Single Ladies
It’s odd for Raw to not feature a single segment or match solely dedicated to the women. Well, it’s odd these days. It’s odder when there’s so much happening in that division, including one of its stalwarts seemingly put out of commission. It’s even more odd when the solo women segments happened during the commercial breaks here in the states.
Give divas a chance, anyone?
No, we’re not at that level yet, and hopefully we’ll never get
there again. But it’s crazy that Lyra Valkyria, Sol Ruca, Roxanne Perez, and Raquel Rodriguez only showed up during commercial segments that American audiences can’t see. They weren’t even visible in the background of backstage segments. To make matters worse, IYO SKY and Liv Morgan only interacted as a function of a men’s division match. Oh, and SummerSlam is a couple weeks away.
Lyra is in kicking the tires on a heel turn and just defeated Bayley. Yet there was no follow-up. She didn’t cut a promo, she didn’t gloat, she may as well have not existed.
Sol Ruca is the current women’s Intercontinental champ and got no airtime.
Roxanne & Raquel are members of one of WWE’s biggest factions and they were a no show.
This isn’t my first time complaining about them relegating segments to commercials during Netflix broadcast, but to put every single women’s segment in those commercial breaks is disappointing to say the least.
I get WWE had a lot to get to this week but the show didn’t even go to 11. They had plenty of time to at least put a microphone in Lyra’s hands and let her tell the world how she’s finally done with Bayley. Or show someone challenging Sol.
I’d rather see that than these Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins flashback videos.
B-Sides
- WWE opened the show with a lot of organized chaos. For starters, Je’Von Evans & Dragon Lee teamed against The Vision 3.0. Or is it 4.0? Either way, it’s not perfect vision. Je’Von continues to do things in the ring I’ve never seen. Son ducked a clothesline, transitioned into a backhand stand, then hit a stunner on Austin Theory, all in one move. He also showed a more aggressive edge, as commentary noted. I’m sure that ties into his recent post about being tired of losing. Unfortunately, he’ll only grow more exhausted after this match because he and Dragon came up short. Which makes sense as this new Vision needs to establish itself as something other than a land of misfit toys.
- But about that chaos I mentioned. Post match, Bron & Austin of course went too far with Dragon & Je’Von. That brought out Alpha Academy, who of course want revenge after getting embarrassed last week. They got beat down physically and emotionally, so who can blame them for wanting a little get back. Yeah, that didn’t happen for them either. It was the usual thing with Otis getting the upper hand on everyone until he didn’t. Maxxine even got in on the action with a slap to Otis’ jaw, but she quickly hid like I wish I could when it’s time to pay the mortgage. I caught myself wondering where this goes. Can this version of Vision afford to take an L? Probably not. But building up all this heat without the good guys coming out on top does nothing for Otis & Tozawa. They’re very sympathetic here, so they deserve some sort of victory, even if it’s short lived. Maybe, just maybe, this is setting up an official reunion with Chad Gable once he concludes his business with Penta at SummerSlam.
- Okay and even more chaos! Judgment Day interrupted Danhausen. By Judgment Day, I mean JD McDonagh, the Ol’ Dirty Dom, and Liv Morgan. The two on one attack led to Joe Hendry making the save. As it relates to that, I really wish they’d go back to people saying his name before he appeared. NXT nailed that part of his gimmick really well only for it to seem like a thing of the past these days. Judgment Day thought they got tons of human monies from Danhausen, but as they got to the locker room, they realized it was worth less than Bison Dollars. When JD tossed the briefcase filled with worthless cash, he didn’t count on it hitting Oba F. Femi. That led to a very brief match with Oba and JD, which ended the way you think it did. That was a hectic first half hour of the show, and every entertaining to boot.
- Speaking of Judgment Day, the Dirty One faced off against Joe Hendry in a match that also turned into chaos. Danhausen showed up, Liv punched him, he returned with IYO SKY, and then IYO finally got one over on Liv. Joe got the win thanks to a lot of help from Danhausen, which set up a Danhausen vs. Dom match at SummerSlam.
- Can they coexist?! Apparently so. Penta & Chad Gable looked like a very formable duo against Rusev & Ethan Page. Did anyone else notice they tweaked Ethan’s theme? Maybe I’m just noticing but it’s definitely remixed a bit. Joking aside on the coexisting thing, I’m glad they didn’t play into any sort of animosity between Penta & Chad. This story is all about the mutual respect they have for each other. And it’s respect hard earned on both sides. And they got to beat up on two guys they hate, so it worked out well for everyone.
- Solo Sikoa pitched an alliance with Seth Rollins of all people. Solo’s logic was sound: He knows how things will play out at SummerSlam because he was a part of those game plans. It benefits Seth big time to have someone else in the fold because Roman never travels alone. Before Seth could give an answer, Jacob Fatu showed up. Jacob chased Solo off and then ate a superkick from Seth. That revealed the tidbit that Jacob can’t touch Seth before SummerSlam. Nice way to communicate Roman wants Seth at 100 percent. He wants to be the one who takes out Seth and wants no excuses. That’s a huge shift from the way Roman would handle things years ago, but also shows just how deep Seth is under his skin.
- We’re going to end this with more Bloodline-related actions as the last bit of the show was basically that. LA Knight cut another dope promo before his match with Jacob. I don’t know if he planned it this way but once the crowd started chanting for Roman, he went into a whole thing about how he is what the crowd and everyone in the back always wanted Roman to be. And he was all that on day one. I hope this signals we’ll get more of Roman vs. LA rather than just the Megastar talking a lot of trash to someone who A. wasn’t there, but 2. also might not respond. That aside, LA continued pushing his suspicions about Solo after Solo pitched Seth on an alliance. LA doesn’t want the Bloodline to exist but he doesn’t want Seth anywhere near power either. It’s an interesting predicament that really got me interested in this six-man tag at SummerSlam.
- Speaking of said tag, the main event broke down when all participants showed up. First Jimmy Uso, then Royce Keys, and finally Jey Uso. Jey was supposedly not at Raw tonight but that was a big misdirection. The end result was LA getting distracted just long enough for Jacob to put the finishing touches on him. The Bloodline stood tall at the end of Raw, which is a sentence I’m becoming all too familiar with writing.
This was a fast and furious episode that petered out towards the end but didn’t feel flat. The one big issue was the lack of women on the show, especially so close to SummerSlam. It was an okay episode but it definitely needed some variety to raise it another level. SummerSlam is two weeks away but this show hardly felt like it.
What say you, Cagesiders?
