Opinion
Chris King’s WWE Raw Review (8/5/19)
Chris King looks back at a historic night on WWE Raw as new Women’s Tag Team Champs are crowned…
Chris King focuses on the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Fatal-4-Way Elimination Match where, the current Champions The IIconics defended against The Kabuki Warriors, Fire and Desire, and Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross. while also giving his thoughts on some highlights of the show.
I will be honest here I was originally upset that WWE gave this match for free tonight, instead of adding it to SummerSlam.
The IIconics won the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles at WrestleMania earlier this year. A few weeks later on April 16, 2019 episode of SmackDown Live former General Manager of SmackDown Live Paige made her WWE return to announce a new tag team consisting of Asuka and NXT Japanese Sensation Kairi Sane.
For several weeks the cowardly heels would fake illnesses and ridiculous conditions to avoid defending the titles. On June 28th at a house show in Tokyo, Japan, The Kabuki Warriors defeated the champs to earn themselves a future title shot.
A month later, Mandy Rose would surprise her best-friend Sonya DeVille with a future title shot on next week’s SmackDown Live. On last week’s SmackDown, Live Royce and Kay would weasel their way out of defending their titles against Rose and DeVille, due to puppy fever. So tonight all four teams battled it out for the women’s tag team championships.
All of the women were given the opportunity.to shine and deliver a great match, The IIconics were the first to be eliminated, then it was Fire and Desire. Then it was down to Alexa and Nikki and Asuka and Kairi, where all four women created magic in the ring all delivered. In the end, though, the wily Goddess of WWE hit Twisted Bliss for her and her loyal protege to become the new WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships!
You deserve it love 💋 thanks for being an amazing friend & partner https://t.co/QEVGHZqGFo
— Lexi Kaufman (@AlexaBliss_WWE) August 6, 2019
Once I realized that all eight women were given the chance to showcase their abilities and I dare say steal the show tonight, it’s something that never would have happened on an already stacked SummerSlam pay-per-view. More than likely the match would have been cut short or rushed and it would have been sloppy. Now Asuka and Kairi have a heel team to chase after (that will actually defend the titles)!
Chris’s Highlights of the show:
Rey Mysterio and Andrade can FIGHT FOREVER! Somehow someway these two incredibly-gifted superstars always outdo their last encounter, last night was no different with fantastic high-octane offense and counter after counter. If it wasn’t for the women’s fatal-four-way match, Rey vs. Andrade would have stolen the show!
Samoa Joe was absolutely ruthless in his attempt, to clear his name as a suspect for the Roman Reigns case. However, once he stormed outside and Reigns was seconds away from being runner over, Joe put his bitterness aside and came to his rival’s aid signaling for help.
This is very intriguing if WWE manages to turn Joe into a tweener face, he hasn’t been a babyface since 2015 in NXT.
The Fiend Bray Wyatt added another legend to his list of victims, The Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle!
"The Fiend" is ATTACKING @RealKurtAngle! #Raw @WWEBrayWyatt pic.twitter.com/A0QltiHCJD
— WWE (@WWE) August 6, 2019
The Universal Champion Brock Lesnar gave his SummerSlam opponent The Beastslayer Seth Rollins yet another brutal assault. A hobbled and wounded Rollins remained in the ring following the attack and delivered a heartfelt promo about whether or not the weekly beatings were worth it. The resilient babyface said yes, and he guaranteed he’ll be there Sunday, and he’ll beat Lesnar.
I'll be at #SummerSlam. And I'll beat @BrockLesnar." @WWERollins is NOT giving up his hope of reclaiming the #UniversalTitle. #Raw pic.twitter.com/0wU0tEPJ4Q
— WWE (@WWE) August 6, 2019
Despite his best efforts and his unwillingness to quit, Rollins still just came across desperate and whiny, instead of fiery and driven a process that has worked in all their previous encounters. I’m not sure why WWE had him look like a fool last night, the compassion angle only worked with HHH because of their storied history as his mentor. It will never work with The Beast Incarnate.
Last but not least, as expected per the numerous spoilers Dolph Ziggler’s SummerSlam opponent was revealed to be Goldberg. So Ziggler is getting squashed, for running his mouth about the Hall of Famer and his atrocious Super ShowDown match with The Undertaker.
Chris’s Reaction:
On a personal level, I was quite disappointed in the Go-Home-Raw for SummerSlam, there wasn’t many developments or answers to questions just more of the same old same old. Dare I even say that the whole three-hour broadcast was equivalent to the Go-Home-Raw for WrestleMania 31, where Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns ended the show playing tug of war with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
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Opinion
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Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY – Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
Powered by RedCircle
Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!