Roman Reigns in a hit & run! We’ve got new Women’s Tag Team Champions! And Goldberg returned to WWE for that long awaited, often fantasy booked dream match… against Dolph Ziggler.
And which other WWE legend is also returning this month?
Click the timestamps in the video description below to go straight to any of those stories.
I’m Oli Davis – give us a subscribe, press the thumbs up button, and answer our question of the day in the comments: What did you think of WWE Raw? Because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE! And click the ‘i’ above my head to give your rating of the show – where you can choose from: RawSome, Cor, AVRAWGE, Poor and RawFul – as I review the 5th August, SummerSlam go-home episode – how did SummerSlam come round so quick, my life is slipping away before my eyes – of Monday Night Raw!
In a refreshingly chaotic way to open the show, the intro credits were interrupted by a very grumpy Samoa Joe standing on top of the commentary desk, shouting at Michael Cole that he wasn’t behind the attack on Roman Reigns from last week. It was an effective way to snap you out of Raw’s usual copy-and-paste opening template and pay attention… which Becky Lynch then interrupted like it was a black tie dinner event for WWE Legends and the Velveteen Dream.
It was for her tag match with Charlotte Flair against their respective SummerSlam opponents Natalya and Trish Stratus. It was an interesting dynamic, almost making each team a heel/face combo. Charlotte’s tension with Becky is always fun, but it was Natalya snapping and taking the DQ loss against Lynch that most effectively built a pay-per-view match.
And then we then got an excellent, lengthy match between Rey Mysterio and Andrade. A wrestling show with wrestling matches on. It’ll never work.
These two have incredible chemistry together, like they’re effortlessly inventing new spots as they go. The only thing that wasn’t incredible about this match, in fact, was Michael Cole saying ‘this match is incredible’. After a bunch of very close near falls, Zelina Vega attacked Rey behind the referee’s back to give Andrade the win. That’s two weeks in a row that Andrade has gone over Mysterio. It’s almost like it’s… 100% booking!
Which is more than we can say for the 24/7 title, as R-Truth is once again it’s holder. After Maria Kanellis won the championship last week, her husband Mike pinned her during her OBGYN appointment, and Truth beat him in the waiting room. I feel like Truth’s run had peaked a few weeks ago, so it’s a shame to go back to him when there was a lot more mileage in Maria as the unbeatable pregnant champion. Speaking of giving the title to someone who’s run got old ages ago…
BRRRRRRRRRAAACCCK LEEEESNAR SEGWAY!
Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman came out to recap how badly The Beast Incarnate beat up Seth Rollins last week, replaying that horrid looking F5 bump on the stretcher. But Rollins, remember, is the Architect. He’s the man with the plan. The mastermind behind the Shield. The one who will burn it down! So he came right out with a steel chair and…
…got beaten up very decisively. At least you’ve got that bank balance, mate.
Lesnar absolutely destroyed Seth once again, leaving Rollins to cut a half-hearted promo about how he’ll still be at SummerSlam to win the Universal title, because that championship means everything to him, sorry Becky Lynch.
It’s quite an interesting tact, and I’m not against the idea – but at best it was a rather anticlimactic go-home angle, and at worst, it made Rollins look very stupid.
The Viking DON’T MENTION THE WAR EXPERIENCE Raiders beat another enhancement team to no crowd reaction. These squash matches aren’t working, and the Raiders need something else.
The recently passed Harley Race got a very well done video package in his memory.
Then Kurt Angle turned up to be the special guest referee for Drew McIntyre and Cedric Alexander. After a fun segment with the Street Profits backstage that Drew crashed, the bout never properly got started because Angle was attacked by The Fiend. Interestingly, Bray Wyatt used Mick Foley’s Mandible Claw yet again, suggesting that’s now part of his moveset. It was a beatdown of yet another legend so terrifying… the commentators barely referenced it when we came back from commercial. What about the Drew vs Cedric match, Michael Cole? What about the fact that an Olympic Gold medallist just got assaulted by a semi-supernatural masked man? Oh never mind, let’s just talk about Titus O’Neil visiting his old University yesterday.
The week after winning the Raw tag belts, The O.C. (California) have levelled up once again with Luke Gallows now having facepaint, just like how he used to wear in New Japan. He was the standout player in the ensuing six man tag against The New Day and Ricochet, hitting the Magi-Killer on Woods for the win. In just a few short weeks, Gallows and Anderson have completed their transformation from undercard comedy act to serious tag division champions.
Making good on his threat at the start of the show, Samoa Joe then hijacked Raw demanding an apology from Reigns. But because Roman’s new gimmick is not arriving at shows until the last 45 minutes, Joe had to wait for him in the parking lot.
But just as Reigns got out of his car, another one crashed into the side of it, knocking Roman back into the driver’s seat. Goddamit, Jimmy, just get an Uber next time!
This was actually very well cut together, and Samoa Joe telling Roman to stay down and shouting for a medic was a brilliant touch of realism, as was Triple H helping him after the break. I now want a Samoan Joes tag team more than anything.
The reported attacker is apparently Daniel Bryan, which will likely be revealed on SmackDown tonight. And the vehicle wasn’t an environmentally friendly bicycle, so he’s really lost it.
This Women’s tag team title four-way elimination match between the Kabuki Warriors, IIconics, Nikki Cross & Alexa Bliss and Fire & Desire was a reported bout for SummerSlam. Thankfully it took place on the go-home Raw, because Sunday’s pay-per-view is currently set to be 20 days long.
And it got a lot more time to breathe on this show, with the IIconics shockingly being eliminated first, meaning we’d definitely get new champions, and a really neat finish for Alexa and Nikki to beat Asuka and Kairi Sane at the end.
And the final segment of the go-home Raw for WWE’s 2nd biggest show of the year SummerSlam was… a contract signing between The Miz and Dolph Ziggler. Yeah, that ain’t happening.
While most of us had already figured out what was coming, with Dave Meltzer breaking Dolph’s actual opponent last week, the segment was still very well performed and structured, particularly Miz’s reveal that he can’t wait to face Dolph… on next week’s Raw. Because the contract Ziggler just signed was actually to fight someone else: Bill Goldberg, who walked down, signed the paper, and said ‘you’re next’, for Dolph to walk into an HBK superkick to close the show.
Yes, this is thrown together. Yes, Goldberg vs Dolph Ziggler doesn’t really mean anything. But much like Charlotte vs Trish Stratus, this is a great marquee name for your biggest party of the Summer. The only thing I would’ve changed was to give Goldberg his full entrance here, starting with the locker room headbutt, as him just coming out was a bit limp.
While it didn’t reach the chaotic highs of last week, this was another very solid episode – with several standout moments and a great Mysterio vs Andrade match. So this week’s Raw is Cor.
Now over to Laurie with the news!
Thanks Oli. Great review, loved that bit, you know the one, the bit, I haven’t seen it ALRIGHT.
It is almost Summerslam weekend and you can join the biggest party of the summer, two of our guys in a room slowly losing their minds over the course of 7 hours, because Oli and Luke will be live streaming their reactions to the show on Sunday, so come and hang out with the rest of the Swaftnation.
Summerslam is also the end of our season of our WrestleLeague predictions and the loser of our in office competition will have to do a music video punishment as chosen by our Patreons. You too can get involved in the WrestleLeague Predictions competition by becoming a Pledgehammer on Patreon, while Summerslam may be the end of the season the scores from the show will also be carrying over into season three, so if you fancy taking part and the chance to win the all singing all dancing trophy emoji trophy, ooh, click the i above my head to head over to Patreon right now.
Smackdown Moving To New Live Schedule?!
On with the news, and it’s been revealed that Smackdown moving to Friday is going to have more impact than just ruining our weekends here at WrestleTalk. The weekend is sacred Vince.
But it’s also going to affect the talent and crew, potentially in a good way though.
It was previously reported by The Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Smackdown would tour from Thursday through to Sunday once the show starts airing on Fridays.
But now Pwinsider have a new report saying that the show would instead start touring on Friday with the live show and finish up on Sunday. Unless of course there is a PPV that week.
It’s a big change for WWE who traditionally stick to four day a week touring schedules.
And might be indicative of the falling attendance figures having a knock on effect for the company, who may have canned one day to instead focus on filling arenas three days a week.
But it’s also going to have a positive effect for the talent who should get an extra day of rest each week, hopefully reducing the risk of injury and general burnout.
That doesn’t mean it’ll be the end of Smacky D Thursdays though as WWE has already announced at least one live Thursday night in October.
October 17th from the Corbin Arena in Corbin, Kentucky. Not even arenas can escape the mid-card vortex… it’s pull is too strong.
Match Change For SummerSlam?!
Somebody who has not only escaped the mid-card vortex, but also easily escaped a scaffolding that, well, it barely fell on him, is Roman Reigns.
But as Oli said in his review, we’ve now got a new mystery on our hands, who played bumper cars with Roman’s SUV?!
Well the rumoured attacker and Roman’s mystery opponent for SummerSlam is said to be Daniel Bryan, but that singles match could be about to change.
There’s plenty of speculation flying around that the match will actually be a tag match – with Roman teaming up with Samoa Joe who definitely seemed concerned after the crash and might want revenge on the mystery driver.
And Daniel Bryan could team with Eric Rowan who has been spotted in the background of the scaffolding accident.
Just casually walking away in the most conspicuous clothing ever, black hoodie with the hood up, all he needs is groucho glasses and a newspaper with little eye holes cut out.
He’s mastered the ability of standing so incredibly still he becomes invisible to the eye. He’s like Drax, who learned it from Cena.
HUGE WWE Return This Month!
Someone who also can’t be seen is Kane, because he’s busy being boring old Glenn Jacobs, Mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.
But fear not fans of the big red machine, because soon the mayor will don the mask and fake hair once again as WWE have been advertising the return of the prodigal brother to the Undertaker for the end of this month.
Kane is currently advertised for Raw liveå events on August 23rd in Bossier City, Louisiana and Saturday 24th August in Lafayette according to PwInsider.
It’ll be Kane’s first match back with the company since he teamed with the Undertaker to take on DX at Crown Jewel last November, yeah that one, no wonder he’s been in self imposed exile. And calling it Mayoral Duties.
Kane is currently slated to face the Monster Among Men Braun Strowman at the Lafayette show, so expect big lads doing big lad things.
Thank you for watching. Head on over to ScreenStalker to see myself and Chopper Pete discuss all of the new WWE 2K20 news that came out yesterday including a breakdown of all of the WWE Easter Eggs in the reveal trailer. Take a look.
Trending
- Becky Lynch WWE Roster Status Update
- WWE Bad Blood Planned Main Event Major Update
- Spoiler On AEW Champions Losing At Upcoming Show
- WWE Premium Live Event To Be Held In The United Kingdom In 2025 Revealed
- AEW Star To Receive ‘Big Push’
- CW Reaction To WWE NXT Premiere Viewership Revealed
- WWE Star Reacts To Shelton Benjamin AEW Debut
- WWE Star Says Being Released Was ‘Probably The Best Thing’ That Ever Happened To Them
- AEW Potential New Show Update Following WBD Deal Announcement
- Shawn Michaels Believes NXT Star Is Ready For WWE Main Roster