This was one of those weeks of Raw where they really didn’t do anything that you need to go out of your way to see, but there was a big announcement in the main event. Vince McMahon announced that his son Shane will be the commissioner of Smackdown Live while daughter Stephanie will be the commissioner of Raw.
It’s not a surprise in either case. If you have watched any WWE programming over the past 17 years or so, you know that Vince and his kids love being in prominent roles.
They decided to put Vince’s big announcement in the main event spot on Raw. It was 15 minutes of boredom that nearly put me to sleep, even though I wasn’t even tired when I watched it. It just felt like something we’ve seen so many times before.
Vince told Shane that he’s the new Commissioner of Smackdown and he celebrated as if he had just won the Super Bowl. Then Stephanie was told that she’s the new Commissioner of Raw while she did the Daniel Bryan “YES” thing to anger the crowd. Both of them seemed happy, even though Stephanie had said she wanted to run Smackdown at some point. It’s one of those things that WWE did for the last month as a way to make people think Smackdown is more important than Raw.
In addition to Stephanie running Raw and Shane running Smackdown, Vince told both of them that they had to pick General Managers to assist them in running the shows. The strong rumor is that Daniel Bryan will help Shane on Smackdown. For Raw, it’s not known at this time, although maybe Stephanie will pick her husband Triple H. Would he need to have a job title like that when he’s already a top level guy? No idea.
Here’s my question to you, dear reader: Do you care about who the Commissioners of Raw of Smackdown really are? Do you care who they pick for the General Manager roles? Do we really need two authority figures on both shows?
My answer is no. I don’t care. All I really care about is seeing better matches, better endings to Raw that don’t involve the McMahon family bickering about stupid things and more of a “must see” show. Instead, all I hear is WWE talk about this “new era,” as if they are changing things up, when in reality it just means more of the McMahon Family on every show. That’s not new. It’s very old and tiresome.
SHANE: Game ON!
STEPH: There's only ONE GAME in this business… and I'm MARRIED to him! #RAW pic.twitter.com/cSo29Gs0yb— WWE (@WWE) July 12, 2016
Let’s compare it to my favorite weekly WWE show, NXT. On that show, William Regal is the authority figure. It’s a role he plays well as the guy who only shows up when necessary. If there’s a conflict in the ring, he’ll make a match. When there’s something backstage that needs attention, he’ll be there to make a decision. He’s a part of the show, but he’s not the main focus at all.
It’s different on Raw, where they usually feature authority figures in multiple backstage segments every episode. On Smackdown, they haven’t even had an authority figure on the show this year, but that will change with Smackdown Live on July 19.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the July 19 WWE Draft live on Smackdown: Will there be more titles? Is NXT talent eligible to be drafted? Who gets first pick? Will all picks be televised during Smackdown? Do they have to pick a certain number of women? How many people will be drafted for each brand?
WWE hasn’t answered any of those questions. I’m not sure if they will even though they should.
At least next week, there’s a WWE Title match on Raw. Hopefully that gets to be the main event… unless the McMahons feel the need to talk us some more.
This Week’s Raw Matches
Darren Young won a battle royal to earn an Intercontinental Title Match
The Miz was on commentary for this match featuring several midcard wrestlers. This was Young’s first televised match with his “coach” Bob Backlund. I thought they might go with Apollo Crews for the win, but he was tossed out at the same time as Baron Corbin when they were in the final three. That meant that Young won in a fluke manner by not even tossing somebody out at the end. He did an elimination during the match, but it wasn’t an emphatic win for him.
Sheamus defeated Zack Ryder
It was a short match that went about three minutes. Sheamus won clean with the Brogue Kick. Ryder beat him on Smackdown clean, so it was typical 50/50 booking that WWE loves so much.
After the loss, Rusev attacked Ryder and it led to Ryder getting a US Title match at Battleground, even though he just lost clean to Sheamus. Way to build up a challenger! (Now that’s sarcasm.)
Kevin Owens defeated Cesaro
This was the best match of the night. It went about 15 minutes, then Owens nailed a spinning neckbreaker when he had Cesaro on his shoulders, which is similar to the old TKO move that Marc Mero used to do in the late 1990s. It was a bit surprising that he won with something other than the Popup Powerbomb, but I thought it looked great.
Owens had Sami Zayn removed from commentary before the match. After the match was over, Zayn attacked Owens and Cesaro put him in the Cesaro Swing.
Titus O’Neil defeated Heath Slater
O’Neil won clean in about four minutes. It was boring. O’Neil failed against Rusev multiple times, so it was done to build him back up. Too bad the crowd doesn’t care about Slater.
Enzo Amore & Big Cass defeated Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson by disqualification
They had a competitive match similar to all Enzo & Cass matches, with Enzo getting beat up, making the hot tag to Big Cass and then it turned into a DQ because of AJ Styles interfering.
Post-match, John Cena showed up to save his new buddies Enzo & Cass. Even though he was in Los Angeles preparing for the ESPYs, he flew to Detroit to make the save here. That’s a long way to go for two minutes of television time.
Sasha Banks defeated Dana Brooke
It’s nice to see a women’s match getting 12 minutes, but it just didn’t work. Banks was selling for most of it, Brooke’s offense looked horrible and Banks won clean. It was a mistake to have them go that long because Brooke was exposed as somebody that needs more work.
Post-match, Women’s Champion Charlotte told Banks she had to beat Brooke again on Smackdown to get a Women’s Title match.
As mentioned earlier, the McMahons promo segment took place in the main event spot.
Three Other Key Items From Raw
1. Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins set up a big match for next week
Seth Rollins debuted “The Rollins Report,” as he did an “interview” with Roman Reigns. It was a comedy segment where they used taped comments by Reigns from different interviews while Rollins asked questions to make the suspended Reigns look bad.
Since Reigns is still suspended due to a Wellness Policy violation, the WWE Champion Dean Ambrose showed up to defend his buddy. Ambrose did a really good promo against Rollins by talking about how he’s the backbone of the company that has been through it all, while others have had other things happened to them. Ambrose added that if he’s willing to go through all that to get to the top, what will he do to stay champion? Then Ambrose said that he’d defend the WWE Title against Rollins any time, so Rollins said let’s do it next week and it was made official soon after.
Ambrose vs. Rollins should be awesome next week on Raw. I don’t see them doing a title change, but it should be a competitive match that gets a lot of time.
2. The Wyatt Family brawls with The New Day
The Wyatt Family and The New Day had a pre-recorded “fight” at the Wyatt Family compound. They had a back-and-forth brawl where the three Wyatt Family guys had the advantage early, then the New Day guys came back and ended up looking like they had won the fight. It ended with more lights appearing in the compound as Bray Wyatt laughed. This was a way of showing that Wyatt has a lot of followers behind him.
It was very similar to the “Final Deletion” segment that TNA Wrestling did last week with Matt and Jeff Hardy although that one was more over the top. It was also longer. This one was a bit of a serious segment. Did WWE rip them off a bit? Sure, but that’s pro wrestling. Happens all the time.
I assume this is going to lead to The New Day defending the Tag Team Titles against The Wyatt Family at Battleground, although it’s not an official match yet.
3. Randy Orton is coming back soon
Randy Orton makes his WWE TV return at Battleground on July 24, although it’s possible he could be on the July 19 Smackdown live draft show as well. He’ll be a part of Battleground in a segment with Chris Jericho as part of the Highlight Reel talk show.
Want a prediction? Orton drops Jericho with a RKO. He’s facing Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam, so they will want to build him up as being better than ever.
Looking Ahead To Battleground
The next WWE pay-per-view event is Battleground and it takes place in Washington, DC on July 24. Here’s the lineup:
WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins
John Cena, Enzo Amore & Big Cass vs. AJ Styles, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson
Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn
Randy Orton is the guest on Chris Jericho’s Highlight Reel
Intercontinental Championship: The Miz vs. Darren Young
United States Championship: Rusev vs. Zack Ryder
Natalya vs. Becky Lynch
There will probably be another one or two matches added to the show as well, such as The New Day vs. The Wyatt Family.
In Closing
It was a below-average episode of Raw. The Owens/Cesaro match was pretty good and I thought Ambrose’s promo was excellent. The McMahon Family main eventing the show seemed out of place. They could have done those announcements earlier in the show to create more of a buzz. Who’s going to tell them no, right?
Next Monday on Raw, we get Ambrose vs. Rollins for the WWE Title and next Tuesday is the WWE Draft on live Smackdown. That should be a better week of WWE television. Looking forward to it.
