Braun Strowman is out with injury for six months, stuff on a poll matches are back.
And did you think you could handle the Golden Truth?
Not even the Golden Truth can handle the Golden Truth.
I’m Oli Davis, and this is the 15th May 2017 edition of Monday Night Raw...in about
4 minutes.
Kurt Angle Talks Balls Kurt Angle opened the show revealing Braun
Strowman will be out with injury for up to six months.
Which, reportedly, appears to be untrue.
It’s reportedly damn untrue.
Watch the WrestleTalk News for more on that.
But who’s going to have the balls to face Brock Lesnar in his place?
Kurt actually said ‘balls’ here, presumably because Great Balls of Fire is still an actual
name for a pay-per-view.
To test the Raw roster’s testicular fortitude, Angle announced Extreme Rules will have a
Fatal Five Way No. 1 contender’s match - with Seth Rollins, Samoa Joe, Bray Wyatt, Finn
Balor and Roman Reigns.
After the usual copy and paste ‘every one interrupts each other’s promo’ guff, Angle
made Seth Rollins vs Bray Wyatt and Roman Reigns vs Finn Balor for later that night.
Jeff Hardy beat Sheamus Jeff Hardy beat Sheamus in a pretty decent
short match, but the finish was botched.
Matt Hardy needed a second Brogue Kick to knock him off the apron when the first one
completely missed.
I’m into the heel Sheamaro vs babyface Hardys feud, but it’s going to get repetitive very
fast if they keep facing each other in singles matches.
Sasha Banks beat Alicia Fox Speaking of botched finishes, WWE admirably
turned Alicia Fox’s accidentally raised shoulder from last week into a rematch against
Sasha Banks - which Fox inexplicably won with a Scissor Kick.
The Sasha Banks who’s been built as one of WWE’s two leading female wrestlers got
beaten clean in just four minutes by a booking afterthought.
The Miz beat Dean Ambrose After playing warring co-General Managers
on Raw last week, The Miz took on Dean Ambrose for the Intercontinental Championship in a
really good TV title match, complete with near falls and Maryse interference.
The masterstroke, however, was the finish.
With the referee distracted The Miz went for a low blow - which Ambrose caught!
Incensed that Miz went for his Great Balls of Fire, Dean straight up kicked Miz in the
dick.
That’s very good booking of Ambrose’s lunatic babyface character - making him look
like a impassioned badass, rather than a goofy chump.
Kurt booked an Extreme Rules rematch because of the dirty finish.
Alexa Bliss Takes Out Bayley Bayley and Alexa Bliss also started building
to their Extreme Rules rematch, with the Goddess attacking Bayley with a kendo stick.
Which obviously means a street fight, right?
Get out the denim jeans, ladies!
Wait.
No.
Kurt Angle just made it a Kendo Stick On a Poll match.
Vince Russo would be proud.
Neville & TJP beat Jack Gallagher & Austin Aries
Austin Aries and Neville also have a rematch at Extreme Rules, but it was a beachball getting
most of the crowd heat here.
Beachballamania 20, CM Punk heckling, and then, very unfairly for this match, a ‘this
is boring’ chant’.
The excellent TJP won, pinning Jack Gallagher after a detonation kick.
I want to see a secondary Cruiserweight feud with TJP and Gallagher at Extreme Rules too.
Roman Reigns beat Finn Balor After rematch build after rematch build, Finn
Balor vs Roman Reigns felt incredibly fresh, with the two only colliding once before last
July.
They had a cracking match, playing up the big man/small man dynamic Reigns has been
using throughout his Braun Strowman feud, with him taking the reverse role.
The only down note was the result, Finn losing when he needed a win far more than Roman.
Especially because Reigns already had an out, still heavily selling his left shoulder.
You Can’t Handle The Truth The Golden Truth came out for their match
against Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, with R-Truth doing his usual ‘What’s Up?’
rap, when Goldust turned on his long-time partner from outta nowhere!
I actually gasped out loud, and haven’t been this emotionally affected by a Raw angle
since February’s Festival of Friendship.
I didn’t know I cared so much Big Cass beat Titus O’Neil
Titus O’Neil continued the surprisingly entertaining low-mid-card filler, being forced
to wrestle Big Cass in his very expensive suit.
The most intriguing part, however, was Apollo Crews giving Enzo Amore an enziguri afterwards,
hinting at a Crews/O’Neil heel tag team.
Seth Rollins beat Bray Wyatt After two very good matches earlier in the
night, the main event unfortunately failed to deliver.
Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt seemed to be just going through the motions at the end of Raw’s
third hour.
Rollins got the DQ win when Samoa Joe attacked him for the upteenth week in a row.
Joe and Bray beat down Seth, and then Wyatt turned on Joe as well.
So that was this week’s Raw in about four minutes.
Here’s the usual ratings recap, from top to bottom - In Awe, Cor, AVRAWGE, Poor and
Bore.
I’ll reveal my rating very shortly, but first, vote in the poll above my head to give
yours.
I’ll announce the results in tomorrow’s WrestleTalk News.
After last week’s lame-duck show, WWE was able to satisfyingly redirect its main event
picture, set up the majority of the Extreme Rules card, and - most importantly for enjoying
the actual episode - put on two very good matches with Roman Reigns vs Finn Balor, and
The Miz vs Dean Ambrose.
It wasn’t perfect, with Banks inexplicably being jobbed out to Alicia Fox, and the Sheamaro/Hardys
feud losing its momentum, but overall - so, so, so much better than last Monday in London.
This week’s Raw is AvRAWge.
Randy Orton, TJP, Bubba Ray Dudley and more have clashed on Twitter, and the weekend saw
some MAJOR Bullet Club news.
Click the videos to the left to find out the faction’s newest member, press subscribe,
and support WrestleTalk on Patreon.
I’ve been Oli Davis and that was wrestling.