, including his Back Body Drop through an announce table that usually happens whilst playing Fling the Singh.  Ali also avoided one RKO, just to fall victim to another when he was setting up for the 054. Solid match, plus Samoa Joe running in to choke out Randy was good to lead to Elimination Chamber.

Daniel Bryan is a face in Washington state, cause they’re a bunch of west coast hippie vegans weirdos too. So he panders, they pop, hemp belts and whatever. Don’t get me wrong, this evil Captain Planet, Vegan Christ Superstar, whatever you want to call it, is a great character. I just can’t really say he said anything with weight or merit, so it all blended in as white noise to me.

A tag match that no one really cares about, at least finishes correctly since Mandy & Sonya are probably the least credible team in the eyes of the public. Yes the IIconics aren’t much more successful, but at least they’re protected by that aura of bestie power that gives them enough reason to have an edge as a tag team.  Yes, I’m also a sucker for an Australian accent, but that doesn’t sway anything here really.

Andrade and Zelina talk smack about Rey, so I’m very happy that’s not dead in the water. More Andrade vs Rey! We still have 25 matches to go!

Daniel and Hardy never really get to the next gear. The action was solid, they both had moments to shine. Jeff hits the Swanton, but before we see if Daniel kicks out or not, Rowan pulls him out and Bryan gets DQ’d for interference. So both main shows have DQ finishes for the main events, but SmackDown decides to have Joe and the rest of the Elimination Chamber participants show up for a big donnybrook.  That doesn’t make it better, but the crowd pops for Styles and what not, so they prolly went home happier.

Overall Score: 6.5/10

Well, WWE added to the Becky story which I love, so hopefully that helped to smooth over any odd interpretations of her character. SmackDown, even with a slightly below their average show, was still quite enjoyable and easy to digest. The Nakamura and Rusev angle is probably the most interesting new thing with the Lana aspect. So aside from us all knowing Elimination Chamber will be fun with everyone involved, it’s nice to have a lower card story that has some intrigue. Plus Andrade/Rey got furthered and it was mentioned the McMiz TV will have the Usos on next week. So even if they weren’t on, SmackDown does a solid job at keeping all the players visible somehow. Hell even Asuka had a video package.

So yea, WWE has a slightly below average week, but nothing terrible.