JWN Raw Review: The Go-Home Show

Raw Review The Summer Slam Go-Home Show 

By Justin Blakeman 

Good evening folks!! I hope you enjoyed the Go-home Raw tonight. It was clear from the start that tonight was going to be all about building the Summer Slam card. That is how it should be considering we are looking at an unprecedented four hour show this weekend. The show kicked off with The Authority coming out to do a little Summer Slam hype up. They announced a number of matches and introduced Jon Stewart as the special guest host! They also announced that ESPN will be covering Summer Slam. All of this hype has really made this feel like the special show it is suppose to be. As of tonight there are 10 matches on the card which has not been done since Summer Slam 2000. If you have seen it, then you know that Summer Slam 2000 was fantastic and that will hopefully translate over to this weekend.  I could set here and list out all the matches I am excited about but that will be saved for the Summer Slam Preview post later on this week. However I will tell you a few things that came to mind concerning Raw tonight. 

For starters the first match of the night was fantastic. I think the feud between Kevin Owens and Cesaro has been great! I have really enjoyed watching the build for this match and Cesaro is SOOOOOO over right now its not even funny. I think this could be the show stealing match of the night on Sunday and I can't wait to see it. On the complete other side of the spectrum there is the match between Randy Orton and Sheamus. I honestly couldn't care less about this match. This has to be like the 1000th time we have seen Orton vs Sheamus. Honestly I don't care how long they wait in between, this match will never seem fresh to me. 

Next up we had a pretty good match between Roman Reigns and Harper. The match went of for a while and had some really nice spots. I feel like Roman picking up the clean win was a little odd. I also noticed that Bray didn't even make a move to break up the pin. In fact he really didn't seem to care at all. I have to say my gut is telling me that the match on Sunday has to involve some kind of a heel turn by Roman or Dean. We have been toying with the idea of one of these guys turning heel for months now. Could this be the turn we have all be waiting for? During tonights match Dean Ambrose was laying on the "Friend label" pretty thick. In my heart of hearts I believe WWE is just setting us up for the time being. They are hyping this turn but it may be few more pay-per-views before that actually happens. 

Following that match was the first of two divas matches. This one featured Becky and Tamina. Surprisingly Tamina looked really good here. She was playing the role of powerhouse very well. She still needs to do a lot of work on her in ring ability but think she sold the powerhouse character well.  I think a solid powerhouse is something the Diva's divisions really needs. The match its self was pretty good! I really enjoyed watching Becky hit all her movies and pick up the victory in her first solo match on Raw. The Diva's revolution continues to grow and I am really impressed by how the story has played out so far. I just wish there was something they could do to make me feel personally invested in this story. I read online that they were considering a ladder match for the title. I would be perfectly fine with that. I would also be happy with just a plain old title match. I think if given the time, these ladies could bring the house down.   

The Rusev vs Lana angle has really done nothing for me personally. I feel like just don't care about the love drama. The only highlight from this whole program has been Rusev calling Lana a cold, dead fish, Other than that I just don't seem to care much. Dolph made his in ring return tonight to confront Rusev and while it was nice to see Ziggler back in the ring it still didn't save this feud for me. This may be one of the matches I am least looking forward too; which is sad because I actually like all the parties involved in the match. 

Ryback and Miz had a match and Big Show was there too..... thats really all I have to say about that whole segment. 

Rollins and The Authority came down to the ring for the contract signing and Rollins cut a very nice promo which I would say has to be up there as one of the best in his career. Cena came out to the standard mixed crowd and cut a promo that was very standard at first. As the promo went on John Cena began to connect the dots between Flair, HHH and Rollins. He brought up some sold examples and really sold this match by the end. I am not always a huge fan of Cena's promos but this one was on point and got the job done with very little preacher voice or jokes at Seth's expense. 

New Day came out and cut a nice promo and there was a two second match that followed. I am still highly impressed with New Day. They took a terrible gimmick which did not get over and turned it into a fantastic heel gimmick. Which become so over that now they are cheered by the fans. It really shows just how good those three guys are and I hope they win the titles on Sunday because I think we all need more New Day on our TV screens each week. 

The final match of the night was between Sasha Banks and Nikki. The ladies put on another good showing to close out the match portion of the show. Sadly the crowd was not very into the match due to the fact that they just wanted to see Brock. The big story coming out of this match was the fact that Sasha made Nikki tap out for the win. I really like Sasha going over here. It was a huge surprise and It leaves me thinking anything can happen in the new Diva's Revolution. 

The show ended with Paul Hayman singing Glory To Brock Lesnar which was fantastic. Hayman continues to show why he is the best manager in the history of wrestling. You could tell Brock was trying not to laugh the whole time Hayman was singing. After the song was finished Hayman began to cut a promo on Brock's behalf when he was interrupted by the three gongs of the bell which sent him running as the lights went dark. Once the lights came back on it was just Brock and Hayman standing in the ring. So Paul continued his strong promo until the gongs rang out again and the lights went black. This time when the lights came back on Taker was standing in the middle of the ring. He low blowed Brock and received a LOUD chorus of boos. I honestly can not remember the last time I heard the Undertaker get booed, it was kind of a surreal moment. Raw was in Brock's home town so it will be interesting to see if this trend continues on Sunday. 

All and all not a bad episode of RAW. They did a great job of furthering some stories and hyping up the pay-per-view. I do feel like the show kind of dragged at some points and honestly by 10 pm I really didn't know what they were going to come up with to save the last hour. I absolutely can't wait for this weekend! Not only will Summer Slam be amazing we also have NXT Take over happening on Saturday. So this will be a fantastic weekend filled with wrestling. I hope you enjoyed the brief Raw Review and I hope you enjoyed the show too. Until next time wrestling fans! Thanks for reading!!