One of the more shocking results from Sunday’s Hell in a Cell was Randy Orton winning the
WWE Championship for the 14th - 14th - 14th - I’m not going to do them all - time, ending
Drew McIntyre’s reign that began at WrestleMania.
A result that won me back my prestigious Jampionship.
Thank you Viper Man.
But this decision hasn’t gone down great with the WWE locker room.
After being booked incredibly strongly all year, Orton was twice beaten clean in the
ring by McIntyre in the last two months - losing to Drew at both SummerSlam and Clash of Champions,
while also losing to Keith Lee in the middle at Payback.
Fightful Select is reporting this has made wrestlers backstage question WWE’s booking
choices.
Earlier this year, Orton was praised for being on a career best run since turning heel on
Edge at Royal Rumble, and then being booked strongly until August.
But since SummerSlam he’s done nothing but lose - which makes his title victory now lack
momentum.
Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio is reporting he won to set up a third Orton vs
Edge match at WrestleMania for the belt.
But while Drew vs Orton was arguably the least best of the three cell matches on Sunday,
the other two were absolute classics, and it’s now been revealed by PWInsider which
producers worked on those matches.
The WWE Championship match between Orton and Drew was headed up by Joseph Parks - the former
Abyss in TNA, aka AJ Styles’ amazing stats man - while Roman Reigns vs Jey Uso was produced
by Michael PS Hayes, with sprinkles Paul Heyman input.
And Bayley vs Sasha Banks was laid out by Tyson Kidd and Pat Buck.
Hell in a Cell this past Sunday.
Halloween this Saturday.
It’s only fitting we now discuss the curse that’s haunted WWE this year…
Vince McMahon being reportedly ‘high’ on you backstage.
Every single person - Humberto Carillo, Angel Garza, Aleister Black, Peyton Royce - who
WWE or Vince McMahon has been apparently high on backstage this year have seen their pushes
crash down on average three weeks after news sites report on it.
And now we’ve got an update on one of them: the very tall Brendan Vink.
He was used on Raw during the initial weeks of lockdown in a tag team with Shane SlapJack
Thorne, and was even getting managed by MVP at one point, but then disappeared.
He’s now revealed on Twitter that he’s moving back to NXT and changing his name to
Tony Modra.
The viewership from last Friday’s SmackDown is in at a drastically low 881,000 viewers.
This is because the show aired on FS1 instead of Fox because it was bumped by the World
Series, so the low rating was expected.
But in an interesting stat, SmackDown drew a .25 rating in the 18-49 demographic, whereas
that same week’s Dynamite pulled in 0.3 - meaning AEW technically outdrew WWE’s
biggest show.
It’s a one-off circumstance though, and SmackDown is expected to return to around
2 million viewers on Fox this week.
And now it’s time to review last night’s episode of Raw… in about 5 minutes.
I can’t wait to see the fallout from all my favourite matches of the year that happened
at Hell in a Cell, like Roman Reigns vs Jey Uso, and Sasha Banks vs Bayley… oh crap.
Drew McIntyre opened the show, appearing totally fine after his 30 minute Hell in a Cell match
the previous night.
But he did say it hurt a bit.
Because that’s what they always tell you, isn’t it?
Tell, don’t show.
Drew promised to be WWE Champion once again, so new Money in the Bank briefcase holder
Miz interrupted to point out he successfully cashed in on Randy Orton a decade ago.
Showing what a threat that is, McIntyre knocked both him and John Morrison out with one punch
each.
And then squashed them in a match later on in front of Matthew McConaughey in the Thunderdome
crowd no less.
It’s begun folks.
The commentary team are now promoting Survivor Series as ‘the one night a year when Raw
and SmackDown stars go head to head’.
Two weeks after SmackDown was main evented by its champion Roman Reigns against Raw’s
Braun Strowman.
It did give this episode’s matches some meaning, though, with many of them qualifiers
to join Team Raw.
Spots that were almost entirely fought over by guys who were on SmackDown just two weeks
previously.
‘Brand loyalty’ is such a lazy booking crutch around this time of year.
There needs to be something in it for the winning Survivor Series team.
AJ Styles advanced first beating Jeff Hardy, by using the power of THAT HUGE MAN at ringside.
Elias hit Hardy with a guitar afterwards, so Hardy played his own music to distract
Elias later on, letting Keith Lee beat him to advance.
Keith Lee there, only just scraping through against Elias thanks to distraction.
Elias’ Universal Truth album also reached the No. 1 spot on Spotify.
Good for him.
But not good for the gimmick.
Because his character doesn’t work when he’s sincerely making generic music that
the company promotes.
His heel heat comes from his petty songs on babyfaces, and the non-heel commentators calling
it out for being rubbish.
And the final qualifying match of the show was a really hard-hitting bout between Sheamus
and Matt Riddle.
They’ve got great chemistry together.
It’s just a shameful day lobster head that Riddle lost, making it two back-to-back defeats
since moving to Raw.
The Raw Women’s team, however, didn’t have each spot decided by qualifying matches.
Instead, definitely not Raw or SmackDown general managers Adam Pearce and Pat Buck simply announced
Nia Jax, Shayna Baszler, Dana Brooke and Mandy Rose for the team, with the final member decided
between Lana, Lacey Evans, Peyton Royce and Nikki Cross in a four way.
Cross was by far the best, which meant she took the pin from Lana.
It’s all pretty lame, but full credit to Nia, who’s created such a good heel character
she seems to be feuding with everyone, including her own tag partner.
She bickered about who was the Team Raw leader.
She potentially started a relationship with Angel Garza backstage.
And, of course, she put Lana through a table.
The 24/7 title division got a tag match with Drew Gulak and Akira Tozawa teaming together
to take on Lucha House Party - which fell apart when they all tried to roll-up R-Truth.
Comedy.
Although I did get a kick out of Tom Phillips announcing ‘the Champ is here’ when Truth
made his entrance.
After announcing Bobby Lashley will take on Sami Zayn at Survivor Series - reprising the
all time great Bobby’s beautiful sisters feud - The Hurt Business took on the Biker
Mice from Farts in an 8 man tag, whom they beat clean in the exact same match last week,
now with eliminations, so every member can be pinned.
But MehTribution had a secret plan… of Mia Yim having a fit in the ring, distracting
MVP long enough to get rolled up, which sucked.
Lashley and T-Bar then fought into the stands for a double countout.
Mace was pinned.
So Ali got himself a DQ elimination by hitting Cedric Alexander with a chair while outnumbered,
and then ran away - cutting a promo later on that he will shut down the Hurt Business.
Running through the rest of the Survivor Series card, Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston then
did genuinely uncanny impressions of the Street Profits.
We’re also getting the tag champions facing each other, Asuka vs Sasha, and Randy vs Roman.
But the main event storyline started to steadily build Randy vs The Fiend first.
But not before the Firefly Fun House course corrected Alexa Bliss’ outfit.
Alexa made her Firefly Fun House debut last Monday in a black and red costume that was
seemingly meant to resemble Bray’s doll version of her.
But, as a portion of viewers joked, more looked like she went wild at Hot Topic in 2001.
That costume appeared to be dropped for her appearance this week, where she was a lot
more Harley Quinn like… so Hot Topic in 2018… with her own Play and Pain gloves,
to match Bray’s Hurt and Heal ones.
In their Firefly Fun House segment, Bray also gave her Fiend-like contact lenses for her
to say ‘Let Him In’ too.
But Bliss interviewing Randy in the show’s main event gave Bray some past projections…
you know, the cockroaches on canvas kind… for which Orton was fully prepared.
Randy was terrific, being very skeptical of Bliss and seeing it all as just a Fiend trap.
But it was also a Drew McIntyre trap, who came down to brawl, the lights cut out, leaving
McIntyre in the ring, Randy on the ramp, and The Fiend standing behind him.
Orton was trapped between two very bad choices.
But, brilliantly, he never looked over his shoulder.
He could make the argument he never saw the Fiend.
Or perhaps there’s a more psychological fuel, that The Fiend is powered by someone’s
fear, so Orton not giving him that rendered Wyatt ineffective.
But ultimately, Orton showed, didn’t tell, us his true thoughts.
Because he chose to brawl with McInytre over the Fiend.
Showing how scared he truly is.
What did you think of Raw?
Let me know in the comments below!
I really liked the Fiend and Orton build, and at least the Survivor Series matches had
stakes.
But the brand loyalty motivation is incredibly lazy, and the Retribution booking is profoundly
disappointing.
This week’s Raw is Poor.
To get Raw reviews every Tuesday, piledrive those subscribe and thumbs up buttons and
enable notifications to always on.
And Luke Warm Luke Owen and I will be doing our full livestream podcast review of Raw
later on! Roman Reigns and Jey Uso had a five star match
at Hell in a Cell!
Click the video on the right for my review!
And what’s the real reason Randy Orton won the WWE title!
Click the video below that for mine and Luke’s pay-per-view podcast!
I’ve been Mr Davis, your Jam that Jampion.