Overall
This week’s episode of Raw was overall pretty fun to watch, while it had to spend a good amount of time picking up the pieces left behind by Sunday’s Extreme Rules pay per view, we also got some solid matches and progression to the stories that didn’t really play into “The Horror Show”. Mustafa Ali made his first appearance on WWE television in months to help Ricochet and Cedric Alexander take on MVP, Bobby Lashley, and the newly minted 24/7 champion Shelton Benjamin in a six man tag match. Bianca Belair and Ruby Riott’s friendship seems to be more than just a one week affair and seems to be heading toward a full on feud with The IIconics. Randy Orton and The Big Show put on a fantastic and brutal unsanctioned match which is just continuing Randy’s fantastic run as the top heel on Raw.
When it came to picking up where Extreme Rules left off, Dolph Ziggler begged WWE Champion Drew McIntyre for another match, this time Drew gets to pick the stipulation. That match is scheduled to happen on next week’s Raw. Stephanie McMahon made an appearance via zoom to let Asuka and Sasha know that next week we will have a rematch for the Raw Women’s Title. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a Raw tag team title match setup this week to officially give us another edition of “Championship Monday”.
Raw this week was solid, even if three hours of content does seem excessive at times especially when the pay per view from the night before was about thirty minutes shorter. Hopefully we will continue to see more solid shows in the remaining weeks between now and SummerSlam. That being said, let’s break down the good, the bad, and the ugly of Monday Night Raw 7/20/20.
The Good
- Hey! They let Aleister Black talk like an actual human when he came down to confront Seth!
- Samoa Joe suggesting that they begin insuring the announce desk. I don’t know why it made me laugh, but it did.
- Joe’s look of disgust as Seth attacked Aleister Black after the match. If Joe was cleared to fight I feel like they would’ve had Joe beat the hell out of Seth.
- Ron Simmons hanging out with MVP and Lashley. It feels like an important endorsement for this stable.
- Shelton Benjamin officially joining The Hurt Business and winning the 24/7 championship. Give these guys all of the titles, please!
- MVP cuts a great promo.
- Cedric and Ricochet getting some much needed mic time.
- Mustafa Ali is back! I guess he wasn’t the SmackDown hacker?
- The 6-man tag match was a lot of fun to watch.
- Randy Orton’s promo was incredible.
- The Big Show video package was pretty good too!
- Peyton Royce taunting anyone is always fun.
- Damn, I hope the Street Profits and Andrade and Garza keep fighting for a while. They are paired really well with each other.
- Sasha and Bayley’s promo is so obnoxious and I love it.
- Stephanie stepping in as the authority figure was the obvious and right move to make.
- Kairi Sane’s double boots to Bayley’s back while Bayley was draped on the top rope was great!
- Kairi Sane is doing some incredible work. I’m gonna miss her when she leaves whenever that is.
- Dolph coming out and begging for another title shot was good.
- Someone yelling “eye for an eye” when Dolph said Drew could pick the stipulation. I love the sense of humor some of these PC recruits have.
- Damn! The spear from Big Show to Orton looked gnarly.
- The unsanctioned match was a lot of fun.
The Bad
- Everyone yelling “shame” or maybe “Rey” at Seth. I just wish the PC recruits were at least allowed to root for different people. Having them all think the same is kinda weird.
- I’d love to actually see Liv Morgan, rather than just hear people talk about her.
- Ok, Big Show’s promo didn’t really work for me. I don’t have specific reasons, but I was just having trouble paying attention, and that might be worse than just being bad.
- The unsanctioned match should’ve been an extreme rules match and should’ve been on the pay per view the night before. I’m not sure why it wasn’t.
The Ugly
- I didn’t write down any ugly moments. Which is usually good, but I want to talk about how I was having such a hard time staying invested last night. There was a lot to like about the show but I spent so much time just not caring. That’s not good.
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