To give us something different, Raw kicked off with an opening promo from Sting. It's cool to see Sting on Raw and he spoke with passion, giving the impression of a good promo. But to me, it wasn't. Instead of talking about how much he wanted to win the WWE Title, the only top title he's never held, he instead talked about the respect he gained for Triple H at WrestleMania, even though it was an atrocious match that saw nothing get resolved. He then proceeded to verbally blow Triple H, while putting down Seth Rollins and saying he's half the man HHH is. That's so weird. Why would you build the Seth/Sting program around Sting's newfound man love for Triple H? I understand that it may be building to a Seth/HHH rivalry but still, this is all so damn odd and not in a fun way.
Our opening contest was the SummerSlam rematch between Dolph Ziggler and Rusev. Similar to their match at the PPV, it's a good contest but nothing special. After almost fifteen minutes, things end when Ziggler gets close to a win, only for Summer Rae to jump on him and cause the DQ. This of course leads to a catfight between Lana and Summer Rae. The highlight of this was some Lama booty. After the match, Dolph is interviewed and goes to his locker room, only for Summer to sneak in after. Back to the ring, Team Bella is there and Nikki reveals a "Bella Tron" that will countdown to her becoming the longest reigning Divas Champion. The Beat the Clock challenge begins to determine her next challenger. Becky Lynch is up first and makes Alicia Fox tap out in 3:21. I've never been a fan of the Beat the Clock challenge. I mean, you get a shot simply because you won a match faster? Also, what if you lose? Does the person who beat you get nothing? Continuing the shit Ziggler/Rusev/Summer/Lana angle, as Ryback is being interviewed we see Summer run out of Dolph's room and he comes out in just a towel, nearly exposing himself. DRAMA! There hasn't been enough Rusev in this angle tonight and he's the best thing about it.
An Intercontinental Title match followed as Ryback defended the gold against Big Show. The Miz is commentary, making me wonder why this feud is still going. It didn't happen at Battleground due to Ryback's injury, wasn't really worth it at SummerSlam and should be over. They put in a good effort but nobody really cared about it. Ryback won after a distraction from the Miz. The Beat the Clock Challenge continued next as Charlotte took on Brie Bella. Brie tries to stall because I guess Nikki thinks Becky is an easier challenge than Charlotte. Charlotte wants none of that and handily beats Brie in 1:40. Yup. The girl that faced Stephanie McMahon in a high profile match last year, loses in under two minutes here.
Next, we got, you guessed it, another SummerSlam rematch as Kevin Owens faced Cesaro. Honestly, I think it's impossible for these two guys to have a bad match, especially against each other. I understand they're doing the double champion thing with Seth, but I still wish this program here was for the US Title. Kevin Owens wins a good match but something is missing from this for them to have that great standout match. Still, this singles match has been the highlight of the show by far. Backstage, Lana is upset that Summer saw Dolph naked. Girl, I can use Google and see you naked anytime I want, don't be mad. Next, it's time for the debut of Braun Strowman. Bray cuts a pre-match promo thanking Sister Abigail for him and hyping him up. He faced Dean Ambrose and pretty much kicked his ass for three minutes. To be fair, it wasn't like it made Dean look bad since even Roman Reigns got his ass kicked. Strowman won via DQ because he shoved Reigns at ringside, who shoved back. Braun then proceeded to pretty much kill the former Shield members with his submission move. This was also pretty well done considering it helped get the new Wyatt over. There's probably a countdown until Bray loses his next big match though.
Time for the final Beat the Clock match as Paige faced Sasha Banks. The only positive about this is that Sasha got the full entrance with her theme music. Paige hits the RamPaige early on but Team BAD pulls Sasha out of the ring, Paige brings her in but time expires. That's it. Charlotte really earned that title shot eh? Instead of giving us something meaningful, Sasha and Paige go for less than two minutes and the other matches were short too. It's like, because the Brooklyn crowd shit on the long match last week, they tried to do the opposite here but this didn't work either. Give us something to care about and stop shoving it down our throats that this is a DIVAS REVOLUTION. If you tell us that all of the time, it's not organic. Anyway, it would have been interesting if Sasha beat Paige here and, by virtue of her win over NIkki, made the upcoming title match a triple threat match. Also, Paige seemed frustrated and may eventually turn on her team.
I was expecting the Dudley Boyz to take on the New Day at a PPV, but it happened here. At least it was non-title, but it seems like a waste to give it away here. New Day cut another fantastic promo before the match, talking about how they want to save the tables. They even bring out the "last" table in the arena and it's in bubble wrap. Also, Xavier Woods has his hair out and it's glorious. The match itself was fun because the Dudleys are the Dudleys and everything New Day touches turns to gold. The Dudleys win and after the match, the Dudleys try to break the table but New Day escapes. The Prime Time Players were on commentary, making me believe we get a triple threat at the Night of Champions.
Seth Rollins came out to close the show and call out Sting. He mentions that he is just as good as Triple H, which brings out Stephanie. Sure, why not make yet another angle about Stephanie and Triple H? She is all pissed because the top guy thinks he's as good as her husband. Seth makes a good point and says that when Triple H was on top, he believed he was as good as Ric Flair. That shuts Steph up and again, instead of Sting, we get John Cena. He cuts the typical Cena promo where he calls his opponent all sorts of juvenile names, making him look bad. In the end, it's going to be Cena vs. Seth at NOC for the US Title, so Seth will pull double duty. Sting then finally appeared...to appear atop the stage and pose with Cena. Man, this episode of Raw sucked hard. The only thing that really stuck out as good to me was the Cesaro/Owens match, how good they made Strowman look and the New Day antics. Other than that, things were either bad (Ryback/Show, the Lana/Ziggler/Rusev/Summer angle) or straight up disappointing (Sting's stuff, the Beat the Clock). 2.5/10.
