Another week, another 3 hours of Monday Night Raw. You know the drill. Things happened, but what things? Oh – these things:
Again, the main story thread through Raw this week was the never-ending Authority drama. Steph gets as much TV time as Donald Trump, and it’s just as infuriating.
Mick Foley comes to the ring, with a prepared statement and apologises for his actions last week. He announces he is taking a leave of absence. However, he wants to speak as a free man, and rips his prompt cards up, but his mic is then cut off.
Stephanie makes her way to the ring, and dresses down Foley with her weekly berating, and telling him that he always screws up. She has two words for him…
YOU’RE FIRED.
Sami Zayn comes out to defend Foley, telling McMahon that Foley has more integrity than her and she should be ashamed.
Steph warns Sami to leave, but he refuses, as he’s about doing the right thing, until Samoa Joes music hits and he makes his way to the ring.
BAH GAWD, WE HAVE A MATCH, PEOPLE.
It’s a heck of an opening bout, with Zayn taking all sorts of punishments from The Destroyer, but our lovable loser is forced to submit to the clutch.
Backstage, Mick Foley takes one last walk through the back. He comes across HHH, who is standing arms folded like a bully from the 1950s waiting to pound on some nerds.
“Have a nice day!” quoteth The Game. With that, Foley is no more.
After that, Seth Rollins’ physical trainer, Kevin Wilk, explains that he reaggravated his knee injury last week. Michael Cole asks if Seth will be at Wrestlemania, but Kevin says he never said Rollins would be ready for Mania. It will be months before Seth is ready, and no doctor will clear him. It he shows up at Mania, he will be back in rehab the next day.
Later on in the show, Cole hosts Triple H in the ring.
HHH disagrees with Cole saying Seth’s injury is his fault. HHH blames the crowd, and further blames them/us/you/me for ruining Foley’s life. Thanks, Dad.
Like all these rascal millennials, Seth got beat down, cried and whined about it. HHH is done with Seth now.
He goes to leave, but then comes back. He and Seth want to fight. The crowd wants that fight. Hunter says he will type up a Non-Sanctioned Match and bring a Hold Harmless Agreement – if Seth signs, we’re on. You know you want it.
Elsewhere on Raw, Dana Brooke took on Charlotte, in a face turn that is a year too late. And lost.
Bayley turns down a Stephanie McMahon hug, and says she is upset to see Steph use her power to hurt people. McMahon, giving zero fucks, makes yet another match with Nia Jax, stating if Jax wins, she’s in the Wrestlemania match for the Raw Women’s Championship.
Next up is The Highlight Reel. Jericho promised to show us the ‘real’ Kevin Owens.
Owens isn’t the cold-blooded hitman he makes himself out to be. Jericho shows us a picture of Owens as a teenage, in a Y2J shirt, with his arms outstretched in a classic Jericho pose. Less a Prizefighter, and more a fan. But the influence extends from 2000 up to 2014, when Jericho shows us Twitter DM’s, when Owens reached out to Jericho, asking for advice.
What Jericho wants, though, is the time pack he spent in a hospital and picking bits of glass out of his face. He wants the real face of Owens at Wrestlemania.
If Owens thinks it hurt when he lost the title at Fastlane, just wait till Mania, you stupid idiot. Jericho is on top form this segment.
Samoa Joe appears at the top of the ramp, but harks, tis a distraction as Kevin Owens attacks Y2J from behind and hits a Pop-Up Powerbomb. He then eats The List and spits it out.
The Brian Kendrick beat TJ Perkins (Southpaw Regional Champion) is a super short match. After the ‘match’, he boasts that he stole Ozawa’s passports, which I’m pretty certain is really illegal. But then again, America being America right now, Tozawa probably would have had trouble getting through airport security anyway.
Nia Jax beats Bayley in a No DQ match, the makes the Raw Women’s Title match a Fatal-4-Way. It’s a shame that this was another dud match, and having Bayley lose again really hurts her cred as champ. Plus crowbarring Jax in to the Mania match really takes away anything special the Triple Threat once had. Sigh.
Cesaro and Sheamus are made to compete in a 2-on-4 tag match against Gallows & Anderson and Enzo & Cass, to secure their spots in the Wrestlemania tag title match.
Anderson and Gallows attack Enzo and Cass before the match even starts. Because they are stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid people. About 10 seconds later, Anderson gets a Brogue kick, and Cesaro and Sheamus are still going to Mania.
What was the fucking point of that? After a solid first hour, we are back to your regularly scheduled clusterfuck of a Raw.
Backstage, Kofi and Big E are looking at Xavier, and seem disappointed. I have no idea why. They ask if he has something to tell them. Couldn’t be anything important that happened over the weekend.
Woods says he’s looking forward to Wrestlemania. Oh. Yeah. Wrestlemania.
Austin Aries beat Tony Nese in a good Cruiserweight match. It’s a shame they still aren’t having Aries come across more dominant going into Mania, and more like just another guy in back-and-forth matches. I hope they do something with Tony Nese soon too, because he is amazing.
Aries and ‘King of the Cruiserweights’ Neville exchange words after the match.
Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman face-off in the main event, in a rematch from Fastlane. The match was good, not quite as good as the great effort they put on at the PPV though. More importantly, Reigns’ body has been recovered after Strowman punted it to the Netherrealm last week.
In the closing stages of the match, as Reigns looks for the spear – GONG.
LIGHTS OUT.
Taker appears in the ring, like the old spooky boy he is, and chokeslams Strowman.
He turns around and eats a spear from Reigns. Reigns’ music hits and he heads up the ramp.
Taker sits up, and the two stare each other down to conclude Raw.
Dead men tell no tales and sell no spears.
After an unusually solid opening hour (which was possibly to distract the Brooklyn crowd from chanting certain other things) the show slipped back into its usual BS and face palming extravaganza.
The only things I would recommend checking out this week are The Highlight Reel, the HHH promo and maybe the Reigns/Strowman main event.
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