WWE RAW Results and Review Oct/9/17 - Great main event and nostalgic reunion

A show of big moments and a surprising main event. WWE has been doing much better with their weekly shows – especially RAW – and that’s all you can ask for as a fan.

Miz TV

The ‘Mizzies’ Part 2 – Miz’s awards show – starts off the show.

Winner for most perseverance – Curtis Axel

Crowd chants ‘you deserve it’. Axel dedicates it to Bo Dallas. Who is not here, recovering from injuries suffered at the hands of Roman Reigns

Best Supporting Player in ‘The Destruction of Roman Reigns’ – TIE: Sheamus and Cesaro

They thank Roman for getting beat down and the other Shield members for knocking his teeth out and giving them another reason to put them in their place.

Miz tells the crowd The Shield will never unite.

Big Dog Award goes to…..The Miz

Miz talks about being a role model and…..

Roman Reigns enters

Reigns tells Miz to shutup and get out of his ring

Miz reminds him of the numbers advantage he possesses. He tells Roman to go back to the locker room and get his friends since the rumors of a Shield reunion are nothing but hype, just like Roman.

Roman says ‘who said anything about rumors?’

Dean Ambrose joins Roman

Seth Rollins burns it down

All three Shielders and Shesaro are wearing their own merchandise.

The Shield start walking to the ring together, circling the outside. The heels form a protective circle inside.

They enter and brawl. Shield destroys the baddies. They pose for awhile and then triple-powerbomb Miz.

The crowd loves the nostalgia but for someone who didn’t watch much wrestling during their heyday it was a fairly bland segment. The baddies weren’t being very insulting and The Shield didn’t do much other than reform and quickly clear the ring.

I would have preferred Roman in peril and The Shield saving the day. They had many opportunities to do this already and didn’t explain why RollBrose ignored Reigns before.

Miz and Angle backstage

Angle says Miz provoked the attack and sets up Miztourage vs The Shield at TLC

Jason Jordan vs Karl Anderson

AnderGallows called Jordan a nerd once. Now they will wrestle.

The best part is Michael Cole calling Booker T out for flip-flopping his opinions. Booker says ‘you guys don’t get it, you’ve never been in the ring before’ (both have). This could be brilliant writing but I’m sure it’s just Booker spouting his usual nonsense.

Jordan starts to take control with his raw power but a distraction from Gallows allows Anderson to get the advantage.

Jordan fights back but again has to deal with a distraction.

Jordan eventually prevails.

Titus vs Elias

Elias and his out of tune guitar start singing a song.

A banjo interrupts

Titus O’Neil clangs horribly on a banjo and blandly sings about Elias losing to Apollo Crews.

Elias shows great fire when he boots Apollo in the corner. Elias shows off his ‘walk with Elias’ version of Undertaker’s Old School.

Crews is his same old self. He performs athletic miracles but lacks a character.

Elias pulls Crews into the ropes neck-first and gets the win

Amore complains that his no-contact clause was violated since Kalisto attacked him and was then awarded a title shot at TLC.

Angle explains the fine print pertained to wrestlers that were currently under contract and since Kalisto was signed after, he is exempt.

Angle makes a match between Amore and Kalisto for tonight.

Amore agrees only if it’ll be in the main event

Angle puts the no-contact clause on hold, making it a lumberjack match

What the hell is going on with the announcer psychology? Graves (who is the only one I can stand) is cheering Angle for ensuring the cowardly arrogant heel Amore won’t be able to escape a lumberjack match. I suppose Vince wants to play with grey area, getting away from traditional good vs evil, but there are so many other clear examples of good/evil that the inconsistencies suck the power out of the storytelling.

Braun Strowman vs Matt Hardy

Hardy is feisty, Strowman is strong. They do a great job of keeping Strowman look like a monstrous force but still have Hardy get some exciting offense and apparent chances at victory.

Strowman kicks out at ‘1’ after Hardy’s strongest finishing sequence and get the win soon after.

Entertaining and effective match that put over both.

Post-match, Strowman puts Hardy on his shoulder and walks up the ramp but…..

The Shield arrive to save the day (wearing new shirts I’m sure you can buy)

The Shield team up to gang beat Strowman (what a bunch of heroes). They triple-powerbomb him through the commentary table.

James feels like she hasn’t fit in and lames Bliss’ antics and bullying.

She criticizes Bliss for talking behind her back rather than fighting her face to face.

Bliss enters

Bliss shows a hilarious old-timey black and white video with ragtime piano, showing James career as a historic artifact.

James asks Bliss to bring her ‘bisbuit-butt’ down to the ring. The crowd chants ‘biscuit-butt’.

Bliss says she’ll fight her right then and there and then stops short of the ring saying ‘this move is as old as you’.

James runs after her and pulls her into the ring, brawling but not able to land a knockout blow before Bliss rolls away.

Angle/Bayley/Banks backstage

Bayley and Banks lobby to face Asuka first.

Alicia Fox joins and screams about being there ten years and not having t-shirt. Dana Brooks joins the begging, as well as Emma.

Angle sets a five-way for the opportunity to face Asuka

Brian Kendrick and Jack Gallagher vs Cedric Alexander and Mustafa Ali

Gallagher has shown a darker edge on 205 Live (we’re shown in a video recap).

Heels control until Ali gets a hot tag. Kendrick regains control and hits a finisher for the win

A quick match giving us an update on the division and four different members. I admire WWE for sticking with 205 Live but I wonder if they could just fill the huge RAW 3-hour time limit with more cruiserwight action and more storylines. Neville and Amore have connected with audiences and don’t need to be confined to a smaller division. The rest of the div is getting involved but will need more moments to resonate with fans.

Angle and Miz backstage

Miz says The Shield said they would take on any 4, or 5 or 6, so he’ll introduce another partner since ‘words matter’.

The fourth partner is……….Braun Strowman.

This makes sense as Strowman just got triple bombed by

Balor says Wyatt is a virus that keeps mutating with more lies and mindgames, but Balor doesn’t believe his garbage.

Wyatt says Balor may not be afraid of him but he will be afraid of her. He talks about her taking her final breath and some other shmiggityshmup.

The screen dissolves and now Wyatt is covered in a net with dark eye makeup to look like Abigail has merged with his body. A few loud laughs from the crowd come through the mics.

A neat concept for Wyatt to have a counter to the demon.

AbiBray goes on forever and then he laughs forever before morphing back to his self.

Is Wyatt magical or are they visual tricks designed to manipulate?

Bayley vs Emma vs Alicia vs Dana vs Sasha

Cole reminds us the first woman to score a pin or submission will win the match.

Dana Brook dominates the opening few minutes. She looks better than I’ve seen in months (which is easy because they don’t televise her matche). The announcers put her over bigtime but then she’s pinned!

Dana Brooks is eliminated

Cole apologizes for telling us it was a first win wins rather than an elimination.

Bayley is then eliminated by Alicia Fox.

Sasha battles against Fox and Emma.

Banks eliminates Fox.

Emma scores a sneaky pin on Banks and wins.

While Banks or Bayley would provide a better match, Emma is talented enough to deliver a decent match but low enough to get squashed by Asuka as the WWE begins her main roster run.

Finn Balor and Renee Young

Balor is hit or miss on promos and did well already. A second interview pretending to be scared of the ridiculous Sister Abigail magic spell was too much to ask and Balor stumbled while delivering the stupid message.

Kalisto and Charly Caruso

Kalisto name-drops Mysterio and Guerrero as his inspirations before his big match.

Kalisto vs Amore

We see the first few mini entrances of the lumberjacks which is a neat way of continuing to get fans used to the division wrestlers.

After the commercial we get Amore’s entrance as he insults the lumberjacks and Kalisto.

Amore is constantly distracted by the lumberjacks, giving Kalisto the advantage often. Cole keeps mentioning that Amore has some friends in the division. Graves hates him.

The first time Kalisto is thrown outside he gets a beating from a few heel Cruisers.

While Mustafa Ali cheers on Kalisto, Amore kicks him in the face. Another cruiser yells at Mustafa and a tiny brawl breaks out!

Kalisto goes up top with Amore and superplexes Amore into the entire brawling division!

Back in the ring, Amore has the match seemingly won but Ali pulls Amore off and outside. They argue and Amore punches him.

On the top rope Amore is trying to toss Kalisto but the Lucha one reverses it into his finisher and wins the cruiserweight championship

Bravo to WWE for this segment. They had the crowd loving a main event cruiserweight match and involved everyone in the division to get a few more personalities over. The crowd was super engaged, cheering Kalisto and popped hard for his title win.

Overall

I wasn’t hyped on The Shield reuniting but I do like the dynamic of them randomly protecting other wrestlers, like a reverse NWO. Plenty of storylines progressed in mostly logical ways and a killer main event with fresh faces. I find Amore the right kind of annoying and you have to be impressed with what he’s done for the cruiser division. I’m probably not going to watch 205 Live anytime soon but if it’s the only way to see Neville, I might have to check it out.