Hall of Fame Forum with HBK, Hogan and Flair. Hogan’s like ”Cena’s a nice guy!”, HBK’s like ”Lesnar broke my arm!” and Flair’s like ”Lend us a tenner.”





You’d think this combination of three Legends would produce some entertainment, but all they do is under-sell Cena vs. Lesnar as none of them (bar Flair) can go ”oh man it’s gonna be fucking sweet.”

Cena cuts a promo and reminds us of his credentials and how much he loves sick kids, but it doesn’t matter. Lesnar is Mike Tyson and Cena is Lennox Lewis. He’s not as entertaining or as brutal as Lesnar and that’s what matters more to me. I mean, wrestling fans.

Rusev vs. Jack Swagger



The nail in the coffin that was Swagger’s babyface push. JBL continues to rag on Swagger for losing twice and GIVING UP ON AMERICA. Crowd gets really into this though, showing they don’t care who beats Rusev as long he gets beat. Sadly for them, Rusev’s wrestling Benedict Arnold and the referee stops the match after some stomps. Cole continues trying to praise Swagger by reminding us he again didn’t give up. Yes, we should praise Swagger for not tapping out to stomps.

But it’s all good as Bo Dallas shows up again and taunts Swagger. Feuds blending into other feuds is always good and Dallas finally has something to do other than be screenshot material for message board avatars.

Cesaro vs. Rob Van Dam (No. 1 contender for Sheamus’ U.S. Title)



You’d think after the pre-show Summerslam match they had the contendership would be decided, but I guess HHH realised we’d be getting a RVD PPV singles match and frantically booked a rematch. No entrance for Cesaro again. Sheamus spends the entire match talking about Cesaro and his cheese so the finish is never in doubt. On the strength of their Payback match, this is a good thing. And it means RVD’s found his niche: losing to people with futures.

Paige vs. Natalya Neidhart



Natalya got a fluke pin last week due to distraction, so here’s the (non-title) rematch. Natalya controls on offence and reminds us she’s actually good when given a chance. There’s no distraction this week though so Paige gets the win.

Post-match, AJ comes out and plays mind games with all the subtlety of Vastra and Jenny. Aj kisses Paige’s hand who isn’t into it. WWE gets women.

Corporate Kane and Rollins give Ambrose’s career a eulogy. They should have given R-Truth one as well. If they need to cremate R-Truth’s career, I’ve got a bic lighter they could use.

Rollins takes credit for starting and destroying The Shield which brings out Reigns (who is still using The Shield music) to destroy the segment. Reigns is in danger of becoming the Rick to Ambrose’s Scott Steiner if Ambrose gets real feuds and all Reigns gets ”I’m a big dude with nice hair.”

The Usos vs. Gold & Stardust (Tag Titles)



The Dusts won their shot last week. Crowd into both teams, but Usos have the edge because kids can shout ”SO!” at them. Competitive match until Jey Uso gets his leg hurt after a dive outside and The Dusts win with a count-out…which is exactly the same finish as Ziggler vs. Miz from last week. The Dusts are manlier than Miz though, so they demand a rematch right now…but don’t wait for an answer and instead beat up The Usos and pose. Something for both teams to do? Good times.

The Miz is set to wrestle Ziggler (so that’s infinity +2 by my count) but instead introduces his stunt-double…Damien Mizdow.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Damien Mizdow



I hope Miz keeps on doing this and Damien accidentally wins the IC title or something. Sald,y Damien has Miz’s act down to a tee, even down to the losing. Immediately after Damien gets the pin, Miz fires him. Entertaining stuff here.

Wait, what happened to the ‘was he or wasn’t he hurt?” thing from last week?

Nikki & Bella and Jerry Lawler and OH GOD MAKE IT STOP. When Owen turned on Bret, it happened after Bret accidentally cost Owen two matches, so there was vested interest for fans. Turning out of nowhere and then having to explain why you turned only causes me to search for the fast-forward button. That and the horrid acting. ”I wish you’d died in the WOOOOOMB!”

Reigns vs. Corporate Kane & Rollins



Reigns destroys them both until Rollins twats him with the MITB for the DQ. They try to put Reigns through cinder blocks like they did Ambrose but Reigns is like ‘MY HAIR IS NICE” and hurls a block at Rollins instead. Kane gets a Superman-Punch to finish the segment…except it isn’t as Rollins forgot the MITB and Reigns had to throw it to him during the replay. Ha.

Los Matadores vs. Slater & Gator



Look how good the tag division is in 2014, even the jobbers have jobbers. Slater & Gator get a funny intro. Apparently they’ve been teaming up for a while now. Where? When? I forgot I liked Titus, he destroys people and makes funny noises. Sadly he tags Slater in who almost immediately loses via crucifix pin. Slater & Gator bicker afterwards and I have a new favourite highlight of Raw.

Bo Dallas vs. Kofi Kingston



Quickie match before the main event. What happened to the Xavier Woods/Big E./Kofi alliance? Kingston could have done with them tonight as Dallas quickly beats Kofi with a really bad looking bulldog. Bulldogs are naturally ugly anyway, so just imagine what this one looked like.

Swagger stops Dallas’ post-match speech and slams him to massive boos. He turned heel after only two months of being a face, that is amazing. Just as well they didn’t got for my ”team up and let Bo tutor Swagger” idea, any team with Swagger in would only end up losing to Los Matadores every week.

John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt



Cena shows how fired up and ready he is by imitating Lesnar. He drops Wyatt with two German Suplexes and even does the Brock-warming up dance. Wyatt takes more suplexes until the family run in, but this brings out Big Show & Mark Henry (who pinned Harper & Rowan last week).

John Cena, Big Show & Mark Henry vs. The Wyatt Family



It got turned into a six-man during the break. Rowan slams Henry (!!) but just like last week it doesn’t matter as Big Show chokeslams Wyatt and tags into Cena who annihilates everyone single-handedly. Rowan submits to the STF and everyone takes an AA after the win. Bit of an overkill there, but in fairness Cena just died and needed to prove he got better so kids can sleep well at night.

Overall: Only The Bellas segment brought things down, fun Raw.

To clarify we have Cena vs. Lesnar II, Miz vs. Ziggler, Dallas vs. Swagger, Gold & Star Dust vs. The Usos and Sheamus vs. Cesaro feuds out of tonight. I’ll always approve of a show filled with entertaining feuds rather than one-off four-star matches that go nowhere, so thumbs up from me. The Wyatt stuff sucks, yes. But they’ve been treading water ever since the Jericho feud started and The Uso feud ended. This will either mean they’ll get a new fire lit up them or they’ll sink.

Botch Of The Night: Rollins forgetting the MITB.