Hello Dwellers and Welcome To The RAW View From The Basement...I thought about totally getting rid of the 'RAW View', but figured why not just keep it as a mini-blog about what went down on RAW without the video log, since 'Ring The Bell' will focus on wrestling topics that caught my interest? So lets get to it...
Obviously the biggest news out of last night is the re-cementing of AJ Styles as a heel by realigning him with Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson as they attacked John Cena, who was making his return to WWE television last night... and despite the smarky nature of Green Bay fans, the ambush on Cena was actually booed out of the building.
Personally, I thought the angle was solid, if a bit out of left field and screamed of 'last minute' booking decisions change and with the reliance of the 'Cena is going up against a message board hero trope' that has been going on since 2011, and heaven knows, the second Cena gets a win in a match over Styles, Anderson or Gallows, there is going to be the usual whining of 'Cena is burying them' yada yada yada... lets all remember that this is a feud where Cena is going to be carrying it on the mic because no member of The Club can actually cut a promo without sounding like I do in my videos. Considering events earlier in the night saw Anderson and Gallows attack The New Day and the pending the return of Randy Orton, this has some extended potential.
Speaking of things with potential... or lack there of... Roman Reigns comes out talks about how Seth Rollins is always running away... Seth comes out and teases running into the ring about a half dozen times, which was just... awful. People want to see these two fight, and Seth just came across badly here while Roman looked like a total idiot just standing in the ring. One would've thought that after the first couple of times Seth got near the ring and backed off, we'd see Roman exit it to attack him... but nope... nothing happened. I get what they are trying to do with this... to build up the excitement of them brawling before Money in the Bank, but this lead to no progress being made at all towards that goal.
There was an in-ring segment with The New Day probing Shane & Stephanie McMahon about thebrand extension in July, which asked the prominent questions of is certain teams going to be broken up, whose going to run SmackDown... but the one thing we got from it is that unlike the initial 2002 brand split which really was a last minute decision, the theme of Shane & Steph's responses was things were going to be thought out to see what's best. Hell the WWE does half a month to try and get this right. A couple of big problem with the original brand split was the handling of the Women's, WWE and Tag Team titles and guys going back and forth between the two shows as if it was nothing special.
Speaking of Stephanie, there was an 'earlier in the day' promo of her shooting down Charlotte for all the wonderful things she said to Ric Flair last week... which is ironic considering all the things Stephanie said to Vince McMahon in certain storylines being quite similar. Unless they are going to develop Stephanie vs Charlotte as an in-ring feud, I'm not really seeing what the end game is. Staying with this, Becky Lynch's feud that was supposed to be with Dana Brooke and Emma is being combined with Natayla's program with Charlotte, so I'm sensing a fatal four-way at Money in the Bank.The stupidity of the night goes to the handling of the Dolph Ziggler vs Baron Corbin story, with what was supposed to be a 'technical' wrestling match between the two taking place only to be a ruse for Dolph Ziggler to kick Corbin in the groin. Get it? Cause Corbin used a 'low blow' to beat him at Extreme Rules in a match that was 'No Holds Barred'.
As far as Goldberg being revealed as this years big 'DLC' pre-order guy for WWE 2K17... I just went 'meh'... they do this every year, a tease of someone new debuting on the main roster instead it's a commercial for the latest video game. Though I have to ask... who was asking for Goldberg?
The Six Man Tag between the Money in the Bank match participants was okay, but wasn't really something that felt like could close a show, Ryder vs Rusev put over just how dominant Rusev is, Enzo & Big Cass getting a clear win over the Dudleys furthered showed that the Dudleys can't keep up with the newer teams, Big Show giving a pep talk to Apollo Crews about standing up to Sheamus was awkward as hell,
