WWE’s always been at it’s worst when it feels compelled to remind it’s audience that it’s a business. As a kid, WWE PPVs always felt like the matches were a natural build up of two wrestlers’ mutual hate that just HAD to be decided on the upcoming big show (available to order now, only on PPV).

WWE’s insecurities over the importance of The Network suceeding are fully visible on-screen and so what once felt organic is now painfully obvious. And obviously painful to sit through.

Steve Austin introduced The Undertaker which brought out Paul Heyman who had Brock Lesnar with him. That sentence makes you want to run to the nearest torrent site and download the fuck out of Raw, doesn’t it?

But all that happened was Austin hyped Undi’ whilst resisting the urge to check his phone and look at Tweets, Undi said stuff about being dead and Heyman said Lesnar was going to fuck Undi up this Sunday. That’s it. WWE still hasn’t realised that Undi cheating to win to beat Brock is more interesting than just ‘This Fuck vs. This Other Fuck in a Cell’. So no mention was made of it. So the reason for the fuck finish at Summerslam was ”so they can have another match later on”, which is hardly new for wrestling. But when they don’t develop it on TV, it’s just a fuck finish. All it would have taken was one promo by Undi admitting ”I had to beat Brock, even if it meant cheating” to symbolise Undi’s turn to the dark side (hurrrr) and Heyman coming out and shouting ”oh yeah, well then let’s do this in The Cell so there’s no DQ!” and all would be forgiven because it’s storyline progression and it’s leading to something. Instead, we got ”oh yeah by the way this is your HIAC main event” in an advert and then some promos on Raw to sell it AFTER it was announced. As I typed at the start, WWE’s TV is there to sell The Network Specials, but this doesn’t mean it should play like an advert.

The New Day beat John Cena & The Dudleys. Xavier Woods pinned D-Von after a schoolboy that was completely legal, but Cena gave him an AA afterwards and The Duds put him through a table for good measure. So the one week Xavier isn’t a totally annoying get is the week he gets beat up? Sore Loser Cena leaves to cheers because taybullllll.

The Duds are a good (bad) example of WWE bringing in guys that used to be popular to appear so they can get money. Not to have feuds, not to make others look good, just to make money. I mean a good feud or a series of matches would ideally make people want to watch them, but all WWE has done with them so far is wave them around to the crowd saying LOOK IT’S THE DUDLEYS. YOU REMEMBER THEM, RIGHT? Same for Jericho, RVD and every other Attitude Era guy they sometimes bring in. Buh Buh is a great talker, both men are great at getting the crowd into a match and they also do comedy well, but watching the 2015 version of the team all you’d think they do was put people through tables and wear camo.

Wait. Cena teamed up with The Duds wearing camo?

So his team-mates couldn’t be seen either?

Urghhhhh. Sorry.

When guys like The Duds are brought in and nowt else is done with them aside from the commentators talking about how good they used to be, all we’re seeing is the memory of the wrestler and not the wrestler themselves. Like fighting Phantom Ganon instead of Ganon.

Orton’s not here and they show Ambrose talking to road agents.

HEY, AMBROSE TEAM WITH FINLAY INSTEAD.

Ambrose doesn’t care if he has to take on The Wyatts by himself. He’ll go at The Wyatt Family by himself even if it’s career suicide. See if you can spot the difference between him and Reigns begging the crowd to pay attention to him.

Some women wrestled. Oh sorry. Some Divas wrestled. Sasha Banks was over as fuck. She doesn’t have a PPV match. The Bellas won.

WWE’s way of hyping HIAC on the go-home Raw involved dragging out Legends to literally tell the audience PLEASE BUY THIS SHOW PLEASE. HBK came out with a tin cup. A fan gave him some pizza as he had no change.

Rollins moaned at HBK for a bit whilst reminding us he was defending his title against Kane this Sunday (Kane didn’t appear this Raw, adding to the unintentional hilarity of him getting a title shot in 2015) until HBK got bored and made him look like a bitch. More than Cena does usually, but at least Cena had the politeness to crush his own nose for Rollins.

Rollins then wrestled Ryback and beat him clean. Oh. Doesn’t Ryback have a match this sunday? He does? Well shit, I thought we were past the dreaded 2009-2012 era of ”number one contenders losing to champions on TV”.

Rusev, Sheamus & Barrett took on Ziggler, Cesaro & Neville in the work-horse match of the night. Hey at least every Raw has one. Shame it involves six men going nowhere slow.
Why did WWE bring up Lana & Rusev getting engaged in real life when it makes zero sense for the storyline?

THIS IS SHITE THIS IS SHITE.

Crowd chanted ”USA” against Rusev in support of…Neville.

THIS IS ALSO SHITE.

Aren’t you supposed to look at the hot, talented, women-stealing wrestler and think ”i wanna be him”? I don’t ever wanna be Dolph Ziggler. Eric Young taking Chris Melendez’s leg was a better storyline than Dolph/Rusev/Summer/Lana. It was a better love story too.

Flair introduced Roman Reigns as this episode of Raw is apparently Slamboree 2015. Reigns came out by himself, The Wyatts comes out as a group.

Reigns: ”Ah, I knew you’d all come out”

WHY’D YOU COME OUT BY YOURSELF THEN. But before we had time to ponder that, Erick Rowan returned!

Cole: ”Hey look it’s Rowan.” And that was it. They’d have made a bigger deal of it if he was over forty.

Owens beat Mark Henry. Henry’s the perfect jobber, he’s huge so every move he takes looks impressive and he has the ‘former world champ’ accolade too. Ryback decked Owens afterwards. HE JUST LOST TO ROLLINS AN HOUR AGO.

It’s Cena vs ??? and a rematch of the Six Man Filler Match we at Hell In A Cell because there wasn’t enough time on a three hour show to put some feuds together.

Replays of the hype video package for Undi vs. Brock.
So Undertaker, why did you cheat to beat Brock?

Undertaker: BECAUSE…EVEN…DEATH…MAY…DIE…

Ah alright, thanks for clarifying.

HBK further bitches Rollins out backstage (in front of The Authority who change from guys with ulterior motives to the actual voice of WWE management nearly every week) who decides to take Orton’s place to team up with Ambrose & Reigns tonight. WAIT WHAT.

WHY THE FUCK WOULD AMBROSE & REIGNS WANT TO TEAM UP WITH ROLLINS AFTER EVERYTHING THAT’S HAPPENED?

Oh ignore me, they appear to have no issues with it whatsoever. Well Ambrose teaming with Reigns only emphasised Roman’s personality deficiencies so we might as well have him team up with Rollins so his in-ring deficiencies can shine too.

Good to see they saved The Shield re-uniting for something special. Like an unadvertised Raw main event that has nothing to do with the PPV. Match went to a non-finish after Rollins abandoned his team-mates and Ambrose thought ”fuck this” and twatted Braun with a kendo stick. Until Braun broke it because he’s Brawn Strongman.

Highlights of Raw were the same as always: Ambrose, Owens, The New Day & Banks because they’re the ones that appear to be human. Everyone else is a badly voiced puppet.