Raw Is Puerto Rico?

Generally I would start with something big, Roman getting a steel chair ass stomping I’ve wanted for more than a year, but the only thing I can think about when attempting to recap Raw from last night (in gay-hating North Carolina) is the debut of The Shining Stars….and yes, I thought the same thing,

Wait….those weren’t just horrible tourism ads for Puerto Rico? This should be good. And later people will fill out paperwork. #RAW

— The Dark Match (@TheDarkMatch) May 17, 2016

They didn’t even take the opportunity to beg congress to provide much needed aid to Puerto Rico. #RawGetsReal

— The Dark Match (@TheDarkMatch) May 17, 2016

So, all jokes regarding the dismal state of the Puerto Rican economy aside, these were not just terrible Puerto Rican tourism ads, this was supposed to be a long, drawn out promo for a new tag team, The Shining Stars.  I just thought that USA had created these to both drum up Puerto Rican tourist traffic as well as to make the commercials for Chrisley Knows Best not look like total garbage.

In all seriousness, because that’s what we are here, if you aren’t aware of the Puerto Rican debt crisis and how poorly Congress is handling it (and by handling it I mean twiddling their thumbs rather than reading any of the proposed legislation to aid this AMERICAN TERRITORY and Honorary 51st State), please Google Puerto Rican Debt Crisis.  It helps to be informed.

Anyway, The Shining Stars went on some lucid New Day-lite rant about how the ring is their paradise of Puerto Rico, and we should all go to Puerto Rico, but then they proceeded to maul two local guys in Jackson and Kennedy (whom was referred to as Mr. Kennedy by the promo team and I got excited for a minute for no damn reason) who made the journey to Puerto Rico with them.  Long story short, this bit is dumb as hell, and Los Matadores are awful and unnecessary in a newly exploding tag division featuring Enzo & Cass, The Vaudevillians, and hopefully soon, The Hype Bros, on top of nobody’s favorites The Usos & The Dudley Boyz, as well as the reigning tag champions (who rarely defend their title) The New Day.

It’s Extreme Rules, so there had to be some sort of special stipulation for Ambrose and Jericho’s inevitable matchup for this Sunday.  A steel cage match could have been fine.  Hardcore would have been fine.  Instead, they managed to combine the two into what is now called an Asylum Match.  Escaping the cage doesn’t end the match.  The weapons featured on Raw included the Barbed Wire 2×4 that Foley gave him before Mania.  So you can expect this match to be about as well conceived as the idea of using some stupid 80s horror music for entirely too long while the cage lowers and Ambrose spends 10 minutes explaining the match concept to the audience.  Could they not have just done a fucking straight jacket match?

Skree skree skree ? #RAW #RAWGreensboro

— kate (@makeitloud) May 17, 2016

While we’re also in the midst of the Jericho segment, was anyone else disappointed that he didn’t manage to at least slip in something about them being gay-hating or something of the sort?  Super disappointed.  Why did I want this Raw episode to be so progressive and forward thinking?

Other Stuff:

Intercontinental Scene:  In a typical move that they tried to spruce up by having Shane and Steph out to debate the merits of it, what started as a Zayn V Cesaro bout with KO and Miz on commentary turned into a tag match, with Zayn and KO paired against Miz and Cesaro.  This is essentially Smackdown revisited with the teams a bit shifted.  KO saved this segment by being KO.  KO and Zayn win, KO still superkicks Zayn’s head off.

Contract Signing:  I wonder if WWE really thinks that watching people do paperwork is exciting.  Why don’t we have a live feed camera set up in the nation’s busiest H&R Block store so that we can watch people crunch numbers and sign documents?  It did its usual and Charlotte and Nat came to blows, Steph slapped the shit out of Ric Flair though so we got something satisfying here.  Maybe Steph will enter a feud with Charlotte next.

Golden Bullshit:  Yes, this stupid ass Golden Truth thing is still going.  They’ve finally teamed up, but what it took 9 months to bring to fruition has given us what we never knew we wanted, the team of Breeze and Fandango.  BreezeDango defeated Golden Truth  Expect this to never actually end or go anywhere meaningful.

As a sidenote, irrationally mad they called Fandango and Breeze’s team “Breezedango” instead of Fabreeze.

— DTAM (@DeathToAllMarks) May 17, 2016

Flex Dana Flex:  I am a big fan of Dana Brooke, she’s athletic and her character is well performed.  I really like Dana Brooke with Emma.  Emma has a back injury that “will require immediate surgery.”  I’m still not convinced that this isn’t a work of some sort.  Dana Brooke with the Roll-Up win on Becky Lynch, whom the company is apparently never going to use effectively.  Welcome to Tyler Breeze Land, Becky.

The New Day in Time:  We’re going to completely ignore this.  It missed the mark and I’m going to give New Day a pass from time to time because this gimmick has got to be hard as shit to keep fresh.  This one failed.  Big E landed a masturbation joke, but otherwise this was a lost cause.  Vaudevillians showed up to beat them down.  Vaudevillians will not win on Sunday.

The Phenomenal….Liar:  For all the growth we’ve gotten from Roman Reigns, his promos are fucking hot dumpster fire garbage.  “You are phenomenal….at lying!”  He actually used this exact line.  Jesus Tree Hugging Christ, guys.  This is the best you can come up with?  I mean, I understand you have to use the Usos to run “the Family” aspect of this, and because you can’t seem to separate Samoans and that’s why you still haven’t called Joe up (because he’s the only Samoan in the company not related to The Rock), but you have got to do better than this.  Even AJ’s promo took a dump on your constantly repeated “The Guy” schtick.  Of course both guys were out for Usos V Gallows & Anderson Volume 18.  The Usos got the win, but AJ Styles hit a Styles Clash on top of a steel chair, which made the whole drawn out ordeal a little more worth the time.

Big Cass Defeated D-Von Dudley:  Why would I go further into this?  This match shouldn’t have existed except the have seemingly already run out of ideas for Cass without Enzo in tow.  At the very least they could have run Cass against Apollo Crews.  At some point one of them is going to have to take a loss.

Alberto Del Pec Flex:  In seemingly the longest match that has ever existed, ADR took on Kalisto as a sort of Extreme Rules primer match.  I guess the two remaining LoN allies are interchangeable, which may have something to do with Del Rio’s reported distaste for his booking.  Rusev turns up with Sin Cara, distraction leads to Backstabber, ADR gets a distraction win.

I think I touched on everything.  It was a rather disappointing go-home show, but what are you going to do.  At this point they’re likely just biding their time until the roster replenishes with Cena, Rollins, Orton, Wyatt and Harper all set for returns within the next few weeks.

Grade: