WWE Raw 9/8/14 Live Blog

Here we go, first Raw covered by Raw is What!? How is this the season premiere of Raw?  The show is year round and has been on every Monday night for the past like 59 years.  

• Steel cage matches are an excellent way to kick things off, even if this feud between Jericho and Wyatt has gone stale as a 3 month old Olive Garden breadstick. 

"Last one to blink gets a breadstick"

• Bray Wyatt calls the cell phone lights during his entrance 'fireflies'?  That's weak shit.  I think of fireflies and all I think is that awful song by Owl City.  Bet Bray Wyatt is a fan of that song and is paying homage to it by using that term.  They really couldn't think of anything more demonic?  
• Although it's a nice change of pace to the normal match, does anyone else feel like cage matches just aren't as exciting?  Maybe due to the invention of Hell in a Cell and the Elimination Chamber.  Also, I never liked how you can win by escaping through the door. Kind of a cheap way out and all it does is make the inevitable help from the outside happen.

"OOH I REALLY LIKE FIREFLIES"

• Holy shit.  Alright that was pretty sweet by Jericho.  I liked that 'Why not?' shrug he gave before leaping like Superfly Snuka off the top.  Somewhere good ol' JR is smiling and mentioning something about a slobberknocker.  So far this has been a good match, and what a spot by Y2J there.  
• Actually thought Jericho seriously hurt his knee there until Wyatt started beating on it.  Kind of an awkward finish for such a great match.  Wyatt just rolled out of there like he was on fire.  Or drunkenly falling out of his bunk bed.  

• OH yeah Dolph Ziggler talking about invasion of privacy!  This is gonna be a segment and a half!  Is calling The Miz a D-lister hurtful or just plain accurate?  I'm thinking accurate.  
• Oh goody!  Hacked photos of the Miz.  I bet Miz actually had some fun taking these photos. Poor Damien Sandow.  A year ago this guy was the smartass who actually had a personality and decent ring skills.  Now I'm wondering how he got into that white jacket/scarf/hood/whatever thing.  He must've slept with somebody in charge's daughter or something.  

Feels like an eternity ago.

• "I will make sure you never work in this town again"  said Miz, the mayor of Baltimore.  
• Well that segment certainly wasn't the classic Y2J making fun of Chris Benoit on a boat or calling Stephanie McMahon awful things, but Ziggler did an alright job there.  Also, the Miz is so boring.  As a face and as a heel, he just doesn't work.

• Why the hell does WWE still feel the need to invite celebs to Raw?  Actually, in a sad way, Jerry Springer might be the most relevant celebrity to appear on Raw due to his ability to work with feuds, but still, I'd rather watch Springer hosting Baggage or his own show.  Remember when Michael Strahan hosted?  That was fucking awful.  
• The entire Divas division should just focus around AJ Lee.  Everyone else is kinda garbage.  Paige needs a tan, the most exciting thing about Natty is that she switched from wrestling in pants to shorts, Eva Marie is hot but laughably bad in the ring, the Bellas can't act their way into a WWE film, and everyone else is annoying.  Certainly trying times for the ladies of WWE.  Sometimes the most exciting move in Divas tag matches are double suplexes.  Poor AJ looks bored and like she needs some more competition.  I give Paige credit but there can only be so many matches between those two.  
• If this were the Attitude Era Paige and AJ would've made out by now.  

Whoops, forgot it's the PG era.

• Paul Heyman time!  Everyone take a sip for each mention of the words 'beast' 'brock' 'lllllllesnar' 'client' and 'authorized'.  
• Who gives warnings to wrestlers?  Seems a bit pointless to me.  Also, I miss his bald + ponytail with a baseball cap look.  
• John Cena is here, meaning that his entrance song is going to be in my head until Thursday.  
• I don't fully get the signs of John Cena with 'MEEP MOOP' on them which keep showing up more and more frequently.  That being said, I also love them and I can't help but laugh.  

• Beat Brock Lesnar by 3 words?  "Turn. Me. Heel." I think it's actually hard for Heyman to lie and claim that everyone is on John Cena's side to put Lesnar over as the heel.  I bet Heyman was waiting all week to say "CENA SUCKS" 12 times in a row.  
• Aw, poor big fat ugly unemployed guy in the 6th row just got called out :-(
• Wow, this is why Heyman is a genius.  Bringing back the Doctor of Thuganomics and making his own freestyle shitting on Baltimore.  This is a good promo against Cena.  I think Cena actually agrees with everything he is saying deep down.  Does Cena get tired of fighting in cargo shorts and/or jorts?  I get tired of them in the summer, never mind wearing them year round.  

Bonus points for the XFL hat!

• The Cena Sucks chants are definitely starting to overtake the Let's Go Cena chants.  For a while it had been 50/50 but things are starting to get old.  John Cena will be the next Bret Hart.
• Isn't interesting that Cena is considered to be so great when he's scripted to be so great?  Whoa, philosophy.  
• Cena is getting emotional and fired up here.  It actually is somewhat refreshing seeing him get excited about something since the rest of him is boring and probably bored being at the top of the foodchain. 

• Love me some Seth Rollins, but I miss Dean Ambrose so much more.  Ambrose needs to come back soon.  WWE messed up so bad by having Ambrose do this shitty WWE film.  As for this match, if Sheamus had an actual personality besides a jolly Irishman who loves to fight for potatoes this match would be so much interesting.  
• Is it just me or has Rollins stopped some of his high flying moves since joining the Authority?  With the exception of Money in the Bank where he got the shit kicked out of him in some scary spots, he has kinda stayed grounded, which is disappointing.  WWE needs more high flyers.  Can't we just bring back Jeff Hardy?  Without the facepaint may I add.  
• Oh man, is Cesaro finally joining the Authority!?  Please, make it happen.  Cesaro needs a bigger role in this company.  He should be like a much more important version of The Big Boss Man when he was in the Corporation.  Go out there, take care of business, climb the ranks of importance on the roster.  Someday, Cesaro should be a champion.  

Best gif of this blog's young history. 

• Speaking of which, since Sheamus is boring and I can talk about other topics, shouldn't the Authority grow a bit?  Not just with Cesaro, but add a few other people to make them relevant.  I long for the old days where there were various factions and a few rebels who went their own way.  Let Reigns and Ambrose do their own thing and be on their own, but let's get some more characters involved in a sort of turf war type of deal.  We don't need a 2nd coming of the Ministry of Darkness, but something refreshing could be a nice change of pace.  
• Sheamus is so white.  God.  
• The Curb Stomp is actually a pretty sweet finisher.  Kinda surprised that hasn't been used that often before Seth Rollins.  I have always thought having a good finishing move that looks like it can actually hurt is key to having a good character.  Stone Cold Stunner?  Awesome.  Sweet Chin Music?  Can strike out of nowhere.  Pedigree?  Looks like it'll hurt.  The Curb Stomp can become one of these if Rollins becomes successful as a singles star. 

Simple, yet effective.  I would never want to get hit with this.

• WWE spends way too much time recapping, plugging Twitter, stats and Total Divas.  USE THIS TIME TO HELP DEVELOP MORE STARS WITH BACKSTAGE SEGMENTS!  HAVE PEOPLE ATTACK OTHER PEOPLE BACKSTAGE!  BRING BACK THE HARDCORE CHAMPIONSHIP.  This is getting ridiculous.  
• Boy, that Lana is a fox huh?  She'd be great playing a fake Bond girl in an Austin Powers movie.  In that setting her awful Russian accent would be acceptable.  I give her credit, she is pretty easy on the ol' peepers.  
• Blah blah blah Lana and the national anthem with slightly altered lyrics.  
• Hey an NXT takeover is actually a pretty good idea.  This is a nice little change up for things.  I guess it's about time to showcase the future of the company.  Lord knows it needs all the help it can get in the PG era.  This match is actually starting to steal the show here.  
• Geez.  That was one hell of a Red Arrow right there.  Adrian Neville definitely made some people realize that he has a bright future.  Can we get some more NXT next week?  I'll gladly take this over more recaps of Total Divas.  

  

  I would love to see this from a ladder putting someone through a table. LOVE.

• Jerry Springer time.  This is one celeb guest that the crowd actually might not mind.  Oh yay, Brie got her own shitty theme music.  This feud would actually be interesting if the Bellas both weren't such awful actresses.  
• The crowd will start chanting 'BOOOOORRRRRING' in 3.....2.......1.......
• You think John Cena paid for the twins of that one twin that he is dating?  See what I did there?
• Is Nikki Bella drunk?  Looks like she's about to fall down and her hair is a hot mess.  I think she's been hittin' the hooch in the back with some town drunk.
• The crowd laughing to the father of the Bella's video asking for help really summed up this whole feud.  
• Is this guy the Bella's brother or Fandango's brother?
• Steve Wilkos would've broken this fight up the second it started.  Jerry Springer needs to bring that guy back.  
• "Jerry's hurt!"- Michael Cole, as Jerry Springer and Stephanie McMahon are laughing to each other and he says 'I'm fine' in the ring. Geez.  NEVER BREAK CHARACTER JERRY! NEVER!

• Los Matadores have to be the most boring tag team in the game right now.  Talk about a gimmick that flopped even before they got started.  When they started showing promos for these guys I was already bored.  Stardust is a whackjob huh?  I wonder if this was something Cody Rhodes thought of himself or it was something he begrudgingly agreed to do.  
• Goldust has still got it.  Thinking about it now he was one of the guys who I knew about even before I really started watching wrestling in '97, so that dude has been around for a while. Amazing how some of these guys can last for years while some guys are in such bad shape at such a young age.  

• Okay, so who are the heels here?  Goldust and Stardust or the Uso's?  I think Uso's are the faces?  Maybe?  I'm confused.  

• For a guy that loves fun, Adam Rose sure is a lame character.  The fucking bunny rabbit gets more love than him.  Honestly at this point we should get a Slater/Rabbit match at Night of Champions instead of Titus O'Neill vs Rose, if that's what they're thinking.  Adam Rose is never going to get fully over with the crowd.  I think he was supposed to be one one of those characters like the Godfather or Val Venis who always gets a hot reaction, but the PG era just ruins him.

great moves.

• Give Adam Rose a drinking problem or a drug problem and give him some hippie catchphrase and maybe he'll start to catch on.  
• I think Roman Reigns should just be a silent killer type.  He's not thaaat bad when talking on the mic, but I think he'd be more dominant if he just didn't talk much and just struck when he needed to.  Besides that, I'm a big fan of his and think he's the future.  
• The King's joke about pacisfist/pass-a-fist was actually kinda good.  I do miss the old perverted King with great one-liners.  The King might have been hurt the most from the PG era.  

Brilliant.

• is that stat true about only HHH, Flair and Cena have held more titles than Orton?!  Holy shit Orton is so under the radar.  Randy Orton has been the same asshole since he debuted, and like Cena he hasn't changed a bit.  That's an actually amazing stat right there.
• What is going to happen with guys like Reigns and Rollins and Orton at Night of Champions?  Just fight for nothing that night? Get Reigns in the title picture pronto!  
• Wonder what Spike Dudley is up to these days.  He's probably bored by the PG era too.  
• Roman Reigns may need to add some moves to his set so he can avoid the John Cena-esque 5 moves of doom gripe that many fans have.  This guy is too talented to just do the same thing night after night after night.  Spike Dudley had more than 5 moves, I can tell you that!
• The Randy Orton powerslam is pretty badass.  Might be the only thing exciting about Randy Orton.  The punt is pretty cool too besides the fact that I feel like one day it may actually kill a man.  

Fun!

• Well this is......different?  I like how that generic "cage is coming down" music is playing even now.  This just got pretty legit for a main event.  
• Okay, never mind my earlier comment about Seth Rollins not being a high flyer in a while. That just changed.  This would've been a much bigger spot had Y2J not done the same exact thing earlier tonight, but hey it was still pretty awesome.  
• Wait, can Ambrose possibly come back right now?  Maybe?  Please?
• This ending got pretty predictable.  Could've been so much better.  Looks like we'll be getting the Rollins and Reigns feud, which actually could be fun to watch.  From the replay, that cross body from Rollins was pretty perfect.  

Overall, interesting night of Raw.  An upgrade from the past few weeks, but the endings still need more oomph, ya know?  Anyways, until next week, this has been the first official edition of Raw is What!?