Raw is Roman!!!! – Monday, April 24, 2017 Recap

Is Roman going to be in Kansas City tonight?  Who cares?  We all know who’s yard this is.  Braun Strowman may be the Beast of the Backstage Attack, but inside those ropes, the Roman Empire remains.

Jeremy is going to take care of Smackdown tomorrow night as I have a Seminar/Panel Discussion about Trees to attend (which I totally made up so I could cover the Dumpster Match…..), so you get me tonight and all my Roman Reigns fanfare.

Highlight Re……MizT………Ambrose Asylum!

Raw kicks off this week with Chris Jericho, who sadly is going to be gone after Sunday night to tour with Fozzy and the Talk is Jericho show tour.  He’s interrupted by Miz and Maryse, who hijacks his Highlight Reel segment for another edition of WWE’s most must see show in history, MizTV.  He barely gets a word in before Dean Ambrose hijacks MizTV and has the stools and his tripod/poster board signage brought in for an episode of the Ambrose Asylum.  It’s really an effort to get to Ambrose giving Jericho a blazer with christmas lights stapled to it to replace the jacket he destroyed, deliver a Dirty Deeds to Miz and walk away before Jericho puts Maryse on THE LIST for being married to a stupid idiot.  I’m going to miss Jericho.  This run has been amazing.  Roman…..

Backstage Payoff Segment:  Miz has to find a tag team partner because he’s taking on Jericho and Ambrose in a tag match tonight.

Matt Hardy vs Sheamus

Both partners are in their respective corners for another singles battle between a Hardy and a member of the League of Nations…..wait, that’s not right.  Matt Hardy gets the win on Sheamus after a weird distraction on the outside drew Sheamus’s attention and led to the Twist of Fate after Hardy stood in the ring and called for a Deletion.  I’m starting to think that WWE and Anthem may have reached an agreement because Matt was acting particularly broken and actually very purposefully did the Delete taunt to the delight of the crowd.  Another moment of sportsmanship initiated by Sheamus this time.  Very respectful two weeks in a row.  Matt Hardy wins via pinfall.  You didn’t think I’d forget to hit you with it, did you?

Cruiserweight Tag – A Double and Jack Gallagher vs TJP and Neville

This was an alright match, but I feel like the commercial break ate up the majority of the battel for the TV audience.  A Double with a Discus Punch to TJP, wins via pinfall.  

And then another commercial.  Geez.

THE DUMPSTER MATCH – Strowman vs Kalisto

Kalisto got a mask upgrade, looks like a dragon, and an entrance theme upgrade.  They let him put up a fight as they always do when they feed him to a giant, even teasing that he was going to get Strowman over the top rope and into the dumpster.

“Not going to be too much longer and Kalisto is going to have to look for another job as a Garbage Pail Kid” – Corey Graves is the best.

And then, when you think that Strowman is about to hit Kalisto with an obscene bump, Kalisto kicked his feet out from under him on the apron and won the match.  Strowman, of course, got back in the ring to slaughter him, picking him up by his throat and hitting a series of chokeslams on the tiny Lucha.  He then loads him into the dumpster and wheels him up the ramp, so you know how this ends.  Strowman straps down the lid and runs the dumpster off the edge of the stage.  Fortunately it’s only like a 3 foot drop on the new stage setup, unlike the Zack Ryder wheelchair massacre.

It’s almost like they want us to expect Roman but never give him to us.  An entire return from the commercial break served only to get Kalisto to the ambulance (with no further assault from Strowman), then a video package about Roman, then a Bray Wyatt special about the House of Horrors being a purgatory of Orton’s mind, and he will never be able to leave Sunday night.  Wyatt will get the win, since they’re apparently making it a non-title match.

Women’s Division – Dana Brooke vs Alicia Fox

Now that Alicia Fox is no longer needed on 205 Live, they’ve remembered that they can use her on Raw.  She’s not terrible in the ring, so this is a much better use for her than that soap opera foolishness on 205 Live.  The people watching 205 Live aren’t watching for that, they’re watching for quality performers to get a platform.  Emma walked to ringside for what I assumed was going to lead to a distraction win for Alicia, but Dana got the win.

Oddly, Emma got in the ring after the win and hugged Dana.  I don’t know what the hell this was, and the match was only long enough for Emma to walk the ramp.

6 Man Tag Match – Samoa Joe and the Good Brothers (Gallows and Anderson) vs Seth Rollins and the Realest Guys (Enzo and Cass)

Enzo and Cass were doing their usual entrance when suddenly Cass got pulled into the crowd and Gallows & Anderson were beating the hell out of Enzo.  Seth Rollins came to make the save but not before Enzo ate a Magic Killer on the floor to incapacitate him.

Well who would fill the void facing the good guys here?  Who? Who? No, not The New Day.  It’s Finn Balor!

So in spite of Rollins being the one that cost Balor the belt and 9 months of his career, they’ve been asked to work together now twice since his return.  It’s fine, suspension of disbelief and all that.  If they won’t let Balor actually heel turn for a Balor Club, man would a Joe led Club be a damn awesome substitute for a while.

It came down to Rollins and Anderson in the ring, and when Rollins went for the Pedigree, he reconsidered it and debuted his new Spinning Jumping Knee Attack.  I don’t know.  It is what it is.  Give him back the curbstomp.  Rollins, Cass and Balor pick up the win.

I don’t care if we’re 12 months away from New Orleans.  You and I both know where all of this is headed.

Alexa Bliss vs Sasha Banks

Alexa was greeted by the What? chant at every statement.  I’m ok with it, it wasn’t one of her better microphone moments.  Bayley has emerged to do exactly what Alexa was complaining about, and what Charlotte said 100 times already, explain that she’s a scrappy fighter of the people.

Now Sasha has come to the ring, which makes sense now that I understand that she has a match.  I had to change the header on this section because that was never made clear at all.  Or maybe it was, I don’t know, they probably announced it during one of the 345 commercial breaks over the course of a three hour show.

Bayley has moved to commentary now that we’ve come back from yet another commercial.  The match barely even happened, because Alexa just took the count out and walked away from the ring.  She spent an awful lot of time trash talking at the top of the ring so you knew something was going to happen.  Bayley tried to drag her back to the ring, but Alexa escaped to the backstage area, re-emerging when Bayley had turned around and attacking her from behind, then running away again before Sasha could get there.  If they give her that belt, they need to give her a J&J Security and have her play the Seth Rollins 2015 Cowardly Champion.

Apollo Crews enters the Curt Hawkins Star Factory

This is pointless.  You don’t care anymore than I do.

Where’s my Roman gif?

Chris Jericho and Dean Ambrose vs The Miz and……

Kurt Angle finds The Miz in the backstage area and asks him if he’s found a tag team partner, which The Miz has, and that’s not why I bring this segment up.  The Drifter drifts his way across the segment randomly playing chords.  Still hasn’t said a word, and I’m so ok with how they’re going about this.

…nowhere to be found

Miz makes his grand entrance with Jericho and Ambrose already waiting in the ring and attempts to introduce his partner, who doesn’t emerge from the back.  Instead, Miz attempts to cancel the match but Angle reminds him that wasn’t the deal.  He was told to find a partner and whether he found one or he found someone he couldn’t depend on didn’t change the fact that this match was going to happen.  I half expected it to be Braun Strowman out to injure two more members of the Raw roster.

Enjoy your handicapped match, playa!

So the match begins, with Miz taking on the current and the forever Intercontinental Champions….and a commercial break.  They pretty well beat on Miz for a while, but when Miz makes an effort to come back on Ambrose, they fight up the ramp, and Ambrose gets set to put Miz through the announcers table.  The Wyatt sounds start and the lights go out, when they come back on Bray Wyatt is opposite Ambrose on the table.  He Sister Abigail’s Ambrose into the stage setup, then he and Miz take Jericho to the ring.  Jericho gets in a Codebreaker on Miz before eating his own Sister Abigail.  Miz, thinking Wyatt has helped him win, takes the third Sister Abigail of the affair.  This match has no ending, much like the ending of Raw last week, when Strowman and Big Show’s match was called off on account of Dead Referee/Faulty Ring Equipment.  I don’t know, Bill Belichek would have figured out a way to use it to his advantage, what kind of winner are you Brawn?

Whatever, Empire Time!

Go to The Network and watch the premier of Table for 3.  It’s Kevin Nash, HBK and AJ Styles.  That’s a dinner table I’d like to be sitting at.