Samoan Night Raw – A Raw Recap for 2/6/17

Tonight’s Raw comes to us from Portland, Oregon.  I’m sure it’s coming from some arena with “Rose” in the name of it.

Momento Viewing

No, Joey Pants didn’t show up to promote the 18th anniversary of The Matrix.  It’s the wrong month anyway.

You’d think that I’d bring up Momento, which Mr. Pants is also in and the film that I reference in my heading.  This is WWE though, so expect something odd like what I just did.

I watched Raw backwards, I came into it with Jericho announcing the Friendship Fest next week in Las Vegas, watched the Cruiserweight tag match, and then the Main Event.  Then I started from the beginning.  Turns out that not everyone’s DVRs can record 6 things at once.

Still with me, I’m running this recap as a heel, so you must be the type that yells “Thank You Strowman” after he manhandles all the “good guys.”

The Samoan Main Event

Tonight Joe signed his contract and basically threatened the whole roster.  He also gloated on destroying Rollins.  Roman shows up to defend the absent Rollins and a main event match is set.

Oh that’s right, Rollins.  Yeah, I’m afraid I’m got some bad news.

Seth Rollins tore his MCL.  The fact that they haven’t outright ruled him out of Wrestlemania means that there’s still a chance.  I think it’s a small one, but there’s still a chance.  I was really thinking that this was a super elaborate work and that Rollins never tore his MCL.  I thought that maybe, just maybe, they knew that the knee bend looked bad and capitalized on it.  But it looks like I’m wrong.

But let’s get back to the Main Event!  Roman makes his entrance to a quiet Portland crowd.  Joe ambushes him in a similar fashion as he did to Rollins the previous week.  He procedes to hammer Roman with strike after strike and hits a senton on the outside.  I all legitimately looks painful.  We go to commercial break and we come back for the match.

My mind is racing with possibilities.  Matt and I text wondering if it’s going to be a squash or maybe the Rollins thing was a work?  What better revenge on the Cerebral assassin to play the game better than him?  Or hey, maybe we’d even get a returning Bálor!

But we got a semi-disapointing match.  Roman looked strong, very strong.  And despite getting a lot of cheap shots on Reigns before the match started.  It was basically a 50/50 match.  I’m not happy about it.

I did like that Roman was having trouble getting Joe in a Samoan Drop.  It was a nice little detail.  He eventually did drop Joe, but it would have been smarter if he was never able to do it.

Just when it seemed Roman had it won, Braun Strowman came out to interfere yet again.  The distraction was enough for Joe to capitalize and win on his debut.  He got out of there and let Braun tear apart his future Fast Lane opponent.

Goldberg Makes Poor Decisions

Our Universal Champion start off this segment trying to figure out what is the best possible match for the Universal Championship at Wrestlemania.  Actually, first Jericho had to put Tom Brady on the list for stealing his nickname (G.O.A.T.).  Jericho suggests that it should be Champion Vs. Champion, best friend vs. best friend.  Kevin isn’t buying it.

Goldberg’s music hits.  It seems like he’s deciding now is the time to respond to Brock Lesnar.  In the middle of someone elses’ promo.  He does what he wants.

As you can guess from the heading, he accepts.  The reason?  He never backs down from a fight.  Make it interesting, I say.  It needs to be a retirement match.  I want there to be more stakes for Brock.  Or there to be more stakes for Goldberg.

Jericho tries to add Goldberg to the list, but Bill just grabs the list and adds himself, saving Chris the trouble.  And then he demands a match for the Universal Championship at Fast Lane.  A match that Jericho accepts on behalf of Owens.

Now, I know what I was just saying about there needs to be more at stake for Goldberg Vs. Lesnar III.  The Universal Championship is not what I mean.  I don’t want either one of those guys to hold the Championship.  I think it’s dumb.

And the Rest

• Damn, that Seth and Triple H promo package that they ran twice was so good.
• Akira Tozawa defeated Drew Gulak.  It wasn’t in the Hulu edit so I have no real comment about it.
• Speaking of Cruiserweights, Neville had an in ring interview with Austin Aries.  It was revealed that they’ll be a Fatal 5 Way for the #1 contender position.  TJP, Noam, Jack Gallagher, and Cedric Alexander came out to interrupt the interview.  We ended up with a match where ultimately the good guys won after Neville denied Noam the tag.
• Braun Strowman won a 4-on-1 handicap match.  This is getting ridiculous.  He makes quick work of them and storms to the back.  He corners Foley and demands a real challenge.  Foley agrees and gives him Roman at Fast Lane.
• Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson retain the tag titles against Sheamus and Cesaro after Luke attacks Enzo at ringside only to have that answered by the boot of Big Cass.  Sheamus and Cesaro win by DQ and seemingly setup The Club versus Enzo and Cass (again).
• Jericho and Sami have another match this week, this time with the US Championship on the line.  This was actually a lot better than last week’s match.  This time KO was at ringside and was useful.  When Jericho
• The New Day defeat The Shining Stars.  Unsurprisingly, this is not in the Hulu cut.
• Bayley fights for the honor of an injured Sasha Banks and subsequently gets squashed.  At one point Nia almost gets counted out, but Charlotte shows up to distract the ref.  Nia makes her way back into the ring and finishes off The Hugster.
• Next Week we are getting a Women’s Championship rematch and Chris Jericho’s “Festival of Friendship”!!!!!!!!