WrestleTalk Roundtable – WWE Raw – October 1, 2018

What was your favorite moment from Raw?

Eric Stites

My favorite moment last night was by far the Elias & Kevin Owens segment. Both the men in the ring and the Seattle crowd made this moment so entertaining. I loved that all it took for the crowd to turn on Kevin and Elias was mentioning the fact that Seattle no longer has a basketball team, as their former NBA team (the Seattle Supersonics) moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.

The crowd didn’t just let out a quick boo, they booed for minutes on end while Kevin and Elias continued to talk trash about John Cena and Bobby Lashley – their opponents this Saturday at Super Show-Down – as well as the crowd. This was absolutely fantastic, though I did have one complaint with how this all ended, but I’ll get to that next.

Dylan Kapisky

Dean Ambrose opens the show. While the stuff that followed was simply plain, albeit effective, Dean’s in-ring interview with Charly Caruso was fantastic.

While it was hard to follow – with Dean flipping between pledging allegiance to the Shield, only to then questioning why he was doing so – that uncertainty only added to the intrigue. Was Dean really echoing what the fans are asking, or is he asking himself those same questions? Very simple, very obvious, very effective storytelling. Not to mention his delivery was on point.

I believed that he believed everything he said, and it didn’t feel like the scripted mumbo-jumbo we often get from the rest of the roster. Gone too was the shred of ‘Whacky Dean’, as even when he uttered comedic lines, he kept a serious tone that made you feel scared to laugh, because he might jump through the screen and rip your head off. Okay, I may be exaggerating, but Dean’s performance was absolutely incredible.

JP Wood

Originally, I was going to go with the Seth Rollins / Drew McIntyre match. It was excellent, not that we’d have expected any less from those two guys. But then I witnessed the glowing, glorious, slow motion car crash that was Elias & Kevin Owens vs. Seattle.

Mediocre trashing of a local sports team doesn’t usually result in the crowd booing so much they start to sound like an angry hornet’s nest. Tonight was different. Owens and Elias tried to tamp it down by acknowledging it, but that only made it worse. The crowd was absolutely ruthless, defending their defunct sports team while Lio Rush tried to turn them around. All the while, Elias and Owens were pulling their best Jimmy Fallon trying not to break on camera.

Pure, live television gold. Highlight of the night, right there.

Shane Love

The opening segment and match between Dean Ambrose and Braun Strowman were absolutely brilliant.

The show opened with Dean being interviewed, which I especially enjoyed because of how it effectively teased the idea of Dean’s bond to The Shield slowly withering away, while ostensibly proclaiming his loyalty to his brothers.

As a follow-up we got a great match between Strowman and Ambrose. The match told a good story between the two men with Braun showcasing why he truly is the ‘Monster among Men’. This was a great match on its own merits, but when the Shield showed up to save their brother, it became all the more entertaining to watch as it further demonstrated a growing rift in the relationship between the members of the Shield.

I absolutely loved it as it left me eager to see how it plays out, even if for the most part it kind of seems obvious. Still entertaining to watch.

5 years ago by Nicholas Holicki

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